A year ago, my Aunty Latifa died after a long, on and off battle with breast cancer. I have a few sketches which either remind me of her, or were influenced by the way I felt concerning her at the time. I was never really close to my aunt, but we did share some one-on-one moments and we did make each other laugh sometimes. But when she became really sick towards the end (she was in a vegetative state for over a year), that is when I developed this strange one sided relationship with her. Because I visited her quite early in the morning, I was usually alone with her in the room. And then it felt like it was just me and her, like I could tell her my innermost secrets and she would understand. Whereas before I would never have been comfortable just holding her hand or stroking her hair, it was second-to-nature when she fell ill.
It’s been two years now and seems way, way longer. She has almost entirely disappeared from my life and my imagination. I don’t mistake anyone’s voice for hers and my mind has stopped playing tricks on me where she’s concerned. She’s almost completely gone. But I don’t think I’ll ever erase her number from my phone.
Filed under: Fashionistas, Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: b-spot, fashion, ink, Kuwait, pen, sketch, victims
You and I see things differently. A chewed apple in my mouth tastes different than a chewed apple in yours. You may love shoulder pads, but to me they are a representation of a decade best left behind.
Filed under: Sketchbook, Sometimes I think I'm a photographer, The Bspot | Tags: dress, gown, ink, Kuwait, pen, photography, sketch
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: black, ink, Kuwait, paper, pen, Ramona the Pest, sketch
Who remembers Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby? The Ramona books were among my favorite in the third grade. And I loved the illustrations by Alan Tiegreen. His Ramona had skinny legs and a big head with a bob of scraggly hair. The books epitomized the way I thought life should be at the age of 8. This particular sketch reminded me of the way Ramona would storm out, fists clenched and one particular incident with apples in the basement. It’s a scene where Ramona finds a crate of apples and takes one bite from each and discards it. Her theory is (or it could have been something her sister, Beatrice, told her once) that the best bite of an apple is the first.
Filed under: Color Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: color, depilation, hair, Kuwait, poster paint, sketch, wax
i hate you hair
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: humility, ink, Kuwait, nudity, pen, shame, sketch
no nip slips here
I dream a lot that I’m naked and exposed. Of course a dream like that would probably suggest vulnerability, weakness and humiliation. At least that’s what I think. The worst naked dreams are those when I’m in a public (or even private) toilet and I can’t go because the door is missing or there are too many people in the bathroom with me. I get stage fright as it is. And another thing: what do you cover when you find yourself spontaneously denuded? There’s a story about a veiled lady on an airline who failed to lock the lavatory door. When someone accidentally walked in on her, she covered her head, not her private bits. I think if I ever found myself in a situation where my clothes just blew off me, I’d fall to the ground and curl into a fetal position. That will take care of the front bits and with the other hand cover the back (mind you it would need to be a big hand). What would you do?
Filed under: Color Sketchbook, Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: atom, color, Kuwait, science, sketch
dizzy
Filed under: Color Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: bspot, chicken, color, eggs, ink, Kuwait, pen, sketch, Sketchbook
cluck cluck
Have you ever had an invisible friend? Or further still, an invisible life? A life that only you and a few others know about, that many of your most loved ones don’t, or can’t even imagine, exists. Summer is about to end. Next week, an old reality will set back in as my other life returns. A life where I’m a little girl again; not little as in ‘young’, but little as in being denied the responsibility which comes with the practical meaning of freedom. But until then, I’ll be feeding my invisible chicken, feasting on their invisible eggs and enjoying my invisible life.
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: cling, ink, Kuwait, pen, personal, rant, space
elbow space please!
Filed under: airplane timelines, The Bspot | Tags: amira behbehani, flight, ink, institut du monde arabe, kuwait airways, pen, plane, sketch, thuraya al-baqsami, time
These were done on board Kuwait Airways in late 2006. I was flying with Amira Behbehani (to my left) and Thuraya Al-Baqsami (on my right). We were en route to Paris for a group show at the Institut Du Monde Arabe (also with us was Suhaila Al-Najdi sitting in Business Class the lucky duck). It must have been one of the most unpleasant daytime flights ever. The cabin crew had asked passengers to draw the window blinds and turned off all lights. Thuraya was really funny because she wasn’t going to take it sitting down. She finally asked-well, told-the flight attendant that she knew what they were up to; that they wanted the passengers to be asleep throughout the flight so that they didn’t have to worry about serving us! Soon after her complaint, the lights were all on again and people were starting to wake up from their siestas. The drawings I’ve included here are a fraction of the ones I drew on that plane. I started off in an orderly fashion but soon enough I started losing it. I came to a point where it didn’t matter what I drew as long as I kept my hand busy. (more…)
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: balance, bspot, ink, Kuwait, pen, sketch
well-balanced girls
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: anorexia, disease, ink, innards, Kuwait, leboutin, pen, sketch
i don't want to eat
Filed under: Sketchbook, The Bspot | Tags: architect, architecture, birdhouse, birds, canary, flying, ink, Kuwait, pen, people
we float and fly
Sometimes I fancy myself a bit of an architect. With this sketch, done on August 4th, I didn’t get very far. But I guess there’s as much architecture in a birdhouse as there is in a palace.
*They Might Be Giants, Birdhouse in Your Soul
Filed under: airplane timelines, The Bspot | Tags: airplane, cairo, color, diary, eyes, Kuwait, ramadan, trip, wataniya
cairo post-apocolypse
This plane sketch was done in my ‘Ramadan’ diary. Some may remember it. I love being up in the air, it really clears my mind. And on this crucial trip, the distance and change of scenery allowed me to open my eyes, which I had left closed for too long.
Filed under: airplane timelines, The Bspot | Tags: airbus 330, airplane, cairo, counting, doodle, egypt, Kuwait, novair, sketch, tally marks, time
what crawls down your skirt?
This was a short flight aboard a rented Novair Airbus 33o (I think Norwegian). In a tumultuous period of my life, I found peace at 35,000 feet. I was alone on this trip, attending my friend Dagher’s wedding. It was my last trip to Cairo [I have been to Cairo since I posted this].
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: In a Parallel Plane, The Bspot | Tags: bait lothan, children, feeding, Kuwait, love, puppy, seals, surrealism
seals in kuwait
I was walking from my car to Bait Lothan the other day and my eye caught this. I did a double take. Seals in Kuwait. As I marveled at my luck in accidentally discovering these creatures, a wayward puppy seal came over and tugged at my pant leg. I thought, she must be hungry. So I threw my empty water bottle at her and she gobbled it up like a good little girl.
Every now and then I drive past my secret Kuwaiti seals and throw a treat or two for their ravenous mouths to feed.
Filed under: Experimentation, Fashionistas, Ghadah the Poser, The Bspot | Tags: crate, dismantle, foam, improvisation, Kuwait, planks, poser, recycle, reuse, theatre, wood
so unassuming
A few days ago I received some of my paintings and drawings from The Third Line gallery in Dubai. The crate which carried my paintings weighed 65 kilos. The smaller one was much lighter but also heavy. To facilitate disposal, I decided to dismantle the crate piece by piece. The wood and foam were in excellent condition so I called my friend, H and asked if she wanted to come by and see if she could use any of it. (more…)
