Nick Shea began selling caricatures in Boston Common in 2017. A combination of a Boston Globe feature and a cohort of TikTok users propelled Shea’s portraits into Boston’s pantheon of local celebrities.

His style is simple, originating from his days doing graffiti. “You gotta be quick with tagging,” he said. “I wanted to have a symbol that was just a basic thing that was easy to draw.”

He further honed his craft by drawing people on the train, where, with constant movement, capturing everyone in a short period required a simple, easily replicable design.

Despite its success, the Shea-face is not something he claims as uniquely his own. “I’m not trying to say I invented this face. It’s just something I’ve enjoyed drawing, and it resonated with me,” he explained.

Shea called Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” design a direct inspiration. Parallels to “Kilroy,” the WWII tag of many American GIs are also apparent.

Even before starting his career as a caricaturist, he identified the Commons as one of his favorite places. “I’ve always just loved hanging out here. You know, I got baby pictures like in the frog pond and stuff like that,” he said.

In 2021, at the tail end of lockdown, he started setting up shop more consistently. Complete with his Sharpie, a pocketful of index cards, and a sign made from pizza boxes (unused, of course), A sketch from Shea became an outlet for many people in those trying times.

“It was a different vibe out here, for sure. Like people didn’t know how to talk to people, and people were coming up to me [with] like strange confessions.”

Though he said passersby have chilled out in recent years, he keeps a question of the week on hand to keep the conversation lighthearted while he draws. “Because if not, it’s going to go nowhere. I’m going to sit here in silence, or it’s going to be like, ‘Well, let me tell you about my uncle.’”

In the aftermath of his 2022 viral moment, Shea said he rejected many offers that pushed him out of his comfort zone.

“There were so many people being like, ‘Oh, come be on this thing, do this thing.’ And I was like, this is too much… I just want to keep doing what I’m doing in the park,” he said.

“It put me into a really bad mental spot for a little bit because I didn’t know who to trust, what to believe. Do people actually like me or is this just like just a thing on the internet?”

Shea, too, rejected being a local celebrity. “People have absolutely told me that, and I think it’s very flattering. You know, it’s great, it’s a very positive thing that people are saying to me. But I really do believe that people are just supporting my art.”

“I think if I was to, like, be a celebrity, then it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m here. I am endorsing this thing’ or something like that. I’m just trying to show you my art and express myself… I don’t care if people know about my diet or my Revlon ad or something like that.”

Now three years removed, Shea says the opportunities he has received have felt more authentic and more about his art than any attempt to cash in on his ‘boy of the week’ status.

When Shea is missing from the commons, he lives the life of a working artist. Each day is a little different. Sometimes, he celebrates Van Gogh’s birthday at the Museum of Fine Arts. Other times, he’s performing at house shows, painting electrical boxes, working on music, or just otherwise trying to enjoy life.

While his sketches are what you may know him for, he also boasts an expansive discography of music. His most recent release, “Nicholas,” came out at the end of March.

Like many self-titled projects, the content of “Nicholas” provides a look into the mind of its author. “I made it at the same time as my album, “Mad Rap Verses,” which was much more about just having random songs. Whereas this one, I wanted it to be a little more personal or like, more story-driven,” he said.

“It just made me think about who I am. How if I’m going to paint a picture of myself, you know, everything on this album should reflect that.”

One song, a bonus track titled “Personas (Song I wrote When I was 15),” is, as the name would suggest, a remaster of some of Shea’s earliest work.

“The original audio is on my Bandcamp, and it’s horrible. It’s the worst. Just like quality-wise, it’s unlistenable,” he said.

Shea laughed as he explained that he had changed none of the lyrics. However, he finds them corny now; the “Lyrical, spherical, miracle” type verses just hit differently at 15.

“It’s adolescent, it’s painful, sometimes it’s hard to listen to. But I look back proud, you know, because I’m just so happy that, like, I’ve stuck with it,” he said.

The album has a jovial sound to it, and it has a deep love for the city of Boston. “I try to have it be a localized album where, you know, some people might not get some references, and stuff might only matter to people like who grew up in Orient Heights, East Boston.”

He also raps extensively about food, something he attributes to growing up in an Italian household. Pizza, specifically, has always been a significant slice of Shea’s persona as an artist. He called Santarpio’s Pizza and Milano’s Delicatessen the best pizza in East Boston. His current go-to and the “bakery slice” referenced in his song, “Pizza,” is Parziale’s Bakery in the North End.

Shea has achieved the success that many young artists hope for. His best advice was to be consistent.

“People know me from Boston Commons because I am there all the time. I think it’s just, you gotta keep showing up… if you do it once, people are like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. They made a song.’ But if you do it a hundred times, they’re like, ‘Damn, he put out a hundred songs. There’s gotta be something to this if he’s doing it this much.’”

“Nicholas” is now streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. Shea can be reached at @realnickshea on Instagram.