My name is Fatema Abbas, I am a 19 year old student who was born in Iraq, but moved to Sweden when I was 12 years old. I lived in Hofors but I have moved once again to a bigger city called Malmo.

I love art since I was a kid and I love to draw people, particularly portraits. I am studying Entrepreneurship & Design at Einar Hansen Upper Secondary School and I would like to study further at the University of Malmo to become a dental technician. I enjoy making and creating things with my hands and that’s my dream job in the future. I started with Visual Art in January 2011 because I wanted to show people my skills and what I can do, and eventually I would also love to sell my creations. People seem to like what I do and I have also received a great deal of support from my friends and relatives to continue with “Visual art”. “Visual Art” is a chance to develop my paintings using Photoshop cs2.

Several people have been curious about how I draw these pictures. I use a program called Photoshop cs2 using the mouse to draw the picture. I can not tell you exactly how I do it because that would reveal my work process but If you try to paint a picture of yourself with a simple brush and use tools, you will notice that is not so easy. However, I have been drawing since I was 9 years old and I have gained extensive technical experience.

If you want to learn something new, practice, read and try to learn by yourself. I use Photoshop because it’s a very good program to draw with and it enables me to do whatever I want. It also contains a lot of tools that you might like to use in different techniques, depending on what you want to draw or to edit.

I have started a page on Facebook, Visual Art(visit it here) where I’ve added pictures showing the different portraits that I’ve drawn of the people who requested them. I have already managed to build up a strong customer base in a short space of time and my clients have always been happy with their portraits and given me very positive feedback.

Most customers have encouraged me to start getting paid for my work and I have plans in that direction. It is not clear how much time I will be able to devote to my art due to my further education plans but my hope is to establish Visual Art as a major art form in the future.

Visual Art has spread across the globe, mostly in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Malta, USA, Spain Norway, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.