Fruits

Years ago I had started a painting with a pineapple, and an orange, and while I completed these two elements, I never got around to finishing it. Until recently. 

It had been sitting in my basement/studio for a while, until I finally dug it out and decided to finish it. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I wanted to keep the fruit the focus of the painting, so I swirled the paint in light, blue/green colors. 

This is how the completed painting turned out. It's done with acrylic paints on a 12x24 canvas. 

'Alhamdulillah'

Thanks Be to Allah

I've recently gotten back into painting fruits and slightly abstract still life paintings. I'm currently working on a new one for one of my oldest friends, Kate. She wants a Tryptic (3-panelled) painting for her kitchen in her apartment. So that's my newest project. Check back for the completed painting soon!

Arabic Blessing

I recently got an order from a family friend to create a 'blessing' for her home. Their family is Christian but she loved the look of the Arabic script and requested that the blessing be written in Arabic. I was excited to do this painting, and got straight to work. I started to google some well known blessings in English and came across one that said 

"God Bless This House and All Who Enter It". 

I can read and write Arabic, but I can't really understand it fluently. A few words here and there maybe, but I can't translate sentences. So, I turned to my trusty friend, 'Google Translator'. I plugged in the phrase through the translator. There were a few words I could understand, so I knew it had to be somewhat correct, but to make sure I sent the translated sentence to my cousin Kayla who is studying Arabic in college, and she confirmed that it was right. 

So then I was off into painting mode. The woman who ordered the painting said that she wanted one similar to a red one I had made before: 

She saw this one at my house, and immediately loved it. I told her I would try and make one similar to that design. The thing about art, however, is that when you try and replicate something you've already done, it never turns out as well as the original. From my experience anyway. You're always holding yourself to a certain standard of what it should look like, which greatly limits your creativity. 

I like to use the original as an inspiration piece. To do something similar to it, but not replicate it. I am also always evolving as an artist, and when I made this painting years ago, I was at a different stage in my development as an artist. So in the new painting, I also wanted to use some of the techniques that I am using now. 

What ended up happening for the new painting is that I started off doing something completely different. I was really in the mood to play with detailed borders and I had to come up with a design for the new calligraphy. So this is the first one I came up with.

Both this and the original painting are done using acrylic paints on a 15x30 canvas. This is a more detailed image of the painting. 

I really loved the detailed border and the overall look of this painting. The color scheme is also something I had not done before. But then I quickly realized that this, apart from the size, was nothing like what the client had ordered. So I decided to do a second one, and let her choose which one she preferred. The second painting is closer in design and color to the original that she had liked. 

This one uses some colors more similar to the original, and also uses the same 'frame within a frame' idea. I added some gold accents using metallic paint into this painting as well. I love the way the gold glitters different in different lights. I was able to capture the difference in lighting more prominently in this image. 

You can see in this image how at certain angles the gold can be seen more or less readily, and shines differently in different lights. These two paintings were both a lot of fun and interesting to create. It gave me a challenge to try to rethink an idea I had already done, and update it to what I am doing now. 

Crafty Interlude II: Men's Scarf

I finally finished the scarf I was working on for my BIL. It took about two months, but it's done! I was going to go to Chicago this weekend to see him and my sister however the northeast was slammed last night with the snowstorm "Nemo" so my flight was cancelled, but on the the bright side, it's a good time to wear a scarf!

I had never made a mens scarf and was looking for a good masculine looking pattern, and so when I came across this pattern from a website called Men Who Knit I knew I had struck gold. The actual pattern says to use chunky yarn and cast on 30 stitches. I used worsted (medium) weight yarn and size 9 needles and doubled the pattern to make it 60 stitches. I also had to google how long a Men's scarf usually is and I think the general rule is that the scarf should be as tall as the man. Asad is about 6'1 I think, so the scarf is about 72 inches long and took 3 1/2 balls of yarn. 

The pattern is reversible and has 5 long cables going through it. I had never done cables before but this was a lot easier than I had imagined. The pattern is simple, but it knits up pretty slowly. 

Obviously a little more light in this picture

So then I needed a model for my scarf so I got my little brother to wear it. 

I had a lot of fun on this project but I think I need to focus back on my painting before starting another big knitting project. =)

A Crafty Interlude

Along with painting and drawing, my other great hobby is knitting. I love that its neat (no set up or clean up involved) and I can do it while watching TV or just relaxing. I got into knitting after one winter Saba and I were going to take a class at JoAnn Fabrics, and being that it was winter and we live in Albany, that day there was a huge snowfall and the class was cancelled. I was really looking forward to learning this new craft though, and so I resorted to the powers of youtube. 

