Ebtehal Salah told us more about her journey as an artist: “I started drawing in my childhood. I loved drawing nature, portraits, and designing fashions, but I was most focused on drawing portraits. In the year 2014, our war began in Libya and we stayed there for months at home, and this period was a turning point for me, in which I began to develop. My skills came from YouTube only and I used to practice almost every day, and in the same year I opened my page on Instagram and Facebook to publish my artistic works, until secondary school when I decided to enter the Faculty of Architecture. I started searching for famous architects and looking for their architectural designs, the designs of Zaha Hadid. I was influenced by her bold and fluid works, and since that time I have tried to have my designs and ideas similar to her.”
Asked how Ebtehal came to discover cardboard as her chosen medium for creating architectural artwork, she shared: “I experimented with drawing on cardboard because I love diversity and always trying different things. I tried drawing on wood, tree leaves, glass, etc., and this was one of the experiments that I continued to do. It gives a distinctive and different character to my work, and because it is economical as well.”
The artist walked us through her creative process from ideation to the final product: “When choosing a famous building to draw or one of my designs, before starting the drawing, I make a quick sketch of the background idea that is consistent with the building so that it appears as if it is part of the building itself and gives a 3D look, and I choose the appropriate colors that will highlight the painting and the materials that I will use, as well as the size of the cardboard. Or any other additions.”
Ebtehal Salah explained more about the challenges she faced while working with cardboard: “It was difficult for me at first because an architectural drawing requires precision and mastery, and the cardboard paper is not straight and has many squiggles and requires time and patience to complete the work on it, but with time and continuity I got used to it and felt that it was more enjoyable than paper.”
It's clear that the artist’s work emphasizes the architectural integrity of buildings. Ebtehal told us what she hopes viewers take away from this emphasis on architecture in her art: “I hope that my work will help them inspire and create things that are out of the ordinary and become proficient in their own style and method of drawing, and also benefit from the videos that I make because I also explain the method of drawing on cardboard or paper so that anyone can understand it in order to help them show off their projects.”
