First, a splash of colour. At my last night of Muscat Festival, I took a photo of some women clapping and dancing and capturing the movement and as I took it I told a friend I’m going to paint that. Not having brought any acrylics to Oman, they are at my flat in Italy, I did this small study in watercolour and gold leaf. I’ve got some acrylics now thanks to the generousity of artist Yousuf Al Nahwi, who gave me some of his supplies and will be tackling a canvas soon.
My 2nd Festival Face is this half-blind Omani woman. At an earlier stage it looked like Voldemort meets Mother Teresa as I’d only draw the scarf, necessary as it defines the face, and her eyes, my starting point. The title is a problem: as JK Rowlings has copyright on the name Voldemort I can’t use that in the title, and I feel “Blind Omani Woman” is on par with “Untitled”. I received the proposal of calling it “Meskina” which is Arabic for poor woman, but that doesn’t feel right.
Any suggestions?
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This second WIP has been hanging around for a while. It’s part of the Decay Series: Scottish Ruins series, which you can see here. I did the pencil placement in UK back in November. I inked the outline when I moved into this flat mid-Jan and started the initial shading. Then this week, I started on the details of the castle as a counter to the precision of the portrait. Not sure, when I’ll next work on it, so you will have to check back again.
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