experimenting

I finally could relax last weekend after dropping off 8 paintings at Common Grounds. I couldn't stay longer to see the paintings hanging on the walls, but I may come by sometime to see how they look like, and also to take a look at the other artists' work. here's how they look framed - I did all the job:





if you live in the Lexington area, come by to check them out. they will be displayed up to September 12th.

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Serpentarium is one of the paintings I wanted to show, even being an experimental work and a little different from the other ones in technique and style. I did it quickly and freely, on a poor quality paper, just to see where I could go... and the result was a pleasant surprise.

I've been trying this technique for a while, without much success, but now I think I learned the tricks. it's a more intuitive technique, and actually quite simple. I make several washes using tree or four colors and let them intermingle, always controlling the shapes until they form something like an abstract painting. the washes are "bolder" than the ones I do in my usual underpaintings. in Serpentarium I placed the face without any previous study, rendering it with pencils, as I always do. the cool thing is that all the "chaos" produced by my underpaiting will show through the figure, and the effect is quite interesting. I then started to look around the figure's face, just like when you look for shapes in the clouds... the shapes formed by the abstracts looked to me like serpents surrounding her. next step was to enhance the shapes and create more abstratcs. voilà.

I got so excited that I decided to start two more experiments, this time using boards and doing a better planning. after making the abstracts, I photographed them and took to the Photoshop. then I started to study the composition placing the desired reference pictures on them. the combination pictures + background brought me ideas for the paintings almost instantly.

the first one is coming to life. first thing I saw in this background was a big skull at the center top. then I understood that it was time to work again in a concept I had recently created but had to abort because I found that the work was becoming a total crap. and there's The Veil coming again, in a style of background I've always longed for my works but could never achieve. it was delightful to see the figure kind of emerging from the background, being bit by bit shaped by the pencils. I'm loving it. hope everything goes well and I finally get set in this new phase of looser, freer style paintings.

a new hope

have not heard from the cafe people in a while, so I'm assuming that the show is not going to happen - or it's not going to happen so soon. to tell he truth I am a little alleviated since I'm in a middle of an artistic crisis and feeling nauseous every time I look to one of my pieces. pieces I loved so much and had so much pleasure doing. I don't know what happens to me from times to times, really. my husband says that I am too much of a perfectionist, and he is not wrong. what I know is that I feel this urge of taking my work to a next level, of doing different things and doing it now. this is not a negative thing per se, but when you look at most of your old work with a certain despise something is not ok. I feel so lost and suffer to a point of losing my sleep at night trying to find solutions, looking for answers in other artists' artworks and all sort of inspiring images, until eyes and back cry for rest. seriously.

I have an artistic ideal very clear in my mind. the problem is to achieve this ideal when you hand simply doesn't obey your mind. well, I am passionate about Japanese/Chinese art, and my goal is to get the closest possible to its elegance and simplicity. I love the empty spaces, the limited palette, the sensation of calm and peace. but when my hands touch the brushes, dude... it's like a volcano of color erupting from inside myself spilling its vibrant lava all over the board. I cannot help it. I get crazy with the paints before me. so many colors - why to save them? I don't know if this has something to do with my Brazilian cultural background, all that sun and heat and colors ingrained in my DNA. and I thought I was not a typical Latin American girl.

but anyway... today I decided to calm down and experiment. I used a small piece of board and drew the profile of my friend and honorary model Iara, and working with watercolors in an aleatory manner.

I totally liked the result, and could have stopped if I had not thought that something was missing at the top. I also missed my usual abstracts filling up the hair. in the end I thought that a butterfly would make a charming addition, but the watercolor effect at the top didn't really match the one I did. I messed up the job. but nothing that an exacto knife couldn't fix.

I've been trying to work more on my pencil drawing, to make it more realistic. I love the combination colors/monochrome and really want to continue in this path. this little work ended up cheering me up and making me think that nothing is lost... I now have the spark I needed to keep creating.

Tree of Life - how a painting is born, part 2.1

a thing I have just noticed in the study in my skechbook: the triangle pointed downward points out just to the figure's tummy, at the basis of the tree. womb. look what a beautiful thing: the manifestation of the Divine Spirit in the generation of a living being in the physical world (man, I am totally sensitive to all these babies and maternity stuff and all their spiritual connection, felt like crying now.) I now have material for a different work!

Luís, a friend from Portugal, left a comment in my blog in Portuguese that it worth to be responded in the form of a post, soon. another beautiful idea came as a wonderful image that dearest Dee sent me by email yesterday, which is part of the new Lars Von Trier film, Antichrist:

Tree of Life - how a painting is born, part 2

on the day before my trip I was a little obsessed about the Tree of Life. I was feeling a little blocked - maybe because I was so tired and my eyes were hurting and feeling heavy. but I decided to start a quick research about the subject, since my knowledge about trees of life was a bit too generic. I could realize how complex it is, though, since there are myths about trees practically in every culture of this world.

working with myths is a treacherous field. the further you go studying them, the more excited you get to see how things unfold and relate to others, mainly inside yourself. ideas start to pop out from everywhere and you end up getting lost and frustrated because it's simply impossible to put everything in a painting. better take it easy, starting from the basics and hear your inner voice.

the Tree of Life is basically about how all the creatures' existence is intertwined and tied to this big net called Universe. microcosm and macrocosm together, skies and earth. looking at my rough study sketch, I notice that my figures composition is a triad - Virgin, Mother and Crone? - and that their heads make an almost perfect triangle.


