This piece, named after the Urdu or Arabic word for desert, began with an array of miniature sketches that modeled a number of aspects the artist wanted to include in the final illustration. Firstly, he wanted to convey the arid and harsh nature of the deserts of the Middle East. In the sketch, he brainstormed methods to accomplish this goal by trying different color combinations of colors that gave the impression of a dry climate. He ended up using a color combination of greys and red; the fiery red color looked harsh next to the parched grey tones which is perfect for what he was going for. Next, he wanted to convey the massive scale of a desert. He wanted to make the viewers experience the great expanse of deserts like the Arabian or Sinai deserts. Through a drawing with massive, exaggerated landscapes juxtaposed with small buildings like a mosque, this allows viewers to understand the scale through comparison between the building and the desert. Experimenting with different canvas dimensions and finally deciding to use a wide, panoramic dimension, he thought this would express the expansiveness of the desert.
The sketch I decided to pursue was a panoramic shot of a desert with cliffs stacked in a domino-like formation leading up to a small mosque in the distance engulfed with a bright red sun. The cliffs lead the eyes in from the left and right of the illustration, while the clouds and the desert’s dunes lead the eyes from the upper and lower corners of the illustration to the focal point which is the mosque. I also decided to make the focal point off center as this created more visual interest in my opinion and gave room for the grand scale of the cliffs to be shown.
Finally, an important thing that I considered throughout the production of this piece was the sense of flow. I wanted to have different elements of the piece to resonate with each other, collectively contributing to leading the viewers eyes around the canvas and eventually to a focus point. The main differentiating factor between the different sketches was the different flows which were indicated by surrounding arrows; for example, some sketches have the eyes of the viewers travel straight upwards while others encourage more circular motion.
Created by Raza Khan, with extraordinary artistic vision
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