Anora McGaha's Art
As a young girl, Anora studied art with several teachers, a French illustrator of biology texts in Lebanon to learn how to draw horses and with the Hallaby sisters of Jerusalem, who not only did beautiful water colors, they also had a shop of the handicrafts of Palestinian women in their basement.
A couple of times she drew things that were surprisingly beautiful. Many many more times she was disappointed in the results. The first drawing she did for the Hallaby sisters of a rose hip and a cyclamin was really good. The second one, quite telling in the dry hills of Jerusalem, was snow on hills (easy to paint) with fir trees. That must have been a New England memory.
Sunsets
Living in the developing world, there were many skylines, and with them lots of sunsets. Anora would try to memorize the colors. Memorize everything about those incredible scenes of almost unbearable beauty. What to do with such beauty, other than to try to capture it. Sunsets, especially over hills, became a recurring theme.
Firebirds
While at college Anora began drawing firebirds, an impressionistic coloring using crayons - how's that for sophistication? As a girl she had colored for hours and hours and hours, practicing perfecting coloring with all the strokes in the same direction, with the same consistency. From the firebirds emerged rivers, and from the rivers emerged abstracts. The firebirds were particularly stunning with small streaks of color blending together, like little flames.
The drawings she did while teaching Mandarin for the children at a Chinese Bible Church in Maryland were surprisingly good. Simple children's images for them to color.
Vines and Leaves
While in massage school in 2004 and 2005, during the lectures, Anora began drawing with pencil colors again; fun modern and playful themes of leaves and leaf clusters, vines and more emerged on the wonderful white pages of the sketch books that sell at Borders, the giant bookstore.
Pencil Color Weavings
It was 2006 when she submitted one of her prettiest drawings to the Through Women's Eyes, By Women's Hands juried art show. She was very surprised when her piece, "Rainbow Weaving" was accepted. She got to attend as an artist, and wear a wonderful label, and even hear two women admire the wonderful weaving of colors together.
Blues Babies
In 2004 or thereabouts, Anora began a series called Blues Babies, experimenting with their evolution from one drawing to the next. While some were adorable, others were quite ugly, yet the process as a whole was very informative and fun.