This idea was brewing in my head as I was painting the Planets and the Stars painting, something about painting the shapes was reminding me of the moon phases. Additionally, it was Ramadan, where the new crescent was awaited and more important than usual because its appearance means the start of the holy month and the fast and it’s second appearance was to announce the end of fast and the start of the Eid celebrations, so a lot of attention was on the moon.

“THEY WILL ASK thee about the new moons. Say: "They indicate the periods for [various doings of] mankind, including the pilgrimage.” 2:189

Additionally, my friend Samira Mian, islamic geometry artist, has been sighting the moon actively every month (beyond just Ramadan and Eid) and she has been taking beautiful images of it and tracking the illumination percentage on her instagram stories, which is all so fascinating. She is also part of the New Crescent Society in the UK and I attended their lecture on moon sighting for Eid, which was all so inspiring and influential for this piece.

I started painting this painting the day of the Eid and it took me ten days of work. The design itself is not complicated and it is based on the tessellation of eight pointed stars. I love working with eight pointed stars, they are just full of possibilities.

As you know, my area of interest is biomorphic patterns (vegetal/leafy/floral) and of course illumination, which is painting with genuine gold, so I wanted to add my favourite element into the geometry as well. Once you learn more about biomorphic designs, you will realise that this composed design is also not very complicated. It was challenging because it was small and the biggest brush was double zero!

After painting some elements with the genuine gold, I added two more colours: malachite and beige Earth. Both were powdered pigments and I mixed it with gum Arabic and few other things to make my own watercolours. I applied it heavily, so there was a lot of pigments used within it. Afterwards, I outlined it all with black ink and a very fine brush. The outlining stage is always challenging, but I enjoy it because I have to force all my attention on the task at hand. It feels rewarding when I am done.

Three other pigments followed and I had them prepared for the previous painting, so I didn’t have to wait on making them first. I used the black pigment that came from charred animal bones and genuine indigo, which is a natural vegetable pigment derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria. Alongside with white chalk, which is slightly off-white and raised. Painting the white chalk at night was a funny challenge because I couldn’t see it with my yellow lighting at night, but it worked out and I love the contrast of them.

The black paint was within the eight-pointed stars and the indigo went around and I diluted the indigo more to show the blueness of it. Those two colours were showing the shadow part of the moon stages, where the white and the gold were showing the illuminance.

I also added more earth pigments on the flowers to form the shading and adding the details to them was fun. I love painting flowers so much and I am trying to develop my skills with them even more to be able to include more of them into my paintings.

While I was painting this, I got a tweet from someone, who saw this painting circulating on twitter, and they reproduced a part of it and I don’t think their intention was malicious because they tagged me, but can you imagine getting copied when your painting is not even finished yet!? I felt flattered and betrayed when I saw it. They did the painting themselves, so it does take a skill as well to do forged art. I just think it’s lazy and lacks creativity.

I share my art to inspire and educate others and also to promote my skills & hopefully make an income from what I do, so when someone takes something you have been working on and thinking about for weeks and just copies, it’s odd and disheartening! It’s okay to appreciate something and be impacted by it but add your OWN spin and your own voice to it.

Changing one element is also considered copying like if someone did this and just changed the colours, it will still be a copy of the design. If you are inspired by something, switch up the composition/design, colour and additional elements. Treat art like you would writing. You can’t copy a poem and change few words, you can write about the same concept, but not with those exact words. It is like plagiarism, which you can get you into so much trouble in university.

I felt the same when I saw my flower challenge idea copied as well. Coping is such a sad thing when life is filled with endless possibilities.

If you want to copy someone, copy the work of artists from 14th to 18h century not a living contemporary artist because you are not only stealing their ideas and product but their possibilities of a livelihood and that’s terribly wrong! .

It’s extra heartbreaking when other Muslims do it because the religion of Islam is very clear about theft and taking ownership of what isn’t yours: “They said, "By Allāh, you have certainly known that we did not come to cause corruption in the land, and we have not been thieves." (12:73)

It is also good to familiarise yourself with the UK laws about copyright:
“There isn't a register of copyright works in the UK. You automatically get copyright protection when you create: original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography.” Also copyright of “written, dramatic, musical and artistic work” lasts for “70 years after the author’s death”, so thieves can be sued in my lifetime.

If you are an artist and worried about your copyrights then read this useful guide: An artist’s guide to copyrights
If you are a new artists and worried about copying someone else here’s a post that could help you: How to Be Inspired by Other Artists Without Copying Them

I am no longer upset about it and I got so many kind messages on instgram about this, but I wanted to add this to the post to raise awareness as well and hopefully stop this sad coping.

The last thing I added was more gold and it was a mix of 22ct and 24ct because gold reacts differently to light and I wanted to have both interacting with the light.

Supplies & tools used for this painting:

Khadi Cotton Paper
Genuine Gold (22ct and 24ct) from Karin Sanat
All paints used is handmade watercolour from pigments
Winsor & Newton black ink
Brush size 00 Winsor & Newton and cloud brush from Vaishali
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If you loved this painting and its story, you can pre-order it now. It’s a limited print series of 30 and 15 will be released this month, more details in the link below.

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If you are interested in learning more about the painting progress and how to make your own gold, you can join the online course.