This is my father's high school college, "Kulliat Al-Raouda" for those who know it. I always wanted to paint it and never got around to do it, until I took up the challenges that Myrna posts on her blog, and the challenge was to spend 5 hours on a drawing, ok, so I spent only 4 hours, but that took a lot of discipline, also it gave a better result because I took my time, although I feel that the perspective is not precise and I think it is the photo that I took, or maybe my hand is lob sided.

I am experimenting with white Gouache, watercolour and hot pressed paper, I decided to paint the girl playing ukelele from my series that I did duirng my workshop with Donna Zagotta. I like the effect very much, I am also using the end of the brush to push the paint sometimes, and because of the hot press paper it makes of a beautiful technique.

This is Friday's challenge, a contour drawing using photshop but posterizing the image. I think it is really cool, I know the people that I drew are not exact, but it was fun to do.

My october challenge

This was October's challenge from Myrna's website ( I added her blog address for people to check it out), Myna is an inspiring artist that is constantly engaging people into working on improving their art.
This challenge involved painting according to our favorite artist/ artists style. As you may have noticed some styles are obvious like Matisse and Van Gogh, also Picasso (doesn't take a genius to figure that out). But I added artists from different parts of the world.
Working on this project was great and enjoyable, it also was very educating because it forced me to read and search different artists that I knew and some I just heard about, it also pushed me to work in different styles and techniques. I loved it especially Yafa is my subject matter. now my husband asked me to do the same for our younger daughter , Zahra, and that is my next project. I am getting busy.

Series

I attended last weekend a workshop with Donna Zaggotta, it was fabulous, I tried to do series of the same image by changing the value study, I liked the result and I learned a lot from this workshop. I used watercolour on hotpress paper, I also used white gouache , which is what Donna recommended.

Art in Progress

I decided to call my blog Art in Progress because as I paint and draw daily, posting my work on the blog will show the progress that I am experiencing.

I am also posting my second drawing challenge of Myrna's blog, the selfportrait drawing. this was done by looking into a mganifying mirror, so for those who know me please don't be scared.

Tulips!!

This is a painting I am donating to a women's shelter where my daughter volunteers, they are having a fund raising event on Wednesday, and ihope this painting raises a lot of money.

" Tea Party"

This started as a challenge by Myrna to do contour drawing, although we were supposed to do wire contour, I ended up doing blind contour, and it was fascinating, almost addictive.

So I decided to experiment with adding washes, I also wanted to compare paper, so I did the middle on Saunders and the top one on Lana, I am beginning to like working on Lana because of the effect I get when lifting the paint.

My Hiking Boots" Lanaquarelle block, coldpress 140 lb. 14"x20".

I should have known the importance of watercolour paper, this block gave me such a hard time, I am used to working wet-on-wet on either Saunders or Arches to create a soft edge, but this paper did not allow me and it wasn't forgiving at all. Basically the paint just sat there and did not mingle or mix well with each other. Aaaaahhhh. It was frustrating. I am going to experiment with this paper to figure out its characteristics.

Anyway, I still had fun with it, especially there is a story behind these boots.

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I am taking a break this weekend, Zahra is coming for a visit. We haven't seen her since begining of the school year.

I am still experimenting with it.. Stay tuned :)

Today I only sketched.

"Under My Umbrella", Watercolour
Saunders 200 lb. 28"x37"

Finally I finished this painting, it was quite challenging and I attempted to paint it three times, getting the right values and keeping the glow of the colours was not an easy task, but it was quite an experience and I learned a lot going through it.

Window of Opportunity, watercolour 16"x12", Saunders Bloc 140lb.

This is my first painting after I came back from France, the window in Le Petit Rousset, a very inspirational window. The bold colours in this painting shows that I have been influenced by Mike, Karen and especially Joyce, I am not sure if this is my style yet, so I will be painting more to find out.

I called this painting "Window of Opportunity" because this is what the trip to France gave me.

The Niagara Region wineries

I am planning on a trip to the wineries in the Niagara region in September for a couple of days. Just me and Fayez, we will check in a hotel and visit the wineries in the area, apparently they have organized tours and some of them you need to book in advance, I guess I need to start looking into that.

Peonies2

I painted theses peonies when I used to go to shirley's classes last year.

Peonies

My Trip to France

I am all excited about my trip to France on July 23 -Aug 7, it is my first trip to the Bordeaux region where an art workshop is taking place, by the famous artist Mike Bailey. I read about him in watercolour magazine, and I was impressed with his work. I think he is inspiring and actually this is what I was looking for.