Happy Halloween Everyone!

Give me your candy! This is a stick-up!

(Sad that I don't have time to finish my new Halloween drawings when I think the ideas are pretty cool but there is always next year! At least I got time to give, "Boo" some new editing.)

Happy Halloween everyone!

My Brother: Marigold- Flower Drawing

My brother's birthday was on Sunday. One year he shaved his head....

Flower- Marigold

This was done as part of my One-A-Day Sketch Series, "The Flower Drawings". I did a Marigold because its the birth flower of the month of October and supposedly means, "a golden gift".

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 :)

W.I. Cricket World Cup Win!

After 33 years, the West Indies cricket team has won a World Cup at the T20 Cricket Finals against Sri Lanka! :D Wasn't our last world cup win in 1979? Anyway 2012 is really an amazing year !! :D

I edited a drawing I did in 2010 for this purpose. The following is the original drawing I did, which was for my good friend Amit. It was part of my One-A-Day Sketch Series. Possibly he also one of the few people who didn't get one of my flower drawings as their sketch. 

I wanted to continue with the flower stuff but it didn't seem fitting for Amit. He's such a guy with all of his interests in sports. Not only interested in them, but he is pretty decent at them. Especially at cricket. The flower idea seemed a bit too feminine and additionally it was a bit difficult drawing leaf hands holding a cricket bat.

As I told him, pretend the hot cheerleaders in 20-20 cricket were holding up the letters for his name at the stadium cheering him on.

Blue gloves because I believe it was his favourite colour and a West Indian helmet and test cricket attire because when he was finished with medicine and wanted a career change, it was for the WI he was going to be playing for.

I realise that of late I have been focusing more on some architectural pieces. Should I be trying my hand again at portraits of people?

New Artwork! (Eze, France)

My blogging took a little break as my classes resumed this week and my trusty laptop started to give some trouble. To cope with the stress of a new semester, I began working on a small watercolour painting this week. The painting was based on a photo I saw of Eze in France on a Facebook page. It seemed like somewhere out of a fairy tale. 

I just happened to visit Valpark with my roommate on Thursday and got some art-related supplies! I stopped by Horizons Art Studio and purchased some blue pre-cut matting for this piece. I thought it went perfectly with it. 

I was so excited about the matting, that I worked all afternoon to get it done. Here's a picture of the finished matted piece:

Eze, France. Watercolour and Ink on watercolour paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. © 2012 Shazanna Khan

Eze is such a beautiful village. I will definitely be adding it to my list of places to visit.

I have already made prints of it for 2 of my roommates, and touched up their prints with my Inktense pencils to enhance the colours. You can barely tell that they are prints. One of my best friend's birthday is next week as well. While I worked on this piece, I had it in mind as a possible birthday present. I think I am going to frame one of the prints as her present. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done in time. I am also hoping that she doesn't see this blog post before then (lol).

At Valpark, I also got 2 lovely wooden tabletop easels from the store that engraves medical pins. I have been looking around for some recently. More for my painting purposes than decorative, BUT when I saw them (at their amazing price too!) I knew I had to purchase it. I probably would have bought all if they had more.

Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to work on anymore new paintings as the semester progresses. I don't think I will have any more time to do a full painting. The only good thing, is that my sketchbook will be full of ideas and reference images for when next I do have time to paint. If you have any suggestions for future drawings, let me know :D

One-A-Day Sketches, Flower People & other People Inspired Collections

In the May-August Vacation 2010, I first started experimenting with Corel Painter on my new laptop. I did one flower drawing for a friend and after that I started getting requests daily from the rest of my friends for their own flower or drawing. The aim for that holiday was to complete one drawing per person for each day of the vacation. Hence the term, "One-A-Day Sketch." 

For each drawing, the flower was that of the recipient's birth month, and what their flower meant about them and to me. The idea eventually evolved by the time I reached my 3rd flower drawing, to "flower people", i.e. people personified as flowers. Most of my University family received one, but due to time constraints, the rest remained as sketches on my computer or ideas in my head.

© 2011 Shazanna Khan, Best Gfs

In keeping with the flower theme, I came up with a 2nd collection of fairy/nymph creatures which one of the Drawings I did for me was based on. Most of my flower drawings were of male people, so I thought that it was only fitting that the females be fairies or nymphs as females are supposed to be generally more nurturing creatures.

