In the summer of 2016, I had to drive every morning for a few weeks to care for my mother at a stroke rehabilitation center in a small town in New Jersey. It was the most difficult time of my life. The drive there was for 40 minutes on a most pleasant road with some beautiful landscapes; had I not been so scared and anxious, I might have enjoyed the ride. One day, the 8 AM morning light was particularly special, a hint of Autumn filled the air and I managed to stop on a small bridge over a river bed to take a few photos. It was so peaceful and beautiful, I thought one day, if I got out of this nightmare, I'd paint it. A year later, I managed to do so... it's a small oil on canvas, but I'm happy with it. I'm still not fully recovered from the trauma I went through, but painting this has managed to soften some of the memories from a time and place I wish I could forget.

These days it's so easy to chronicle anything. Before the advent of phone cameras, the idea of taking several photos of each stage of a painting was time consuming and cumbersome, let alone taking a video. But now, it's so easy, and well worth it for a number of reasons. Seeing the progression of a work is not only fascinating for viewers but also for the artist! We can quickly check our progress when away from the portrait, compare to previous stages and make decisions about how we want the painting to progress. 

Below is my first attempt to chronicle the making of a portrait. You'll discover the process of my painting, how I sketched it out first, blocked in color and shade and how I changed the proportions of the face a couple of times, going so far as wiping out half the face only to repaint it again (it was too long!) At the end, I've revealed the main source photo from which I worked... It was a fun process. I discovered that viewing the painting in a photo on a smaller device (iPhone and then iPad) allowed me to take a "virtual step back" from the canvas that allowed me to make choices I may not have made otherwise.

I finished an oil portrait today of the daughter of a dear friend of mine from college days. My friend posted a picture of her daughter, Lara Nour, on occasion of her 14th birthday some weeks ago. I was drawn to the photo and asked if it would be okay to paint it.

Usually, I like to do portraits based on my own sketches and photos and usually of someone I can meet in person. But given that she lived half way across the globe, this single photo would have to do. I can't always explain why I am drawn to paint a particular image, but I think in this case, her pose and gaze were particularly engaging; possessing a sort of innocent wisdom of a teenage girl on the verge of womanhood. 

We then exchanged emails and the children asked me questions (listed and answered below). They also sent me these beautiful drawings based on my own paintings!

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- Have you always known that you have wanted to be an artist?
No, not really. As a child, I liked to draw and paint to fill my time when I wasn’t doing homework or playing with friends. When I was sick in bed with the flu, we didn’t have electronic games or even much to watch on TV here in Egypt, so I spent a lot of time with colouring books and my sketchbook. When I was about 15, I realized that I could be an artist and that whatever I did as an adult would have to be related to art somehow.

- How do you make your paintings so realistic?
Practice! I spent many long hours staring at whatever was in front of me, looking very carefully at what I saw and trying to make my hand draw what I saw. Being observant is very important for an artist, because that’s how you SEE how things look… how a shadow falls on the ground, how many colour greens actually make up a plant, and how something closer to you must be drawn bigger than what is farther from you even though the object closer to you may actually be physically smaller than the other object! Drawing something realistically means drawing what you see, not what you know.

- How do you create reflections in the water?
Good question! This is one of the hardest things to draw. Again, you have to draw what you see…which takes practice… a reflection should be the same colour as the object being reflected.. In the painting some of you chose to draw, the one of the palm trees and the Nile river, you’ll notice that I used the same green colour of the trees in the water but I used short brush strokes to make it look like water. Then I used a little bit of blue and white from the sky in the same way… and so the combination makes a reflection!

- Have you a particular painting that is really special to you?
This is a very tough question. I don’t think I can choose only one painting - there are many. And the reasons for favourites are usually because they have, in some way, accomplished something I worked hard to achieve. Sometimes it could be that I got that reflection JUST right, or I managed to paint a face to look like the person… painting is always a challenge and when you achieve the goal, the painting becomes special. 

- How long does it take you to complete one painting?
I usually take one or two days to complete one painting. I work intensively for several hours at a time (with breaks of course!) until I finish. I don’t like leaving a painting unfinished because I then get bored of it :)

- What different media do you work in?
I mainly paint with oil, but I also draw with charcoal and pastel. Leaning to become an artist I have tried almost every medium, from bronze sculpture to batik, but usually an artist chooses a favourite medium pretty quickly.

- Where do you get your inspiration from?
This is probably the hardest thing for an artist. For me, I have always been inspired by my everyday life in Egypt. The scenery, the architecture, the people. But sometimes inspiration can come from one’s imagination and feelings; the key for me is to continually be observant - to SEE what is around me and try to show it to people in a different, beautiful way.
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