Beirut was a madness of moving, packing, and sorting, but I successfully shipped ALL my framed art pieces and 2 boxes of possessions to London. Barely had time to collect them and I was off to Switzerland for the weekend with friends. It was 20ºC and a sunny summery day when we arrived; 2 days later we wake up and do a double-take. This in the space of one night?!





Still, it was quite fun. Now I'm back to work, having two large commissions to design, and looking for a studio space to get down to some serious painting! I finished and picked up my gesso boards when I got back, and started mixing and testing egg tempera on this new surface: amazing stuff! I can't wait to try an actual piece, it's so luminous and glossy and beautiful. I was talking to a fellow artist the other day and saying how I never want to go on holiday again, nothing could give me more pleasure than to be plunged in my work without interruption. Which is true! And I've never felt so respected for what I do.
Still, taking a train to Paris in a couple of weeks to finally visit family (I was waiting for France to thaw!), and then I'll have a long stretch with more exciting courses, an exhibit or two, and we'll see what else

Oh and I spent a day or two making a catalogue for my calligraphy with links to all printed products :sees double: It's not fully complete yet but can be found at [link]

Just landed in Beirut for a 2-week stay... It's nice to step out of winter at last! It was still snowing in London last weekend :dies:
I have some quick news and one question.

First, I went to visit one of my art teachers the other day and we had tea and snakes. For real. I shall never feel quite the same about tea now that I've experienced it with a carpet python wrapped around my arm.

Second, I do have a tumbler now, but don't know if it'll ever become much; anyway, it's [link]

Third, remember the children's books I make with my mom? They are now available as ebooks! The e-bookshop hasn't been officially launched yet because I'm still finetuning, but as you can see, we have 13 titles out by now.

Last but not least, I'm starting to look into creating more screen prints from my work, as they're attracting a lot of interest in London! I'll be doing this gradually, two at a time. Please tell me, if you were to have two of the following on your wall, which you would want? (the yellow in these images would be printed in gold.) Cheers!

I've had an intense, physical, and completely amazing week learning to grind my own pigment and prepare my own paints. Our teacher is a wonderful man who gave me some very inspiring advice and I'm looking forward to my next workshop with him – so much to learn there!

Below are just a few photos: visit the blog to see everything. It's worth it!

First a quick note: If like me you're driven insane by the inanity that is More Like This, you can disable it for yourself thanks to `parallellogic:

This journal is to keep track of my progress on the cookbook. I'm not reveal everything in details, but I need to keep track of how many pages it runs. I'm always faced with the dilemma of keeping the price low for the user (meaning less pages) vs. making it a really good reference (more pages, more printing costs). I hope to find a good middle ground. I must say also that I've been working on a parallel booklet focused on spices, but in my efforts to keep it short I ended up having a lot of compact text. So I stopped while I decide how to make it more engaging again.

RECIPE

Mains
1. Penne express √
2. Garlic-yogurt mushrooms √
3. Garlic-lemon spaghetti √
4. Scrambled eggs with tomatoes √
5. CPB
6. M
7.
8.)

Salads and sides
1. Lentil salad √
2. Guacamole √
3. Moroccan salad √
4. Salmon sashimi salad √
5. Red and yellow salad √
6. SPS
7. HbT
8. T

Soups
1. Dahl soup √
2. TK
(3.
4.)

Breadstuff
1. Simit √
2. OHB
(3.
4.)

Desserts
1. Apricot crumble √
2. Lemon curd √
3. Shrikhand √
4. Banana bake √
5. CCS
(6.
7.)

Breakfasts
1. BOM
2. PP
3. HB
(4.
5.)

Drinks
1-2. Cold drinks
4-5. Hot drinks

GENERAL

1-2. Intro

Basics:
1-4 Vegetables
5-6 Pulses
7. Rice
8-9. Eggs
10-12. Fats
13-15. Spices

References:
1-2. Conversions
3-4. Kitchen utensils
5. Cooking methods
6. Storage

Pagecount so far: 47 (62)

The past few weeks I've been getting down to business here... While I find ways to get into the local art scene, I'm looking for freelance work, preferably to do with calligraphy (the whole gamut of what can be done with it, not only originals but logos, covers, business cards, chapter headings, tattoo designs, and so on), but I'm also taking illustration, game and icon design jobs. If you're in London and can help with tips or recommendations, it would be much appreciated!