My 3rd collection was based on Greek mythology and was done for my group of friends from high school. Their drawings were based on the Muses. They were the nine Goddesses who inspired the great Arts, with each muse having thought to have influenced a different art form. I thought it fit perfectly with them, because like the Muses and their different art forms, we are completely different people with unique likes and dislikes but somehow we always are connected and will be great friends.

I shall put up a new Tab at the top of my page for easy access to all my People Inspired Digital Art Collections that I will be uploading in the future, of new and old sketches. Keep on checking back for more updates! You never know when you may be featured ;)

About Trini-Google Doodle

Inspiration came for this as I played Google's very addictive Hurdle 2012 Doodle. Google has a rich history of including funny, quirky and very entertaining Doodles about famous artists, scientists, celebrations and important events in the world.


For some of us, it can be quite an education. Did you know that Bolivia's Independence Day was on August 6th?

More importantly, did you know that Jamaica also celebrated its own Independence on that same day?

Maybe Google was giving a shout-out to Jamaica with the Rastafarian colours?

A very historic occasion as well, because like Trinidad and Tobago, 2012 is the year that both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago celebrate 50 years of Independence. It made me wonder, would sweet T&T ever have its own Google Doodle? Especially on a momentous day as our 50th anniversary? As stated before, in a previous blog post, I have been feeling rather patriotic these days, so I started sketching while watching the Olympics.

Shame Fact: I had to google Google to remember the order of the colours of the logo.

The finished product:

Click Me!

Trinidad and Tobago over the years won medals at the Olympics in the fields of Weightlifting (3), Athletics (11) and Swimming (1).

Our first 3 medals that we ever won at the Olympic games were for Weightlifting by Rodney Wilkes (Silver-1948, Bronze-1952) and Lennox Kilgour (Bronze-1952), and our solo Swimming medal came from George Bovell III.

All our 15 medals are displayed in the logo and the sports we won them in.

In case you have not figured it out by now, there was no competition and this is not an official Google Logo. Just something for fun to inspire some Trini-Pride. Hope you got caught for a second and had a good laugh. :D

I have to give credit to my brother for creating the webpage and giving me that needed second opinion. It was a Khan collaboration, and I certainly could not have made this dream into a reality without him. The Google search bar actually works and if you click anywhere else, well give it a try and you'll see.

To my artist friends out there, if Google gave you an opportunity to design a Trinidadian Logo, what would you draw? Send me a link to your sketch so I can feature you in my blog.

Leave me a comment. I would love to hear what you think about my Logo :D and feel free to like/ share my blog to inspire some Trini-pride. #I4TANDT

Thank you for reading!

New Google Doodle!

As you know Google has been churning out fun and entertaining "Doodles" on its homepage for some time, and as the London 2012 Olympics continues on, they have certainly kept up tradition of having a new doodle everyday of the Olympics.


Just this week, Google hosted a competition, looking for new "Olympic-themed" doodles from around the world and I am excited to announce that MY Trinbagonian-inspired doodle got selected!!! :D

We're making history in 2012!

Here's a look at my (and now Google's new homepage) doodle:

Click Me to go to the Homepage!

Special mention to my brother for all his help in creating this! :D Stay tuned for more about my Trini Google Doodle!

Like and share if you're as excited about this as me!







EDIT: There really was no competition :(  But I did make this Trini-inspired Google doodle. Hope you guys had some laughs :)

You can still share if you want to surprise a friend, and remember to tweet #I4TANDT to support our future olympic national athletes.

Rasta-Footballer

Status: Work-in-Progress

A few years ago, as a means to keep myself occupied over a long vacation, I started doing a "One-A-Day" Sketch series. More about that later on but the basic idea was to come up with a sketch/drawing for a person that represented said person, without necessarily drawing a full-on portrait. Also it had to have a little humor in it because I wanted my quirky drawings to be able to cheer them up on a bad day and remind them that they were special people in my life. I ended up doing a few for some of the special and interesting people in my life. Though many of the other special people in my life did not get any unfortunately. I am blessed with a lot of you so don't worry! It shall be fixed one day :D

Anyway, I wanted to do a sketch for my friend who I shall dub, "Eddoes" for this post. Eddoes is one of the coolest people I know. Why? He's down-to-earth, different thinker, open-minded, a loyal friend, a big Juve fan, good footballer, has a cool ras and generally one of the nicest people I know.

