Meet this 24-year-old Vijay fan who sketched Sarkar's viral double exposure poster

Sandhya Swaminathan is not big on Twitter. In the past 2 years, she has tweeted 55 times. But when she opened her Twitter on Monday, this 24-year-old artist was surprised. Her hand-drawn poster of Vijay's Sarkar, that she tweeted the previous night had gone viral. It was retweeted more than 2,000 times by people including the admin of Vijay's official fan club and also actor Varalaxmi Sarathkumar. 

This die-hard Vijay fan from Coonoor had spent 40 odd hours to achieve perfection in every stroke that you see in that poster. "This is the most time I've used till now. I worked for the last 10 hours continuously. I just couldn't control the excitement of seeing that poster done," says Sandhya. This was a part of a self-challenge, in which she would try 10 different forms of art. The first was an invert art, where she sketched an image's negative. Double exposure was the next one on the list.  "That was when I saw Sarkar's first look poster. I instantly knew that this is going to be my next sketch," she says. What are the remaining eight forms? She asks us to keep checking her Instagram handle to know!

Penning Singh: Sandhya's portrait of Ranveer Singh

Now, let's have a look at the artist's story. Like most Indian youngsters, Sandhya is an engineering graduate too. But after a year of a monotonous corporate job, she knew that she had to take a break. "After quitting my job, I was idle for the next two months. Sketching was a great boredom buster. I started off by drawing my brother's portrait. Everyone liked it and my friends asked me to upload my work on social media," she narrates. Slowly, Sandhya started receiving client orders from different parts of the country. She also started conducting sketching workshops. 

"My first workshop was in Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, where I studied. Then I conducted a workshop in IIT, Madras. I have conducted workshops for children as young as10 and adults as old as 70. It is the same enthusiasm that they all have. I teach them the basics of shading. By the end of the workshop, they are expected to make one portrait," she tells us.

That's how you draw: Sandhya in the middle of a workshop

The journey of shifting from engineering to art wasn't that easy. Sandhya was often asked by family and neighbours to get a real job. But everything changed when her parents attended a workshop that she conducted. "That was when they were convinced that I was doing something fruitful. They got very emotional," she says.

Why is Sandhya a huge Vijay fan? She tells us, "Right from my childhood, I loved Vijay. The word hero to me was always synonymous with him. He's a huge inspiration. He's a great actor, calm, does a lot of good things and on top that, never brags about any of it," she signs off.