I'm loving my geometry course at the Prince's School and it's kicked me into getting back to work on a geometry tutorial. I have been taking my compass and straight edge to coffeeshops lately to practice some basics!! This in parallel with a whole bunch of things I seem to be working on at the moment... More books covers, calligraphy commissions, a new Lebanese Heritage book, a booklet about spices (derived from my recent poster), more recipes, and more icon set/MiniFu ideas than I can handle! By the way, I didn't expect the book covers to get so much attention, and I had some requests to make them available as prints, so here they are. I'm hoping to finish 6 or 9 or these to make one nice, big poster.

I have some new accounts around the web:
Behance (spiffy and pro)
dribbble (quite fun)
Instagram (having WAY too much fun with this one – warning, lots of WIP and food pics)

Hello again from my residence for the next few months, a small room in a family house where I'm sufficiently well installed to focus on my work (as you might have noticed!) I'm out East in Leytonstone, Hitchcock's home town, as I remind myself every time I see a huge flock of pigeons circling outside the station... hmm!

Tomorrow I'm flying out for a few days to Angoulême to present Malaak at the prestigious comic festival! I'm looking forward to reuniting with comic authors I met in various parts of the world. Speaking of the comic, the ebook for Malaak 4 is finally out [link] and will shortly be also available in French, and I'll post them both on dA.

The silkscreens I made of 8 of my calligraphy designs, thanks to my recent crowdfunding campaign, are now available to the public and you'll find them on my shop: [link] . They're a great compromise between the beauty of the originals and affordability of prints But I have other things up my sleeves! Check this out: [link] . I'll have purchase details for these soon. If anyone's interested it would be helpful to let me know (non-committally) so the distributor and I can decide how I can carry a stock of these myself.

I should be packing but I want to work too badly!

Merry Christmas everyone, as I haven't posted a journal in ages, today felt like a good day. I hope you're having meaningful holidays, whatever you're celebrating.

For myself, I'm very very tired and being here is a bit of a struggle. I'm moving to the UK in mid-january – yes, moving, having no future here as an artist, and the sudden uprooting is exhausting me even more. Happily I have a good network of supportive friends over there, but I'm looking for a room around London where I can have some peace and focus on my art.

But first, finish one last calligraphy commission, sort out my flat for the people who'll be housesitting it until I can let it go, put up the last 3 pages of Malaak, ... the more you do the longer the list gets, somehow!

Well, enjoy the holidays, I have made new recipes I'll start posting tomorrow, at least.

I'm not sure why it took me so long, but I finally converted my charts on Housecat Breeds into printable posters. These are the works I'm talking about:


They are now available as two 30x40 inch posters which you'll find on Redbubble: Part 1 and Part 2.

Sharing of these (and any of my work) is much appreciated, especially if you're on Pinterest, as it then remains there for others to find :grateful: It seems it's bad form to pin one's own work so I'm counting on my followers!

Oh and just for fun, I actually made some cat breeds mugs based on the chart [link]

_{Maybe I should do the same with my Little Cats chart... It's the last of the cat charts that still isn't a poster.}

Now back to cutting the paper to size for my silkscreens – 280 sheets in all!!

Back in Beirut after a month or so away, and finding it hard to deal with. I actually have to make a difficult move. Posting of new work, recipes will resume when I find my grounding again.

I'm in London again and pleased to see my crowdfunder has reached its goal! But it's still up for 19 days if anyone wants to benefit from the special rates: [link]

In-between calligraphy-related business and trips to the countryside, I'm working on that cookbook. Yesterday 10/11/12 happened to be the most beautiful day I can remember, but I'll say more about that later. I'm still too gobsmacked.

In other (amusing) news, I'm a bit sleep-deprived because the air mattress I've been sleeping on at my friend's here has a small puncture, so that by 2 am it's deflated so much I'm lying on the hard floor and wake up painfully. I found scotch tape in the house, let's hope it helps for tonight...

Check it out!! [link]

When I wrote about being out of a job, I said I was now focusing on making a living from my calligraphy alone. This is the first step in that direction: a crowdfunding project so I can silkscreen a umber of pieces that I can then put in galleries and specialized shops, but the best part of it is that contributors will receive their own or can commission originals at a seriously reduced cost. Give it a read for all the details and please pass it on to anyone who likes this kind of thing

Another thing! For those who liked my spice label stickers that I posted a while back (see this journal entry: [link]) I made a small run for sale to see if it generates interest. They're up in my Etsy store: [link]. The exact 26 spices included are listed there, but basically I replaced 3 of them (7 spices, sumac, curry) with fennel, fenugreek and tarragon, more useful in the West. There's only 4 sets available and no guarantee I'll make them again so if you wanted them, grab them quick!

