This academic year has been an exciting one in which I feel like the work I have done on this course has begun to influence the way I work on projects outside of university. Mainly I have been trying to have a more freed up approach towards the work I create. Rather than jumping from A to Z and letting the work build upon itself to create stronger over all pieces.
Some of the things that I usually work on outside of uni are usually tattoo designs for friends which are fun to do and does gave me the idea of perhaps creating a look book and creating a pop up at a tattoo parlour for people to come to but thats still a work in progress.
Some other more humorous commissions I have done is draw onto the back and front of a blank tambourine!
Another thing that I have always been passionate about since the beginning of my artistic journey has been drawing onto the surfaces of surfboards which then go on to be used for it purpose by their owners. I think this has always been the most fulfilling creative thing I do. This is probably cause I’ve always had such a close relationship with board sports growing up and to see a board doing what its supposed to do with my art accompanying is quite a rewarding feeling.
I’ve only managed to put my designs onto two surfboards this year but feel like they are my strongest yet as I feel like I take more into consideration the aesthetics of the board as well as the culture surrounding surfing and art.
Below is a base sketch for a commissioned board I did over the easter break. The client had an interest in the ocean as well as in Arabic geometrics and wanted a combination of the two.
The board was originally completed with an orange finish but there was a last minute change of decision to make it a baby blue colour.
I’ve also begun attempting to create designs for a mural I will potentially be creating this summer for a film production companies office called Liquorice Productions. The brief was to create an urban looking mural that incorporated the companies slogan ‘Tastes like Liquorice’.
I then went on to create a few different designs to see what the client liked the most.
As the companies based in my home Dubai in the first design I incorporated a geometric pattern along with the companies colours of teals and light blues. Then with the words tastes, like and liquorice turned into patterns running from the top to the bottom of the design.
The second design had a different approach with more bold lines with a variety of interacting shapes and the words of the slogan more so adding to the shapes rather than having them flat colours.
The client chose the second design with the request to have the slogan more important so I then went on to have the slogan put right across the front of it.
A personal project that I have also been working on is creating my own brand. The idea is to call it Khali Wali, which is an Arabic phrase loosely meaning ‘Forget about it’. A term that has resonated with me in recent years and has helped me through previous struggles and has appeared in previous pieces of work. The original idea for this brand was for it to be a reflection of my upbringing in a Middle Eastern country which was spent in nature camping in the deserts, beaches and mountains experiencing the traditional cultures before there was that large western influence that is commonly known today. With this core idea I also want it to represent an outdoors lifestyle that also ties in a respect for nature.
As a first step I wanted to create t-shirts with khali wali written on the front with a design of three Jambiya daggers on the back as I had the idea of wanting some of the profits to go towards a good cause such as the World Wildlife fund and so forth.
However I dont want it to just be a clothing brand and feel like the aspect of putting designs onto various boards would also play a part in it.
All in all its an ambitious project that still needs a lot of thought and hours put into but I look forward to see where it goes!
