JAY VARMA - THE PENCIL MAN

Article written for Vijay Times CIRCA ‎‎28 ‎December ‎2001, ‏‎00:05:02

JAY VARMA - THE PENCIL MAN

When was the last time you used colored pencils? For your school project or for coloring your house walls? Had you ever thought that this could be as powerful medium of art, which could fetch international fame? NO - then, meet Jay Varma, purebred Bangaloreian and Internationally acclaimed colored pencil artist.

For the international exhibition organized by Color Pencil Society in Michigan his painting (of an old Hoysala temple which is neglected by the Government near Sagar town of Shimoga district) 14.5 X 21.5 inch masterpiece of huge pillars of the temple won him the Stanford award for exceptional merit, one of the three top honors at the convention.

Whats more? Jay belongs to the sixth generation of Raja Ravi Varma the great artist of huge fame during 18th century.  Jay’s paintings are instinctive and he has undergone no formal training for the same.  His only guidance was his mother with her timely guidance to Jay and her oil paintings.  Mother’s oil paintings had pencil sketches before the work of art was born.  So that was when his fascination towards pencils started.  In third standard, his mother gave him a photograph from a book to draw in pencil and taught the art of shading using single color.  Nevertheless, from Third Standard until 1994, the art was restricted to reproducing comic’s strips, sketching, until wife Sajni bought Jay a pencil set with 126 colors in New York.

With his instincts, his first two pieces, one of a small landscape and other a portrait of his daughter came out beyond his expectations and his intentions of using it as an art medium grew even stronger.  This drove him to become the member of Color Pencil Society of America in 1997.

Jay strongly feels sad about the fact that with India’s richness in art and culture, he has not come across another colored pencil artist.  He reasons this dearth of artists in this particular form of art to the unavailability of material and technology along with lack of awareness.  He himself uses Swiss made pencils and different combinations of them to get the perfect picture.  The technology “light-fastness” used in colored pencil gives the painting more life and clarity compared to other art mediums.

The general awareness about colored pencils should increase because color pencil has taken long time to evolve into colored pencil.  The pencil gives the painting the desired composition of light color and pattern unlike the ambiguity in case of a painting using liquid colors.  With the pencils with their razor sharp edge gives the artist more flexibility than any other medium.  With so many advantages to it, Colored pencil would score more points than other medium not right now at least in the near future.

For the Colored Pencil International Association Exhibition to be held at Texas during March 2002, Jay is working on another piece from a “Nalukatte” (inner courtyard) of traditional patriarchal home of Kerala.  Although he wants this in the exhibition, he does not want to push himself too hard that would kill the painting.  According to him, if he works 12 hours everyday of the week, the current painting (18X28 inches) would take six to eight months to complete.  He is also collecting pencil shavings of this painting to measure the amount of effort he has put in for the painting.  Lets all wish him all the best for this and forthcoming exhibitions.

His other hobbies include computer graphics and photography.  For people interested in knowing more about this art form, they could contact Jay on his email id jayvarma@yahoo.com and for details, can log on to www.cpra.org; And guess what he is also planning portrait commissions for promoting the medium.