Pablo Picasso apparently once said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." The statement addresses the paradox at the heart of creativity: technical skill can be taught, but the raw, instinctive creativity of childhood is much harder to recapture. A child draws with an unparalleled sense of wonder — their marks are raw, intuitive, and free of technical considerations and constraints. As we grow, we trade spontaneity for structure, anatomical accuracy, predictability, and conformity. It's rare to find artists who are technically skilled and still in touch with their inner child. Pune-based illustrator Shivam Choudhary is one of those rare artists.
In Shivam's colourful illustrations, the ordinary and the everyday takes on new meaning and becomes magical when seen through a childlike sense of joy and wonder. Scenes from local markets, a boat moored at the beach, an auto rickshaw ride — Shivam delights in life's small wonders like spotting playful shapes hidden in drifting clouds overhead.
There's a sense of play and freedom in his lines, unburdened by concerns about convention or perfection — something deeply affectionate in the way he relates to and sees the world. His drawings are akin to emotional snapshots of this vision. They are narrative fragments, observations, and slices of his tender, absurd, and wondrous interior lives. For Shivam, art is a language, a way to make sense of the world and share what he feels but may not yet have words for. His pictures speak in a voice uniquely his own: gentle, playful, and profoundly alive.
Drawing from the natural rhythms of ordinary, everyday life, the mischief of animals, and the vivid colours of his imagination, Shivam's illustrations urge us to slow down, smile, and rediscover the wonder of seeing the world through our inner child's eyes.
Follow Shivam Choudhary here.
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