About Me
Namaste ,
I am Shreya. A 23 year old full time artist from Bihar,India.I specialise in graphite,charcoal and colour pencil medium. I started this journey when I was 15 as a hobbyist and kept going without thinking about anything. Then my journey kept improving with small but consistent milestones like building a social media presence, creating a brand, adding other mediums to my portfolio, accepting customised orders and brand Collabs. I will be honest with you I didn't plan single thing that happened to me till now... I trusted the process and did or am doing what is in my hand- Hardwork. Hope everything will make sense one day! Right now I am enjoying my journey and will keep doing! 🧡
Start
I was just 15. I took some pencils and made a portrait. Damn! It felt so good. Creating something gave me that sense of confidence and happiness that I was longing for so long. It was like a ray of happiness in my dark times. I started drawing more and more. It kept me busy and engaged. That gave me peace from my overthinking brain. Till now I was drawing just for myself. Used to upload my drawings on my personal Facebook account which had some school friends and relatives. That was it. Had no competition or motivation.
Till now I was on my own. Then came a turning point in my life when I came across an artist’s page on Facebook. It had a lot of likes. I went through the page and found a lot of news articles and celebrity comments. I was so awestruck. I wanted that! I so badly wanted that!
So I made a Facebook page and a Twitter account for my work and started uploading regularly. I made a lot of celebrity portraits. I proceeded to create an account on Instagram. I was new to the platform. I found Instagram perfect for reaching out to more people. Then with some celebrity likes and comments, my account started growing gradually. It was hard to get such an instant response on Facebook. I came across a lot of brilliant artists. I was blown away by their work and that motivated me to work more on my skills. Every new drawing used to be a new rollercoaster ride of excitement and challenge.
I failed innumerable times when what I created either did not meet my expectations or failed to gain attention online. I was still a kid at that time and the curiosity and enthusiasm of the age helped me a lot to build a base. So with the new transitions happening in my life and drawing becoming an inseparable part of it, I cleared my 10th board examination in 2016. The school was over now and considering all the trouble that I had to go through because of low attendance, I did not want to take regular classes. I wanted to focus on drawing. I had no other dreams in my life. So keeping these things in my mind, I went for the commerce stream with a non-attending mode of education. For two years I kept drawing and working on my skills.
I focused entirely on drawing and did self-study to prepare for my exams. Commerce was an unfamiliar subject for me so it took a little extra to understand the basics as I was all on my own. But still, I managed to do it along with drawing as I kept myself away from all other sorts of distractions.
I started getting requests online from people to draw their pictures. This gave me an idea of how I can turn my hobby into a profession.
Branding
My system of uploading drawings on Insta was quite intuitive and random. My profile lacked uniformity. The feed looked messy and unorganized. I knew I was not going to survive for long on social media without creating a strong presence. So I decided to turn ‘Shreya5art’ into a brand. I took professional help and got myself a logo. I started clicking pictures of my drawings more aesthetically with proper logo presentation. This added a professional touch to my profile and now I was a brand.
So finally I completed my 12th in 2018. I started accepting personalized orders for drawing. I did a lot of such order works along with some celebrity portraits to keep my page alive on Insta and attract more people to my profile. Results were announced and now it was time for a tough decision. What to do next? I gave an entrance test for a reputed college to pursue my bachelor's degree in commerce. I even got selected but deep down inside I knew if I started attending college, giving time to drawing would become impossible. So I decided to go for distance education. I got into IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University). This time also I went for self-study and kept my entire focus on drawing.
Colors
After working with graphite and charcoal for about 4-5 years, I decided to diversify my portfolio and add a new medium to my skill set. I researched and asked a lot of other artists and finally set my mind to go for Faber Castell Polychromos. I ordered 60 shades set as the full set of 120 shades was quite expensive for me. I was nervous. Made my first color drawing in October 2019. It took me more than 15 days as I made each and every stroke very consciously. But with this drawing my fear of colors took a backseat and confidence started building
In January 2020 I made my first portrait using colored pencils. It was a celeb portrait and the response I got was overwhelming. My interest in drawing started building again. I made a lot of portraits with both color and graphite medium. I would say 2020 was a great year for me. My account grew so much. Got a lot of celebrity reposts and comments. This brought me into the limelight.
Brand Collab
I got this amazing opportunity to collab with a brand like Derwent. My whole 2021 was about this dream collab. Made more than 20 drawings for Derwent along with some order works. In June I gave my final year examination for my bachelor's degree course. The result Was yet to come and I continued my collab. This year I got to try a lot of new mediums. It helped me to work with a fresh perspective. I was overworked towards the end of the year and exhausted. My schedule got messed up because of a lot of personal and professional reasons.
Aspirations
Results were announced in 2022 and this way I completed my Graduation. I didn’t want to continue with the commerce stream. I decided now to officially turn into a full-time artist.
Anything that has happened till now, I didn’t plan any of it. I just kept doing what I liked honestly and opportunities kept coming. So, like always I don’t have any detailed plan of what I am gonna do. Just some checklists to tick before I leave the world