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

Bristol Drawings

My new favorite drawing paper is Bristol paper. It's very smooth and is great for markers or pen/ink. I did these over the course of a few months. I've been moving back and forth between geometric designs and organic designs, and as always I love color. I made some of these just on my own, and a few by request of a client. 

All of these are done on Bristol paper with Prismacolor markers and in some cases I used black/sepia india ink pens, and some metallic gold and silver pens. 

These are all 9x12 and unfortunately my home scanner is an 81/2 x 11, so some of the images are slightly cut off. 

Allahu:

Allahu Akbar:
God is Great

La Illaha Il Allah Muhammad ur Rasoolullah:

There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God

SubhanAllah:

Glorious is God

Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem:

In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

This calligraphy design (above)  was not originally my own.
It is one that I found online and really loved, and so I reproduced it here. 

2011-2012 Calendar

Every Ramadan, I like to give myself a project to do. It helps to pass the time while doing something productive, and keeps my happy, lack of food tends to make me a little cranky. So in Ramadan of 2011 I had the idea to make a calendar of designs: the first use of my amazing markers for calligraphy. I did most of the designs on plain paper and then pasted it onto colored cardstock. (8 1/2 x 11 inches)

This Calendar, I also started to experiment with my own calligraphy designs, conforming the arabic letters into different shapes, making them abstract, etc. 

Cover
(Bismillah)

Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem

In the Name of Allah, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

Allahu

The Name of God

Allahu Akbar

God is Great

Alhamdulillah

Thanks be to Allah

Subhanallah

Glory be to Allah

La Illaha Ill Allah Muhammad Rasool Allah

There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah

La Hawla Wala Quwwata Illa Billa Hil Aliyul Azheem

All Power and Might Belongs to Allah, the Most High, The Great

Al Fatiha

The Opening 

The first chapter in the Holy Qur'aan

Ayatul Kursi

Al Baqarah 

2:255

Surah Al-Isra

The Night Journey

17:24

In the Name of Allah, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

Lower the wing of humility to them [parents] out of mercy, and say

 "My Lord! Have Mercy on them, just as they reared me when I was a small child. 

More Paintings

Here are some more calligraphies that I did about 3 years ago. The first one is a 15x30 inch acrylic on canvas.

Calligraphy Says:

La illaha il Allah Muhammad rasool Allah

Translation:

There is only one God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God

This phrase is also called the shahada, and it represents the basic tenants of the Islamic belief. 

This painting is also acrylic on a 16x20 inch canvas. I decided to try a mosaic pattern on this painting, I thought it would be really neat if the background looked like shattered glass, or an opaque stained glass window. 

Calligraphy Says:

Allahu Akbar

Translation:

God is Great

These calligraphies are based on designs that I found online, but I did alter the writing somewhat in order to make them my own.