Musings and Art Things

A Tattoo Design

2012-01-26T19:03:00.000-05:00

This sea themed tattoo design is what I've worked on today. It involves a nautilus, a star fish, a sea shell and that other device, which I don't know what is called.
I've so far used pencil, colored pencils and watercolors.

I've become really fond of making tattoo designs, even though a lot of the times the theme doesn't involve anything that I usually do. Such as this case.
I don't know what it is about tattoo designs. I've done text, plants, animals; things that I never do in my personal work.
One thing, though, that I really like is that the moment that the tattoo artist does his work on the person's skin and kind of translates what I did on paper, it's like joint artwork =D

My page in Facebook is up to 1,383 likes, I'm so proud of it! Remember to like it yourself, if you haven't and share it with all of your friends. Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks for reading and see you next time =D

Electricity

2011-12-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

This is one display of this series of drawings that I've been making that go along the same line, of really loose lines, fast drawing, images of jumping women. And also, using a specific kind of carbon, as long as it's really scratchy and there's a lot of friction between the paper and my drawing tool, that's also something that is really specific of these drawings.

This one in particular is the last one, it's called "Electricity", it's carbon over paper and it took under ten minutes.

One of these days, I'll take pictures of all of the ones I've done.

Don't forget about my Facebook page, to like it and share it with all your friends: Gabriela Handal Arte
See you in the funny pages, guys.

Pencil Women

2011-12-09T18:52:00.000-05:00

I finished these two drawings last week and just got around to taking the corresponding picture lol
This first one that I'm going to show you, was using a reference that I found in Tumblr:

I've linked them, so you can see them in a bigger size in another window, I wanted them to be seen one next to the other for comparison purposes. Mine is titled "Fire Nymph" and she's pencil over paper.

This second one is also pencil over paper, no reference used, other than a picture of myself in the same pose as the drawing, just so I would get everything in it's right place. This one's titled "Hairbow".

Both these drawings were started and finished on the same day. "Fire Nymph" was done quickly, with fast and flowing lines, "Hairbow", as you can see, is a more detailed drawing. It definitely took a little bit longer, but it was finished on the same day.
I've found myself wanting to finish things quickly and wanting to produce more, just because I feel like I waste so much time so often, I was really inspired that day.
What I've also been doing is putting an idea down, as soon as I get it. Even if it's just the sketch and even if I'm not going to work on it right away. That's been helping me with improving my sketching abilities and with producing more.

I hope you liked today's blog entry, do share it with your friends, on your Facebook account, twitter or whatever, remember the share buttons at the bottom of the entry.
Also, remember my Facebook page, also like it and share it with your friends. Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks for everything, guys, you're the best <3

Jump

2011-11-16T18:39:00.000-05:00

I've done a couple of drawings like this already, the very first one that I did, was with a reference that I ran into in my tumblr, which was more finished looking than the ones I'm doing and like the one that I based off the one I found in tumblr. I like both finishes, but I like finishing mine with a lot of movement and lines and I like to draw them out with things that feel really scratchy, dry and with a lot of friction, like the one sanguine that I have left and charcoal. These two that I did today, are one with sanguine and the other one with charcoal.
I really like how they turned out <3

Thank you for reading, as always and please remember to like my page in Facebook and suggest it to all of your friends. Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks again and see you next time, guys =D

Second set of nude photos and body painting.

2011-11-14T08:43:00.000-05:00

The second nude photoshoot that I did this year also involved body painting, with Colombian artist Aanubis Vrussh and photographer Gerardo Pesantez.

He wanted me to represent fire, the end result looks more like magma, solidified and fluid. A friend told me that I look like a titan, which is pretty awesome lol
Unfortunately, Aanubis was asking for some really specific superhero and comic type poses, so I wasn't really given the time to explore a lot of poses and do something really cool and have all the painting really appreciated.

I really like this first picture, because you can really appreciate the paint on my hands and fingers, I LOVE what he did there. That degradation of color and the colors that he chose, remind me of some crazy flower, all I can think of is a lily and at the same time, some kind of glove.

In this second picture, I think, you see the work of painting the best and where you can see the entire work, because he painted me from the knees up.

This is one of the few pictures that I was doing my own pose, rather than what Aanubis was telling me. I think some really interesting stuff could have come out.

This is my favorite picture, although it's definitely one of the superhero poses that Aanubis was telling me to do.

So that's today's blog entry for you, I hope you like it and find it interesting =D I'm also going to write an entry for my second individual art exhibit that I had not long ago soon.

For now, remember to like my Facebook page, which is up to twelve hundred likes! I'm so proud of that, it makes me feel real good haha! You guys are the best, thank you for everything.
Here's the link to my Facebook Page: Gabriela Handal Arte
Don't forget to also suggest it to your friends, see you next time =D

Subject

2011-11-12T21:52:00.002-05:00

I've done several nude photoshoots this year, modeling in general is something that I'd like to get into, in the sense of being able to make money off of it and kind of like a hobby.
This one that I'm going to talk about today, is the first nude photoshoot I did, with photographer Tito Herrera. Here is a link to the blog entry regarding the pictures: El retrato de Gabriela

Here are two of the pictures that he took:

And, if you speak Spanish, here is a little interview that we did, about my hair, my posing naked and my artistic work. And when it finishes, you're able to see the picture that he chose as my "portrait".

One other thing about modeling is the turning of the tables that happens, where I become the subject for another artist and I have to become malleable for him or her to be able to achieve what they see in their mind's eye and to be faithful to that. This comes with the posing and expressing a specific thing and interacting with whatever backdrop. It's really interesting and I think it makes sense for an artist to be able to turn the tables on him/herself that way.
Like, I realize that my paintings or drawings aren't asking empathy from me and they're not asking for me to feel what they might feel, but it's just a different way to experience art, you see how another artist interacts with his/her work.
It also reminds me a lot of a book, called "The Art of Murder". In this book, which is set slightly in the future, the artworks are humans and they're primed like canvases and they're sold and rented and they become objects of art, it's very interesting. I realize I'm not experiencing being an object of art like in the book, and the moment where I'm part of a piece of art is fleeting and ephemeral and only moments of that is caught in the pictures, but it's still very interesting to me and is something I can continue to feed and edify myself from as an artist and a person. And have the added bonus of making money from it lol

I hope you liked this entry and please remember to like my Facebook page and to suggest it to all of your friends. Here is the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Some Kind of Mask

2011-11-10T06:47:00.000-05:00

I finished another piece and this one is a tattoo design commission and I'm VERY happy with the result and just how the whole entire process went!
'Cuz my customer approached me and was just like "I want a tattoo design by you", but nothing entirely concrete, we talked a little bit and I had him show me what pieces of mine he liked in particular and images of other stuff that he likes, otherwise, it was pretty much free reign for me.
So I put this down:

A rough idea, just to get started going somewhere, that I felt involved most of the things he likes, and since he liked it right off the bat (how lucky did I get with that! haha!), I kept working on it and here you have a progress shot, almost about to be done, when I'd already added some color:

And here you have the finished result, I worked for about three days, but working very slowly and faffing about like there was no tomorrow:

I used a 6B pencil, watercolors and colored pencils over an 8 x 10 inch paper, I like how it turned out =D

Don't forget to go by my Facebook page and have a look and like it and suggest it to your friends! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks a lot for reading and see you next time =D!

Finished

2011-11-07T20:37:00.001-05:00

So I finished the drawing that I talked about in the previous entry.

And I wanted to show my reference, which is an image I stumbled upon in tumblr:

What I like best of this drawing are the abstract that's coming out of her mouth and her hair, with the combination of sharp angles and flowing curves, I like how it turned out =D

That's going to be all for today, don't forget my Facebook page, which you should like and suggest to all of your friends: Gabriela Handal Arte
Also, do remember my work is for sale, and if you're outside of Panama, the transaction may take much longer than if you were here, but it's definitely possible.

Don't hesitate to contact me for any questions or comments you might have or just to say hello =D

Drawing with a 6B pencil

2011-11-05T16:00:00.001-05:00

Today I'm doing a drawing with a 6B pencil, with a reference that I found in my tumblr. I used to think that I really LOVED those high B pencils, just because they're so DARK! but that's kind of a double edged weapon, because it's really easy to stain your piece, if you want to erase, there's probably going to be a little carbon smudge left behind and you might have to sharpen your pencil like a million time, because the lead is so soft.
It's like you're drawing with velvet lol

Anyway, this is what I'm currently working on and I hope to finish today =D

It's a girl with an abstract coming out of her mouth. At first, I was thinking of using as reference another picture I found in tumblr, which is one of those really amazing pictures of tinted water being dropped into transparent water. This picture in particular, the tinted substance is SO. DENSE. The texture in the whole picture is pretty amazing. That's something that I'd like to draw at some point as well, though.

So, that's it for today. Remember my Facebook page, remember to like it and share it with your friends =D Gabriela Handal Arte It's up to 1266 likes, I'm pretty proud of myself =D!

Production

2011-10-08T20:40:00.000-05:00

I produced the three drawings in this entry in less than an hour, I'm going to post each drawing and it's corresponding reference.
After a while of feeling incapable and too easily distracted to produce anything that I'd really love, these three drawings reminded me that I CAN and have definitely made me feel better about myself. Moreover, I like them a lot, because they're a little bit different that what I normally do. I like their unfinished look, how there's movement in them, how quickly they were finished and now instinctive and releasing their production felt.

1. For this first one, my reference was a piece that I found in tumblr. I precisely liked it's movement and I immediately wanted to reproduce it somehow. This one's carbon over paper.
I don't know who the artist for the original piece is, though D:

2. For these two, my reference are two sculptures by artist Emily Zhukov. I talked about her once here already, I'm pretty sure, that I saw these amazing silver wings in another art exhibit of hers a really long time ago. So I went to another of her art exhibits and as soon as I saw the sculptures, I wanted to take pictures of them, so that I could draw their textures and today I finally did. These two are sanguine on paper, I specifically wanted to use sanguine.

And, well, I wanted to share all of this. I'm going to be participating in a festival, called "Festival Bohemio", if you're in Panama, this is going to be from October 12th to the 20th, it's going to be in different locations for that period of time and my piece is going to be at the library in Parque Omar.
Also, I'm going to have an individual art exhibit at a restaurant called "Don Patacón", in Calle Uruguay in front of Pure, that opens on October 20th. If you're in Panama, you're clearly invited lol I have the intention of putting the three drawings in this entry, among others =D

You must also not forget my Facebook page, you should like it and suggest it to your friends =D Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Astrobólido #1

2011-09-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

I finished a commissioned portrait today, I hadn't done a commissioned portrait in a really long time and I've been hesitant to accept this kind of commission, just because I'd much prefer if my own work was sold. BUT WHATEVER!

ANYWAY!

This guy wanted me to draw him specifically with a jacket and aviator glasses, I thought it was curious and I asked him if he could tell me more about this "character". Turns out it's some kind of alter ego that is very close to where he is in life right now, so that's why this piece is like a comic book panel and that's why it's called "Astrobólido #1", like the first one of a comic book series =D

Here is a progress shot and the finished result =D

Thank you very much for reading and please remember to like my Facebook Page: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time =D

Drawings

2011-09-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

This entry is about some of my most recent drawings, one finished and two that are in progress. The two that are in progress are commissions.

1. This is the most recent one, I finished this today, it's 3B pencil over paper and it's a mouth that I found in tumblr that I really liked and decided I'd draw it.

2. This is one of the commissions, it's a representation of Medusa and the future owner asked me to use Laetitia Casta as a reference, with emerald tree boas in her head and body of an anaconda. This one's 2B pencil over paper and this is the most recent progress shot.

3. This is the second commission and it's a skeleton tearing through skin. This one's also 2B over paper and this is the most recent progress shot and the anatomical chart that I'm using as guide for the head.

- This is a link to my Facebook page, if you really want to keep up to date with my work, you should like it, I'm always posting something that I'm working on there: Gabriela Handal Arte

This is it for now, thanks a lot for reading <3

Drawings

2011-08-02T10:54:00.000-05:00

I've finished two drawings in the past two weeks that I'm pretty proud of. Both of my references are pictures that I found while in tumblr.

This first one has no title and it's 8 x 10 inches, done with a 3B pencil, here's a picture of the finished drawing and what I used as reference.

And this second one, called "Valkyrie", detail of her tattoo and the reference =D I used a 2B pencil for her and she's 11 x 14 inches.

So, these are them!
Here is a link to my Facebook page, I'm constantly putting updates of my work there, I recommend that you like it and share it with your friends: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thank you for reading and see you next time =D

Stuff

2011-06-29T16:29:00.001-05:00

I've been kind of all of the place lately, but I HAVE bee working on things, that I'm posting some of those things here lol

1. This is one of two 4 x 4 feet canvases that I'm going to enter into a contest. For this, I used a bunch of scraps of canvas, 'cuz I don't want them to go to waste, I like how it turned out!

