How many names can you write on a rice grain? What pictures can be drawn on a mustard seed? These questions might sound like the beginning of a bad joke but it is a legitimate query for the masters of micro-art, Mr Siva Nageswara Rao.
Mr Siva Nageswara Rao from Andra Pradesh, is doing micro-art – the art of painting and writing on tiny objects in Kuwait for the past 20 years. Over the years, he has emerged as a champion in micro-art and is now capable of writing 3 lines of text on a single rice grain with the naked eye.
Rao specialises in minuscule paintings and shades so tiny that one needs a microscope to be able to distinguish the images. The amazing thing is that Rao paints them with his bare eye.
“The most important thing is to stay calm,” he explains. He creates these incredible detailed micro paintings on remarkably tiny objects just with nothing more than a brush and his own eyes. Magnifying glass is used only to see the details or for any corrections. “Some time I practice meditation before starting a work to get the concentration.” There are times where it has taken 1 day to do painting on these small objects. He uses Acrylic colours for painting on tiny objects. Painting of images takes 1 hour to 4 hours depending on the picture.
Rao can expertly inscribe paintings on Mustard Seeds, Kidney Beans, Rajma seeds, Pistachio Seeds, Chana Dal and Pumpkin Seed but most of his work is done on grains of rice. The grains are then preserved in a small box, which conserves the grain’s originality. He has written the name of former Indian Ambassador H.E Ajai Malhotra on Rice Grain and presented to him. He has made paintings of Rabindranath Tagore on Rajma Seed, Mahatma Gandhi on Pumpkin Seed, Freedom Fighters on Pistachio Seeds. He has successfully completed 10 paintings of former rulers of Kuwait on white Kidney beans. On Rice Grains he has done miniature paintings of Taj Mahal and Kuwait Towers. He has drawn Kuwait Map and India Map on Mustard seeds. His works are endless.
Mr Rao started this practice when he saw a small drop of paste fallen on a book which looked like an image. This impressed him and made him do his first micro painting. The first art was Scenery done on Chana Dal. He then tried on Mustard seed. He says it was tough in the beginning and took many days to succeed in making a painting on a Mustard Seed. He started with a 5 letter word writing on Rice Grain and now can write upto 3 lines. It was a painstaking and time-consuming practice, but Rao slowly started to create amazing works of art, and the friends around him began to notice.
Earlier, he has gifted a Kuwait Tower painting on rice grain to former Indian Ambassador to Kuwait H.E. Mr Prabhu Dayal. Mr Rao not only does Micro Paintings but also does Soap carvings, chalk carvings, Thermocol Carvings etc. He teaches students who are interested in micro paintings. Some of his students have done wonderful micro paintings.
Mr Siva Nageswara Rao is in Kuwait from the past 17 years and is correctly working as HOD of Art Department at FAIPS-DPS, School, Ahmadi Kuwait. He was part of Micro painting exhibition cum workshop organized by REUSE recently. He was the only Indian Artist to be invited among the 26 artists for this event. This was the workshop held for the first time in Kuwait.