Artists have a way to deceive how the viewers’ view certain artwork. They delight and surprise with their unimaginable level of skills they acquire and the patience they practise for their art to get in shape. Akinson Sharma, an amazing photo-realistic artist, talks about his work, his passion and his dream.
Tell us more about yourself
I am a student from Assam and recently completed my graduation. Now, I am practising realistic art as well as preparing myself for competitive exams.
From your works, We can say that you love cars. When and how did it happen?
A big yes! And I get excited whenever someone asks me this question. Actually from my childhood, I was attracted by every single bike and cars because at that time, a car is a very rare thing in my place and I mistook every single bike for a superbike. Only some particular car models like Indica, Safari, zen, esteem etc. models were available at that time and seeing a sedan on road was like a big lucky day. My father first brought home a Maruti 800 in 2002 and I can’t express those feelings right now in words. From then, slowly I got to know about the components of a car. And I started scribbling my own dream cars. In every single study book of mine, you could find a small car drawing. Later on in 2009-10, I started playing PC games like Need for speed, Flat Out etc. And since then, I got to know about the supercars like Porsche, Lamborghini and all. Games did help me a lot to know about cars. From then on, My attention for cars increased more and I started collecting Small Car models. I still collect models and I’ve almost approximately 200 to 300 car models in my collection.
When did you fall in love with painting?
I’ve been drawing since my childhood. But that time, I just drew things because I was a student of Fine art. It was neither my hobby, nor I was attracted to draw. In 2013, I completed a Diploma in Fine Arts. I just stopped drawing because of the study pressure and I was moving to college Hostel. But in the hostel, my friends insisted me to draw cars after seeing my car drawings that I drew before. And I started drawing cars again and this time, I was trying to improve my skills, by adding reflections and shadings. I wasn’t satisfied much by the outcomes. And again, after leaving the hostel, I stopped drawing. I remember that I was thinking that it was not an easy task, especially not for me. But in 2016, I encountered a video on YouTube. An artist named Marcello Barrenghi was posting a time-lapse video of drawing a candy. That video just completely changed my views towards drawings. It was so realistic that one couldn’t differentiate between the real one and painting one. After then, I explored more of his videos and got some knowledge of colouring. Especially, he drew a white Maserati car using colour pencils. And I got inspired by that drawing. Ordered some pencils and started drawing again. And this time, I was pretty much satisfied with the results. My drawings slowly improved a lot. Online pages started sharing my works and that gave me enough confidence. And the attraction towards drawing and painting, gradually, started increasing day by day.
Some people work on grids, some like to trace the outline. What would you say what your approaching technique is to work on something?
I don’t usually use any specific method. When I first started, I was drawing freehand but found that the proportions were not correct enough. Then, I started using measurements. It helped me a lot in my work when I draw cars. But when it comes to portraits, I use grids. Because for a realistic drawing, the grid is much easier and accurate than any other methods. And also it helps in creating the skin textures also. Some artists trace the outlines too. There is nothing wrong in tracing when the artist has enough knowledge and skills in this field.
Where do you get the inspiration from?
As I mentioned above, I got inspired by the Videos of Marcello Barrenghi, a realistic artist. And also, I follow a car featuring a page on Instagram. In that page, I saw a drawing by Johannes Wessmark and I just was stunned by the skills. And when I was searching his feed for that drawing, my mind was simply blown away. I saw some of his videos and I set them as my milestone. I idolize his work. His every single work inspires me a lot to draw more and improve my skills.
How has your practice changed over time?
Initially, I was very impatient. And I learned that one needs a lot of patience to witness good quality in their own artwork. And for that, I started meditating. I made a routine of how many hours in a day that I’m gonna spend on my drawings. That helped me a lot. And I’m still trying to improve my patience level. And for that, I do practice a lot of detailed works like human skins, nose, car reflections, etc which demand more time to be patient.
The major problem you face?
The main problem is the availability of the materials that I need for my artwork. We can’t find good quality drawing materials near my place. So I order them online. But this is still a big issue for an artist like us because we have to rely on online products and have to wait for them until they arrive after ordering.
What is your dream work that Something you want to work on in your future?
There is actually a lot of things in my mind. But on top, I want to achieve the photo-realism level in any type of drawing. And being a car lover, I want to make my own custom made car. Those are the 2 most dream projects that I want to work on.
