Artist stirs up controversy with new drawing trend  

Colourful caricatures, depicting the diaries of lovers have gone viral on social media, stirring up a lot of controversy.

Artist Amr Amin launched his latest series of cartoons under the title, ‘A   Lover’s Diary’.

The cartoons are distinguished by their candid colours and unique and different drawing style.

The diary highlights a love relationship between a man and a woman.

Amin tries to bring his message home by exaggerating the proportions of some of his objects.

Some of the caricatures contain people with huge bodies, but small heads and featureless faces.

Nevertheless, the same caricatures are drawing mixed reactions.

While some people liked them, others criticised their drawing technique.

Amin came under fire especially because of the disproportionate size of some of the heroes of his cartoons.

The same people say the same heroes have nothing to do with romance, but are rather scary.

However, Amin is not foreign to controversy.

Two years ago, he was in Kuwait City when his friend asked him to draw romantic sketches for a local art fair.

Having completed the sketches, Amin was shocked when his friend disliked the sketches.

Nonetheless, this did not make him despair or lose hope.

He realised that beauty is in the eye of the beholder only when he posted the same sketches on social media and they were widely liked and welcomed.

“This encouraged me a lot,” Amin told the Egyptian Mail.

The main figures in Amin’s cartoons in the dairy are called Adam and Eve.

Their relationship, he said, is sacred and full of details.

Amin has over 200 children’s drawing books to his name.

He said he opted for the drawing technique of his dairy to accentuate his drawing style.

He calls this style ‘my drawing signature’.

In sticking to this drawing style, Amin shows influences from the ancient Egyptian civilisation and the way the Pharaohs made paintings on the walls of their temples and tombs.

He does not seem to be alone in being influenced by ancient Egyptian painting styles.

Amin sees influences from these styles manifested in paintings by international artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

In making his cartoons, Amin focuses on body gestures, giving the chance to viewers to interpret the cartoons, each according to his own taste or feelings.

“Some therapists use my caricatures to explore patients’ feelings and way of understanding,” Amin said.

Seeking to provoke even more debates, Amin prepares to come out with a new series of cartoons.

He will use the same drawing style in the expected series.