Hey everyone, I'm still in London where I'm taking a specialized art class (Islamic manuscript illumination!), and I got informed yesterday by email that my work contract is being terminated. So I've lost my job, which past the first "oh dear" moment feels like an amazing opportunity to be what I've always wanted to be, a full-time, fully free artist. I foresee that calligraphy and sacred arts will be a major focus now, but I still want to pursue other areas of strength like my tutorials, and fun useful things like the recipes.

As I sit down and figure out what my next move is, though, I see some ideas I had on the back burner need to be pushed forward asap. Expect to see, in the near future, a calligraphy-oriented kickstarter (or rather Verkami, which is the same thing but international) that will allow contributors to get silkscreen prints and even originals at a third of their normal price. So watch this space if you're interested!

In the meanwhile I'm taking advantage of my stay and my good friends here to fill up with the good energy I'll need to put things on track for myself. Loving the art class, too!

If you bought a copy of my book Drawing People, would you mind dropping by Lulu to leave a review, or even just a rating? The site recently went through changes that resulted in all my reviews disappearing Really bad form, and it makes a bad impression.
Link to the print version: [link]
Link to the ebook version: [link]

Of course, if you want to do that for other books of mine you got, like the guide to cats, I won't hold you back
Thanks guys!

Holy Crap.

SIX MONTHS after moving in here, I finally have DSL at home. FINALLY. No more going to coffee shops twice a day to check my mail and send work files or do uploads, no more spending Saturdays at my moms to get stuff done, I can be fully functional online again. It's been so damn long I feel I need a rehab into the use of the internet. Holy smokes, I can BROWSE again!! Ok, it's still Lebanese internet, i.e shite, but I'll take that over no internet anytime.

First thing I'm doing with my recovered privilege is post the jewelry I've been making to my Storenvy shop. I'm still adding necklaces because I'm still making them and have several I didn't photograph yet, but orders are open. I might add the next few weeks are a good time to order because I'm traveling to London in about a month and I'll be able to mail them from there I'm not mailing these babies from Beirut! They won't arrive, for sure.

As you may have noticed, dA's finally released a new feature that's been in the work for months: Premium Content [link] i.e purchasable content. The usual shit storm has ensued Other than the name, which I think is confusing and I objected to during the feedback phase, I'm quite happy with the feature, even happier that I was invited to submit content for its release, and eager to find out if it's able to answer a need here on the site. I have already submitted a pack of vector resources for this purpose:


Rather than discuss the omg-how-they-treat-us horror of dA's 20% commission and the human rights abuse that is waiting 2 weeks for payments to clear (seriously, children? Have you looked at what's happening in Syria or in Tar sands lately?), this journal is to clarify what this new feature means in terms of my tutorials. People may be worried they'll no longer be available for free. Rest assured, my policy regarding my tutorials is not changing one iota. I have always posted the tutorials for free and reserved revisions and bonus content for the book version, which has to be purchased. What Premium Content means is that I may now (I insist on may, it still depends) release some of that exclusive content for points. This arabesque vector pack, for instance, which is an extension of my Arabesque Made Easy tutorials, has been sitting on my computer for years, unreleased. It's not the kind of thing I'd give out freely, but I had no outlet for it till now. And so it will go.

I haven't given much thought yet to all the possibilities that this opens up, but given my body of work, there's a lot. I am, as always, open to ideas and suggestions. And for heaven's sake, lighten up everyone. If a non-compulsory new site feature can make you angry, I shudder to think at how you deal with real life.

And now I'm leaving for Beiteddine to hang up my calligraphy exhibit Opening's on Saturday!

I've been horribly busy working on this and the Hay Festival (had a panel yesterday with two other comic artists!) but the exhibit opens in a week! Full details on the blog

What with being located on the old Spice Road, and with my cataloguing tendencies, the diversity of spices always exerted some fascination on me; now that I cook on a daily basis, with a preference for food from that general area, it's become an obsession. When I started keeping an eye out for good spice racks, I found the market terribly disappointing, with most items on offer consisting in neat-looking but laughable shelves of 5-6 jars. You get ugly stuff with 10 or 12 jars, and the best I could find was this 16-jar thing – and as you can see, I almost immediately had more spices than it could fit.


