Abdel Fattah's colours are suggested by the and desert environment where sand, rocks and dunes are continuously , and swiftly changing. In this environment the stability of vision, and brightness and purity of colour are rarities. To compensate for this deficiency the people of the desert use gay and bright colours in their clothes, tents, floorings, bed covers and utensils. Red is always strongly present. Blue, luminous white and different degrees of green are also used.
Lines appear or disappear into the delicately graded colours and empty spaces.
High up is a white area where the lines are clearly defined to reveal balconies, crescents and palm trees. The pyramids are thrust into the scene reflecting the artist's compulsive nostalgia for his country. The position of the seated poet shows economy of line and space while suggesting the anatomy of the body and the hand playing the lute. The existence or nonexistence of empty space corroborates the meaning of the worn Abdel Fattah graphically emphasises the outlines of his objects, merging or separating, in such a way that gives a sense of stability in spite of complete freedom from any traditional structure. His skill appears most in the texture of his coloured surfaces where shapes are connected or disconnected to each other as well as to the empty spaces.