December - Week 2

Written 29/12/2025

Sketches based on her work

I will admit, Christmas celebrations means that this has been delayed by a fair bit. But also I have been really sick since Boxing Day which on the one hand has made doing art even more of a struggle but it also has given me the time... so yeah. I decided to actually crack on and try to get this 'week' of this 'month's' project out of the way.

It was interesting copying Laila Shawa's artwork due to how varied it is. Some translated well to my sketches... others not so much.

Six felt tip sketches based on Laila Shawa's paintings/drawings/prints

Some commonalities of her work that I noticed:

There is an emphasis on small details (clothing patterns, scales etc)
There is a heavy focus on women, her subjects are almost always women
The eyes of the subjects are often obscured in some way
There is a BIG emphasis on colour
Events are not interpreted literally (makes sense as she was an Expressionist/Pop Artist)
Palestinian culture (and Middle Eastern culture in general) is a very important part of her art
In many (though not all) of her work, the facial expressions are a very important part of the compositions
The perspective is either very flat or deliberately warped

Specific artwork I will be focusing on

The Hands of Fatima, 1992.

A stylised painting of a group of women in colourful niqabs holding a hand up, the hands are patterned like the Hamsa. The background is black, and although the women's eyes are open their eyes are black voids.

Why this one?

I really like the expressions of the women, they are all so determined and even without knowing what the Hamsa (or the Hand of Fatima) is you really get the impression of fighting together in solidarity. I also really like the colours and patterns of their clothes. And I find the compostion really interesting due to how they all overlap eachother and how she was able to get so much expression with just their eyes and eyebrows.

Sketches based on specific artwork

This was an interesting one to do, as I think I utilised my 'do two sketchy versions of this painting' well this month, with my pencil drawing focusing on the more intricate patterning and expressions of the painting and then doing a basic painted version to get an idea of the colours (despite being 'basic' the painting still took over an hour with all the mixing I needed to do!)

Actually doing the painting made me realise how much the black background made the colours pop. Before doing that I thought my painting looked a little dull compared to the original, but then I added the black and the contrast really struck me that quickly!

A pencil drawing and an acrylic painting done by me based on The Hands of Fatima by Laila Shawa — Purple was the hardest colour to mix weirdly, I just couldn't get it to look right! I am pretty happy with these as rough versions of the Hand of Fatima.