An incredible visual artist, Amira Khalil is currently in her third year studying Fine Arts at Helwan University. Blending digital and traditional art forms, Khalil took part in eniGma’s Covers Reimagined event back in June of 2020 with her rendition of Ahmed Mansour, CEO of CRED Developments’ cover. eniGma’s Rawya Lamei got to chat with Khalil about her trajectory in the arts.
Amira Khalil got into the arts while in high school. Before that, she admits “I could not draw at all, but I always felt like I wanted to be the kind of person who knew how to draw and paint.” When she realised that you didn’t need to be born with a talent for art, and that practise makes perfect, she went all in. She began to draw with the conviction that with enough effort and discipline, she could do something great. She regretted not having hobbies when she was in school and felt that this had held her artistic leanings back. “I was a bit of a nerd,” she says jokingly, adding that drawing gave her an enormous amount of energy and joy when she finally discovered it.
When she first took up drawing, she started out by trying to imitate illustrations from a colouring book. She was pleasantly surprised with how the drawings turned out, and decided to start drawing on her own and went on to take a course in art. She recalls her art teacher as being extremely supportive and keen on having her do something great. “It was my teacher’s first time to teach, so we both had that mind set of I’ll teach you and you’ll teach me,” she recounts with a laugh.
“It’s not a very easy lifestyle, but I don’t know why something in me made me feel that this was the life that I wanted,” Khalil recalls. When she finished high school, she decided she wanted to study fine arts, even though her family encouraged her to study something more traditional like politics or economics. Eventually, she was accepted into fine arts and decided to keep politics and economics as her plan B. “I took it as a sign when I was accepted to study fine arts,” she says.
As a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts, most of Khalil’s courses were about traditional art forms such as painting. She nonetheless adored digital art, and practised it on her own.
One of Khalil’s preferred artistic movements and styles is impressionism. She loves the appearance of brushstrokes in a painting, as it gives it texture and life. She loves it when the personality of the artist shines through and she tries to achieve that herself with the use of different textures and colours.
Khalil also admires modern art forms like concept art, and is inspired by Alberto Mielgo, the art director for Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, for his impressive blending of traditional art and digital art. However, she is reluctant to pick between traditional and digital art and says that she loves them both. “Why not do both?” she exclaims. While she loves the artistic freedom that digital art can give, she admits that “there is no better feeling than holding a paintbrush in front of a canvas!”
Khalil’s art blends various styles and movements. She likes the texture of her paintings to appear very crude and the brushstrokes to be visible. While her art is far from being traditional, the impressionist inspiration is present. When it comes to her digital art, she also likes the appearance of texture in the same way that she does with traditional painting. She believes that these imperfections are what make paintings special. “When someone tells me that one of my works is realistic or smooth, I destroy it,” she adds jokingly. She adds that even when working in digital art, she likes to add this unfinished flavour to her work.
The use of colour is also extremely important to Khalil, and she loves to experiment with colour palettes. “I absolutely love colour, and love to mix colours together to see what’s going to come out,” she says. A few years ago, she loved warm colours like pink and orange, but nowadays she gravitates towards earthy tones. However, she avoids repeating the same colours, and constantly explores new palettes and styles.
Khalil likes to start off any project by taking a step back and thinking about exactly how best she can portray what is on her mind, whether it is a person, an object, or a landscape. She then starts by sketching, often in black and white. She explains that the final product is always different from her initial plan, but the feeling that she wanted to convey remains.
To Khalil, portraits are what convey the most emotion and she loves doing them. When she has no person in mind, she uses her own face, as a sort of self-portrait, with touches that make it look like a different person. She also loves to do landscapes, “They’re so much fun!” she says, adding, “With landscapes, there is no right or wrong, and you can play around with them as you please, which is what I love about them. You have the freedom to try things you’ve never done before. You can make them abstract or somewhat realistic.” She concludes that landscapes play an extremely important role in terms of her learning. “They are a great way to grow and expand your repertoire, because of how versatile landscapes can be,” she says.
