Date:01/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/01/stories/2007100157910200.htm

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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Conjuring up images with a few strokes

R. Sujatha

Thomas Jeyaraj Fernando, the artist from Tuticorin, does illustrations for 12 magazines

“S.A.P. Annamalai was surprised by my versatility and asked me to illustrate for Kumudam.”

Thomas Jeyaraj Fernando

CHENNAI: From timid youth to popular illustrator, artist Thomas Jeyaraj Fernando has come a long way.

He has illustrated for hundreds of Tamil short stories, jokes and serials. This artist, hailing from Tuticorin, is unassuming and reticent, but inspired his son and daughter to follow in his footsteps.

He dwells on some of the lesser known events in his life that influenced his work.

Father’s advice

When his bachelor’s degree in economics did not fetch him a job in the city, his father encouraged him to use his talent. He had won prizes in school and college for his sketches.

“‘When you have your hands why should you worry?’ he asked me. I was shy to approach editors with my work,” Mr. Jeyaraj says, recalling his initial days in Chennai as a 21-year-old in the late 1950s.

“I had small and big illustrations in a file that I showed S.A.P. Annamalai of Kumudam magazine. “He was surprised by my versatility and asked me to illustrate for the magazine.”

His first illustration for a short story by Ra.Ki. Rangarajan fetched him Rs. 10. By 1962, he was earning Rs. 180 a month as a freelancer.

Usually illustrators must abide by the script they are given. But, Mr. Jeyaraj has inspired a short story writer to use his sketch depicting a scene from his personal life.

Inspiration

His inspiration is the famous American illustrator Norman Rockwell, “but I cannot claim to have achieved even a bit of what he has,” he says self-effacingly.

When he made an illustration of Lord Balaji for journalist Saavi, he says he refrained from eating meat though that was all his wife, Regina, had cooked that day.

The illustration was done in three hours for the inaugural puja of Saavi’s magazine to be held the next day.

“I did a good job despite the speed at which I worked.”

He is known as a speed artist who can turn in illustrations in 30 minutes. In the 1970s, he says he used to make 40 illustrations a day.

Today, despite more advertisement space and photographs of film stars, he continues to illustrate for 12 magazines, including a Telugu and a Kannada magazine.

On the criticism about his portrayal of female characters he says, “I know it is wrong but they used to sell copies back then, just as today we have film stars in revealing clothes.”

He has illustrated for an atlas published by Oxford University Press and school textbooks.

Mr Jeyaraj is now sketching explanatory posters for AIDS and family planning for the State’s Health Department. They will be used to teach people in rural areas.