Tabadol - Mar2it Tari2

During the month of November, I met 10 amazing artists from France and Lebanon.

At the beginning of the project, I knew only one of them but i ended up having 10 friends: Angela, Raghda, Maryam, Dana, Azza, Brice, Clemence, Jeanne, Dianne and Ronan.

The project is called "Mar2it Tari2" and the association behing it is Tabadol. This is their second project between Lebanon and France, and this year the theme was "street".

In this workshop, there s no leader; everyone is here to exchange their knowledge and each idea is a potential project. So we spent the first two weeks doing workshops, each one in his domain, and we did a lot of applications as well based on what we learned. I suggested to the group the stop motion technique, and working with artists from different disciplines made me explore a lot this technique. We used to shoot every day for an hour or two, a short stop motion with no story line; we explore the streets, we find a spot and we do it !

I don't mid now spending an hour a day doing this because it s just like a therapy :)

here is the result of all the scenes we shot during the month of November.

The movie was part of a show we did for 2 days in Beirut. "Mar2it Tari2" was not a play, nor a dance show; it was a parade in the streets of Hamra, Beirut where the audience walks and explore the city from a different perspective and spirit. This was seriously dreamy, surreal specially with the great audience we had. This video edited by Jeanne Robert, document what happened during two days in Beirut !

I took some photos of the show so u can enjoy few moments that i will never forget !

Dianne, Jeanne, 2 books and a sofa surrounded by cars, police and the audience.

"memory" was the key of this moment that happened in the middle of a construction area.

Les Bouffons, a married couple, lead the audience around the different locations where the show happens, and we blocked the streets so the audience can cross, and we painted some additional pedestrians passage. I hope we can keep them and make cars respect them one day !

Songs and music in a garage :)

shows around "Consommation" in a parking ...

the beautiful audience with whom we shared some videos at the end of the parade. Thanks everyone for being here and i hope this post will transmit a bit of what happened for all of you,

learning about Tabadol for the first time :) You can check other photos from "Tabadol" on this link: http://www.behance.net/gallery/TABADOL-2011/2649645

Now we will continue this project in Lyon, France in February 2012. I m so excited to discover this city and to work again with the great team and will keep you posted what will happen in Lyon :)

EFL competition - Audience Prize

And i won the audience prize in the EFL competition :) Thanks for all the amazing people who supported me, and voted till the last minute of the competition ! :)

Nature clash at the border line

A week ago i went for a road trip to the south of Lebanon. It was my first visit to the south and all happened after the imagination studio, a workshop created by Joanna Choukeir. check this video that describes more her project.

The three days trip was full of surprises; i was amazed that we have such beauty in our country. The landscapes, the nature, the sea, the people are still so fresh and vibrant. It s so sad that we rarely visit the beautiful south, but i m definitely going back soon !

Another sad thing i encountered was the clash of nature on the border line with the occupied land. Same land but different nature ! One the right, the lebanese part and the left is the israeli part. Lebanese farmers aren't allowed so close to the line due to the buffer zone.

These photos are now part of EFL competition, so if you like the project , please vote for me by pressing the green heart on this page :

http://therefordesign.net/EFL/contest/submission.php?id=49

Thank you :)

تابوت للمدينة

Agenda Culturel # 388

Woke up this morning, went shopping for food, got the Agenda Culturel with other vegetable groceries :)

Go get your own copy and check the cover page that i submitted for the Valentine's issue.

Happy Valentines men halla2 :)

Timout Beirut - PhotoFinish

Last month, Ellen Hardy from TimeOut Beirut contacted me to participate in their PhotoFinish section. it was fun working with Ellen, who gave me a Photo of an old Lebanese house and i had to do a comic strip inspired from it.

the original photo from Ellen

the end result :) (from right to left since it s in arabic)

it s now out in November's Time Out beirut issue. Go check it and hope you like it :)

Thanks Ellen

جونيه ٢١-٤-٢٠١٠

a walk in Jounieh, Lebanon in the early morning. it was raining during the night, the morning looks so fresh.

za second Book

the second book for "Haltabees" is now OUT :) it s entitled "حلتبيس حلتبيس : أشعار من سمسم وخيار" and it s a poetry book for children about Love written by Rania Zaghir and published by al Khayyat al saghir. it s available in Arche de Noe library in Hamra and soon will be available in other libraries. I attached some photos of the book and illustrations. enjoy :)

Making of Haltabees Poetry Book

as usual, the best part for me, is to share the making of the book with you :)

this book is the second book in the series "Haltabees" so i used the same mixed media technique that i used in the first book. however, the color palette is brighter and less contrasty.

a basic version of spread 1 inside the book. later, i changed the hierarchy of the elements to give more importance to the "Kebbe", a traditional lebanese food item. i added more depth to the illustration by adding the blurred background and the light with uniform shadows on all other elements.

spread 1 done.

in spread 2, "Abd l Halim Hafez" was mentioned in the text and i was lucky to have bought before this disc from an old library in Hamra so i took a photo with the sesame background. however, i was not happy with the foam effect.

chasing balloons in the studio was hectic. but at the end, i managed to avoid blurry photos. tx Kevin :)

spread 2 done & dedicated to mOmO and Egypt :)

i wanted to illustrate a telephone so i used this vintage phonebook that i bought for free from Jounieh, where i live :) i changed the original latin numbers into arabic numbers with a twist of love.

taking photos of Haltabees was a main step in the process, but it was harder this time coz Haltabees, the clay character is getting older so the clay is becoming dryer :s

i used different patterns from gift wrapping for the background of the illustrations.

tx to Hanane & Ashley for posing :)

spread 3 before applying textures to Lamees and without Haltabees.

spread 3 done.

some Luxury objects found in a shop called "Tansa" in Jounieh. the owner of this shop was not sure about my interest in Dentelles :)

to the right, the making of the castle done from cardboard and clay.

finishing the castle but from one view only. you can see the mess from other views.

spread 4 done.

the title page

the sherpa proof from the printing press to make sure of the colors.

za parents checking the printed book but it seems they are more happy with the camera than the book.

the biggest assistant ever Mr. Pierre Boutros.

a BIG thank you for Hanane Kai who assisted me in the research and illustrations for this book. i love u Hannouch !