and so it begins...

i know, a turn in the calendar doesn't change much. my philosophy is that everyday is time for a change. or every hour. minute. we are changing every second, even when we do not realize. life is movement and progress, nothing is static.

but i enjoy to add my hopes and wishes of a good year to the millions of similar thoughts that float around the planet ever December/January. we need positivity. and we need lots of them.

i have been out of town since mid December and have not seen a brush or pencil ever since. well, i have a sketchbook on me and a watercolor pad + paint set and pencils. but i have been so busy taking care of a bunch of pending projects and self-promotion, that so far i do not have had a lot of  time to produce any artwork. not mentioning that the lighting here is pretty bad too.

i do not have a lot of resolutions for the New Year but keep making art insanely and passionately. and not let works accumulating as much as i did last year (disaster). i also need  to be more disciplined in my yoga and meditation practice. i have a huge and exciting project for 2013, and hope to be able to officially announce it by the end of January. i have also more products with my art being released this year, and a new show in Seattle coming very soon.

i will be gradually updating my portfolio here. but all my new pieces from the Mythologique series are already on my website. and i finally have a mailing list! you can sign up on the right sidebar to get my updates right on your inbox. subscribers are also granted special prices and little surprises from time to time. :)

thank you so much for your love and support during 2012! may 2013 be an inspiring and magical year for all of us.

cleaning off the spider webs

over two months and no updates? can't believe it.

i am still working on a new version for my website, when time permits. since the new site is powered by WordPress, i've been pondering if i should keep the blog here or migrate it to the website. i have been a Blogger user for years, and i am very fond of it, so the decision has been a little difficult.

meanwhile, lots have happened. i have a new show up, at Vertigo Rising Gallery, here in Everett WA. the show is called Venusian Odyssey and features artworks of artists Carol J Elsip, Cher Clemans, and myself. i am showing some old pieces and a couple new drawings i have prepared exclusively for the show.

Venusian #1 and #2

in December i will be the featured artist at the Habitude Salon and Spa, in Ballard, Seattle, where i will be showing for the first time works in oils and acrylics. the pieces are a blend of geometric abstracts + figurative work. sneak peak of a work in progress:

Leda, oil and acrylic on canvas. Progress detail.

2013 starts well with two more shows around the Seattle area. details coming soon.

around the studio, things are bubbly (and a bit confusing at times). slowly finishing a bunch of commissions i had in line since early this year, with new ones coming. playing more and more with abstracts, which has been greatly opening my perception of color, form, and composition, and also improving my inner sight. i think that my experience with abstract painting deserves a special post. my illustration work has taken a different direction, with bigger contrast color/grey scale, more detailed pencil work, and the return of my first love, the colored pencils. it has become sort of difficult to work following my old direction of colorful water media. this commission will probably be the last piece more or less following that line of work.

Wocekiye, mixed media on illustration board. Progress detail.

also, i have recently signed a contract with Pacifica Tile Art Studio to have my work printed in tile murals. The Chemistry, Yemanja, and Esperance have been already released. 

thank you so very much for all the lovely messages and the valuable support, and my apologies for not being able to return back to you as promptly as i'd like. hope you all had a scrumptious Halloween!

Me as a voodoo doll.

settled in, but not quite.

so, almost one month after having picked up the keys to my new place, i am still struggling to get things flowing the way they are supposed to. baby is still attending school in Seattle, which means i have to share my time between both cities during the whole month of May -- and maybe early June. with all the studio set up in Everett, and only 3 days in the week available for painting, i don't have other choice but continuing in a slow pace until getting definitely out of the limbo.

the Drawing-a-Day project will be put on hold until June. i have 19 more drawings to go!

current projects in progress:

a peacock commission on canvas. pencil drawing soon to be covered in acrylics. this is something very different from my usual direction, but exciting. working on something more ornamental is always a delight.

detail of a commission on paper board with which i have been struggling for quite some time now. :((

the sunset from my rooftop. 

Just married.

my apologies for failing on posting the last Drawing-a-Day pieces (thanks for your comment, Jennifer!), but the last weeks has been really crazy hectic. reason: i am moving to another city, and i have nothing less than FOUR client's projects in progress. the move, although planned for a while, happened a little fast and i could not predict that all the process would be so time consuming. for a person without a car, a 5 year old, and no baby sitter, things tend to be a little more complicated than usual. on the top of all that, a strong cold stole my energy for three days. i lost track of my stuff, the commissions ended up overlapping because they were scheduled to start on certain days of the month, and i am now trying to juggle all the projects at once. i said once that i have the best clients in the world, and i must repeat: I HAVE THE BEST CLIENTS IN THE WORLD. they have been fortunately amazingly patient and understanding. the Drawing-a-Day pieces will come, although in a sort of schizophrenic way, at least for the next couple weeks -- i have a lot of packing/unpacking to do!

the new home is a loft in an artist's building in the lovely city of Everett, about 25 miles North of Seattle. dozens of artists live and work in this building, many of them with their families. there are art walks every month, a gallery in the lobby, and an art center in the first and second floor of the building. i am so blessed for being now a part of this wonderful community.

