Mentors

Sangeeta has a flair for handcrafts. Her admiration for earthen hand-made jewellery led to pursue courses in ceramics at the Claystation Art Studio in the garden city of Bangalore. She is a guest teacher at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar and also gives lessons at an institute at Qatar Foundation.

Through her work Sangeeta aims to popularize the ethnic art and styles of making handcrafted eco-friendly ceramic articles from clay.

Cheryl has had a passion for hand embroidery for over 30 years and has studied it in England, Italy, and America. She specializes in Counted Thread and her favorite techniques include Cross Stitch, Blackwork (similar to Kasuti), and Assisi. Since moving to Doha, from America with her husband, she decided to pursue her dream of designing patterns and teaching needlework.

Eman and Nasreen are two ladies that are not just related by family but also by their love for art & craft. They have jointly found their love in the art of decoupage and teach several kinds of techniques.

Kim, known as Mama Baba Ganoush, has grown a steady stream of herbs, fruit, and veggies from her backyard in Qatar and is passionate about sharing her tried and tested knowledge with the community. Kim is a food writer, editor, photographer, host of an online food show and writes for local and international publications about food and travel.

Janinithri is born and raised in a salubrious British colonial city known as Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. Her formative years were spent as an IT professional in the capital city of Colombo. It was there that she learned and trained herself in Ribbon embroidery, pottery painting, and other kinds of art & craft related work.
Her love for the outdoors grew as she was brought up around mountains & tea estates. Using her skill of thread and ribbon embroidery she now transforms picturesque landscapes into wall hangings.

Yosh is a self-taught designer/illustrator and runs a successful handmade and crafting business from home known as Yosh – Everyday Designs.

Painting has always been her passion since childhood and while in search of inspiration she fell in love with the beauty of folk art. She remembers being drawn to the exquisite and detailed designs in a Russian Fairy Tale book, which her grandfather handed down to her. This fueled Yosh’s desire to learn more about the artistry and eventually led her to her journey into the beautiful world of folk art.

Started her artistic journey very early in high school as a watercolor artist and illustrator. Then switched to acrylics but somehow neither was fulfilling enough. I had the urge to build things. It started with dollhouses out of cardboard then handmade books. Someone gifted me a book on how to make a paper bowl. As an experimenter she says she had to try it immediately. It turned out perfect. Fast forward to when my daughters were about 4 and 5 years old, she came up with the idea of letting them tear old newspapers and sorting them just to keep them out of mischief. It was then the idea returned to use that paper to make more bowls. Most of her work sold to cruise ship passengers that visited her island home.

She’s made all sorts of weird little things out of paper including lizards, angels, fairy houses, fruit with eyes and legs. The possibilities are endless with paper. Kelly understands paper very well, like how any craftsman/woman understands any of their tools. She’s also taken a paper making class at a factory in Japan, which was amazing but also sealed her love for working with paper.

Nik is a mom of one, a former business process specialist turned paper florist. Her love for this craft started over two years ago when she decided to try making her own flowers as an alternative to the expensive fresh flowers available in Qatar. This art form soon became one of her great loves.

She is inspired by nature and is constantly looking for ways to re create them using paper. Her flowers are made from carefully sourced materials that are hand-cut, hand shaped and constructed with great love and care.

Grace is a Venezuelan Journalist, who has found her true love in Patchwork and Quilting. She enjoys expressing herself and sharing her “Latin flavor” thought fabrics and colors. Throughout her crafty career, she has taught both children and adults how to sew and quilt, quilted for others, and even owns her own business: Handy and Crafty.

Since 2008, Grace has been living in Qatar and has been teaching her art to children and adults.In her workshops, students learn many Patchwork and Quilting techniques commonly referred to as traditional piecing, foundation paper piecing, curved piecing, strip piecing, English paper piecing, machine and hand appliqué, thread sketching, straight quilting, and free motion quilting.

Salma is French/ Moroccan with a long history of exploring different crafts. She is a self-taught fiber crafter, and loves learning new art forms since she was a kid. She is also the maker behind Liliboowool a brand named after her daughter who everyone calls her Liliboo.
Since discovering French Knitting, Punch needle and Macramé after the birth of her daughter her life quickly came to revolve around wool and fiber. Salma lives in Doha with her husband, daughter Lilia, & two dogs (stitch and Leelo)

Sally is a blogger, photographer and creator. She’s attended quite a few Hobby House Qatar workshops, eventually having found a love for Macramé, which she picked up and mastered quite quickly. As artist by nature her specialty now is with macramé pot hangers. She enjoys taking what she’s learnt and turns it into something new and unique.

Paula is a fabric artist with her aesthetics deeply rooted in her French-Canadian heritage. She is the founder of Touché Textile and her designs are influenced by her travels across the world. She combines the beauty of natural fabric with selected original motifs printed by hand to create textiles that are healthy, decorative and for everyday life. Her work has been exhibited in several handmade fairs including ARTE, the Dubai based Art & Craft Market. She is also a member of QatART, the community of Qatar-based makers of art, craft and design.

Beth is a Filipina watercolor artist based in Doha. She has been passionate about art since childhood, winning various art competitions in watercolor, oil painting, charcoal, and collage art. Over the years she has designed several logos, brochures, and banners for clients.
Her expertise lies in basic watercolor and realistic watercolor floral painting. Most of her recent artworks are florals and food illustrations.

Zakkiya is a watercolor designer, enthusiast, and founder of Inkstruck Studio. She’s ethnically Indian and has been an expat in Doha for the last 6 years. Her background in Architecture has helped her visualize the conceptual part of creativity but she decided to follow her passion in art.
For the last 3 years, watercolors have been her profession and she loves every bit of it. She also has an active blog on her own website where she creates tutorials, DIYs and freebies related to art.