Sketch of what I want to do with this one and some of the paints I bought.

First stain down on the canvas =D

2. This is something that I started a while ago

3. This is something that I started yesterday

And finished today, surprisingly lol I was inspired by walls or roofs on fire in movies, it's what I tried to do anyway and it's called "Paper with Fire Texture" precisely for that reason, but it looks like some kind of insane slime haha!

That's all for now, remember my page in Facebook! Like it and suggest it to all of your friends, here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Succubus

2011-06-17T18:35:00.001-05:00

Well, I finished the drawing and named it "Succubus"
I seriously like how her face turned out and especially her mouth, the corset and her boobs, especially her right boob. The erect nipples get a little bit tiring and I just felt like doing some more natural look kind of thing and also kind of like Dawn.

Here's pictures of her and close ups of her =D

I hope you like her as much as I do!
Also, remember I have a page in Facebook that you should like, here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time and thank you for everything <3

Two posts in one day, sry lol

2011-06-16T20:11:00.001-05:00

But I SERIOUSLY like how this drawing is coming along and I'm finishing surprisingly fast. At least fast for how slow I usually work.
And she's almost done!

HAHA! <3

Free Like the Sun

2011-06-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

I finished "Free Like the Sun" yesterday afternoon.
I really like the facial expression and the painting gives me the impression like the sun is kissing her head <3She's oil over canvas and 18 x 24 inches. She's part of the monochromatic series of paintings that I'm doing.

Remember my facebook page, that should you like and suggest to all of your friend list to like, too haha! =D Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you there and thanks for reading! =D

Progress

2011-06-15T13:51:00.003-05:00

Here's some progress pictures on that drawing that I started yesterday and another drawing that I started yesterday.

Her body:

Close up of her face:

The other drawing that I started

And work on her background =D

=D

Some kind of demon.

2011-06-13T18:46:00.000-05:00

I started this drawing today.

It's been a while since I did some proper fantasy art, I have the intension of finishing this drawing. An artist called Teresa Murphy, gave me a little nudge, without her knowing about it. She has this crazy awesome work and on pencil and paper, on top of everything! Here's her tumblr: Teresa Murphy

This is my Facebook page, which you should like, if you haven't. And you should also suggest it to all of your friend list =D Link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time <3

Everything's blue in this world

2011-05-07T09:46:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I did another live painting event and, I have to say, I'm seriously proud of how the painting turned out.
I consider it unique in the sense that it's completely different from what I usually do, it's different even from the normal abstracts that I do. It turned out almost exactly how I saw it in my mind's eye, the colors, the size of the painting, I wanted it to have a little bit of texture and it's pretty much exactly how it was supposed to be.
I was painting for about three hours? I think that sounds about right. It was done in some kind of layer thing, for the purpose of first getting the colors in their place and because I wanted it to have some texture and since I didn't have anything to make texture with, I piled tons of paint on it.
Painting live is also completely different from regular painting, at least for me, usually when I work I'm pretty far from everything and everyone. With live painting, the tools are different, there's limitations of time, there's people looking over your shoulder, taking to you and taking pictures and it's something that I have to get mentally ready for, to be able to concentrate and isolate myself enough to work, but at the same time be able to interact with somebody, if it's necessary.
All those factors make the outcome pretty interesting, at least for me, I try my mental image of the piece to be as clear as possible and keep improvisation to a minimum, just because I normally take so long to finish something, I try to make it so that it won't take me so long to finish in the hours that I'm going to be working.

So this is my most recent live painting piece and I'm pretty seriously proud of it.

And a shot while I was working, just for shits and giggles =D

This is it for today! Remember to like my Facebook page and suggest it to all of your friends =D Link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time and thank you so much for reading =D

Arucard

2011-05-06T07:38:00.000-05:00

These are two drawings that I made of the character Arucard from the Hellsing manga.

1. This one, I copied from the manga, except for the bottom part. It's from when Arucard is revealing himself. It's pencil over paper.

2. This one is entirely my creation or fan art lol I was trying to give Arucard a more human face and not so anime. It's pencil and watercolor over paper =D

Remember to like my page in Facebook! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time!

