In life, you’ve got to appreciate the little things. In this case, it’s tiny drawings done by local illustrator Mariam Abbas.
About the size of a one dirham coin, Mariam’s sketches are done through the use of pencils, rubbers and fine brushes.
For their size, they’re remarkably intricate.
Check out the before and after of Musabah bin Rashid Al Fattan Mosque in Dubai:
Mariam’s specialty lies in her pointillist drawings, which involves creating pictures out of hundreds of tiny dots. However, she also employs sketching and watercolour to complete her pictures.
Naturally, a question Mariam gets asked a lot is ‘how do you draw so small?’
Mariam laughed as she told The National: “I just stick my face really close to the paper and work where there is plenty of sunlight.”
Her work gained traction after being featured on Instagram’s official page, with her sketch of the Al Farooq Omar Ibn Al Khattab mosque garnering over one million likes.
Mariam’s miniature drawings can take anywhere between eight to 12 hours to create.
Her desk faces a window, with Mariam saying: “Miniature art is all about good tools and lighting. I don’t draw in the evening because I can’t use strong lights as it casts a lot of shadows.”
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Talking about getting into the art of miniature drawing, she said: “I thought it would be quite difficult to do, but I realised that it’s not difficult.
“You just have to have really sharp pencils and fine brushes. The more you work on it, the better you get.”
Check out some more of Mariam’s artwork here:
