"BAAAAAA!"

Like the illustration in the previous post, this one also began as a sketch that was too much fun not to develop further. The difference being that this time, the sketching process started with a more studied approach as part of developing an idea for a kids' book with a friend, Alaa Kabalan (although it's now moved to a place where it might not necessarily be for children anymore).

It's drawn in pencil with some adjustment of the contrast on Photoshop. What I like most about this technique is that it gives a grainy feel, almost like an old movie. It's also a rather dark drawing so for me, it functions as a reminder of the sort of stories that I was most affected by as a kid. As I see it, getting a little frightened, creeped-out or sad is more memorable as there's a lot more to learn form that.

The most recent example of such a story I've come across was Henry Selick's animated version of Coraline. I've yet to read the original book so I'm not in a position to offer a comparison but the drawing in this post and the story it was made for were greatly inspired by the movie. Something that's often annoyed me is the number of encounters I've had with parents who deemed it too scary too show to their kids. A child's intelligence deserves more respect than that so I wanted to end this post with a recommendation.

"Ya Reyt" by Ashekman

This was one of the best collaborative efforts I have had the chance to work on so far. It was art directed by Michel Karsouny (who I most frequently collaborate with) through The Konstrukt, and David Habchy animated using my illustrations. This was the first project that I have worked on with David and there aren't enough good things that can be said about him.

Thanks go out to Omar and Mohamed Kabbani for choosing animation as the medium for this project, and also to Alain Nasnas for all his help.

El Molino

This is a poster for El Molino on Hamra street. Part of the project brief involved the words "go crazy" so it was fun drawing this. It was also nice working with an old classmate of mine, Amani Bou Dargham, who came up with the original idea from which to base this drawing on.

World Day of Social Justice

This is an image drawn for a collective project worked on in collaboration with COSV (www.cosv.org). It's part of an illustrated calendar where the image for each month represents a day celebrating a human right.

This illustration can be downloaded as a desktop background here:

http://www.cosv.org/public/download/February2011.jpg

And in high resolution here:

http://www.cosv.org/public/download/February2011_HR.jpg



I'd like to add that the folks over at COSV are some of the nicest people I ever had the pleasure to meet. 

Zawarib-Part II

A while ago, I worked on a cover design for Zawarib (see previous posts). Now, it's been adapted into a poster:

For more information, please visit www.zawarib.net

The Journal of Bizarre Illustration

Sometime in 2007, I came across a small notebook I had lying around my room. It was a bunch of colored papers that were Japanese-bound together, and it was completely empty. Back then, my work was mostly in high contrast black and white. It seemed like the right time to try something different.  I set two rules for myself:

1) No penciling. Everything had to be done directly with ink without a plan (I started breaking that rule halfway through the notebook).

2) Every page had to use a new pattern or combination of patterns that I had not attempted before.

Early in 2010, I ran out of pages and haven't found the time to start a new notebook (yet). I'd advise anyone reading who's an illustrator or likes to draw (or whatever else) to try this sort of ongoing project. There's no deadline, no style to be adhered to other than whatever rules you might impose upon yourself, and the only purpose is to try things out. It was extremely liberating.

Some of the drawings from this journal were exhibited at a larger size during the FLUKS exhibition on January 15th. The following are the ones that got shown (recolored here with a different limitation):