What is best about Arabic Calligraphy is that it is not at all as restrictive as it might seem at first glance. It is not all about Arabic sayings, and Quranic verses. True, those are as good an option as any when going for Calligraphy as an option for home décor. It is always peaceful to have a piece of Islamic calligraphy in the drawing room or over the dinner table, especially if the piece of art contains Islamic wisdom which people take home learning from. However, that is not all where Calligraphy starts from and ends.

Arabic Calligraphy can be found in several places, and can be done on pretty much any material of your choice. That is, it is not necessary to restrict Arabic Calligraphy to wooden panels. Rather, Calligraphy can be painted on mirrors just like glass painting, or it can be carved into marble mantle pieces. Furthermore, when it comes to deciding what to engrave or paint Calligraphy on, it once again depends all upon your own creativity. You can turn a very ordinary photo frame and have words of wisdom or relationship quotes painted over it in Arabic Calligraphy style, add a few beautiful pictures to it, wrap it, and viola! Your perfect gift is ready for delivery to its recipient. The imagination is the limit.

It has been my experience with many worn out erasers how one line can alter a facial appearance. That one line can change the appearance of the eye, ear, nose, and mouth which in turn changes the appearance of the face. One line can add a smile or a frown to a face and that line can also add age or worry to a face. Every line you sketch on your canvas will undo or redo a facial appearance. There are faces expressing happiness, sadness, loneliness, depression, doubt, fear, hate, laughter and much more.

Portrait artists will make many changes to get the expression they want, just as the photographer and model had to be at one in a second of time with the click of a lens to capture that special or unique “look”. There are basic lessons of measurements to learn and memorize for drawing eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, and ears as everything in our body has set dimensions. As the head tilts the measurements will still remain the same, but the angles cause confusion and you will keep the eraser busy. Do not expect each drawing and portrait to be a masterpiece. Just as the photographer gets bad shots; you too will have a bad portrait. Do not get upset, set it aside, and return another day. You will be amazed how it can be corrected.

The skill becomes a great caricature artists, learning to draw well, is far from the primary skill needed for the job. The ability to interpret the personality, attitude and mood of the subject is paramount. The artist should have an eye to spot out a specific and outstanding personality trait or use the scenery of the subject to create a fun portrait. It is common for general caricature artist to emphasize negativity in their arts but for wedding caricature artists, zeroing in on the funny traits or scene of the subject is preferable. This is because, a fun portrait will promote the happy and perfect mood of a wedding, hence, attract more client base than an insulting one.

For instance, if a person has an interesting and talkative personality, the artist might consider laying emphasis on the lips or mouth and blowing it up in proportion. Simple drawing a caricature with giant mouth/lip/nose does not make for a great portrait; there should always be a proportionate exaggeration of the persona and characteristics of the scenery of the subject – something that anybody that has pre-knowledge of subject/scene will be able to pick up at first glance.

Think of it, should the artist work for hire or simple start an own business? This can only be answered in relation to the forces of the environment at any given time. As long as the business demographics favour it, working for self is always a preferred option. With the competition of owing and running a business, it is better to leave the business side to the experts and concentrate of the creating charming caricatures. One way to go about this would be hiring or partnering with someone else to run the business part or working for an already existing wedding business outfit. While this might mean less money than being the boss, a pay on regular basis minus the rigours of overhead expenses can dull anyone serious about being a successful wedding caricature artist.

However, when copying others’ pictures you should know it’s no good way to develop your drawing skills. Instead you better prefer drawing reality. You can do your first steps easier when drawing only scenes containing simple objects and start drawing more complicated things like animals and people later. But always try to draw real scenes! Unfortunately this is only one of a number of obstacles on your way to learning how to draw beautiful and skillfully crafted pictures. Especially when you want to become more creative read on to learn about the important stations on your way to drawing mastery

Your most important prerequisite for learning to draw isn’t some special equipment or material, but your very own motivation. Especially in the beginning you may face setbacks. Also you‘ll probably fear failure. But the more enthusiastic and motivated you are, the easier you can rush over any obstacles and move constantly along the road to success. Another important thing is to understand your subject. The better you understand what you want to depict, the better you’ll it to paper. Once you learned to recognize and understand your subject’s dimensions and the objects that are composing the scene, reproducing them in the proper proportions, dimensions and perspective will become much easier.

Then, drawing to some extent is just “craftsmanship”. Some of the old masters even had a host of sidekicks who did all this “mechanical” work. As you want to do your drawings yourself, you need to practice these basic techniques. You need to learn how to get your lines and shapes in form, create smooth shadings, etc. The old masters needed their sub workers, so they could focus on the creative part, the whole picture. And so you need a good foundation of these skills, to have more creativity and fun.