Lumloom,Shagrah & Sunbul

The luscious eyes, long eyelashes and fluffy droopy lips of a camel are features I find irresistible. I wanted to get close up and personal with these animals in order to paint them, but the camel souk (market) is not a place women were supposed to be seen.

When my art teacher and I arrived there, both the camels and their keepers were dumfounded by the sight of us. The baby camels were particularly enticed by my camera. Ignoring their elders’ persistent warnings, they kept poking their soft noses into my lens. Needless to say, I managed to get lots of photographs and sketches. Years later, Lumloom, one of the camels I met that day, became the star of my second children’s book “A Desert Story.”