The days after | Os dias a seguir

The days after my dear visitors left are empty ones: our flat is empty, furniture is now back on its usual spots, beds were unmade and mattresses put away. Work piled up and delving into it is what is on top of my to-do list. Oh. Work. All the chit-chat of last week is now either made via instant messaging or just postponed until further notice.

Well, but this (very invigorating) break has made me come back full of energy for more work and that´s what I´m going to do right now, this time away from the computer (which is actually very good). Autumn has been kind enough to present us with beautiful and warm-ish days and working with this weather is just good.


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Depois de tantas visitas na semana que passou, ontem e hoje têm sido dias de voltar a pôr móveis nos devidos lugares e de arrumações gerais cá por casa. O trabalho, logicamente, acumulou bastante durante a minha quase ausência e é a ele que agora me vou dedicar de corpo e alma (hmmm... tanto assim não será demais?) até reduzir a pilha de afazeres e de compromissos adiados para esta semana. Felizmente (nenhum post estaria completo sem uma achega quanto ao tempo que se faz sentir) os dias têm estado amenos e muito bonitos, o que ajuda bastante à concentração: já não está calor mas também não está frio e o sol ajuda claramente a manter-me concentrada. Viva o Outono.

On my desk

My desk is an improvised one this week. We´re having friends visiting from Portugal, so I schlepped some of my stuff to the dining/living room and am currently working on the dining table. It feels good to have a scenery change sometimes.

On my desk there´s some mock-up business cards I´m developing for a client, my sweater (I´m a slow but happy knitter: I´m almost finishing my second sleeve - one more to go and then there´s the sewing and blocking part! Can anyone give me any hints on blocking, please?) and, on the screen, a bit of an illustrated children´s book I´m illustrating for a friend. I just finished all the spreads so now we´re going for corrections. Yay!

Not on my desk, but certainly listening to it: Rodrigo Leão´s beautiful soundtrack for a documentary broadcasted on portuguese TV, about Portugal. It´s called "Portugal, um retrato social" and you can see more info about the documentary here, if you feel like it (I´m afraid it´s in portuguese, though). Language won´t be a problem if you wish to listen to the music.

More desks here.

La mirada que pinta II

I´m so happy about the paiting workshop I´m visiting every monday that yesterday I couldn´t help myself but feel disappointed I couldn´t go. These are some images from last week´s work. During April we had to paint quick poses: two ten-minute poses followed by three eight-minute poses.

Recording these works is helping me keeping track of how I´m evolving: from fear of getting the proportions wrong I´m slowly liberating myself from my own claws and insecurities.

One funny and probably not coincidental thing happened the other day: I had visited my osteopath in the morning, who worked thoroughly on my neck. I sat up in a sleepy daze as he explained that we had worked on ancient anguishes as he pressed my neck on different points and that I would be feeling lighter.

The same afternoon I had painting workshop and I felt freer and less pressured about doing it "perfectly".

Browsing the collection of photos of work from the workshop, can anyone guess which day it was?


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Foi com pena que ontem não compareci ao workshop de pintura de modelo vivo que frequento actualmente, na Asociación de Amigos (del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires). Estas aulas têm constituído um espaço de expressão e de libertação de mim própria e dos meus medos. Aquele medo constante de não se fazer o desenho "perfeito", sabem? Pois é, o tal que paralisa...

A propósito desta "liberdade", uma segunda-feira ocorreu uma coisa muito curiosa: de manhã fui ao osteopata tratar o meu pescoço, zona onde ele interveio com bastante entusiasmo. Quando me levantei da marquesa, tonta e ensonada pelo tratamento, explicou-me que tínhamos estado a trabalhar "angústias antigas" e que me iria sentir mais leve e, de forma geral, melhor.

Nesse mesmo dia, tive mais uma aula de pintura e senti que o meu traço se libertava e que o manto de medo de "não fazer bem" me caía pelas costas até ao chão e me deixava mais leve para pintar.

Olhando a colecção das imagens das várias segundas-feiras, alguém descobre em que dia foi?

On my desk

Sorry, "on my desk" visitors. There´s such a huge mess on my desk, the kind of deadline-mess you have probably experienced before. Or not.

ETA: I once received a compliment about how tidy my desk was. I don´t want to disappoint my dear readers!

Illustration Friday: Primitive

This is my piece for this week´s IF topic "Primitive". It´s a papercut and it reads "blessed be big-nosed people", for their sense of smell, a primitive sense. If it´s not more developed within big-nosed people, at least it has more "space" (a big nose) to do.

Yes, I have a big nose. And an extremely acute sense of smell. ;)

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Aqui está a minha ilustração para "Primitive", o tema desta semana do Illustration Friday.

Mais cedo ou mais tarde ia ter de fazer a devida homenagem a quem, como eu, é narigudo. E a quem, também como eu, tem um olfacto (às vezes demasiado!) apurado.

Porque, para mim, o olfacto é um sentido primitivo.

La mirada que pinta

I just started this workshop, "la mirada que pinta", with teacher Ariel Mlynarzewicz (in the Asociación de Amigos del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires) but everyday I go there I feel like I´ve been to a "freedom" workshop. Or something similar. It´s such a good training for me: it´s not only about the live-model drawing, which I love. It´s also about composition, about colors. It´s about expression as well.

Click here for more photos.

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Comecei há pouco tempo as aulas do curso "La mirada que Pinta", com o professor Ariel Mlynarzewicz (na Asociación de Amigos del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires).

De cada vez que volto para casa depois da aula tenho uma sensação de liberdade. Não é só o treino de desenho de modelo vivo. Para mim é, sobretudo, de expressão, de traço e de combinação de cores, o que para mim sempre foi um desafio.

Ver mais fotos aqui.

On my desk

It´s Wednesday again (it´s amazing how time flies!) and it´s on my desk day.

Wednesday is also german class day and this semester I´m taking it specially serious (well...) because there´s an exam in July. I´m reading in german, listening to podcasts in german, watching some TV in german... sometimes I even think and dream in german, which means that somehow the inmense amount of vocabulary is slowly sinking in.

There are also two other books on my desk: Illustrating Children´s Books by Martin Salisbury (a present from a friend who came to visit) and Kim Hargreaves´ Heartfelt book. Both are "eye-candy-sort-of-book" and I´ve been keeping them close to take a look at them every now and then.

It´s time to get back to work and put some more things on my desk.

See more desks at kootoyoo´s.