I add to it another one, pointed downward. the Seal of Salomon, spirit and matter, macrocosm and microcosm, as above so below. if I had planned it, it wouldn't be so perfect.

so now you can see how crazy might be all this thing of creating art. this is why most of time I don't despair when I feel blocked. I know that the work (?) will point out the directions by itself, and things sooner or later fall into place.

I have a problem, now. I just found out the six pointed star in the sketch when I already had the definitive penciling done. and on the board the heads are not that aligned, the symmetry of the triangle is not the same. it would be kind of crazy to reject the first work and doing another one, more "into the rules" - even why, a second similar work is never like the first one. it might be better, or worse. I don't want to risk. I stick with the first, and accept the challenge of creating a pictorial solution that suggests, or simulates, the triangles.

another problem: the "tree trunk" is occupying more than 60% of the board area. ok, the three women are nice and all, the composition is attractive enough, but it's a Tree of Life, and it has to have a big, luscious canopy.

the solution comes in the form of additional panels, one at the top and one at each side. I like the idea, it will look like some kind of puzzle. nice, nice. and in each panel, what about to represent one of the four elements, or the four seasons? the four seasons are a perfect symbol for the cycle of life.

I look for images of Trees of Life around the web. I find many ones with branches and limbs in the shape of spirals. I paint a lot of spirals, but I wanted something different just because spirals are a kind of cliche for trees of life, and we must run away from cliches whenever we can. but... spirals are symbols of life! they represent cycles, evolution, fertility. the spiral is one of the oldest representations of the Goddess power. Klimt probably knew very well what he was doing when he painted his famous and beautiful Tree of Life. how could I run away from that?


but I want more in each one of the panels. I want more symbols, not only birds, fishes (I love fishes in unusual places) and mammals. I am now exploring a little of Kabalah and trying to find relations between its tree and mine. I know almost nothing of Kabalah and never could take the time to study it, so now I think I'm before a good opportunity to understand it a little.

Studies for birds.

Tree of Life - how a painting is born, part I

I decided to give me a more prolonged break from the the triptych and work in a different project. since I had planned to submit a piece to the beautiful Embracing Our Differences exhibit, I decided to start working on it. I thought that it might be also a good opportunity to show in more details how I create and build a picture - and how crazy and erratic the creation process can be.

the image submitted to the exhibit should not be very complex, but rather transmit the idea of acceptance and tolerance of the differences in a direct way. sometimes it's not easy for me to think simple, I have a certain knack for complexities - but not exactly because I plan them. then I had the idea to make a group of androgynous figures of different colors emerging from the ground. the figures should not show in their bodies nothing that could resemble race, or genre. the colors should be regular ones, like red, green and yellow, for example, and not skin colors. the intention is not focus in a special subject. the concept was to remind that we all are equal for we all are born the same way as children of the Earth and we all will die the same way and come back to Her.

when I still don't have an idea about what I want to paint, I usually feed my mind with pictures, videos, and music. usually my search doesn't last too long. I'm very imaginative and sometimes just a single vision of patterns in the wings of a bird, beautiful draperies or an unusual sunset sky are enough to inspire me with colors and shapes. and when I want to put a group of figures in the picture, I first need to do some study until finding a good, harmonic composition. I go to my collection of reference pictures, open my Photoshop and start to pick pictures and position them until find a composition I really like. usually it's when the real job starts and when more ideas arise. sometimes, the next step is to transfer the image in a very rough sketch to my sketchbook and start creating. other times, when I have a clear idea of what I want, I go right to the illustration board. the image is still blurred in my mind, so I'd better do some studies first.

in the sketchbook things start to change. first, I suddenly realize that the intertwined figures look better with their breasts. the initial idea begins to crumble. second, I begin to see branches coming out the arms and hair. the group of figures is now a big tree.

ok, we can use a big tree to represent structure, for example. differences structure the world, make it a most interesting and rich place. but now the figures have a genre, they are women. I'm afraid that my initial idea is now getting more and more dissolved.

now I don't know what to do with a big tree which trunk is made of three women intertwined. but I love the idea, and I want to continue on. but it's no longer a project for the Embracing the Differences exhibit. it's something else I don't know what is.

the word came to my mind all of a sudden: Tree of Life.

eureka!! what could be more appropriate for a tree of life than a tree made of women? I was in awe. almost immediately I started to sketch the figures on the board, using 2H and HB pencils.

little branches coming from fingers...

this is why I say that many times our creations don't really belong to us. they seem to have a life of their own. no matter what we plan for them, in their way to completion they may end up turning out something totally different. we artists are just the channel.