This one woman named Judy basically showed me the ropes (or the yarns, haha). Her channel on youtube is called Knitting Tips by Judy. If anyone is interested in learning to knit, I would highly recommend her. She has videos of how to do a bunch of different types of stitches, how to knit on different types of needles, how to count rows, etc. 

I've been knitting for a little over two years now. I've made some blankets, scarves, and leg warmers. I'm still working on mastering the art of making 'fingers' for gloves, and decreasing stitches to make hats, but, all in good time. 

So when I first started knitting back in 2010, I got some size 8 needles and multicolored yarn (although I wish I had done this in regular yarn, because you could probably see the stitches better), and I watched a bunch of Judy's videos and knitted a whole bunch of stitches together for practice. I think I'm going to do it again with the more complicated stitches that I can do now, because it's so easy to go back to that piece and remember what a stitch looked like, and I have the patterns for the stitches written down with it. So anyway, this is the first thing I ever made: 

Yes, it looks funky, but it has my first practice stitches for a garter stitch, seed stitch, rib stitch, basket weave, bamboo stitch and purl. 

So then after that came my first actual piece, this blanket that I made with little hearts in it. Still one of my beginning ones, so I was still trying to figure out the basics in this one, but its all a variation of simple knit and purl stitches. This is the pattern for the Heart Blanket.

So now that I had gotten the hang of it, I tried to make a cowl for myself. I cannot remember where I found the knitting pattern for this, and I really wish I had saved it somewhere because I love the way it came out as a cowl. You could do this pattern on circular or straight needles, but I did them on straight because I wanted to gauge exactly how long the cowl would be. 

After that, I had the idea that I wanted to do something with a lace pattern. I really love the way lace looks, but most of the patterns I found were for crochet, which is a craft that is still a complete mystery to me. So I found some really nice large lace patterns in a book that I found from the craft store. If anyone is interested in the pattern for this, I'd be more than happy to send it your way. I believe it's called the 'Lacy Chevron'. I alternated between using a single thread and double thread, just for some variation, which is why the middle section looks a bit thicker. 

I remember when I went to Boston last year with my family, I saw this girl walking down the street with this huge white scarf, and I really loved the way it looked. It was chunky and warm, and I decided I wanted one just like it. I remember searching through stores and not really finding anything, and so I decided, perhaps I should just make one for myself. I pieced together this pattern myself just getting ideas from different stitches that I had seen.   

There are two knit libraries online that I use the most. This one from Knitting on the Net and this one from Knitting Queen. So anyway, I pieced together a couple stitches I liked and knit myself a huge infinity scarf that is extremely chunky and warm. This is me in my cozy scarf. 

And finally, in my knitting ventures. My sister Samira and my Brother-in-law Asad (whom I call Bia and BIL) decided that they wanted some knitted goodies. Bia requested leg warmers and BIL wanted a scarf (which I'm still working on). I had never made leg warmers before, and didn't even know that they made 9-inch circular needles before I started these. So I found this pattern which I thought was really cute and followed it exactly. For future leg warmer making though, I would probably make the top cuff a bit longer so it's easier to turn over boots. This is the site for the Spiral Leg Warmers

As for Asad's scarf, that's still in progress. I'll update that onto here whenever I finish. It's a multicolored scarf with 5 small cables so it knits up pretty slowly, and it has to be about 72 inches long. I am currently at 52 inches, so, it's getting there, slowly but surely. 

So I'm no where near professional level with knitting, It's just a hobby I do for fun, but it's exciting because I get warm and cozy things out of it. :)

Pots, Flowers and Water

I don't know what my fascination is with pots of all sorts. The round ones known in India as "matkas", and vases or "kundas". I really love pots and things coming out of them, largely flowers or water.  It started off with a drawing I did in my 2011-2012 Calendar: 

I really loved this piece, which led me to do a few more drawings with markers on bristol paper, that I have in my "Bristol Drawings" Post:

So far, I had only done pieces with pots using my markers. But then, I decided to transfer the idea into paint. This was the first one that I did in paint. It was the first in this series of paintings that I sold. All of the following paintings are done with acrylics on canvas. 

Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem
"In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful"
12x24

After completing this one, I decided to create another one similar to it. Instead of this one portraying the water falling out of the pot, it portrays the splash of the water as it hits the ground. This one is currently hanging at my mosque, the Al-Fatemah Islamic Center. 

