Picture 1&2 / Saudi Arabia
I outlined the shapes with a pen and went over it with water colours. The result represented the desert landscape I so often saw in Saudi. I learnt to draw those shapes from my family and since Saudi is where I grew up, family lessons have greatly influenced me in my choice of design. I thought the seashell-like shape was a great symbol for the history Saudi has
with the ocean covering its lands and thus all the ocean fossils we would find scavenging through the sand when I was young. I remember returning to Belgium on vacation and telling people about what I had found among the dunes and meeting their surprise. These fossils, shells and shark teeth always felt like a secret that nobody really knew about unless they were there themselves with their hands wrist deep in the hot sand. <
I used a scalpel craft knife to cut some undulating lines on a few pages back to back. This created an effect of depth perception and texture that reminds me of the view I experience when snowboarding off-piste in the winter mountains. I kept the paper as it was because it recalls the white monochrome nature of mountains covered in powder on a sweet snow day. The simplicity of this creation represents the perception I have when lost in the mountains and the birth of my zen state of mind surrounded by such a landscape.
I used to live abroad for 22 years. The page is split in three different sections referring to the three different times I used to visit Belgium annually during my time abroad. The colours represent the different seasons of the year I used to swing by. If I had to choose one colour to fog my memory, I remember winter as being blue, Spring as being red and summer as being green. I drew/painted using pen and water colours. I created the piece in two different sessions. The first session I drew and painted and the second session I went over the borders between the sections with paint to make the colour more vivid in those areas.