Today, we feature watercolour artist from India – artist Kantimathi, who opens up her views on her career journey as an artist.
Hello! Please tell us more about yourself !
Hi, I’m Kantimathi. You can just call me Mathi. I’m 24 years old and I’ve done my bachelor’s degree in architecture in the year 2020. I’m currently working as a character designer in animaker (a software company). I do painting (traditional & digital) on weekends and my free time.
I believe that you love exploring different mediums and creatives? Where do you usually get your inspirations from?
I easily get inspired from previous artists works, sometimes from photographs and movies. Whenever I see any artist working passionately and persistently through Instagram posts of their artworks I feel energised like maybe I too should try something like them.
I love painting sceneries. And I love to watch Bob Ross painting tutorial on YouTube. I like to do watercolour painting, 3d resin painting, oil painting on canvas boards.
What are the mediums have you’ve explored so far?
I have painted with watercolour paints, acrylic paints, oil paints. I have also used charcoal pencil, colour pencil, watercolour pencil, Pen sketch, Pencil shading in my artworks. Additionally, I have done digital paintings using softwares such as procreate, sketchbook, photoshop and Illustrator.
What made you want to practice art? How do you express yourself through art? Do you find it sustainable as a career pathway?
The kind of self satisfaction which I get from looking into the colours, mixing them, putting together on a paper and finally getting some beautiful picture which was running all along my mind is the thing that pushed me to persistently practice art. I think art is full of emotions. It exhibits one’s own self and feelings.
To me it’s an escape door from real world! As of me I start to paint more whenever I feel bored, sad, quiet days (I do paint on happy days as well). So in the start of 2019 there came a covid lockdown and we’re all shut inside our home.
I didn’t have a job at that time. So I continuously started to do painting each day and I took art classes for kids as well. By the end of 2019 I had more than 100 art pieces which was done between 2019-2020.
Art is both sustainable and self healing. It is a place where you throw all your emotions and feelings inside.
May I know how you started on your journey as a watercolour artist in India?
I started practice at the age of 4. It all started when my mother went to a grocery shop leaving me behind home. She gave me a pencil and eraser and told to draw a picture of God and Goddess. When she came back she was surprised to see the artwork which I have done.
Thereafter she would make me participate in all art and craft classes, art competitions. This is how I started to explore different mediums of traditional painting. Then after joining college I started to explore more about digital art and currently have 4 years of experience practicing digital art.
What are your favourite designs/pieces? How long did you take to complete those pieces?
This is a digital painting I’ve done after inspired from a photography. It took almost 10 days to complete the artwork.
This digital painting took 3 days for completion.
This is a watercolour painting done on watercolour sheet, it took 2 days to complete this artwork.
This is resin acrylic painting done in layers. For the first layer I poured a small amount of resin and once it is completely dried I’ve painted using acrylic paints. I repeated this step for four layers. i almost took a week to complete this painting.
What’s your plan for the near future? Where do you see yourself at this stage in your life?
I’m currently working as a character designer and like to design backgrounds. I’m interested in both digital and traditional mediums.
I’m also passionate about conducting art workshops and selling my artworks. So I just plan to continue doing both digital and traditional artworks, maybe in near future I might open a studio.
How’s the art scene like in India? In your opinion, what do you wish to improve regarding the arts scene in your country?
In India I think there are lot and variety of artists. There are landscape painters who just paints by looking at the clouds and mountains. There are street painters who do lots of streetscape artworks.
There’s also textile painters who uses kalamkaris and other patterned arts in the fashion field.
Digital painters are also evolving in large numbers. Art is everywhere in India. But many times people forget to recognise talents and many artists are paid less.
I wish this situation could change in the near future.
What do you want to achieve for yourself? Any personal goals in life?
There are lots of personal goals to achieve 🙂 . During my five years of college life I never had any worries and I travelled as much as I can. And then after getting a job I couldn’t travel much as before. So after earning some more money I wish to take myself some long travel trips.
I love to make homemade soaps and shampoos by myself. At times I think of turning it into a small scale business. So maybe in some point of time I may do it.
If you like our watercolour artist from India, do check out our other artists as well. Meanwhile, do stay tuned to our socials for the latest updates!
