كلاكيش

Letter from Jad

for all those who loved Jad, this is a letter i got from him yesterday. isn't he extremely sweet ? :)

Today is my birthday. i m 25 years old now. the last two years were full of extreme moments & emotions. things changed in my life, my work, people surrounding me. i met a lot of new people that i admire and i want to thank them for their beautiful energy and for the happiness we shared. lately, everyone is searching for his own path, i believe at this age, many people are experiencing the same. i want to tell all my friends that i think about them every day even if they see me overloaded with projects and tasks. thanks for accepting the David you know and i love you all :)

ok, i consider this beautiful drawing the best birthday gift. i got this email two weeks ago from a friend :

"Jad is 9 years old, he is not a big fan of books...
today, we had a fight before reading the book while working in the session, and we agreed to read the first two pages and if he doesn't like it, we'll stop...
needless to say, he decided to read it all...
He was very sad when lamees married "3arnous el dora"...
and I asked him: Isn't it a fun book?
and he said: it IS fun, but I'm sad that 7altabees is not feeling ok now :(
then he got his smile back when 7altabees travelled to planet zouranees, and remained between earth and zouranees and started writing poetry...
I then asked him to draw the part he liked the most...
He first wanted to draw 7altabees kicking the 3arnous' ass...
but then he said, No no wait, this didn't happen...
the part I liked the most was when he travelled to zouraneess...
and we closed the book, put it back in the library and he did the attached drawing...
the planet in multicolor is zouranees...
7altabees is colored in blue and red cos he is touching a blue and red star...
and he said to me: this star will make him feel better, and will color him to look prettier, maybe lamees would love him now... :)
I thought you should take a look at this :)
Greetings..."

Thanks Wissam for sharing this with me and million thanks for you Jad ! you are beautiful :)

now let me share with you some recent interviews. Maroun Kassab from Lebrecord interviewed me and here is the link. i love this article bass ma ba3ref lei :)

The beautiful Farah Alame did many interviews with me before but this recent segment is about klekeesh. i love the way she works ! thanks Farah for everything! note: click on the 15-3-10 episode on this website .

Natasha Dirany from Timeout Beirut chose me for the "in the studio" section in the last magazine issue. thanks Natasha and here is the link.

Kassatly Chtaura apple juice TVC

we freshly finished this television Ad for Kassatly Chtaura new apple juice.

Nathalie Masri & Tony Khoueiry, a fresh young energetic team ;) that worked a lot in advertising, created an independent agency and this is one of their first projects. they did the concept of this campaign and asked me to do the animation. let me say it was really fun working with them !

this year, i decided to focus more on the group work, specially in the illustration part. Ghadi Ghosn, or "king of ogres" helped me in the visuals; he drew the elements and inked them. i did the color rendering, the composition and character design and prepared them for animation. Ashley Choukeir , akid, took all the thousand layers and animated them with a smile on her face :) she s amazing ! we finished the animation and we moved to the music part. Karim Khneisser, a talented young composer, did the music in his studio somewhere in the streets of Achrafieh :) Christelle Franca, assisted in the process and we thank her for her positive energy always !

wbass ! I hope u like it.

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 !

Launching of za second book photos

last saturday, 27 feb. 2010, was the launching event for my second children's illustration book: "حلتبيس حلتبيس، أشعار من سمسم وخيار". This time it s a poetry book for children; a new adventure with the author Rania Zaghir published by al khayyat al saghir.

we were supposed to celebrate in the streets of Hamra, Beirut, facing a pub called Dany's. it was raining, so we moved inside, to a small warm room in Dany's. i was tired, coming back from a looong meeting and an animation workshop @ Zico house. i forgot all my hectic day when i saw Tania Saleh and her lovely kids Karim & Tarek sitting in the pub listening to the amazing Mashrou3 Leila rehearsing on the new songs they composed based on the poems of the book. i love this band, and hearing them singing the text inside the new book was a beautiful experience ! Thanks Mashrou3 Leila !

shway shway, the place became more and more crowded till it was filled with lovely people and one more time, love was in the air, Cucumbers and sesame as well :) Thanks for all the beautiful people who attended the event, who called and sent messages and for my friends in Egypt, Jordan... you are a huge support ! i love u all.

lovely people

lovely band Mashrou3 Leila

Launching of za second book :)

ok, this is the brochure for the launching of my second illustration book : "حلتبيس حلتبيس : اشعار من سمسم وخيار". the text is for Rania Zaghir and published by al khayyat al saghir. this time, it s a festival with the live sexy lebanese band Mashrou3 Leila. all the details are attached, enjoy :) i ll be waiting for you, so 3eib ma tejo ;)

سحبه

"Sahbeh" is a project by Mona Merhi, funded by Beirut World Book Capital and with the support of the Ministry of Education. This project helps integrating the concept of reading in the lebanese society. the approach is new; the book will find you !

