Never Give Up on your Dream

You will love shopping at KhaliNoveau's Etsy Shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/KhaliNouveau where she has many wonderful treaures. I fell in love with her little birds. Have fun exploring!

by KhaliNouveau

My name is Aiysha Khaalid, nickname Khali, I am a full-time artist with a bachelor degree in Fine Arts. I'm a painter, an illustrator, a mixed media artist, and crafter. I am the owner and creator of the Etsy shop called KhaliNouveau. The name of my business is a combination of "Khali, a nickname given from my family and "Nouveau", French for ‘New’ inspired from the most famous and my favorite art period, Art Nouveau.

Creativity has been in my blood since an early age. I have been an artist for over 15 years. What inspires me to become an artist is my love of art, and artworks by Frida Kahlo, Gustav Klimt, and newly discovered Hayv Kahraman because of their original artistic style and feminine beauty in their work. Their use of details, strong symbolism, and strong composition in their artwork affects my creative energy into making my own style.

As an artist I like to experiment with all kinds of materials and mediums but I mostly feel comfortable with a few. My base mediums I like to work with are acrylic paints and graphite pencil on smooth surfaces such as canvas and printmaking paper. These are my personal choice because honestly, I fail horribly in watercolors, and oil paints are quite messy and difficult to work with. I have no special technique or process that makes my artwork unique. I do re-sketch my ideas often. Some people assume as an artist, I am artistically adapted to any art style like great masterpieces to computer graphic design. But I only limit myself to what I do best and my expertise is painting in my own way and I do not mimic another artist’s technique.

My greatest accomplishment thus far has been working at an established art gallery in Dubai. I always wanted to work at an art gallery and did not expect to be living and working that dream in the Middle East. I gained so much insight on the art world and it’s a lot of work helping to run an art gallery. Ten years from now I see myself teaching art again and owning an art gallery. If I had to give one advice for new artists, I would say that don’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes, that’s part of the learning process as an artist. So never give up on a dream or something that you are passionate about.