Floating Head

2011-05-04T16:07:00.000-05:00

I finally finished "Floating Head", it's oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches and she's most definitely for sale at USD700.00.
She's part of a series of monochromatic paintings that I'm working on.

Please remember my Facebook page, it's the best place to keep up to date with my work =D Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

See you next time!

Butterfly Face V. 3

2011-05-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

I guess I neglected to make an entry about "Butterfly Face V. 3", the last of the three and my favorite.
This is the one I'm most proud of and I seriously like how pretty much everything turned out, the wing, the colors, her profile.

Do remember my Facebook page and do like it and suggest it to all of your friends, it's by far the best place to keep updated with my work =D Also, remember that my work IS for sale, if you want to know about pricing, just ask me.
Here's a link to the Facebook page: Gabriela Handal Arte

And here is my e-mail address for any kind of inquiries: gabrielahandalarte@gmail.com

See you next time =D

Fabelo

2011-05-02T20:08:00.000-05:00

Fabelo is a Cuban artist and this art exhibit of his at the Museum was one of the few art exhibits I've gone to, because I was legitimately interested in the work. I didn't know of the guy until now and the image in the fliers looked super interesting and fantasy art like.
Effectively, this show has a fantasy art feel, a couple of the pieces disturbed me, the whole thing had a Bosch air to it. I fucking loved it.

Work in Progress - "Lacing Machine"

2011-04-29T08:40:00.000-05:00

This is something that was on hold for a really long time and I took it up after finishing the third "Butterfly Face V.3", it's called "Lacing Machine".

So far, it's pencil, watercolor and colored pencil on paper.

Please remember about my page in Facebook, you should like it and suggest it to all of your friends and family. Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Also, remember my work is for sale =D

Butterfly Face V. 2

2011-04-27T08:23:00.000-05:00

I finished yesterday the full front version of Butterfly Face, I like how the wings turned out.
I used pencil, watercolor pencils and colored pencils over paper and she's 8 x 10 inches and she is for sale at USD 70.00

Also, I filled out an interview that I got through twitter. It was funny XD Check me out talking like I know what I'm talking about XD

And finally, don't forget about my page in Facebook, please like it and suggest it to all of your friends. You can see much more of my work there and keep up to date with what I've been doing =D Link ->Gabriela Handal Arte

Mandinka

2011-04-25T11:17:00.000-05:00

As stated in the previous blog entry "Mandinka.", it's a Sinèad O'Connor song that I seriously like and my image of what the song means to me was first me as I made myself up in this picture, rather than the drawing and the drawing was channeling that image until I was able to do a self-portrait. 'Cuz, you know, I hadn't gotten the mohawk.

Either way, here's the mental image of Mandinka, pretty much exactly as she was in my mind's eye.

Link to my Facebook page, which you should like and suggest to all your friends: Gabriela Handal Arte

"Butterfly Face" v. 2.0 and 3.0

2011-04-18T15:18:00.000-05:00

I'm working on two other "Butterfly Face"s that I started last night. The profile one is my favorite of all three and for these last two, I'm using as model the wings of that butterfly that uses owl eyes to intimidate predators.

Right now they're only pencil and colored pencil over paper, but there's probably going to be some watercolor in there sometime soon, they complement each other well.

This one's "Butterfly Face 2"

And this one's "Butterfly Face 3", their numbering based on the order in which they were drawn, first was the three quarters one, then the profile one and then the front one.

That's all for now! See how much I've been posting? Ain't you proud of me? XD
Here's my Facebook page that I would seriously like it if you liked and suggested to all of your friends, because the more the merrier <3 Gabriela Handal Arte

Butterfly Face

2011-04-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

I finished this drawing yesterday and I'm pretty proud of myself, because I finished relatively quick: Two days.
The title "Butterfly Face" reminds me of the expression "butter face" lol

Either way, "Butterfly face" is 8 x 10 inches, pencil, colored pencil and watercolor over paper and she is for sale at USD40.00.

Here she is!

I hope you like her and remember that I have a page in Facebook you should like if you haven't yet! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks for everything and see you in the funny pages!

Mandinka.