Much respect to the Rastaman!

I wanted to do a Rasta footballer for his sketch/drawing. I thought a Rastaman doing a bicycle kick would be fantastic.

The following are some of the reference images I looked at when I was brainstorming this sketch.

Ref Image #1: Rastaman by Summerset.

Fun Fact: Did you know that there are rarely any drawings of a Rasta without some form of weed incorporated in it?  

(I challenge you to find one and without the Red, Yellow and Green)

The male form is a bit troublesome for me especially one doing a bicycle kick, but I do love drawing the human form in motion. Looked at quite a few pictures of the football legends. Wikipedia also had this great sketch showing the different phases of the bicycle kick. I definitely would like to try something like that out in the future on a different drawing.

Drawing of the several phases of a bicycle kick

My attempt at Eddoes' drawing:

Sketch #1: Juve Rastaman in motion after doing a bicycle kick

I was not a 100% happy with the concept for his drawing. I guess that's why I did not finish it. I felt it was a bit one-dimensional for such a multidimensional personality. Also I think that Ras is going to be one time-consuming draw!

Other crazy ideas

1. Eddoes eating eddoes: Cannibal or Herbivore? (He does love a good provision)

2. Rastaman smoking football. (His love of football is deep. I do think he and Ears can get high about that)
3. Rastaman @ the watering hole. (Always a common occurrence whenever we go hiking, and Eddoes is a hiker)

What do you guys think? Leave a comment. Let me hear what you think of my ideas/concepts or what you think I should be drawing for Eddoes instead.

As always, thank you for reading! :D

The Fox

 Status: Current Work-In-Progress

My friend G is a talented musician, great artist, awesome writer and a lover of foxes. Though he would only admit to the last. He asked me recently to show him how to paint a fox. I think he seriously overestimated my skills. I never attempted to draw/ paint furry animals before. Nevertheless G always inspires me to try something new artistically so I decided to give it a try.


So I scoured the internet looking at images of foxes and I saw this little guy popping up on a few blogs/tumblr/facebook. I'm not sure who was the photographer, but it definitely was such a cute shot.

Reference Image

I decided I didn't have time to go the traditional route so I fired up my computer and began sketching away. Here's the work I did so far:

Sketch #1: Rough sketch and outline

Sketch #2: Filling in the white spaces

Sketch #3: More details

I probably took less than an hour to reach Sketch #3 (that's the great thing about drawing on your computer- its so quick) but by then I was really tired and had to go to bed. The next day, I had a wedding to attend and after that I was either too lazy or too busy studying to continue any more work on Mr. Fox. Hoping to finish this by the end of August! 

Comment if you like foxes too!

About Me

I am a medical student for Trinidad and Tobago with many different interests, one of which is Art. I have always wanted to keep an Art journal, and I thought this might be a good way to keep track of some of my artwork and share them with friends and family.


Art was one of my passions at secondary school, so I studied it until CXC O'levels, because after that I had to make room for another dream of mine, to enter medical school. Art became more than a favourite pastime  after that. It became an escape from hectic times and a way to deal with unsavoury emotions.

From my school days, my favourite mediums have been Acrylics and Watercolours. I think that the Impressionist movement really influenced my work. I love capturing the way light plays off of objects and the contrast created as a result. I believe that is why I adore the work of Leonid Afremov. 

  UNREAL SENSES - Original Oil Painting On Canvas By Leonid Afremov

With my university studies, it has not always possible to devote as much time as I would like to my Art. It is however much quicker for me to do a sketch/ full drawing illustration on my HP Touchsmart PC using Corel Painter when I am on the go. I do more illustration type drawings on my computer.

"Different styles for different times" - Very ancient old lady I used to know 

Abstract of Me
© 2012 Shazanna Khan

I am on Deviant Art (See link below, "Abstract of Me") but I don't think its personal enough. I think that with this blog, I would actually be able to explain myself better about the inspiration for some of my pieces and be able to link some of my reference material/ sketches, as well as show some of the more interesting aspects of my life.

Thank you for reading. While you are waiting for my next post, (I don't know when that will be) you can check out my deviant art account (http://shazanna.deviantart.com/) for some "art-candy".

Comment and let me know what you think and stay tuned for more art! :D


EDIT: I should add that this blog will not be strictly an art blog, and will encompass the things I enjoy about living on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago as well as my experiences and musings.