Life in a Sketchbook

Mario In His 40s

Hussain — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:30:33 +0000

Mario has been around for the last 30 years (before I was even born). But have you noticed that this fella never ages. He always had the strength and the ability to save Princess Peach and never complained about a back pain or some weak knees from all the jumping he performed during all these years.

What if Mario was aging ? What would he look like after all the shit he have been through in the Mushroom Kingdom ?

This is how I imagined Mario in his 40s. He is still in shape but he is sick of all the trouble he has been getting from Bowser, Princess Peach and all the stupid toads ! No more Mr.Nice Guy !

How Swine Flu-ent Are You ?

Hussain — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:26:00 +0000

So I decided to join the crowd and talk swine flu. It was the first thing that came to my mind when the editors of Funoon magazine asked for a contribution. I made this drawing along with an article named “Swine in-Flu-ence”.

I wanted to make the drawing simple and easy to understand so I intended to use comics art. This drawing is a good example of how beautiful & powerful comics can be. It shows a group of people running behind a pig to make a tasty dinner out of it. All of the sudden the pig goes “Hatchoo”. Then we see that the situation has been reversed and now the pig (which obviously got infected with swine flu) is chasing the people to get his revenge.

To view the third edition of Funoon magazine click here

Flu Away

Hussain — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:20:00 +0000

So I already started my summer vacation this week and guess where I am now ? You could describe it as being at the centre of the action. More hints ? It’s where swine flu has been spreading like crazy. That’s right, its London. It has been 3 days since my arrival and I already started having a blast. I’m really enjoying the cool weather and the heavy rains. And I’m certainly NOT missing the crazy heat & the awful humidity of Oman.

A lot of people advised me to cancel the trip and avoid going to London to prevent myself from being swine-flued. I can’t say I didn’t think about it, but c’mon … its my vacation !! I didn’t wanna ruin it by spending it in Oman or go to Dubai for the 10000th time. Hell no, this time it had to be different. That’s why I had to go despite the risk.

The first thing we did when we reached Heathrow airport was to wear surgical masks to protect us from the flu. Everybody was giving us these odd & funny looks. We were being laughed at, not only because we were the only ones wearing the masks in the airport, but also because the masks were different than the unusual ones. It made us look like ducks.. or shall i say travelling ducks ? the situation was hilarious and embarrassing at the same time. I’m planning to make a drawing about it soon when I get the time.

In the other hand, the new issue of Funoon e-magazine just came out. I contributed with an article & a drawing just like the last time. The subject of the article was “Swine in-Flu-ence”. yup, Swine flu again. Keep an eye for my next post to see it all.

A Smoky Influence

Hussain — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:30:00 +0000

Earlier I showed you one of the drawings i made for the caricature contest of Muscat Festival 2008. Here is another one. It shows how smoking can be picked up by kids because they might think its a way to act cool and look like an adult.

In the drawing you can see an evil cigarette trying to convince a kid to smoke telling him its the only way he can prove that he is an adult just like the group standing in the back. If he smokes that cigarette he can climb the ladder shown in the back and be just like them .. or at least he’ll think that way.

as mentioned before this is one of the five drawings I made for the anti-smoking category of the contest. The characters I made in the drawing are wearing the national Omani dress “The Dishdasha”. Same goes for all the other drawings I made for the contest since the audience of the gallery was Omani. look out for the rest of the drawings i made for the contest which I will be posting soon.

Click on the image below to view the original Arabic version of the drawing :

It’s Offical !!

Hussain — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:28:00 +0000

None of my readers complained it to me before but I always knew something was wrong with my blogger link :

http://lifeinasketchbook.blogspot.com

Its too long and almost impossible to memorize. The only way to log in to my website is to use a bookmarked link and you cannot just type it from your head. Also, If you wanted to tell your friends : “Hey guys, I found this cool blog about a crazy dude who does cartoons and other weird stuff, but i can’t remember the link right now so I’ll send it to you when I get home” then you totally forget about it when you get home and this whole word of mouth marketing thingy goes to waste. Damn !

My precious readers you may suffer no more for I have found you an eternal solution. Instead of my previous long & boring blogger link, I now have my own cool domain name :

www.lifeinasketchbook.com

what ? I know its still long but its shorter than before okay. Ooh and you can still use the old and boring link if somehow you didn’t like this one.

Anyways, congratulations to me.

First Choice

Hussain — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:23:00 +0000

Last week my father told me about this painting competition that is being organized by the company he works for, DHL. The competition was for the families of the staff & the theme was the following: First Choice expressed without words in your form of art. I couldn’t resist & decided to participate immediately. Basically I had to make a drawing that explains why DHL should always be your first choice. After a little chit-chat with dad i came up with this idea.

