Filed under: fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylics, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanese, oil pastels, painting, portrait, singer
sorry, i screwed up your nose yesterday
Filed under: fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylics, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanese, painting, portrait, singer, Step By Step
some more drip drip drippage
Filed under: Sketchbook, Sketchbook Twenty Ten | Tags: balloon, breast, breast cancer, chair, fashion, hot air, ink, Kuwait, model, pen, sketch
page 74. not jet propelled
Filed under: Celebrity, fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylics, diva, fairuz, lebanese, painting, singer, Step By Step
you still have the same mouth but something is different
Filed under: Celebrity, fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylic, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanese, oil pastels, painting, portrait, Step By Step
it's still not her mouth! but i'm keeping it for now because she needs to sing
She’s driving me mad, even though I am enjoying painting her. She looks like the spawn of David Bowie and Tori Amos if they ever got together. Her mouth was so easy to sketch but painting it has proven rather difficult. I’m getting there though. (more…)
Filed under: The Book of Traffic Lights & Other Observations | Tags: book, horses, ink, Kuwait, notes, observations, pq, restaurant, sketch, tolerance, traffic, waiting
double horse
Filed under: Sketchbook, Vertical Sketch | Tags: anorexia, atkins, diet, disease, ink, Kuwait, lie, note passing, pen, reunion, self-image, Sketchbook
reunion
Filed under: Celebrity, fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylic, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanese, painting, singer, Step By Step
Fairuz you will get your mouth back soon. i'm just having a little trouble with it at the moment
She’s proving to be a little difficult. It’s very hard getting bits and pieces from one photo or another. I really need to feel her and it’s not happening yet. But it’ll come. I can’t wait to get back to my girls. At least they don’t fight back. Not like Fairuz anyway. (more…)
Filed under: Sketchbook, Vertical Sketch | Tags: daughter, ink blot, love, mother, perception
dear prudence
In case anyone has or hasn’t noticed, I’ve been going through some boxes of old sketchbooks and scrap paper I’d hoarded (everything’s art, eyes rolled) over the years. I found so many partially used sketchbooks such as this one, mostly empty paged. It’s such a shame, I don’t know why I did that. I was so scattered. And when I go through them now, everything seems so fresh again. This is a smaller format sketchbook which opens on top, therefore being dubbed the ‘vertical’ book. (more…)
Filed under: fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylic, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanese, painting, singer, Step By Step
you lookin' at me?
Filed under: Celebrity, fairuz, Step By Step | Tags: acrylic, acrylics, diva, fairuz, Kuwait, lebanon, painting, song, Step By Step
fairuz and the flower in her hair
When I painted Um Kulthum, it was because I was inspired by an exhibition at 360 mall to paint her and not her music or who she was. I don’t claim to have an understanding of Fairuz but I know how I feel when I see her or hear her music. She and her songs evoke memories of my childhood whereas Um Kulthum did not. Um Kulthum was a challenge I enjoyed the experience of standing up to; Fairuz I am painting with something more than that, a personal treasure of memories. So let’s see what happens!
