Self Portrait With Flaming Heart

Mixed media (watercolor, gouache, graphite and pastel) on illustration board,

10 x 15,

2009

Solstice Giveaway + Workshop

Giveaway
my next Solstice Giveaway is going to be a little different from the last one. prize continues being a 8 x 11 color portrait, but from now one I'm asking for a symbolic $3.00 for your participation. why? because I decided to make of this a good occasion to collect donations for a charity organization or even a person in need. so now you can buy as many numbers you want, increasing your chances to win, and also transfer the prize to another person, as you wish. :)

charity still to be announced. it may varies between a donation in money to an organization and a bag of groceries, depending on the amount of money I will be able to collect. again, overseas winner will have only the digital version of the portrait, at least willing to pay for the shipping (sorry for that once again, folks..)

I will be soon placing a link on the blog's sidebar to my PayPal account, so numbers can be safely purchased.  drawing will happen on December 8th, so you have plenty of time to participate.

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Workshop
If you enjoy astrology and have interest to know a bit more about how it works,while finding out more about yourself and  yet sparking your creativity, you may enjoy Creative Astrology. this workshop was designed to help you understand the astrological language in an intutitive way, taking your own birth chart as a reference, and learning how to recognize the astrological symbolism inside yourself and in the world around you. this workshop is not intended to be a complete course on astrology, which would demand many months of apprenticeship and a different learning approach, but to give you a glimpse of how it is based upon and how you can see it in action in your life. as a complement you'll learn how to build a mandala journal and connect the mandala imagery to your chart and personal experience. more details here.

Creative Astrology is an online workshop, and can be attended by anybody with a computer connected to the internet and a device for capturing images (camera, scanner, cell phone, etc) The first edition will approach the four elements in astrology, and, as it is an experimental workshop, is being offered for free. however, only 12 spaces are available. if you are interested, please leave a comment here with your name or alias and an active email to enroll. workshop starts on November 2nd and lasts 10 days.

surprise of the day

Inside Solo is an online magazine for members of the Solo Exhibition group on RedBubble. It's extremely well done and well written. I am in awe to find out I've gained a feature in this week edition, with (totally breathtaking) reviews of 3 of my works. gonna post them soon! now let me drool on them a little bit more.

a break from the Tree + good news

sometimes working in a large, detailed piece like the Tree of Life becomes a little overwhelming. your eyes get sort of tired from continuously looking at the same stuff and end up needing a little refreshment.

The Puppeteer, work in progress. mixed media on illustration board.

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I was invited to collaborate with 3 illustrations for Liquid Dreams, a project by California poet Ricardo Blancas. along with Blanca's beautiful poems, the book will bring color illustrations from different artists, ranging from pencil to oils works. all the earnings from the book sales go to charity. I'm pretty proud to be part of this project and sure that the final result will be a pearl of beauty. have seen the other artist's illustrations and got in awe by their talent and sensitivity.

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also proud to let you know that 14 of my works will be published in a 2011 calendar by a Spanish publisher. this is specially important to me since it will be my first time in a publication featuring exclusively my artwork. and in Spain, land of my ancestors - although born in Brazil, I am of Spanish heritage. some of my relatives of old may have done something from the other plane.

Tree of Life - close shots and insights

I'm very pleased with my new camera. although is not a professional one, I think it works fine enough for my needs. I have to learn how to deal with it though; it has more features than my deceived one. I'm happy for being now able to show details of my stuff.

the Tree of Life is starting to show its truth and my ideas are flowing more freely with the progress of the work. now I know what's that all about: organicity, sperm, fecundation. it's about contacting the Divine through pleasure, celebration of the body, fire and transmutation. the idea of placing a peacock on the tree is an old insight of mine, which later found some synchronicity with the ideas of a friend. the feathers started to resemble sperm to me. and that's just beautiful.

the end of the peacock tale represents a womb. this is all about fecundation. the peacock as a symbol of renewal is here also linked to the idea that we are born again when we generate life.

detail of the hand of the "tree". the three women intertwined represent the cycles of life, or the triple aspect of the Goddess - Maiden, Mother and Crone.

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this morning I was notified that my work Flourish will be part of the 2010 Art Wanted Calendar. happy happy.