The drawing shows four postmen working for four different companies & each one of those postman is in the middle of his job doing a delivery to a customer’s door so they are being imagined from the customer’s eye-view. The first postman in the upper left has this angry & scary look. It gives the impression he is not enjoying his job much. In the upper right the postman is holding too many boxes & is being nervous. It shows how unprofessional & amateur he is.

In the lower left we see a lazy postman enjoying his power-nap while waiting for the customer to open the door. Only if he knew the customer did that long time ago and took a picture of him in that position to post it on facebook. At last, in the lower right we see the confident, professional & super trust-worthy DHL employee. He is on time as usual and looking more handsome and shinny than ever.

Unfortunately, my drawing didn’t win. some other drawing that was involved with Cyclone Gonu was the winning one. Apparently it showed how DHL Oman was up few days after the cyclone Gonu while others weren’t available. i didn’t see the drawing myself but i think it deserves winning since it had a much better idea than mine. better luck for me next time i guess.

A Smoky Ride

Hussain — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:41:00 +0000

This is one of the five drawings i made for the caricature contest of Muscat Festival last year. The contest had two categories: Anti-Smoking & Environmental Cleanliness. All the five drawings I made were for the Anti-Smoking Category. The winning drawings were to be shown in the Caricature Gallery in Qurm Park during the festival. unfortunately none of my drawings made it to the gallery.

The drawing shows a group of smokers enjoying a ride on the back of their favorite buddy Mr. Cigarette. Not telling them where they’re headed to, Mr.Cigarette is taking the smokers to “Death” Land. I had to translate this drawing since the original one was in Arabic. Of course i couldn’t translate it literally otherwise it would sound awful in English, so i had to change it a little bit .

The characters i made in the drawing are wearing the national Omani dress “The Dishdasha”. Same goes for all the other drawings i made for the contest since the audience of the gallery was Omani. I will be posting the rest of the drawings one by one after I translate them to English.

Click on the image below to view the original Arabic version of the drawing :

Die Plastic Bags .. Die !

Hussain — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:05:00 +0000

In this drawing I imagine animals dressed up as agents prepared to get rid of the evil plastic bag. They have to do something about it because it’s killing them & humans aren’t doing much to stop it. This drawing translates a wish that i always had. What if animals can actually do something about it ? what if they had the ability to think & figure out that these plastic bags can actually kill them and they need to get rid of it right away ? Of course this wish is far from becoming true. The only thing the poor animal will be doing when it sees a plastic bag in front of it is swallow it & mistake it for food.

In the previous post, you saw the article & the drawing which came out on the 2nd issue of Funoon e-magazine. They were talking about the dangers of plastic bags. What you don’t know is that the “Earth”drawing wasn’t my first attempt. Before that i made this drawing. It covered the same subject but it was rejected by the editors of the e-magazine. Apparently the reason it was rejected is because they thought it was too childish & didn’t suit the magazine’s professional look. I didn’t agree with them but i went ahead & prepared the other one.

I believe, like many other artists do, that cartoon isn’t restricted to children only. its for everyone to enjoy from a little kid all the way to an old man. Cartoon is just another way to deliver information, only it can be much more effective than a plain text. If you see a drawing that you like, it will automatically stick in your head along with the information it’s delivering not to mention that it will also draw a smile on your face. In the end, everyone is child at heart, But some people aren’t aware of it yet.

S.O.S. From the Earth

Hussain — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:21:00 +0000

This drawing was part of an article named “S.O.S. From the Earth“. It talked about the dangers of plastic bags & how harmful they can be to the environment. The article was written by me & it came out on the 2nd issue of Funoon E-Magazine which is issued by BankMuscat Arts committee.

The drawing shows a plastic bag trying to cut down the “Earth” tree while “Animal” fruits are falling from the tree. It also shows some humans helping out the bag. Its drawn on paper with pencil then inked & after that i added some photoshop touches. the last part of the article says “It shows how human beings are contributing with the use of plastic bags to the destruction of the earth environment in spite of an enormous resistance by the earth. But for how long ? even the earth’s resistance has a limit.“

You can check out the whole article below :

To view the 2nd issue of Funoon E-Magazine click here

Beginning of A New Life

Hussain — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:22:00 +0000

Hello & welcome to my first blog ever “life in a sketchbook“.

As an intro I’d like to explain why i gave the blog this name.

Unlike reality, life in a sketchbook is pretty easy & simple. There are no rules or restrictions in here & nobody will be telling you what to do. Anyone can be whoever they want to be. Happiness,Sadness, Fear & Anger these are the seasons around the year in here.

This place is where i will be sharing my sketchbook life with you guys & its also where I’m going to practice & learn to be a better artist. Of course that cant be done without your help so I’ll be waiting for your comments & you should criticize me whenever you feel its necessary because that’s how I’ll learn from my mistakes.

Now, shall we begin ?