I am using some photographs. But I feel that I don’t really need them. This sketch I did from memory and feeling. I might need the pictures just to inspire me or get some technical help and color inspiration. (more…)
Filed under: airplane timelines, Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: aboard, airplane, box, doodles, emirates airways, kuala lumpur, Kuwait, madness, sketch, spider, time
i eat time for breakfast
I’m going to start posting my airplane sketches on here. These are drawings I do on a plane. Because I’m a nervous flyer-well, I used to be anyway-my sketching style changes. There is a purpose to most of these drawings and that’s to help me pass time.The drawings are different and distinguished in several ways. First of all, I don’t use my beloved Isograph pen. It took me years (and two accidental self-inflicted wounds which I like to pretend are tattoos) to realize that the depressurization on the plane is too much for this mechanical pen. I usually end up with massive ink leaks. Instead, I use a regular felt tip or ball-point pen. Secondly, there are the squares, or sometimes tally marks that serve as a time-telling device. I don’t wear a watch so I draw these squares and fill them win whenever I feel a minute or five or ten have passed. Lastly, and this is something I realized just today-after a sketch or two-that I tend to go a little insane on a plane. I start to draw spirals and squiggly lines as you will notice in these pictures. The drawings here are just some that I did on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kuwait via Dubai. (more…)
Filed under: National Council Days, Notes & Doodles | Tags: arts, boggle, culture, doodles, Kuwait, letters, national council, notes
i love writing for the sake of writing sometimes. when i was six or seven i loved writing the number 8. in math, i would always be wishing that the answer was 8 so that i could write it. my mom got me a giant marker and i remember just writing 8's on any surface i was allowed to write on
I don’t remember the exact dates but for a period of around three years (1997-2000) I was employed at the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. I started out quite gung-ho until about a year into my job when I discovered that my work there was redundant. I think two other people were assigned to do the same thing and I was just another office accessory.
I had my own room so I could more or less do whatever I liked, and I liked drawing and writing. My journalist friend, Fatma Al-Saffar knew I had a penchant for sketchbooks so she used to bring me these wonderful writing tablets from the newspaper she was working for at the time. I also had, believe it or not, a game of boggle in my desk and I used to play it all the time. As much as I enjoyed finding and scribbling down the words, I found the visual quite pleasing as well. So these are some pages from one of the writing pads. (more…)
Filed under: Sketchbook, Sketchbook Twenty Ten | Tags: infection, ink, itch, Kuwait, pen, sketch, Sketchbook, wedgie
page 73. bitchy itch
Filed under: Contemporary Art Auction 2010, Laura Boushnak | Tags: arab, art, auction, contemporary, corniche club, irani, Kuwait, Laura Boushnak, painting, photography
Laura sent me these pictures today and I loved them too much not to include them in my blog. The painting certainly looked more impressive at night! Thank you, Laura, for the pictures. I’m going to try to get some more from you! (more…)
Filed under: Experimentation, iPod & Other Things Apple | Tags: apple, camera, itunes, Kuwait, mac, photo, visualizer
fun with itunes. it's not just about the music
I’m sure this has been done a million times before, but it’s always good to have a camera handy when experiencing the itunes visualizer! (more…)
Filed under: Contemporary Art Auction 2010, Eventful | Tags: aileen agopian, auction, contemporary art, khaled al-sayed, Kuwait, new york, ph7, photographer
i loved the paddles. here is a hand that knows good art
the auctioneer aileen agopian, director of contemporary art, new york
I didn’t attend the auction last night so asked PH7 photographer Khaled Al-Saleh to send me some photos. It was fun going through them and seeing who was there from the comfort of my own room!
Filed under: Contemporary Art Auction 2010, Eventful | Tags: art, auction, charity, contemporary, culture, event, farideh lashai, k's path, Kuwait, Paintings, rokni haerizadeh, shurooq amin
this is one of my favorite works at the auction and I'm happy to announce that it was sold for $37,000
I am very happy to announce that the auction last night raked in over half a million dollars! 30% of the proceeds will benefit K’s Path, which aims to bridge the gap between the humans and animals who call this country their home. And because things happen or tend to be clumped in threes, I’m going to post the top three earners (one of which happens to be Kuwaiti!) (more…)
Filed under: Sketchbook, Sketchbook Twenty Ten | Tags: broken, cast, child, daughter, front row seat, ink, Kuwait, leg, mother, pen, relationship, runway, Sketchbook
page 71. completely, comfortably cool
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Home | Tags: acrylics, contemporary, homes, interior, Kuwait, modern, painting, tradition, yelwa
yelwa, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 300cm x 179cm
This painting currently resides in Tareq’s office. I think it is my most travelled (within Kuwait and out) painting. It has yet to settle down in a permanent home. It is a little nomadic so I don’t see that happening in the near future. For now, it looks great where it is.
