Thursday, 25 November 2010

Issue #6 of "We´re in Panama!"

"We´re in Panama!" issue #6, November 2010

November issue of "We´re in Panama!" is now online! As usual, it´s free to download, and you can find it here. Print it out and enjoy it!

I love receiving all your comments and e-mails, so this month I´ll be raising the feedback bar: I´m preparing a presentation about my e-zine and want to include photos of readers - of you. Please send me your images of you, your kids, your friends reading this e-zine, or this e-zine travelling to different parts of the globe. The best images will be included in the presentation!

Oh, I can´t wait!

Enjoy reading it!

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Buenos Aires revisited

Going back to Buenos Aires felt a bit like going home. I needed to get a haircut, to visit my osteopath, buy some buttons (as if there were no buttons in Panama) and go to my favourite restaurants.

Salmon ravioli asian style

Tiraditos in Osaka

I didn´t visit one single museum - but I walked and walked, sat under the blooming jacarandas and took my sketchbook out to draw.

Floralis Generica, Buenos Aires

I had tea with friends, making up for a social life I still don´t have in Panama. I realized, those ties and friendships I created there were thicker and deeper than I had thought.

I saw Christmas decorations (this is end of November, already?) and felt cold, after six months of hot, humid weather. There was cold wind and sleeping with a blanket, hot sun and lots of blooming roses at the Rosedal de Palermo.

Roses at the Rosedal de Palermo

There was the girl in Osaka who recognized us and helped us with an off the menu request - she made me happier than she knows. As if it weren´t enough, I bought myself a good, solid portion of choc-salt cookies. And for once the lack of coins served my purpose: change was given in cookies. Oh, yum!

Choc-salt cookies!

After five days of walking, feeling, experiencing a return to a city where I lived, where I was happy (and unhappy too), where I met so many new friends and met a new me, I came back to my new home in Panama. We´ll see where this ride takes us.

Where Retiro meets Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires

(Guess who came along?

"We´re in Panama!" goes south...

Oh yeah.)

Monday, 22 November 2010

After many, many months...

I´m painting again

...I´m painting again and it feels so good. I missed all the brushes and colours and the freedom they contain in themselves.

Painting makes me happy.

(more photos here)

Friday, 19 November 2010

Just because it´s pretty

Estrelas do mar em Bocas del Toro, Panamá

(photo taken back in October in Bocas del Toro, Panamá. Nice, nice place to visit, but remember to bring mosquito repellent.)

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

A first: azulejos!

Azulejos

Azulejos :: painel

Sometime ago my friend A. asked me to design a panel of portuguese traditional, hand-painted tiles ("azulejos") to match the coat-hanger she wanted to have by the main door in her new flat.

I was thrilled with this project! Not only it was the first time I ever designed an azulejo - I studied lots and lots of designs when I was in university, but unfortunately never got to design my own -, but also because I love, love patterns and that chemistry that happens when you put modules side by side and repeat them.

The brief was to design something that was based in traditional patterns, but with a modern twist. I came up with a design and crossed my fingers. The tiles were brilliantly executed at Azulejaria Santiago, where they were brilliantly hand-painted and later installed in their spot.

I´m thrilled with the result and looking forward to working again with patterns and azulejo!

(Not so much a) sidenote: if you´ve ever been to Lisbon and rode the subway or just wandered around the streets, you´ll know how much azulejo tiles are used in public spaces. One of the greatest panel designers is the living legend Maria Keil, a huge inspiration to me. Check out some of her work by clicking here.

All images by Christophe Sauvage.

Monday, 8 November 2010

So many things

These have been very introspective times here in this studio of mine. I´ve been having loads of work (which I´m thankful for) and am, constantly, searching for more work, creating new projects and presenting new ideas to potential clients.

It´s been busy, busy, and I haven´t felt like posting much. Sorry.

One thing that has been on my mind is the (long overdue) portfolio website redo. Oh dear. I wonder if I´m alone in this, but just thinking about having to change it makes my heart shrink a bit. It´s not that I don´t think it needs to be updated - it´s just that working on something that I can´t control (because I don´t know enough when it comes to web design) and therefore takes me three times longer than it should makes want to jump off my 49th floor balcony. Ok, not so literally, but you get my drift.

Other than that, it´s still kind of weird not to have four seasons, but only two: it´s still pretty much rainy, terribly wet all the time. Not too hot, though, which is fine. It´s almost the end of the year and I don´t feel it around me. No yellow leaves on the floor (as during my northern hemisphere days) nor purple jacaranda trees (as in Buenos Aires), so sometimes I must check the calendar just to be sure. It´s November. It´s chestnut and fireplace time in Portugal.

Anyway, enough about this. Here´s some of the things I managed to do on my breaks from my design projects:

Third attempt at a Christmas present

This is my third attempt at knitting a Christmas present for someone mysterious - can´t say that person´s name as he or she does not know he or she is a recipient of a knitted gift.

The first finished sweater was too small (but too cute to frog); the second one was rightly sized, but not well designed; therefore, frogged.

This is the third go. We´ll see how it goes.

Napkins

We use cloth napkins at home and needed our stocks refilled, so I bought some native kuna design fabrics (100% cotton, unfortunately not organic) and sewed a pretty simple hemline on them. There´s a learning curve in sewing, people!

And I finally started painting again. This time, there´s no class, no studio, no model, just me, my brushes and the beautiful view from the balcony. We´ll see where that takes us.

What have you been up to lately?