Dreaming with a pencil

Fifteen-year-old Vibha Shetty from Udupi, Karnataka has big dreams in her eyes and a few pencils in her hand. She studies in 9th standard at Rotary English Medium School, Moodubidire, Mangalore, Karnataka and has a deep love for drawing and arts for which she keeps getting a lot of appreciation. Recently, she created a national record by drawing 103 pencil sketches of well known personalities. Her name has been included in the India Book of Records. She received this honour for creating the most sketches single-handedly.

Vibha says that when she was in the seventh grade, she realized that her mind was more inclined towards painting and she had a good understanding of arts and drawing. Initially she captured nature and surroundings on paper with the help of watercolors. She keeps on making some or the other picture in her spare time. Nowadays she has a passion for creating portraits with pencil. Charcoal pencil was used in the drawings selected for the National Record. It took three to four hours to complete each portrait. During the lockdown period, she prepared one portrait daily. Thus it took her 103 days to complete the record breaking project.

When asked about the source of inspiration for creating the record, Vibha said that she was in touch with some students around the house who were doing a Bachelor of Visual Arts course. They kept sketching everything around. From there she got the idea of making a series of portraits and applying for the record. Thus the collection came into being. She worked tirelessly and the hard work paid off well.

Vibha is interested more in social subjects. In future, instead of science or commerce, she will prefer to pursue further studies from the arts side. Father Balakrishna Shetty is a farmer and mother Mallika Shetty takes care of the family and the house. Due to the blessings and cooperation from both of them, Vibha has been able to make her mark today.

Vibha is a native of Padumarnad village in Mangalore district. Apart from painting, she enjoys playing badminton, volleyball, and making flower rangolis. She loves painting with different colors and making pencil sketches of famous personalities. Drawing gives her pleasure and she always tries to perform better than before. Parents are happy with her creative pursuits. They encourage her to take part in various competitions. As a result of which Vibha has received many awards and certificates so far. She has won seven state level awards for drawing.

The record breaking drawings include portraits of famous personalities such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak among others. The portraits are made on A3 and A4 size sheets. Vibha wants to keep working in this field continuously and aspires to be known as a big artist in future.