I finished the penciling today, or at least what I call the "basics". at the end of the process I'll fix what I judge to be flaws and enhance the shadows using a softer pencil (usually 2B or even 4B, but nothing beyond that.)

now it's time for the fun to start. in the next step I'll create the abstractions and define the branches, leaves and the other elements I want the tree to have. I confess I am still not certain of what to put in the tree besides animals and birds. a Tree of Life is something big and deserves to be well thought about. let's see what kind of insight I'll be granted with in the next days.

some plans.

thinking about creating some small paintings that don't require much time to get done. my usual paintings take about 2 weeks to be completed, and this of course influence in their prices. if I make smaller and quicker paintings, I can charge much less. my bigger pieces cost between $380 and $450, depending mostly on the time I spend in each one. since I'm just starting off in the market, I don't believe I can charge much more.

I started to experiment today, on watercolor paper. I'm not very sure yet about what I'm going to paint. not very complex themes though. maybe just faces, ornamental abstracts, some surrealism, who knows. I'm going to spend the week with my in-laws, and since when I'm there I don't need to worry about anything but taking care of my daughter, I may come back home with something new. the big panels will stay home waiting, I don't want to take the whole art paraphernalia with me for a trip. only the watercolor pad and box, 3 or 4 brushes and pencils, and books - got some new ones a few weeks ago and just had the chance to barely open them. and, of course, since we'll have free baby sitter, going to the movies!!! boy, I even forgot what a movie theater smells like. and God, I NEED to see Watchmen.

the Divine is naked.

now I guess I can show the very beginning of my new creative effort, a project I've been cherished for a while, and that I decided to call The Waterman.






I told my husband the other night: "I want to paint Jesus naked." he just responded, after some of his characteristic little jokes, "just go ahead, my dear. you have my support."

I had confessed him that I had some apprehensions about it. not really religious ones, since I am not a Christian and I do not worship deities, but I am a total admirer of Jesus Christ. this man is my life role model, the example I try to keep in my mind and heart every minute. although to me he is not God himself, but some kind of older brother and master, he is a sacred symbol for many. my fear was to create controversies about putting a sacred symbol naked, and I don't want to offend anybody. but then I thought, "hey, wait a minute... this is art, and art is not supposed to follow rules. and since I'm the artist and I'm supposed to express my thoughts, I think that there's nothing offensive in naked bodies. naked is beautiful and my Jesus will be beautiful and yes, he will be naked."

in my work, Jesus is the waterman. my starting point to this concept is Luke 22:10, that says "a man will meet you carrying an earthen pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he goes in." that was a kind of announcement of the age of Aquarius. I then saw Jesus as the own man with the pitcher of water. he was not just the avatar of the Pisces era, for his message is universal and it will stay forever. and in the age of Aquarius it will be finally understood and followed in its purity, without "the veil of the letter".

that's the meaning of the nakedness of Jesus: the purity and truth of his message. nothing more to hide or being corrupted by men in their political interests, no more manipulative interpretations. just the truth, as it is. naked.

talking to my good friend Marcelo Peregrino later on the msn, I told him about my project and fears. Marcelo is a big fan of Jesus as much as I am, then I knew he would understand me. he responded me with a song by Gilberto Gil, a famous Brazilian musician (please forgive the rough translation):

If I want to talk to God,
I have to be alone,
I have to turn off the light,
I have to silence my voice.
(...)
I have to have my hands empty,
to have body and soul naked.

and then, my friend said, "the Divine is naked."

a delicate brainstorm.

violence against women is a theme I've been for a long time planning to explore in a piece. along with children's and animal's rights, that's a subject I am totally sensitive to. I think that every woman already felt in her own skin some kind of abuse or discrimination. they come not only in the form of physical violence or sexual humiliation, but in the form of words and abusive behaviors that are pretty much considered normal. like husbands who decline doing housework claiming that it is "women's work", for example. or rejected boyfriends that become a real torment in their ex-girls lives, thanks to their hurt "male pride", or for believing they have certain "rights" over her life.

I was born and raised in a very machist country, and although women in Brazil have theoretically the same rights as men, machist practices are so ingrained in our culture that are perpetuated even by the very women almost instinctively. almost daily I've been reading this blog, in Portuguese, by a Brazilian journalist who talks very often about violence against women. her posts have helped me enormously to develop my concept for the piece. I've been also researching works from another artists on the subject in order to observe how it's been represented. in my search I found Abro, this inspired, highly sensitive Pakistani artist, who says more with his powerful paintings than many of the women can barely suspect about themselves:



the paintings are clearly about Pakistani women, but I think that they can perfectly tell stories about women worldwide. in Pakistan, Brazil, America, or India. we are all both protagonists and silent spectators of a drama that unites all of us under a dense sheet of shame and tears.