Hello, Goodbye

Kazuhiko Sano was my instructor for the Narrative Illustration class and some other directed study classes at the Academy of Art University/San Francisco.

I honestly loved his classes as he was very encouraging and his works were very inspiring. On the other hand, I am one of many others who used to pose for him. You can see above some of the paintings where he used my figure as a reference. I can't be more delighted having been part of his work and talent.

However, Kazu passed away a while ago and we all miss him dearly. Lois Wang decided to launch an art project to honor his memory. You can check out some of the work that was done by his friends and students as a dedication for him at www.tributetokazu.blogspot.com.

Thank you Kazu...

"ARE YOU READY..."

A 12" x 16" oil on board painting of Jonathan Davis; the lead vocalist of the metal band KoRn who inspired me greatly.

Truth Can Be...

As we were hanging out in New York City that day (ano tgul bil 7ara), Shereen pulled out a paper from her bag and showed me a little note that she once wrote and wondered if we could put it into a short video. And I said "No"... Just kidding... We started taking the shots right away. Enjoy :)

Digital Paining...

I discovered that my true joy comes by working traditionally. However, I also try to keep my digital work fresh by practicing. The work above represents two pictures that were redrawn and painted digitally using Photoshop. As you may have noticed, each of them has a totally different flavor reflecting certain characteristics and feeling...

Soaring Stage

I finally got the chance to throw out a bunch of watercolor pieces I've been working on. I'm quite happy with the outcome... I didn't have to spend much time worrying about any details this time, instead, I was freely letting out some negative energy.

Little Me

An experimental sketch showing one half of my face at an early age and another at the age of 25 incorporated into one photo. Whenever I look at it I always wonder if we were born with certain personalities that develop but don't change...

I'm thinking I must try this once again when I'm 50, since my head will be more rounded and it'll be a better match with little me!

Downtown Oakland Map

"Design Your City" is a graduate thesis project by Denisa Trenkle. She's a graphic designer whom I helped to create a 2D/3D style map for downtown Oakland. In her project she aimed at promoting this region by an efficient use of space and adaptive reuse and rehabilitation of existing structures and improving public facilities.

Blackout

boXes... (by Shereen Amarin)

I have learnt to block any kind of human related emotions… the titles are nothing but fake to me… I don’t believe in friends forever, because there’s no such thing as forever… I don’t believe in love either… love doesn’t last… those beliefs save me tons of future disappointments and they help me enjoy the moment…friends of the moment…love of the moment… You can’t keep a candle burning…the spark and the thrill are always in the new experiences that we encounter… everything else lies in the common comfortable used up zone that we get used to after the fire burns out…

The moment can be tricky though…I should know that…I’ve been trusting people blindly…coz if the future doesn’t exist they won’t betray me…but the future happened and it is now the past…and everything I told them in secrecy has been coming back to me in the strangest loops…sometimes in the exact words…other times, a hint behind a twisted truth…the moment was supposed to be simple, but whether we want it or not, we always seem to be getting ourselves in the midst of it all… A knot in an empty space creates tension and attracts us like silly particles having no control upon ourselves… we seek drama…and none of us can keep their mouth shut…we add more tangles to the knot…until it’s a world of weaved up connections and dead ends… we either spend the rest of our lives trying to untangle and break free… or we simply escape but soon enough run into a brand new knot…

The dark side of the moment is that the moment always passes… and in every moment we are born, we live and then we die… in every moment we create the first knot…our belly button and then we grow into a huge entanglement…and we burn out and the blood drains out of our earthly flesh and to the earth we go back…we die… in every moment there is a box… in every person a box… and a million possibilities… We can decide to open or close or seal it up…we decide whether we want to lock it and swallow the key or keep an extra key in an extra pocket… we decide what we put inside…what we take out… we decide to keep it or discard it…drown it…give it to another pair of hands…or burry it… The box is trust…and it’s betrayal… the box is the secret… or the gossip…the box is the moment we lived and it’s what died inside of us… the box is a box… but what’s inside is… is the inside…

Akram 6

This watercolor portrait of my Dad was done before christmas 2010. I also meant to finish it before my visit to Amman to give it as a present to him. What I really liked about the original picture were the highlights, shadows and cast shadows along with this particular look on his face that reflects his diligent character.

I called it Akram 6 tp place emphasis on the six drops at the bottom that represent his children, who he constantly keeps fighting for.