Isobel all excited spinning and rolling around the floors.

My marriage with the arts, a commitment since childhood, has finally gone official. :) 

Progress shots for the new show

Omnia vincit amor (Love conquers all.) There will be another version with two dudes kissing, but not for this show.


Serpentarium


I should be way ahead with these pieces but these have been tumultuous days. my studio contract with Inscape has expired and i decided not to renew it, so this week i've been busy packing up my stuff to bring back home. it has not been easy to let go of a dream to have my own working space where i could display my pieces to the public and teach, but the truth is that i have been producing way more at home, so the rent expenses are rather being painful now. i am now accommodating everything in the basement -- i started calling it "The Dungeon" -- and i feel comfortable enough to keep the creation flame burning. well, someday, i will be back.

so, moving on, because life is a constant flow.

Happy New Year!

While Christmas is always a somewhat depressing time for me, New Year's is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I love its festive, optimistic character, and all the celebration around hopes of a new cycle of prosperity and happiness. It doesn't matter that is only a change in the calendar. What matters is that people's mindsets are generally focused toward a new beginning, improvement, and change, and all that positivity generates an egregore of optimism that can only attract good things.

My New Year Eve was not what i wanted it to be (I am a party person.) I traveled to Kentucky to spend the Holidays with my daughter's family, and things here are not exactly what a party creature would call "exciting"... But it was a pretty calm evening and I spent it with the things i love the most in this world - my baby and my art, so it couldn't be bad (it would be better if boyfriend was around too, but nothing is perfect...) As the only things I could bring in the plane were a few pieces of illustration board, a few pencils and brushes, and a set of watercolors, had to revisit an old passion of mine: the combination watercolor + pencil.

Think I can consider this for my new show, in February, and add maybe three more pieces in the same style.

I feel like something is opening up for me. The months that followed my divorce and my move to Seattle were quite overwhelming. I have been trying to balance personal life, art, health that gets gradually worse, motherhood, survival and emotional issues, and that big sign that many times blinks inside your mind reading "you are alone, lady, and there's no escape, so, make the best of it!" As I have been registering here, my art has been also gone through a long phase of experimentation (a reflex of my own life?), in each I have been exhaustively trying to reach ways to represent what I see inside, reaping some results that are undoubtedly getting me to a more comprehensive path. On my quest, I have been taking a little distance from who I am in order to find myself again. I went farther, training my hand in Abstractionism (in my opinion maybe the most difficult path that one could take in art,) evolving on canvas work, knowing my limits and challenges. It is liberating to think that you can be and do anything you want when you really want it. As long as the heart and your personal truth takes the lead, everything is valid.

This year, my intention is just one: to improve. I want to do the best I can, and even so, do not get satisfied. I also want to focus more on the business of art and explore other possibilities to my art making.

To all my friends, followers, patrons, buyers, a sincere, tsunamic THANK YOU. Wish you a year of enlightenment, prosperity, and inspiration.

+

I still have a bunch of December works to show here. It will be done soon, promise.

back home.

i've been in Seattle WA for 10 days and came back last week. it was a lovely Spring break in an amazing, inspiring city. chances are that i will be moving there in the next few months, so, if you are a Seattle artist and/or crazy visionary and want to socialize or partnering for future projects, let me know! and if you want to hire me for art + design projects or classes, then we should REALLY talk.

in the last days i have been focusing on deadlines and makeovers. my website is finally back, and although temporarily lacking some info and functionalities i would like it to have, is holding all the basic information and the paintings are all there. i will also launch an online store on the site, so people won't need to go somewhere else to buy my originals. things are also changing around here, as you may have noticed. :)

back soon with the latest news.

My baby and me in the Des Moines marina.

commissions, prices and vertigo.

Sketch for portrait commission in progress.

in my next video i will be showing the making of a portrait - this one i'm working on right now. it's been a gratifying, very enriching experience, and i'd like to share it. since i started doing the video thing people have been expressing the wish to see something related to my work. by the way, i'm grateful for having the best clients in the world. :)

talking about commissions, by Spring I may slightly raise my prices. i've been already doing this with my new paintings, since acrylics are not as economical as watercolors. i know that many artists charge by the hour, and although i have an hour price set up, i never use it because i care more about having a satisfying result, and  i don't want that a client's budget interfere in my "quality standard". usually i charge for a commission the same price i put on a personal project, but since you don't have the same freedom, that also should have some cost. also, thinking seriously about rejecting any project that has nothing to do with what i usually do or stifle my creativity. seriously, the expression is a bit strong, but i feel like i'm being raped (and the money won't compensate it...) I feel a little bad for saying this,-- if i was starving, i'd do anything!, but, thank goodness, it's not the case. anyway, the raises are not going to be too dramatic.

yesterday was the warmest day in many weeks in Frankfort: 61 F. the snow finally melted away and Kitty was happy for the gentle sun warmth.

been having episodes of dizziness/vertigo since one week ago. went to the doctor and she found a yucky buildup of ear wax in my ears, which were supposedly pressing the labyrinths and interfering with my body balance. ears are now all clean (ear wash is not as bad as i thought), but the dizziness persists -- although is not as bad as before. taking some time to see what will happen.

