Local artist, Siddharth Varma, on his beautiful ink masterpiece...
Ink Illustration
Before I came to the UK, I was a designer in an advertising agency for three years in India. Being from a family of goldsmiths, I’ve always been inspired by designs, artists and the craft behind making something look beautiful.
I’ve been observing and experimenting since my younger years. I started off by being an active part of almost all cultural events in school, so I knew that my interests lay in the world of creativity. Every vacation, picnic or break I got from being a conventional student, I would grab my pencil and draw what I saw around me.
As I grew older, my interests in the creative world widened, and I tried my hand at some photography. With no professional training, my design work, illustrations and photographs have been published by a few national and international magazines and websites.
This particular artwork is an illustration of Nottingham’s Council House building in Old Market Square. It’s all hand-drawn; I’m an ink specialist, so I decided to illustrate with photo ink and ink colour pens.
I illustrate each and every thing I can; it’s my passion, and I like to explore places. The Council House is greyish-white in colour, so I was wondering how it would look if I felt the colours in it. I started to illustrate it, and got a good result. I do tend to colour a lot of colourless things, mostly white things.
I made this illustration around Halloween last year. It took around fifteen to twenty minutes, but that’s because of my ten-years’ practice in the creative field as an artist, visualiser, designer, and children’s book illustrator.
Although I’m a night owl, I do prefer to get up early in the morning. I made this piece in the middle of the rush of Old Market Square, and I was crowded with viewers. I remember hearing voices in the background saying things like “Nice painting!” and “Cool drawing!”, while other people came up to me directly and said “You made my day” and ask “Do you come here everyday?”
I consider my craft to be both a hobby and a job but, first and foremost, this is my passion. I firmly believe in the saying “Do what you love, and follow your heart.”
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