Doodles with a mystery

Unique hobbies

Most people associate the word ‘doodling’ with the act of lazily scribbling crude drawings inside a notebook or on a napkin. But Reshmi Shekhar has taken the pastime to another level – she spends hours creating intricate doodles and even has an art series called ‘Curiosity Kills the Cat’.

As the name suggests, it’s a doodle series about “a cat who’s way more curious than he should be”. So curious that he finds himself jumping from frame to frame of Reshmi’s doodles as she sketches on pop culture and music.

   “I created a doodle series called ‘Curiosity Kills the Cat’ about a year ago and it’s mainly pop culture inspired artwork – television show, movies, book, but mainly music. The concept is that there is a cat hidden in every drawing. This sets it apart and makes it more interactive because people go looking for the cat,” she says.

She believes everyone doodles, whether it’s a simple stick figure or an elaborately planned pin-up, at some point in time. But how a person plans the design is up to the artist. Like most, she started doodling because she had a “boring” job.

   “I was in a really bad job and I used to get bored at work. I would doodle about things but I don’t remember how the concept of the cat came about exactly...I was just drawing these windows and cats, and hid a cat behind a window. I sent a picture to my friend and said, ‘Can you find the cat’. As I started doodling about more things, it just happened. I later created a Facebook page to reach a wider audience.”

An architect by profession, her doodles were initially pen on paper. But as her interest in the art grew, so did the tools of her experimentation. Talking about how she structures her work and the different media she uses, she says, “I just pick a topic, there’s no real structure to it. I just pick a band and draw what I feel like when I’m listening to them. And now I’ve started experimenting with other media like paint and pastels.” Many of her works have more typography than drawings.

“Some of my pictures, like the ‘Coldplay’ and ‘Arctic Monkeys’, are a list of all the songs written in an artistic manner. When I’m doodling TV shows and movies, it’s my interpretation of the moments that are a culmination of the little things that the show is made up of. Like I have done a ‘Friends’ poster which says ‘We are on a break’.”

Doodles are fast becoming a well-appreciated form of art and proof of that is Reshmi’s series. She has posters of bands like ‘Kings of Leon’, ‘Alt-J’, ‘U2’ and ‘The Beatles’, movies like ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Captain America’, shows like ‘Entourage’, ‘Dexter’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ and books like ‘Great Gatsby’ and ‘Great Expectations’ – all with a cat hidden in the frame!
Why a cat? “Honestly, I’m a dog person and I have a dog, but cats are easier to draw. Plus they have cuter ears than dogs!” she laughs. Reshmi says she only hides the back and tail of the cat. “And no, the cat does not have a name,” she adds quickly.

She brushes it off as “just a concept” she came up with. “Doodling is something people can relate to so instead of the conventional doodles, I decided to do something different. I’ve had people appreciate the art and spend time looking for the cat, which is very rewarding. It started off as a silly thing but now I’m more careful about where I place the cat because people compulsively look for the cat.”