Now, spruce up your walls with ink art!

CHENNAI: To him, art is a language. “When a person can’t read and write, all he needs to do is draw something on a piece of paper and the message is conveyed. It doesn’t matter if he is a good artist or not,” says M Karthi, a pen and ink artist. Creating a niche for himself in the art world, Karthi is one of the first few to discover the art of inking on walls. “I wanted to do something unique and offer anything that I could in a creative way,” explains the graduate from the Madras College of Arts. After a tedious career in the animation business and many jobs later, the artist decided that he was done with commercial art and that it was time for him to shine on his own. “I worked as a texturing  artist on a variety of 3D movies including  Sultan the Warrior. During recession, everything shut down and I had to come up with something new.” He uses nothing more than different sizes of black permanent markers to draw on walls. “The process is very elaborate,” explains Karthi. He, along with his four-member team of Senthil Kumar, Senthil Kumaran, Ram and Mano Balan, first  print the image that needs to go on the wall onto a 2mm-think sheet of glass. The image from the glass is then projected on the wall, which is stenciled with a pencil with help from the shadow formed. “This process can only be done after sunset, because otherwise, the shadow won't be visible,” says Karthi.   Once the image is on the wall, he then uses his markers over the pencil sketches. The fact that he does not use a whitening agent even to correct a mistake while making a painting with his pen on the wall makes his art more unique. “If we try to correct the mistakes, the natural and rustic look will go, and the art might end up looking like digital art,” explains Karthi. “The talent lies in converting those mistakes into something of aesthetic value and making it look like it is a part of the original plan.” The biggest challenge of pen and ink art on walls, according to him, is getting the proportions right. “The proportions are all life-size, unlike it is on paper.”Karthi assures that the ink on the wall will last for a minimum of six years, after which, minor fading might occur. “The faded portions can be retouched and it will go back to looking normal,” he says.