Introducing Nishant Jain! Workshop 14: Be Sneaky: Sketching People To Liven Your Urban Landscape

Nishant Jain is a writer and cartoonist, having fallen into both professions quite accidentally. He grew up in India and studied to be an engineer.  As he earned a Master’s degree (Mechanical Engineering), Nishant was writing stories and drawing a stick figure comic to a growing online audience. 

When he first visited Chicago, Nishant was inspired by the city’s creative vibe – the jazz, the blues, and the tenacity of its aspiring stand-up comics, musicians and artists. Half-way through his PhD (in Neuroscience), Nishant quit academia to pursue the life of a full-time writer/cartoonist. Flying to a new life in Chicago, he realized that it was time to learn to really draw. Thus began an obsession with Urban-Sketching and Sneaky Art.

In the years since, Nishant has made hundreds of webcomics to an audience of over 30,000 followers, written scripts for political satire shows on Indian television, drawn graphic novels, fulfilled over a dozen private commissions, and displayed his art at multiple galleries. Urban-sketching has given him a way to appreciate the world around him, even when he feels like a stranger in a strange land. Sneaky Art is his way of finding beauty around him, even when he’s alone.  Nishant lives in Eau Claire (WI) with his wife, listens to jazz, and thinks too much.