Young artist has his heart set on art

13-year old Jay Alagaratham, with one of his cartoons.

13-year old artist, Jay Alagaratham, with his father,
Chris.

Tuesday,  August 2, 2005

A young artist living in the Cayman Islands, 13-year old Jay Alagaratham, who recently got 100 percent for his school art class, said, “I have been drawing all my life, ever since I could remember.”

His father, Chris Alagaratham, explained how Jay’s talent had been encouraged. “We have always had art materials around, which he used. We used to go on holiday to Spain, and he did art there, with the art materials that we had,” said Mr Alagaratham.

Like all cartoonists, Jay has had a good grounding in realistic drawing before going on to cartoons and not unlike other youngsters Jay has had a long time fascination for dinosaurs.

“I have been doing cartoons since I was eight years old,” said Jay.

Jay has been using computers and computer graphics to aid his artwork, all the time encouraged by his father, Chris.

“He has never wavered from drawing and doing art, all his life,” Jay’s father added. “I said that if he wants to do art that is OK but he needs to get the rest of his education too.”

Earlier this year, Jay branched out into making T shirts with his designs. Chris Alagaratham, who works at the hospital, said some of his colleagues started showing an interest in the T-shirts when they saw them. “I explained that my son designed them, but they didn’t believe me at first,” Chris said. “ Later on they started ordering the shirts.”

So while it may be still school and academics for Jay right now, in a few years time he could be stiring up Cayman’s art world.

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