The Flamenco Dancer Print

Painting has always fascinated me as I was a child. Colours attract me like a flowing bank of water, a tree, sparrows, butterflies, flowers, grass, rain drops and millions of things I can't mention here. When it came to painting, I always felt that this is something people can only do by learning in an institution or art school and every painting would take years to complete - that was my knowledge. So I spent 30 years of my life thinking like this, trying to draw with pencils and pens occasionally. In 2015, the turning point: I met a woman and she became a good friend of mine. She is a disabled person, in a wheelchair. One day, she told me she wanted to be an artist and she had done learning and doing some works but when she lost the steadiness of her hands and lost the ability to paint, I showed her a little calligraphy work I did just with pens and markers. At that point, she said you could be a painter, start doing this! I said no, no I can't , she said you can, so I thought if I do this to make her happy, why not, but I knew I can't be a painter and can't do it successfully, but this would make her happy for sure. She sent me a little exercise about how to draw roses, which was like a drawing learning for kids. This way, I started drawing with pencils and markers. Then she told me about pastels so I started and drew that flower on March 15th, 2015, so you can say that was my starting point. God helped me a lot and I started learning about painting techniques, materials etc. very quickly. Unfortunately, I found out there is no institution or art school in my town or nearby where I can learn more, there are many institutions and schools in Karachi (237 km away) and they are very expensive. So I decided whenever I would become an establish artist, I would open a free art school here in my town for talented people to polish their skills and take them to a place where they can keep going and make their mark. In my town, people don't value art much, they always kept discouraging me and suggesting me to do something "ORIGINAL", that can bring me earnings. Only my wife and brother always encouraged me and said keep going, your success will be a great answer for them. In November 2015 I got a chance to exhibit in Las Vegas in a group show with three of my works and fortunately all three of my works had sold there.