Altered dreams

Photos

2008-04-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

These are some photos my husband took some time ago, before I knew I was sick. In fact, I was already sick by that time but I didn't know it. I was so happy that day and this is the way I want to be remembered,a happy person among my cats and my art.

Altering Death

2008-04-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

This blog should be called Altering Death. I have pancreatic cancer, I started chemotherapy two weeks ago and I was already taken to the hospital with an opportunist infection this week-end.

To make art is rare a luxury these. I try to make some things in the moments when I feel strong enough. Unfortunately since the diagnosis in January, it has been more and more difficult to have time to paint, to decoupage or make my dear Altered books.

If somebody is reading this blog out there, please understand that I am terrified. Not with death, because it is as a friend said about it, “it will be as coming back home", the "dwelling of the spirit", where all the matrices of the art will be waiting for me. What terrifies me is the path that I will have to tread here on earth until arriving there. Pain, much pain, so much pain that I didn’t know that I could support. Suffering, sadness; to see other sick people in different stages of the illness; the hours in hospitals for a long list of illnesses associated with cancer , hours in the clinic for chemotherapy, nausea, weakness.

I pray to the God to give me courage to face my ordeal until the end and pray to God to give my family and friends the necessary courage, strength and love to support me. And I ask you who are reading this blog, whichever your religious beliefs are, please pray for me.

Until next post.

Altered Book Spring

2008-04-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

This altered book is my homage to spring and Easter time. I could only finish it right now. I have been going and coming from hospital since January it make very difficult doing art in a regular basis as I always did before. For example, my Valentine’s book is being finish yet. Today I arrived from hospital after complications with chemotherapy. I feeling a little better now and decided to publish this altered art piece.

Click Here to see this artwork at eBay!

Decoupage purses

2008-03-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

These are 3 decoupage purses I did lately. I was given the tiny purses, they had something written on them, so I painted the written part with matte acrylic black paint and glued the vintage pictures from a beautiful Brazilian decoupage paper. Then I applied 5 coats of matte acrylic varnish. The picture blended very well with the purse fabric. It is all I want of a good decoupage piece.

New painting: Goddess with Siamese Cat

2008-03-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is my latest painting. Egyptian Goddess Bast holding a Siamese cat. This is a recurring theme in my art. This dark beauty symbolizes the mysteries of ancient Egypt and the cat is my Titi.

If you would like to see this artwork at eBay please click here

Altered Book Christmas cats

2007-12-12T03:44:00.000-08:00

The last altered book of the year. It is a little one, about 5'X5'. All the images are from my original oil paintings, except the cover that is a collage with 3D elements. Please click on the title to see it at eBay.

Saint Mary Magdalele and the artist

2007-12-12T03:32:00.000-08:00

Early this year I was caught by Saint Mary Magdalene. I was thinking of her all the time. I had read some of the modern books about her but they had not impressed me. The inspiration just came to me as many others. I just had to paint Mary or I would go crazy. All the time I thought of her I saw a face, a very sad face, the face that saw Jesus die in the cross. It made my heart bleed. Some months passed till I could draw the face on a canvas and start painting. Meanwhile I kept on reading about her and got the gospel that is attributed to her, one of the Gnostic gospels. It is incomplete but shows the image of a tender woman yet a leader.
Then I did other 4 paintings of her, each with a meaning to me. In one she holds the alabaster jar, with the perfume she used to anoint Jesus feet, another shows her with her hidden gospel, another shows her in France, where it is said she died. The last one shows her with the Holy Grail. All interpretations of the paintings are open to you.
Here I am posting the analysis done by Allyson Erland, a collector of Magdalene art and who owns the 5 paintings dome by me.

“I wrote a little personal analysis concerning the paintings earlier today before I received this e-mail. I thought you might enjoy it so here it is.

Personal Meditations and Reflections on the Magdalene Paintings

After spending time in the presence of your Magdalene’s I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you, the artist.

Painting #1 (“Intimate Mary”): I see this one as the most intimate and untraditional of the four and my personal favorite. I find her face absolutely beautiful, so gentle and welcoming even though seemingly expressionless. Her eyes are soft and inviting but somehow piercing at the same time. I can feel her examining me from within, discerning my innermost secrets.

Painting #2 (“Iconic Mary”): The style of this one reminds me of an Eastern orthodox icon. As in the first painting her gaze is positioned straight ahead, however she has lost the personal intimacy and emotion permeating the original. Her closeness to her audience has been replaced by a more otherworldly look, as though she doesn’t really see you but is looking beyond to something of a more spiritual, intangible nature.

Painting #3 (“Gnostic Mary”): In this piece you’ve adopted a De Vinci look. Magdalene is envisioned as the ‘Mona Lisa’ with the addition of the alabaster jar in her hands. An intriguing choice since De Vinci was deeply influenced by Gnostic symbolism and beliefs, most likely a closet Gnostic himself well informed in the “Mysteries of Magdalene”. There’s the possibility that the Mona Lisa was Magdalene incognito.

Painting #4 (“Pastoral Mary”): Though I’ve only viewed this image on-line it’s easy to see that the pastel coloring gives a softer, soothing feel to this piece. I also like the way you distanced your perspective to include more than just Magdalene’s face and shoulders. The way her left hand is reaching for her veil in a gesture to cover her countenance from prying eyes is very seductive. This one may eventually become my favorite.

Comparison of the Four: The first Magdalene is warm, vulnerable and accessible, the second beautiful but remote and transcendent, the third secretive and distracted and the fourth calm but somewhat shy and guarded. I think you’ve really captured the essence of Mary Magdalene in your artwork, especially in the first and fourth painting.

