Thursday 31 December 2015

Breakfast at Hajee's



A double fried egg with a cup of tea in a rainy morning, sitting outside an old traditional coffee shop like Hajee, will put you in the right mood to kick off your day before work.

Recently renovated by Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, Hajee is one of the many typical coffee shops that can be found in Manama Suq. Come to Hajee between 6 and 7 in the morning and you'll find an interesting mix of hard working people having breakfast before going to work, and drunken people having a meal after an all night party in one of the close by bars!

Note: Sketch done in a rush as breakfast was served.

Tuesday 29 December 2015

My Favourite Mug



I love sailing. Nothing beats the feeling when your boat is tilting in the wind, while you're hanging in the air fighting to keep the boat from capsizing, as you zip your way forward. I also met my lovely wife for the first time in a Sail Design competition. We only exchanged few words and it wasn't until months later that fate brought us together. So when we were furnishing our new home, I decided to get this sailboat mug, my favorite piece of furniture in our new home.

Sunday 27 December 2015

"Socrates Office"



"Socrates Office" is what my father likes to call his study. He lives often in his own fantasy world, where he hangs out with Socrates and Nietzsche, surrounded by mountains of books and papers, either editing books, reviewing dissertations, or writing whatever it is he is writing. Age has not been kind to him, affecting his sight, legs, heart, digestive system, eating habits, and sleeping patterns. Yet, may God bless him with strength and good health, his passion to work never dwindled. Now he has to resort to his magnifier for every little task, which often irritates him, as you can see from his pose trying to comprehend a "whatsapp" message.

A friend of my father once quoted Al-Mutannabi in an article about him, which I will not do justice by translating. Here is the verse for Arabic readers only:
وإذا كانَتِ النّفُوسُ كِباراً ... تَعِبَتْ في مُرادِها الأجْسامُ

Wednesday 23 December 2015

Back!

Well, after putting some thought into it, I decided to go back to blogging after a 5 year hiatus. I initially started blogging back in 2007 posting images, videos, and links that I found interesting, so that I could easily refer to for inspiration whenever I needed to. Back then social media was not what it is today, so blogging seemed to be a good medium to do this. As social network websites and apps started emerging, I gradually lost interest in blogging as I found other more suitable media for my purpose. I kept the blog floating until 2010, when I gave it up as I picked up Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and the list goes on... Some I have abandoned, others I still use to this day.

So what would make me start blogging again, you might ask yourself? Well, I decided to take on a new hobby, Urban Sketching! And what does this have to do with blogging, you might wonder? Well, as the manifesto of "Urban Sketchers" indicates, I would like to share my drawings online, documenting my progress and development. I pondered whether I should do this on Instagram or another website rather than here on my blog. And I came to the conclusion that I should do all, but what I'll also be focusing on, in this blog, is to share the stories behind the sketches, which might be more interesting to some.

I used to sketch all the time during school and university, but unfortunately did not keep it up later on. Recently, however, I cam across this book that ignited my passion for sketching again, Sketch City. The book contains amazing sketches, executed in a variety of styles, with glimpses of the methods used by different artists and their experiences on the go. Among the 25 artists that came from all over the world, I found 5 particularly interesting. I did some "stalking" and found some more material online, below is a list of the 5 artists:

So this will be a start of a new chapter in this blog, where I will be posting sketches of places I visit, and anything related to sketching. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it!