Allahu
24x36

Upon seeing this painting at my mosque, I had a client ask me to make a few paintings for her new home, and so I created these based on the same theme. 

Fabi-ayyi Ala Rabbikuma Tukazhiban
"Which then of the bounties of your lord will you deny" (55:16)
24x36

MashAllah
'By the Will of God'
24x36

My client has a store in the mall in Albany called Arch, and this painting fit very well with the color scheme of the store so she put it up on the wall. I love the way the light hits the painting in the picture, you can really see the shine from the gold and silver paints. 

I had another client in town request a similar painting, but with a darker gold/black color scheme. This is the result: 

MashAllah
'By the Will of God'
24x36

I think thats pots have some element of mystery to them, and along with that they are so varied that there are an endless amount of ways that they can be used in paintings or drawings. I think that this is something that I'll keep doing for a while. 

Different Painting Styles

I love to paint. I love the way the pain spreads, I love the brush strokes, and I absolutely love the intricate designs that paint can make. These next two paintings are ones that I've done, taking advantage of that intricacy. It's also very inspired by indian-style designs that have many different shapes and colors going at the same time. I also experimented with breaking the space up on a canvas in a geometric way, with some interesting diagonals. Both of these are done with Acrylic paints on canvas

La illaha il Allah Muhammad ur Rasoolullah
'There is no God but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God'
8x24

Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem'In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful'
10x10

My artwork is usually very colorful and whimsical, and I like to experiment further with that style, while still maintaining the sophistication of the piece. In this next painting, I combined two painting styles: organic and geometric. The border is very organic and flows from one space to another and is very light and airy. The inner portion of the painting is much more rigid, but I love the effect that it created. The use of the metallic gold paint brought the border, the inner border and the lettering together cohesively. I made this painting for a client, as is now sold. It is done on canvas with Acrylic paint.

Ya Ali Madad'Oh Ali, Come to my Aid'
16x20

I recently tried my hand at glass paintings, after being inspired by some images of moroccan style jars that I thought were really beautiful. So I bought some old glass vases and containers from a flea market near my aunts house in West Virginia, painted them with glass paints and baked them. I had a hard time finding puff paint that would stay on glass and weren't meant to peel off. I ended up ordering some  Jones Tones Puff Paints in gold and silver, and went on my way. This was the end result:

The puff paints were a bit sticky even when they were completely dry, but a layer of modge podge pretty much took care of that. 

So now that I had this paint, I thought I'd see what would happen if I put it on a canvas. I just did a plain, gradient Acrylic color, a calligraphy and a little design. Kept it simple. This one was more popular than I had expected, so it might be something I'll explore again. 

Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem

"In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful"

12x12

So then for this one, I thought I'd go the opposite direction, and do something a little more modernistic. I had a lot of fun with this one, smudging colors and blending. The color scheme is a little more pastel-ish than I usually do. My friend Saba saw this one and claimed it right away! And it's so perfect for her. If you ever meet her, you can see how it fits her personality so well. Vibrant and spunky mixed with some serious iman (mA!). This is done with Acrylics on canvas.

Allahu Akbar'God is Great'
8x8

Finally, this last one was just a mix of intricate and funky. Since this canvas was so small I just did most of it as a border and layered the paint on pretty thick, so you can see the brush strokes in the center. I found a variation of this calligraphy online and tweaked it a bit to make it my own. This is done with acrylics on canvas. 

Allahu
8x8

Doilies and Water

I have a lot of fun experimenting with new techniques when it comes to my art work. In this post, I'll explain two techniques that I played around with. 

Doilies

My first technique is using a doily in order to help make a design. I thought this would be a great idea to try out, and you can see the result in these two paintings. The Doily helps to create a very intricate base layer of shapes, and then it's easier to just make even more details on top of that to really enhance it. Both these paintings are done with acrylics on canvas. 

16x20

Allahu Akbar

'God is Great'

 This painting I did as a wedding present

 for my sister and brother-in-law:

12x12

Allahu

Water

The second technique I played around with was water. I watered down acrylic paints in small bottles, until the paints were a consistency that I liked, and then I just started to move the paints and colors around on some canvas paper. It was messy, but I really liked the result. It almost looks like graffiti. The colors came out neat because some of the paint colors were thicker than others, so some spread a lot more. The watered down paint takes forever to dry though, and you can't move it until its completely dry, or else all the paint will move around again. 

16x20
Allah

Acrylic on Canvas Paper