KOCHI: The ‘a’s and ‘g’s are her favourite. As she scrawls these alphabets, it brings out such a grandiose flourish that Nadeen Noushad’s calligraphy works are nothing short of a spectacle. When strung together, the swoops and loops of the letters she concocts become a work of art. So you have bookmarks, cards, calendars, invitations cards, all handcrafted and festooned with calligraphy art.
For this chartered accountancy student who learned the art by herself, calligraphy art is something she engages in to add a dash of magic when life gets stressful. “I started this to beat the stress. The very act of writing letters using calligraphy and seeing the work is pure joy,” says Nadeen, who now has her own entrepreneurship venture of everything handmade. “It started out as something I did to enliven up the time. Then orders started coming in.”
And that is when she launched her label ‘Inked Lettering’. The artworks are all customised as per the requirement. “Sometimes, they want a few sketches and then I do that. It is purely handcrafted articles,” she says. It was when she came across a calligraphy art in social media that spurred her to learn the art. “So I started learning it by myself. It took a while to get the curves and everything right. But it was only after several months, that I got it right,” says Nadeen.
And over time, friends started ordering and before she knew it, she was flooded by orders. Now she is diversifying into creating bookmarks, invitation cards, calendars, greeting cards, calligraphy wall decors, acrylic and watercolour paintings and such. The calligraphy art is done on watercolour papers and canvas.
It is not just English calligraphy that Nadeen works on, but Arabic calligraphy as well. Nadeen says apart from learning calligraphy in different fonts, she is challenging herself to create a new font. “There are a host of fonts available in calligraphy. Including stroke and style, everything is different. But I am trying to create my own font. For me, calligraphy is more of a passion,” says Nadeen.
During the tight academic schedule, Nadeen finds an escape in her art. “Every three months, I have to write exams. Calligraphy gives me a much needed break. When exam approaches, I do not take any orders except urgent ones. But I will continue doing my art. Nothing helps as much as art does,” says Nadeen, who now thinks of experimenting in digital calligraphy art.