Sitting in the Inox Courtyard for ten days of IFFI, Lawrence Joseph from Panchgani has seen the likes of celebrities who can take criticism and get their caricatures done and those who shy away from being sketched on paper. “I have drawn caricature of nearly 60-70 celebrities from across the globe who came down for the festival.
Some noted Indian actors include Sayaji Shinde, Vijay John and Vijay Patkar. Even though i take just two minutes of their time, some celebrities were too busy to sit down for a caricature. It was a great experience for me since day one of the festival. I met a lot of producers
and directors who shared their contacts with me and want me to be a part of their productions in the future,” says Lawrence optimistically.
Lawrence completed his graduation in Fine Arts and has a ten years experience of teaching art at New Era International Residential School which was featured in the film, ‘Taare Zameen Par’. “I give demonstrations to Nursery, Primary, High-Schools or any Institute followed by Short term workshops and I have been coming down to Goa very frequently. I also created innovative cartoons and caricatures for print media,magazines and animation studios,” says Lawrence.
His speciality is creating a caricature with seven strokes of the pen and has to be completed within two minutes. “It is very rare to draw a caricature in two minutes but I have trained myself by using the same pen in different ways to create different lines which saves time of
changing the pens. I have also learnt quick reflexes to study a face and draw it with this span of time. Every face is a story in itself, so I
believe that we don’t need a funny forehead or a funny nose to make it look different. I use simple lines for my caricatures and recognise the face pattern of a person at first glance,” says Lawrence who plans to entry the Guinness World Record by creating a caricature in 90 seconds. “I have to reduce my timing by just 30 seconds.
Lawrence has been offered to draw caricatures of cruises in Goa and he plans to move to Goa for the season, “I am planning to stay back a few months and even hold an exhibition in January on the Panjim Promenade. There are many people who are interested to drawing their caricatures on these cruises that ferry during the season in Goa. I have worked on a collection of 3000 cartoons which have different moods, ‘Moods of People.’ The cartoons show the quality of my work and if anyone can come up with two cartoons that have a similar expression, I will award them Rs 1000 on the spot. I am so confident about my collection,” concludes Lawrence.
