Zainab's Art Adventures

Different Same , by Zainab Salman For several years, I have always been double-minded about using ink for anything . I write solely with fineliners, and never fountain pens, and use ink only when I feel a sudden urge to experiment with calligraphy or something that can only be carried out with ink. This is largely because of all my unpleasant experiences with ink, most of which end up with a wonderful piece of work ruined with blotches of ink all over. I have never known a medium that can be messier than ink. However, for this piece, I felt like I wanted to use ink. And gladly, the results were much better than my expectations. :D For this painting I used a compass (for the circle patterns), a grey fineliner, green ink and a reed pen.  The name of the painting, Different Same , has a lot to do with the meaning behind it. If you look closely, there is a lot of repetition in the design - all the shapes, although each slightly different in design and size, are essentially t

Hey there! I've been inactive for quite a long time, but I'm back now. :) This post contains sketches I've been making all this while, mostly pen. Those of you who have been following my blog probably know my preference for using pens over pencils for sketching. Something I love drawing: my hands and feet. I used to draw hands a lot but recently I realized that it had been a long time since I last did that. not bad, eh? I'm definitely NOT a natural. :p my sketchbooks are filled with lots of failed sketches like this one, lol. when you're bored during a workshop... I don't often get the opportunity to draw people; largely because no one sits still long enough to be sketched. However, sometimes I do doodle people during programs etc. when no one is looking. ;D  I drew these random people while waiting at an airport lounge with nothing else to do. I guess it isn't very ethical to stare at people while you're drawing them (o

This is a painting I made digitally. This is one of the first good pieces of digital art I've made in a long time. Although I'm reasonably good at graphic designing and I'm not that bad at drawing traditionally either, I really do suck at digital art. Anyway, this is one of the not-so-bad ones, something I made fairly recently. I honestly don't have much to say about this. I'm sure this has some sort of 'meaning' behind it but I'm not sure what exactly. So I'm going to leave it to you to work out what it means, do let me know in the comments. xD Untitled digital painting

Long time, no post, I know . :/ I've been busy but I hope to be active on this blog once more. :) Here are some pen sketches which I made in Kashmir (on a trip to Sharda; Neelum Valley). I have been meaning to post these for more than a month but procrastination always gets in the way. :/ Kashmir was a wonderful place, definitely one of the most beautiful places I've been to. We got a chance to explore the place, and to absorb in the sights, sounds and smells of nature. These sketches (some reasonably refined, others quite unfinished) are an exploration of the natural beauty of the valley. Unfortunately (and contrary to the title of this post) I couldn't sketch any of the mountains. They just seemed too huge in their size, and too varied in their features and I really doubted I could capture the landscape with my pen and paper, although I do wish I had at least made an attempt to sketch them. But I did make sketches of other things. :) Here they are. This one was the

One of the things I   enjoy doing most is typography/ hand-lettering. It is something that I'm doing very often, and most of the time, I'm doing it instinctively. Luckily, I don't even need any fancy materials for it. Most of the time; I simply use these black pointers by a local company but once I also got a Staedtlar Triplus Fineliner  (and hey, these are not   affiliate links! ;D) and that lasted longer. Anyhow, here are some quotes I read somewhere and really liked, so I typograph-ed them. (I know typography is a noun but because I do it so much, I really think it should be a verb as well as a noun. :D). This quote by Cyril Connolly is one of my all-time favorites. It currently hangs in our study space, to remind us something very important. :) "Better to write for ourselves and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." -Cyril Connolly (click on this for a closer look) I made this one with brown and white acrylic paints on c