when s*** happens

here's a lesson for everybody who has rambunctious children at home and whose life depend on technological paraphernalia: keep your kids at least 5 feet away from your stuff. my 3 year old, who's like a bull in a china store, just had to trip over my laptop power cable to cause a disaster. the system was severely damaged. after trying for hours to make things work, I had no choice but to restore the hard drive to the factory state. now I'm here, at the household desktop, bleeding heart, watching while all my stuff is being swept out of my beloved laptop (which is just 4 months old.)

all my stuff includes: loads of pictures (cool moments that will never come back), paperwork, emails, reference pictures for ongoing projects, and... all the material I've been lovingly and carefully composing for my workshops. which means that I'll have to cancel them and return the money to people who have already signed up. how AWFUL is that??

sick and working

have been sort of sick these last couple days. a little lethargic, dizzy and with a weird pressure inside my head. this afternoon I felt a little more energetic and could almost finish a portrait I've been working on these last weeks. better go to the doctor if this thing continue on. if I had some help around here it would be so great... sometimes feel just too exhausted.


Portrait of Lucy - work in progress

I'd like to have a place far from home only for working. work has been getting more intense in the last few months and it's becoming very difficult to harmonize it with house chores. when you work at home there will always be something that will take you off from your work, and that bothers me a lot. I've been thinking for a while in finding somebody who wanted to share a studio, so I'd have a place where I could almost exclusively focus on work (and on my baby, of course, at least until she is able to go to school.)

away for a short while

leaving tomorrow for my in-laws. one week away from domestic routine, hooray! no internet access, so all I want to do is to work in some new sketches and read. dunno if I'll be able to do all I want - one week is not much and I still have to take care of my baby.

above, the project I am leaving home to continue working on when I come back. it's called Padma (lotus, in sanscrit), and I am loving the ethereal purple and pink. can't wait to finish it.

take care, kiddos. hope to have something nice to show you when I'm back!

new pieces finished

almost dead.

and after a lot of struggle I finally managed to finish my three new pieces. these last weeks have not been the easiest ones, I must say. bad eyesight, artistic crisis, improvement work around the house - have had to work hearing the bum bum of hammers all day long. but art prevailed, and the pieces got done in time for the show - yep, I'll be at Common Grounds this weekend.

last night I even had a little time to change the blog look. and planning a website makeover too. but first I need to take care of a couple commissions. for now, enjoy my new stuff!

I'm alive.

so, I have my new lenses and they seem to work fine, but my eyes still get too tired when I focus on computer work for too long. so I decided to avoid it, mainly at night. anyway, I have a few books to finish reading and need to put some workshops together too!

to tell the truth these last days have found me a little lethargic and lost. it's being a little hard to work for the show. I'm living a bit of a crisis concerning to my style and simply aborted 2 pieces I spent quite a time working on. I am now trying to finish 3 new ones and I hope to be able to do it this weekend, so I can breath, clean my house and start other stuff. even the Tree of Life is likely to be redone.

pics of the new works soon - if I don't decide to incinerate them.

clean.

I'm back from my short trip. I guess.

first action: to change the blog's layout. tired of that dark color, nothing like something clean. it seems like my thoughts can breath now.

be right back.

she's my masterpiece

hope you all have had a wonderful Mother's Day, like mine.

I'll have no internet connection for a few days. be back next week, hopeful with some new stuff to show you all.

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.

starting new artwork, in spite of some dark clouds

these have been strange days of lethargy and sickness around the house. first baby, then me, then my husband. according to my researches on the symptoms, it seems like a "family" gastroenteritis. I still feel nauseous and weak. baby looks better, my husband doesn't seem very fine yet. I was working in my new piece yesterday when I started to feel real bad and had to leave the board. freaky.

my new work is called The Waterman and it is intended to be a triptych. I wish I could get the 3 pieces finished until late this month. I've been brainstorming it for a while, made some studies but things do not seem totally in place yet. sometimes it starts almost like a blur, and then when I decide to adventure myself into the board, things simply happen. since I started working with the illustration boards I don't do preliminary sketches anymore. I like to preserve the freshness of the drawing, its initial energy, and the board is strong enough to bear all the erasing without getting damaged.

but anyway... I am very anxious to see Watchmen and I think that it will be possible only late this month. for total fans like me, this is the same as torture!

back to walk.

the days pass by and the pain gets minimized. what is fear becomes hope, and while the bad remembrances go fading we become more confident. my little one is recovering amazingly well, I must say. in the days that followed the accident she was already full of life, playing and running around the house - and making us crazy with fear that something bad could happen again. I spent almost one week with uncomfortable, unpleasant kind of post traumatic stress emotions.

but today I grabbed my brushes to try to complete Ascension - which is not being an easy task. I also managed to make a logo for the studio and to organize my to-do lists and projects. tomorrow I must give the last retouches in a portraiture project. yes, it's life and normalcy smiling to me again, and I'm very thankful.

Image: Corbis