A zen of positivity

Alicia Souza lives in a whimsical world that consists of only the most positive people in the City. With a pen, colours and book in her hand, she’s even capable of turning anyone’s day around with quirky drawings and sayings.

She was always interested in drawing as kid, but unlike many others, she just never stopped. She found her true love with illustrations during her final year of college. “I never thought I’d make a living by just drawing but I’m glad I did. Graphic designing was what I signed up for when I went to college, but a final year project changed that notion for me and there has been no looking back since,”she adds. Born and raised in Abu Dhabi, she moved to Melbourne to pursue her higher education. Having worked there in a bank and coffee shops to pay to her bills, she pursued being an illustrater during her free time.When she moved to Bengaluru in 2011, she took her passion as a full time opportunity to make fun and quirky drawings for ‘Chumbak’. She later took on to doing her own drawings and that, she says, “is when the real learning began.”

Apart from the number of illustrations she had to throw away due to house shifting, Alicia currently has scrapbooks with about 4,000 fun drawings — none of which include her client work. And where does she get her inspiration and ideas from? “The sky is my limit on the topics I want to draw. I usually make a note on the things I see during my daily ventures and by night, I have something figured out. I wake up the next morning by 7.30 am, feed my dog and come to my desk to finish colouring the drawing. My Facebook page sees one of these posts daily by around 9 am,” she explains.

Her dog, Charlie, is one of the main inspirations to many of her drawings. “He’s become a part of my life when I moved here and I somehow try to incorporate him in my illustrations. He has so much character in him that I find it very easy to humanise him. It always works well with what I’m trying to convey in the drawing as well,” she laughs.

For Christmas, Alicia isn’t doing too much except making cards and candles, but she’s looking forward to releasing her New Year calendar. She says, “It’s actually one my best selling product so far. This year, I’m making a ‘Let Go’ calendar where people can colour the things they want to let go, for example, fear. I am yet to finish drawing everything but I’m quiet excited to see how it all turns out.”One of the main reasons for Alicia’s constant positiveness is due to her friends. Though she says she has made a few friends in the field, it’s her other friends who are in various occupation that give her the inspiration to be who she is.

“I love that my friends are passionate about the kind of work they do and the way they talk about it make me feel positive as well. I learn a lot through them and that helps with my drawings as well,”she shares. By making the range of kooky characters and wonky personalities on products like mugs, badges and more, she believes that her work is like yoga for her mind. She loves going into the zen and creating masterpieces. “I’m happy that I stumbled upon this and I can’t think of doing anything else anymore. I’d love to try more new things next year and keep spreading my optimism to others as well,”she concludes.