For Uday Kumar Sangisetti, 28, a B.Sc Graduate in Computer Science, the life-changing phase came when he shifted to Hyderabad in 2014 from the nondescript village Nacharam under Enkoor Mandal, 250 kms east of Hyderabad, with a motive to pursue higher education(PG) against his parents’ will. It was an ordinary evening when Uday was walking in the NTR Garden and observed a portrait artist conducting a live sketching session and that is what inspired Uday to revisit his childhood passion for art, but with a twist. He recalls, “I came back home with a thought to live my passion for art and decided to make pencil my canvas, as limited finance was a big hurdle for me to live my passion. Soon, the mere pencil became the star of my life and I carved ‘P’ as my first pencil carving art, which was meant to be a unique birthday gift for a friend. Slowly with word-of-mouth, I started getting work and recognition in Hyderabad.”
Uday, as a self-taught micro artist, who started working as a part-time freelance artist in 2015 has honed skill in ‘Pencil Miniature Art’, which is also known as Pencil Carving has also been a TEDx Speaker and a World Record Holder honoured by Vajra World Records, for carving name on a pen-pencil lead of 0.7mm, an Indian equivalent version to the Guinness Book of World Records with emphasis on unique achievements of the people within the country and abroad. Uday runs his business through his social media pages and website- Uday Micro Artist.
Uday’s every piece of art comes in a wooden frame with a glass finish that he designs with a local vendor and the range of artwork is between Rs 1000-8000 till date. He informs, “The most expensive art that I have sold till date is for Rs 8000.” He adds, “The costing of each art depends on the amount of time it takes me to carve it.”
Uday recalls, for the first time when I made Eiffel Tower, it took me in total three attempts to get the 
perfect one. In the first two attempts of eight hours, it broke but finally, I got the perfect one in the third attempt. “The recent one of Christ statue took me a total of 8 hours,” informs Uday, who uses all varieties of pencils and surgical knives to shape his imaginations on graphite and recommends the same to his students during the workshops. “One needs to be dependent on art and creativity to take it somewhere, tools are just a medium and depending on them restricts your creativity,” advises Uday, who did his first graphite art with a 6B pencil.
In a span of extensive 5 years, Uday has conducted 20+ workshops at premium institutes including IIT Madras and NIT Trichy. In September 2019, Uday took the leap of faith and left his full-time MNC job to be an independent artist working day in and out with a wide range of graphite because he doesn’t want to regret and now has the full family support too. He happily admits, “My small success story has made my parents believe in my dreams and they did support the decision of leaving the job 
because I don’t want to regret after 10 years that I didn’t give it a try.”
Ask him about the future plans and he confidently says, “I wish to make a ‘Museum of Graphite’ that features all my artworks including the unseen 150+ graphite art and let the world know the magic and intricacy of this art.” “The museum will give a platform to all the budding artists to showcase their work and take Indian artists to another level in the global art scenario,” he signs off.
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