Farjana: The Bangladeshi Youtube artist who has gone global

For any professional artist, the famous Disney sister duo, Anna and Elsa, is easy to draw. But it is not the same for beginners. A YouTube channel called "Farjana Drawing Academy", from Bangladesh, has made this task easy for all novice artists across the world by showing them how to adopt an artist's hidden tricks - measurements, ratio and shading.

Operated by Farjana Akhter, from Cumilla, these drawing hacks have made this channel so popular among novice artists that a few of the videos have one million, five million and even 14 million views.

On the channel, Farjana uploads trendy art content that attracts teenager and other young viewers.

Currently this channel has 5.17 million subscribers and 593 videos.

Its subscriber count has increased amid this pandemic and the channel is now gaining 8,000 to 9,000 subscribers per day.

Farjana Drawing Academy holds the fifth position in terms of the highest number of subscribers in Bangladesh.Farzana shared she earns around USD 16,000 per month from this channel. 

Before becoming a YouTube content creator, Farjana used to be one of those young people who drew secretly.

After coming home from school, Farjana would eagerly stare at the wall clock for hours for it to turn to six. It was time for her father to start drawing pictures in their living room.

"I remember how excited I was just for a peak at my father's drawings. I was not very close to my father so I never interrupted him. And, I never shared my interest with anyone," said Farjana.

Farjana has no academic training in art like her father. But her passion for art started to impact her academic results, and this made her mother unhappy.

"My mother's reaction was actually normal, as every parent wants their children to come first place in their class. Basically, she could not imagine that I would become successful or be able to achieve all this by pursuing art," Farjana said.

Like other girls from villages, Farjana was also married off at a very early age. Luckily, her in-laws were interested in her talent and inspired her to continue.

Her mother-in-law once forcefully made her participate in a national competition where Farjana stood first. Then, Farjana decided to open up to her father about her achievement and long-term interest.

 "After knowing all these, my father was thrilled and taught me many tricks on shading, colouring and more,"  Farjana recalled, smiling.

Farjana started giving drawing lessons to children in Cumilla. Meanwhile, she continued her education and was also gathering knowledge on freelancing. During the time, Farjana learned about YouTube marketing, creating channels and monetizing the channels. Farjana figured out that there were not many tutorials for art beginner art enthusiasts.

Farjana opened her channel and uploaded her first content titled "How to draw a banana step by step" at the beginning of 2017.

This had Farjana hooked and she continued uploading. In a few days, she started to get requests from all over the world to create content on various topics. She tried to keep as many requests as she could.

Farjana, however, has always believed in simplicity and quality. She draws with a DOMS (Zoom Ultimate Dark) pencil that costs only Tk5. But she has never compromised with quality and maintains it strictly. It takes her four days to shoot and edit one content.

"Sometimes I order art supplies online but I mostly use the pencil with which I started drawing," she shared.

Within one year, Farjana received the gold play button from YouTube for reaching one million subscribers.

The top five countries that follow Farjana's works are India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the US and Iraq. Around 64.5 percent of her viewers are from India.

"I am overwhelmed by the love I receive from across the world. I barely get one or two negative comments on my videos, but those are mostly from Bangladesh," remarked Farjana. 

She is also inspiring her siblings to pursue their goals. Each of her siblings have started their own YouTube channel on arts and crafts.

Farjana is very competitive when it comes to other YouTubers, but she helps her siblings grow as much as she can.

"I started very late but I am doing well now. Thus, I understand the importance of starting things at the right time. I want my younger siblings and son to achieve their goals and do what they are good at," stated Farjana.

Farjana said that novice artists and YouTubers should work hard for two years without any expectation.

 "Popularity does not just come to you. It needs hard work, and hard work always pays off."