Art work for Rehma's Room.

This piece was ordered by a very nice couple Amrin and Ahmed. They needed an art work for their daughter's nursery. At the time of this post, she is not born yet but may Allah bring her into this world with health and prosperity. They needed a focal point for her nursery. They plan on naming their daughter Rahma Khadija Mohiuddin. I suggested verse 24 from Chapter 17 of Quran. The translation of that verse is "Oh Lord! Grant to them your Mercy as they cared for me when I was little". This is a beautiful prayer from kids to their parents. Another beauty of this verse is that it contains the word Rahma (Mercy), the name of the daughter. They loved this idea and I started working on it. As usual it started with a sketch. Pic attached:

Possible color choices were Pink, purple, beige, off white. I chose a hand made paper which has a unique texture. And the calligraphy started:

Next step was to highlight this script. I used Liquid Acrylic ink to add some colors to it.

So the Arabic part is ready to go. For background, I chose another hand made off white paper. I wrote translation on it using Speedball C-2 nib and black Liquid Acrylic with a hint of brown. Style of script is flourished Italics script.

Now, it was time to frame and finalize it. The frame size was 18x24. Here are the pics of final product:

Thanks for visiting this post. Feel free to ask any questions. Good bye until next art work.!

Custom Calligraphy work for a cheerful friend..

This piece was ordered by very close friends of mine, Suha and Dilber for their new home. The frame size was about 22"x26". I was given full liberty to use my creativity and suggest some theme. It was my very first project of this size and I was a little nervous. A lot of creative thinking goes on for a large piece like that. Some of the questions were what verse will look good for such piece? what proportions? Ink color? flow etc etc.. It all started with some random sketches of several verses from Quran. Meaning of the verse is really important for an art work for your home but I was also looking for a verse which is calligrapher friendly. I chose this verse "Laa Ilaaha Illa Antaa Subhaanaka Inni Kuntu-m-minaz-Zualimeen" (There is no god but You, Glory to You, I was indeed a wrongdoer.) Along with a beautiful meaning, this verse has a lot of straight strokes which gives me some good calligraphy ideas.

I drew some guidelines on the paper, and after some trial and error, successfully created a grid on the sheet. I used Windsor Newton Sepia Ink with a hint of Gold liquid acrylic. Tools used were Coit's Automatic pen. The paper used for this project was a beautiful hand made paper from Thailand. It was not actually meant for ink calligraphy but I used it anyways. The paper was very ink absorbent and I had to trace each stroke more than once. I was very careful as to not tear the paper because it was getting really wet because of excessive use of ink. But all problems aside, I was satisfied in the end and Suha and Dilber (apparently) liked this piece very much. : ). Attached are some pics of work in progress and final piece. I hope you enjoy this post.