Maha’s Diary – Jazz Night & Our Save the Day Sax!  

Maha is our new Heritage Participation trainee and is keeping an illustrated heritage blog of her time. 

Greetings Oxford House friends, 

My name is Maha Shami. I am an Artist and the Heritage Participation Trainee at Oxford House. My Oxford House Diary uses reportage illustration. Reportage is a type of visual documentation where an artist’s captures a moment in time. This is where I draw from life to document what is happening around me at Oxford House. Using a visual diary allows me to express my thoughts and emotions. I write to do lists and make sure I keep track of what needs to be done at work. I have a passion for storytelling, and I want to share that with you. Today’s post is about the Jazz Night we had at Oxford House on the 24th of February!  

 Going into the night I was excited because we had had a brilliant evening at the Archive Night a couple of days earlier! We were booked up again and the cafe started to fill up. Next, disaster struck! Harry Toulson who was playing the saxophone accidentally dropped it! We gave him some tape that he said he may be able to use to repair his sax. 

 But as they say … THE SHOW MUST GO ON! So, the band go ahead and started playing. We had Laurence Di Mauro on the drums, Will Hobson on keyboard and Oscar Ho on double bass and then something MAD happened. One of the bands musical friends, Will RJ was in the audience. He also happened to have a saxophone on him! He has his friends back. He got out his Sax and improvised with the band. It was MAGICAL!  Aren’t we lucky to work with dynamic, quick-thinking musicians here at Oxford House!  

 Jazz Nights are on the last Friday of every month! Join us for the next one on the 31st of March! 

Will Hobson on the keyboard, Oscar Ho on the Double Bass and Laurence Di Mauro on the Drums! I used my drawings from the night to make a composite Image on Photoshop. This allowed me to have fun with the lines and colours. I increased the saturation to its maximum and that’s how I got these funky colours! 

This was a quick sketch from the night of the 24th of February! I used Polychromos Faber – Castell pencils. Here we have Will Hobson on the keyboard, Oscar Ho on the Double Bass, Will RJ on Sax and Laurence Di Mauro on Drums! 

Using a black Polychromos pencil for a quick sketch of Oscar Ho on Double Bass and Will Hobson on keyboard!

 Using a black Polychromos pencil for a quick sketch of Laurence Di Mauro on drums!