Painting #5 Very beautiful! I immediately noticed how bold and confident Mary is as the "Keeper of the Grail Mysteries". Not as all the shy, lenitive Magdalene as she appeared the previous painting. I also like the choice of a blue dress representing water and baptism into new life for the one who discovers the Grail's secret.

Another Christmas graphics countdown

2007-12-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

Another Christmas graphics countdown. Just go

http://artist-how-to.com/Christmascountdown07.htm to download an image a day. The owner only asks for a link or for you to tell your art groups.

CHRISTMAS CATS ACEO ALTERED BOOK KEYRING

2007-12-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

This little Altered Book of ACEO/ATC has 8 mixed media and acrylic paintings. The theme is Christmas cats. You can see it here at eBay.

I am on Talent Data Base

2007-12-02T05:14:00.000-08:00

Free Printable Image Countdown from Lisa Vollrath

2007-12-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

Lisa Vollrath is giving Christmas themed good quality FREE images for decoupage or anything you want to do. This is the link

http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/

More Christmas Cats

2007-11-25T15:58:00.001-08:00

These are the lateste of my Christmas Cat paintings. They were done in acrylics, oils and a bit of mixed media.

Click Here to see paintings at eBay!

ATCs Altered Keyring Books

2007-11-20T08:18:00.000-08:00

I had this ideas when I saw these little plastic things used for identification. They are exactly, 2,5"x3"5 and they have a rim . I punched a hole in 7 of them, put my ATCs inside and closed them with a beautiful metallic ring I found in a shop where we buy pieces for jewelry making. Then I embellished this ring with beads and tassels. Some beads on the "Fairies of Beauty" are hand made and crackled. I just have to buy them. They are so beautiful!

FAIRIES OD BEAUTY

IMPRESSIONIST CATS

WITCHES

ALTERED BOOK OF ANIMALS

2007-11-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

This book was commissioned for the Sanchez Altered Art Collection. Since animals of any knind are a fascinating subject, it was a pleasure to work in the book. The only problem was to delimitate the size of the project. I am very happy with the results!!!

More Christmas Siamese Cats Original Oil Paintings

2007-11-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

More Christmas paintings with Camille as "Santa's little helper"

Click Here to see these paintings at eBay!

Christmas Siamese Cat Oil painting by Vera Lucia Emerim

2007-11-14T05:53:00.000-08:00

These are the latest oil paintings I did this year. I have much fun including Camille and Titi in all those adorable Christmas scenes. As you all know I am 12 years old in my heart and I love Christmas!!!!

Click Here to see them at eBay!

ALTERED BOOK SAINT MARY MAGDALENE

2007-11-05T07:14:00.000-08:00
This Altered Book about Saint Mary Magdalene is the culmination of months of research and spiritual growth. I became very inspired by Mary Magdalene in the beginning of this year and did some paintings about her. Meanwhile I was researching all the artistic renderings of the saint down the ages. I became very acquainted with the accounts about her life and the paintings done by many of the greatest artists of all time. At some point I decided that I had to put all my research into a medium that is familiar and very dear to me, and it is altered books.

I used several reproductions of the most beautiful renderings of Mary Magdalene, backgrounds made from Brazilian papers, golden inks, crackles, acrylic paints, and quotations from the Gospels. The pages are sturdy and heavy.

The cover is done with transparent crackles and a niche/frame to embellish the tender picture of Mary. It is all painted in gold to simulate old metal. (You can find a tutorial about it in this blog.)

Click Here to see this Altered Book at eBay!

What Number Are You?

2007-11-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

You Are 5: The Investigator

You're independent - and a logical analytical thinker.
You love learning and ideas... and know things no one else does.

Bored by small talk, you refuse to participate in boring conversations.
You are open minded. A visionary. You understand the world and may change it.

At Your Best: You are sharp, inventive, and creative. You have the skills to lead the world.

At Your Worst: You are reclusive, weird, and a bit paranoid.

Your Fixation: Greed

Your Primary Fear: Being useless or incompetent

Your Primary Desire: Being competent and needed

Other Number 5's: Bill Gates, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Bjork, and Stephen Hawking.
What Number Are You?

My latest altered art

2007-10-29T07:58:00.001-07:00

Some Art journals

Keyring Altered Book Halloween Wiches

Click Here to see these artworks at eBay!

Halloween Paper Bag Book

2007-10-27T18:18:00.001-07:00

Click Here to see this altered book at ebay!

Fake Leather

2007-10-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

Take a piece of fun foam, plastic, plastic that fakes leather, cardboard or whatever you want to turn into fake leather. I took a piece of beige fun foam here.

Crush some sheets of paper, any paper, newspaper, or magazine sheets.
Now have them uncrushed.

Paint a piece of your background with a brown acrylic paint. I used a dark brown but you can use a shade of brown that you like most.

Immediately, press a piece of uncrushed paper on the fresh paint retiring the excess.

Do it on your entire piece. Allow it dry. You can varnish it using a matte acrylic varnish.

You can see here some examples I did lately. Depending on the color of the background piece and the shade of brown , you will have a totally different result. I hope you enjoy this little tutorial and tell me how your fake leather technique worked!
These two cat books were made by me and now they belong to the Sanchez collection of altered art .

ALTERED PAPER BAG BOOK HALLOWEEN

2007-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Click Here to see this altered book at eBay!

I am a Snapdragon

2007-10-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

I am a
Snapdragon

What Flower
Are You?

Altered dreams: ALTERED BOOK HALLOWEEN

2007-10-09T13:30:00.000-07:00
Altered dreams: ALTERED BOOK HALLOWEEN

ALTERED BOOK HALLOWEEN

2007-10-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Click Here to see this Altered Book at eBay!