Eid Mubarak!

RED II

It is 5:10 AM and I just finished this painting. It is still wet. The hydrant is right outside our apartment. This is second in a series of Reds. You can see the first one here and I plan to do one more. But first I will finish the ones I have already started and for that I will have to stay up all night again as my little one does'nt let me work. She takes all my brusehs and starts her own paintings. Even though she has her own paints and brushes but she insists on using mine saying, 'I have to show my work to my teacher'.

I turned...

...yesterday.

6 weird things about you...

I have been tagged by Wayfarer
You have to post six weird things about yourself and then tag six people.


1. I have to have something sweet for my breakfast everyday and something sweet after every meal. I have my tea almost sugarless but I must have something sweet with it or I can not drink it. I started drinking tea after I got married.

2. I talk to Allah. In my head when I am thinking and working I am always talking to him. Before going to sleep If I ask him to wake me up at 6 am I wake up at exact 6 am without any alarm clock. The days I don't ask him I do not get up without an alarm.

3. I do a lot of silly and clumsy things and then be embarrassed for days. For example a few months back, in a grocery store I was talking to my husband looking for something and did not realize when he moved to the end of the aisle and someone else came and stood there looking for something. I saw the cart and without looking at him I slapped him on his hand saying "Hasan this is not our cart, You took someone else's cart". When I looked at the face I realized what I had done. That poor man stood there in shock. I said sorry to him and quietly stepped away...and then I saw my husband at the end of the aisle looking at me and laughing.

4. I love to watch fairy tale movies.

5. I am active and organized if I have a deadline otherwise I am a lazy bum.

6. I feel every object has a personality and an expression. Like all cars have a face, some have a smiley face and some frown at you. The television we have seems like a happy fat woman to me...so on and so forth.

I tag Aya, I, Zak, Freaks Corner, Ayesha, Reza, Living Away

Seven Things

Aya tagged me

Seven Things I want to do:
1) do my MFA.
2) lose weight and keep it.
3) donate money to children’s hospital in Pakistan.
4) volunteer to work in PICU (pediatric intensive care unit)
5) be a good human being.
6) to be more organized.
7) travel around the world esp. Egypt, Greece and Italy

Seven Things I can do:
1) dance
2) art (paint, draw, sketch)
3) fix things in the house.
4) Roller Skate
5) cry
6) fix my clothes
7) cut hair


Seven Things I can’t do:
1) resist desserts
2) lie
3) can not hide my feelings and emotions (my feelings and emotions are easily read on my face...which is embarrassing sometimes)
4) sing
5) read a book no matter how interesting….
6) tell a storey or listen to one.
7) swim

Seven things I say the most:
1) ok
2) accha
3) hein?
4) kia?
5) chalo koi baat nahein
6) hmmm
7) pata nahein

Seven Things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1) honesty
2) modesty
3) good sense of humor
4) strong personality
5) wisdom
6) education
7) good heart

Seven Celebrity Crushes:
none

I am 28% Control Freak

You Are 28% Control Freak

You have achieved the perfect balance of control and letting go. You tend to roll with whatever life brings, but you never get complacent.

Are You A Control Freak?

Homeward bound

Water colors
140 lbs cold press water color paper
11"x13"

After 4 yrs in US

A few days back someone asked me what is it that I like about this country (the US). I thought and thought and thought...for about 5 minutes and said with uncertainty in my voice "my daughter's school" and that is all I could think of. That person kept looking at me in surprise and it was kind of embarrassing. I came home and asked my husband the same question. He said he likes his school. So that says it all....we came here for my husbands PHD. He is now working on his dissertation. I am working on my portfolio to start my MFA. Lets see if I do it here or we go back home and I do it at NCA. Everything is so uncertain right now... and the curiosity of what will happen is killing this fat cat!.

Red

Water Colors

140 lbs cold press 12"x14"

In the Park...

the bright sun

my shadow

enjoying the sun

some pretty flowers

so much fun

reading

the slide is no fun

playing with dirt is fun

oh! so much fun

some spicy and some not so spicy drumsticks

and some kabab

and cookies

we played...

and played...

till we got tired...

and it was dark...and time to go home

My Card

Saw this at I, zak. And my card is:

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Raising Mom

My little one is playing MOM these days. She makes and tells me stories about when I was little and she was older how she fed me, helped me get ready and do all the other stuff! She keeps telling me that she is now a grown up and can do most of the stuff on her own. She’d bake cakes and make cookies for us out of play dough and will make sure that we finish all of it!!!

One thing that I love about her is that she has a heart of gold. If I get angry at her for some reason she’d cry and make it a point to make up with me first, hug me and then tell me that I must not get angry at her because she is a grown up now.

I will resume my painting class this thursday inshallah. I did not go all ramzan and then my daughter had a surgery so got busy there. She is fully recovered now and has started school after a 2 week break.

This painting
will be on display at the Brazos Valley Art Center for the month of November.

I Love You, Stinky Face

A bed time favorite

This book is about an inquisitive child and a mother's unconditional love for her child. How a mother's love remains constant even if her child were a stinky skunk, scary ape, a bug-eating green alien or a meat eating dinosaur. My almost 4 yr old insists on making me read this book every night. I recommend this book to all mothers. Its so cute.

My Daughter's Art Work

Eid Mubarik!

Field of Gold

Ramadan Mubarak

Man has reached the moon but the mullahs still can't see it!

Flowers in Water colors

Magnolia

15x22 140 lbs cold press water color paper



White Lilies

15x22 140 lbs cold press water color paper

Re-gifting

Read very interesting posts about re-gifting on Wayfarer's and Aisha's blog. My husband and I spent weeks in getting a gift for someone. We both love to give gifts and I enjoy to wrap them beautifully. We have some friends whom you could call “nashukray”. There are so many stories about this nashukri episode but I will tell you the most recent experience. I bought a very pretty baby dress and a stuffed toy for this friend's new baby girl and bought a baseball practice set for their 4 yr old son so that he does not feel ignored. When that friend opened the gift instead of saying thank you or that she liked the gift, she goes you know my daughter got so many dresses that I don’t have space for them in the closet. And she kept saying the same thing again and again in different ways. I could feel my cheeks go red and smoke coming out my ears. To annoy me more she says to her son who was opening his gift ..."Oh! Please don’t open it you might hurt someone…keep it for Pakistan." (keep it we will gift it to someone in Pakistan) They were to leave for Pakistan in 2 weeks time. I just sat there looking at her thinking why the hell I wasted so much money and time on them.

Last Week...

Practicing glass and light effect in water colors




Snow Scene in Water Colors

Land Scape in Water colors

Still life in acrylics

Still Life in water colors

Art Classes

I joined painting classes here at the Brazos Valley Arts Center and had my first class yesterday. I am absoloutely thrilled to start working again finally and to learn new and different techiques. I am going to post all of the work that I do in the class and at home. Here are the first two peices.


"The Red Dragonfly"
Water Colors
11"X 15"
90lb. cold press water color paper





Water Colors
yupo paper
10"X 13"

This is the work from my first class. The instructor, who is a practicing local artist (Barb Starner), showed different effects of water colors on different materials like the water color canvas, clay board, yupo paper and cold press water color paper. This one is done on yupo paper which is kind of glossy and it is very difficult to control the spread of colors. I had to be very bold while doing this one especially as I painted directly on paper...I mean no pencil drawing. It turned out good but I feel that I can still do a few final touches.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

My Hand

17 years ago!

college chawkidar-Rehmat


A class fellow


A still Life


Another still life


Life drawing


Still life