Rebirth at the Graveyard

Rebirth At the Graveyard (2010), Digital Art. ©2012 Shazanna Khan

Here's a piece I did for a friend a few years back for his birthday. I did not do it for Halloween but as it is in the air, I thought I should post.

It was done as part of my People Inspired One-A-Day Sketches. I was already doing flower drawings, but this particular friend requested something different for his birthday, citing that black and skulls were more of his interest than my happy colourful flower drawings. It was an interesting challenge to try to channel some darkness into his sketch but still maintaining my style of drawing. I was pleased with the result and my lack of the use of the colour black.

My first idea seemed a bit gruesome which involved childbirth itself and a baby crawling out of a womb, so I kept on brainstorming. At the time, I believe I was reading some horror stories of vampires and zombies. The key thing that stuck out to me was the theme of rebirth and how the characters had a new albeit different lease on life. The concept suited me as it was done with his birthday in mind and of course graveyards do contain skulls which kept with his request.

This sketch was great fun, as it challenged me to think outside of the box and allowed me to experiment with different concepts. It was a thrill to stretch my imagination and come up with some spooky, sinister concepts that could possibly one day make it to future drawings/illustrations.

This illustration was done digitally using Corel Painter and my HP Touch Smart. Looking back at it now, I see a lot of improvements I would like to make! I suppose that is a normal reaction to old artwork which hopefully means that your skills have improved vastly since that point in time. (I hope!)

Happy Birthday Hailz!

Today is one of  my oldest friend's birthday!

She's not really old but I've known her since my First Year days at primary school. After which we attended high school together, so I can safely say that that's a friendship that's older than the fourteen years we attended together at school.

To honour her special day, I'm posting a drawing I did for her. Before I do that, let me tell you the story of how it began.

Winx Club Memories

In high school, about Form 3 after watching a cartoon series, I was inspired to do a sketch series of all the girls in my life portraying them as either urban sassy individuals or strong warrior like women.

(Did I ever mention I attended an all-girl school which probably influenced my feminist ways?)

I am ashamed to say that the inspiration for that idea came from watching that cartoon series, called the Winx Club.

I am mostly ashamed because of the mere idea that I was watching the Winx Club in Form 3. But they dressed so nicely and it was so colourful! Also they had wings and magic too with cute boys! I could not resist :D (lol!) 

I began to draw in my sketchbook. Now back then I really disliked drawing people I knew. I still do for a variety of reasons. However with Hailz, I made an exception. The character I had in mind was supposed to be cool, sexy, sassy and fashionable. Which was exactly how I saw Hailz back then-the strong independent woman who was confident and comfortable with who she was, and I still do. I also loved when she left her gorgeous hair out in its natural state with millions of tiny curls and rocked the huge hoop earrings. So I tried to capture that.

I completed her drawing and soon abandoned that entire project because I couldn't figure out how I wanted to portray the rest of friends. I eventually forgot about it altogether until a few years later when I began doing my One-A-Day Sketches and Hailz requested (/demanded? :P) hers.

I took a photo of the drawing I did back in high school then but was not pleased with how it looked on my computer. I ended up retouching it on my laptop with my drawing software- Corel Painter. The following was the final result :)

Urban Sass, Digital Art © 2012 Shazanna Khan

This girl has been one of my longest and dearest of friends. I wish her all the best and I cannot wait to celebrate her birthday with her.

The following is a quote I stumbled upon the internet that I think sums up our friendship just right.

"Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends."

Happy Birthday Hailz! One year I'll give you the real drawing :)

Of Birthday Parties, Matting and Leopard Print Boxes

Lighting Star-lights from the birthday candles. Photography by Hailz

Thursday was my roomie's birthday. However being a medical student, it was just her luck that she had call on her birthday and would not be finished til 10 in the night. To make up for that, we decided to throw her a surprise birthday party to start her day right. Operation: Surprise Midnight Birthday Party was a success! We had old friends who rarely see each other except for occasions (e.g. the return of the Canadian scholar to the island) and yummy egg-less mocha cake :D Also some balloon contraption made out of garbage bags to release balloons when she walked out of the door. I think we did good, and her call was not bad. She got to deliver two babies on her birthday. How awesome is that?

Pre- cut Matting from Fine Arts

I got her print of my painting (Eze, France) framed with some dark purple pre-cut matting from Fine Arts. Apparently, the entire process with glass, etc takes about a week (which I did not have time for). Another surprise- Fine Arts is cheaper than Horizons?

I was also an idiot who forgot to carry the print with me when I went to the art store. I ended up buying a few other options because I could not figure out what would go with the piece the most. Plus I loved the other colours and I know that I have some old pieces that could use some matting. (My name is Shazanna Khan and yes, I have a problem when it comes to art supplies.)

Leopard Print Box perched on my room mate's laptop

This week also, I cleaned my apartment. I wanted some prettier containers for some of my stationery than an old cardboard box. So I went the primary school art & craft route, and brought out the gift paper. To the left is one of my creations.

This Leopard Print Box was once half of a box that once packaged printer ink. My bro, who once lived at my apartment, used it for paper clips.

I thought it needed some sprucing up so I wrapped it in a Leopard-print paper bag from some jewellery purchase. The bag was too pretty to throw away and I knew one day I would find a use for it.

Ribbon bow came from a hairclip that I broke accidentally. Who ever knew that you can't sit on them ? The entire thing was held together by my new spray glue (I was itching to try it out) and some clear tape. It was a great way to reuse old materials.

New use for my Leopard Print Box? Well, you will have to ask my roomie that question. She was studying next to me while I was making it and fell in love with the print and box. It was instantly added as one of her birthday presents.