"Sahbeh" is an old lebanese gadget that used to be distributed for children in shops as a random gift. "Sahbeh", now, is a mini-book that will be distributed in public areas such as supermarkets and some schools (everyone throws away certain coins - 50 l.l. and 100 l.l coins - because this amount of money buys nothing and no one would like to keep it. therefore, instead of supermarkets giving coins that nobody will use, the cashier will offer sahbeh mini book).

The mini books contain excerpts of books (novel, poems, short story, essays..) the latter are either written by famous writers including locals and internationals.

"فضيت مشطين" & "تصريح" are two short texts for Soha Awwad, selected by "Sahbeh" project to be published. I illustrated the two texts and here are some previews of the book and the illustrations.

Enjoy :)

"تصريح"

اتصل بي المرجع الأعلى منذ قليل.

يبلغ تحيّاته للجميع.

لا معركة اليوم.

عودوا إلى بيوتكم و ارتاحوا.

اكتشفنا أنّهم ناس أيضًا.

لا نستطيع قتلهم. عيب ما بجوز.

سنبلغكم أيّ جديد،

حالما تردنا الأنباء.

ابقوا مستعدين. بنادقكم نظيفة.

و شكرًا لتعاونكم.

"فضيت مشطين"

أترى كل هذه الغيوم في السماء

و الدخان المتصاعد من أنوف الجثث؟

كل هذه الفوضى أنا مسوؤلة عنها.

إليك ما حدث:

بعد الظهر فضيت مشطين

برأس مستأجر في حاجز يريد التدقيق

بالكلمات المكتوبة على قميصي

و حذائي و كلساتي و أقراط أذنيّ...

فضيت مشطين برأس عاطل عن العمل

يبشّر بحلّ للأزمة الراهنة،

ببناء دولة المؤسسات، بالافراج عن كل المعتقلين،

و بالسلام العادل و الشامل في المنطقة...

وينتظر مني أن أرسل له معاشه عبر البريد

كي لا يضطر أن يواجه الواقع في الخارج.

فضيت مشطين برأس كل يقطينة في الحقل نضجت قبل آوانها

عندما أمرها قائد زواريب اليقطين بالانفجار.

كلّهم، أجل كلّهم متساوون

أمام رشاشي الجديد الملمع.

كلّهم، دخان أبيض عندما أكون مستعدّة.

و أنا دائمًا مستعدّة!

All in 1 Box Exhibition

"All in 1 Box" Exhibition is the result of a six-day collaboration workshop between 22 illustrators from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. we sat in the running horse gallery to experiment and explore different ways of illustration far from our safe zones.

the "All in 1 box" exhibition will run from 25 to 30 of January 2010 inThe Running Horse Contemporary Art Space in Beirut

and one BOX will travel to other venues: mainly in public libraries in Lebanon

Here is the schedule:

-Beirut, Bashoura Public Library

15. 2.10 until 27.2.10

- Baalbeck Public Library

15. 3.10 until 27.3.10

-Bikfaya Public Library

12.4.10 until 24.4.10

- Sour Public Library

17.5.10 until 29.5.10

-Tripoli- Mina Public Library

14.6.10 until 26.6.10

photos from the opening in the running horse gallery

"Abir wal Khanzir" or "Abir & the Pig"

"Abir wal Khanzir", my research project in this workshop, is a collaborative story based on one visual i did the first day. I hope it will be published one day :)

Helle Vibeke Jensen teaching Omar, Nour and me Japanese binding through an overwhelming ritual :)

the mapping of almost all projects.

an adaptation of the illustrated character "Abir" on my head . Nour Bishouti and I did this experiment and here is the video of Abir moving :)

tx to all the participants and the trainers for being crazy :)

حدا بيشبهني

في اشيا بتشبه بعضا

متل مغلّف النودلز ومغلّف الواقي الذكري

انا مين بيشبهني ؟

Vitrine - Poster

"Vitrine", a new play for Nehmeh Nehmeh with the amazing actresses Aida Sabra & Julia Kassar ! I had the chance to work on the poster with therefordesign studio.

first, we did the photo-shoot with Elias Moubarak. later, the portraits were edited on photoshop to give the mannequin look. the challenge was to keep the characteristics of the actresses. "Vitrine" in arabic was written using a typeface but modified to give a calligraphy feeling.

the following are the bald characters before adding the hair.

and here is the final poster :)

I did a tour today to take photos of the posters on Hamra walls. the following poster was modified by the parking guy i suppose; he turned Aida into a pirate !

the posters in different locations

I prepared some animations that will be projected during the play.

I m very excited to see the result of the combination between the animation, performance, lighting by Elias Maalouf and music by Cristelle Franca coz i love these guyz!

attending rehearsals was a great source of inspiration.

The play will start this friday 8 january @ 8:30 in al Madina theater. you can see it every thursday, friday, saturday and sunday.

Yalla, go check it and tell me your feedback !!!

تشكيلة صيفية ١

الاستاذ صالح