The world on a canvas

Riot of colours

When a child is growing up, even a scribble of theirs seem to be the best artwork to parents. If there’s something eye-catching, parents even add it to the ‘my child is growing up’ collage.

But very often, most of the best works gets discarded too. However, Adithyaa Sadashiv’s works have always been eye-catching and his father made sure to save each one of them.

Not only did these scribbles made it to the ‘growing up’ scrapbook, but also inspired him to perfect the art. Today, his collection holds a pride of place in his home.

He says, “My dad is a professional artist and he’s been an inspiration. He encourages me to make my work better and always gives me valuable feedback. I started painting and drawing for fun, but now I’ve begun to love the art — I take the time to learn what I’m drawing as well.”

Currently pursuing his second-year in Visual Communication at St Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, the young artist started illustrating more when he was preparing for admission to college.

He explains, “Since I was joining this particular course, the management wanted me to attach my portfolio as well. I also enjoy photography, so I added a few of my pictures to the list. And to complete the portfolio, I started drawing and illustrating more.”

So how does he decide what he’s going to draw?

“Unless I’m going to attend a seminar or debate, I always have my sketchbook and painting kit with me. I love going around the City, find a place to sit and draw something that looks good to me. I also take references from the internet and draw something for the day,” says Adithyaa.

While Adithyaa has worked on a lot of detailed illustrations, he says that he’s exploring more options with the simple techniques as well. One of the recent pictures he uploaded was of a cherry blossom tree at Lalbagh.

Explaining the work behind it, he says, “I’ve worked on a lot of pictures which needed d more details like the roaster. But simple ones like the tree also made me realise that they are as prominent as the detailed one. It gives its own uniqueness to it and brings out what I wanted to portray.”

As his dad is also a professional artist, Adithyaa says that before he uploads his work on the social media page, he takes his dad’s opinion.

With the suggestions he receives, he goes back to he picture and works on it. But that doesn’t mean that he will only publish the work that others might like.

“It’s important to know that not everyone will like my work. Many a time, my friends have come up to me and told me that they don’t like the pictures. I do take their opinion into consideration, but at the end of the day, it’s about what makes me happy,” he adds.

When asked if he has a particular genre that he likes to draw, he says, “Right now I draw just about anything that feels good to me. But maybe I’ll look into concentrating only on the smaller works like leaves and branches and then move on to the bigger ones like the whole tree. All of these take a lot of time as you need to understand the anatomy of the things while drawing. I’m learning how to do that.”

So is the young artist also planning to follow the footsteps of his father?

He laughs and says, “My parents have been incredibly supportive and have let me do whatever I want to so far. I’m yet to decide what I want to pursue — I currently have an interest in the editing bit of filmmaking. Maybe I’ll take that up or do my Masters in illustration. Let’s see where fate takes me!”