_{Rotating gimmick: NOT so practical.}

So I took matters into my own hands, or rather my carpenters' capable hands. I head to the carpenters' whenever I need something it would be tedious (or costly) to find on the market, and they know me well by now. I had them make my bed (and the beds of other people since, as they are conveniently located next to a mattress shop, so the routine is: order custom mattress, walk next door, order bed frame to fit it), I pop in anytime I need a shelf (which they cut for me on the spot), and when I moved into this apartment, I showed up once again, drawings in hand, to order a large shoe rack and a sliding computer desk (that'll be for another post.) Being familiar with the kinds of wood, and even the size of the boards they come in, means I can plan ahead and make it really cost-effective.


_{The carpenters' shop, opening right on the sidewalk.}

So I arrived once more with a very strange order, to their eyes, but one that made them smile once I had explained what it was. "That's a lot of spices!" they said. "When one cooks a lot, one requires a lot of them." I said "We need to taste your cooking then."

A few days later, this is the monster:



You don't see it here in its full glory, because I'm due to pick up more jars and design the rest of the labels I'll need for them. But that'll take a few weeks so I didn't want to wait before I posted. Basically I kept the jars from that ugly thing I was using; they're standard and practical, and I can buy them individually for cheap. They also happen to be exactly the right size for Moo.com's wonderful Round Stickers, which come in sets of 52 labels that can be all different. Perfect, eh? I started with 26 labels, and I plan on completing 26 more to have a full set of kitchen labels. Here's a close-up I posted previously: they are in three languages, because it can be maddening when you live in a trilingual country to keep track of what is what.



I couldn't be happier about my spices arrangement now – but now my herbal tea storage is starting to get out of hand, so maybe that's something to address in the future...

Yesterday my fellow calligraphy artists, Ziad Talhouk, Everitte Barbee,  and myself drove up to Beiteddine to take a look at the venue where we are holding our exhibit this summer. The invitation and all details will  be posted as soon as I have them, but I can already say the opening will be on the 14th of July, so book yourselves! The exhibit will go on till the end of August, plenty of time to enjoy it and this truly unique  location: the Beiteddine branch of the Art Lounge is a late 19th-century silk plant.You can see it from a mile away while approaching form the other side of the valley, and recognize it at once from the chimney and tall windows that characterize structures dedicated  to raising silkworms and harvesting the silk.

I  could give you an entire course on silk production right here, given we  made a book on the subject, but I won't digress – let me just say that one floor would be filled with white mulberry branches being devoured by  silkworms, the chimney is for the furnace used to boil the cocoons, and  the other floor would be busy with women unraveling the silk threads.

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The inside, cleaned and whitewashed afresh by the Art Lounge. A bit messy for the moment, but soon to be rearranged for a purely calligraphic exhibit.<table class="tr-caption-container" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td>

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A bar puts the  "lounge" in Art Lounge, and makes exhibits an opportunity to hang around and chill, not just look and leave. Plus the inside is cool no matter the temperature outside!

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We won't be using the second floor, but I had to take photos – look at that roof!

Not  only is the space gorgeous, we're incredibly happy that this beautiful remnant of Lebanon's once famous silk production has been saved and revived by art. Many like it still dot the landscape, but they weren't so lucky, most are dilapidated or doomed to be demolished.

More details to come soon, but mark the date: July 14! It's going to be gorgeous!

The exhibit is happening! With two colleagues, we're having a collective exhibit in a truly awesome venue. More details are forthcoming once the invitation card is ready, but it will open on July 14 and remain till the end of August.

In the meanwhile please do me a favor and check out the work of my friend Ziad, who is taking his first steps in showing his work to the public. He's not very web-savvy and I helped him set up a blog; getting some comments on his work would really please him and boost his confidence! His website:Ziad Talhouk.

In other news I had `eilidh over for the weekend and we had a lovely time. No classic tourist stuff, she got to enjoy a walk in forgotten parts of Beirut, an organic market, a thoroughly non-boring tea party thrown by myself for my favorite friends (see pic below – nutella tart ahoy!), a mad UNO game, a functioning silk museum  in a heavenly garden, a drive over the crest of the mountains – all in 2.5 days! I hope she's home safe and refreshed now

Also I have 2 Malaak pages penciled and am still working yay!