2011-04-14T08:43:00.001-05:00

Finished and sealed this drawing last night.
It's titled "Mandinka", based on a Sinèad O'Connor song of the same name. Supposedly, the song is based on a book called "Roots" and it's some kind of historical novel that has to do with the Mandinka people in Africa.
I have no intention of reading the book and the drawing is more what the song means to me. Specially the lyrics: "I don't know no shame, I feel no pain, I can't see the flame", which are pretty great, if you ax me.
The drawing is 10 x 14 inches, pencil, colored pencil, watercolor and acrylic over paper <3

Remember to visit, like and suggest my Facebook page to all of your friends! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Basic comfort.

2011-03-01T20:23:00.008-05:00

Today I started and finished this little eye drawing, I felt like getting right in the middle of my comfort zone today.
I try often to dabble in other shit that I don't usually fuck with, just to try new stuff and get the creative fluids flowing. It's important for an artist to constantly grow and learn and not box oneself in one thing.
1. While I was working on it.

2. Finished

Some Kind of Wig - Self-portraits

2011-02-25T21:17:00.000-05:00

Self portraiture in Wikipedia

This is my most recently finished drawing, finished today lol
It's based on this picture, that I took of myself, wearing the wig I meant to wear for "Drifter", but didn't in the end.
I like how the picture turned out, the facial expression and most of the lighting. I tried to ignore the light from the computer flash. Also, that wig is weird, it's like really bad plastic or something, or maybe it was on purpose that it looked so weird, because it's a witch wig.

So here's a couple of pictures of the process of the drawing and the end result will be last.
I don't know wether I consider it a self-portrait or not, I'm always really close to getting into a discussion with whoever about that. I guess, by definition it's a self portrait, but I also don't feel like it's me in the drawing. I have been the model for several of my drawings or paintings, but I don't call them self-portraits lol Like this one, I definitely don't call this one a self-portrait.
It's titled "Some Kind of Wig", it's 11 x 14 inches, pencil over paper and it's not for sale.

Finished:

Close up:

I really like the facial expression in the original picture and I like how it turned out in the drawing, there's a mixture of defiance and passivity in her face.

I'm working on a series of monochromatic paintings, where I only use one color in the painting and I'm working on making an individual art exhibit out of them. I presented the idea to this gallery and I'm waiting to see what they say about it, I'll keep you posted on that!

Remember that I have a page in Facebook that I update pretty often, you should like it and suggest it to all your friends! Link: Gabriela Handal Arte in Facebook

Thank you so much for reading <3

Drifter

2011-02-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

Installation

I did my first installation/performance on February 3rd, titled "Drifter". The installation is part of a cultural and artistic event called ARTBLOCK, which is taking place in Panama for the second year; this ARTBLOCK, which was on February 3rd, was the first of three for this season.
For more information on the ARTBLOCK, here is a link to the group in Facebook: ARTBLOCK - Panamá
The theme for this ARTBLOCK was light, how each artist took that, that was their problem. SO, we had a meeting for the participating artists to be informed of this and to know each other, about a month and a half before the event took place, and a couple of days later, I though of what I was going to do, which is pretty much what you see in the pictures.

I used, white fabric, for the outfit and limiting the space on the floor, a white fabric that resembles organza for the outfit, white body and face paint and seven christmas lights. Two pieces of the white fabric where used to make a square on the floor, I originally wanted everything to be white, but a place like that wasn't found, so I AT LEAST needed the ground to be white and limited. The lights on the ground, were bunched up, like a snake when it coils, in order to make "islands", with the lights and the lights were not meant to be in any order or have symmetry.

The outfit, I didn't mean for it to be so asymmetric, but I made it myself lol I actually didn't really know what I wanted her to wear or if I wanted her to be almost naked. Or, rather, not naked, but like with a white body suit or something. Then I decided I wanted her to have a rectangle or white cloth covering her down to her thighs. I also wanted her to have long, black, straight, kind of stringy hair; but I ditched that, 'cuz it was TOO warm. I also wanted her to have black eyes, but I wasn't able to get black contacts for the night of the performance, and I was pretty sure my eyes would look dark enough, because I was wearing chalk white paint.

She was meant to be walking around the islands of lights, with no specific course. I decided on the title of the installation/performance a day or two before the ARTBLOCK actually took place. And I was going to get a girl to do it in the beginning, but everything was so vague about it, that I decided to just get myself in there; I wasn't going to be able to explain myself.
I walked in the installation for maybe two hours and a half and I was SO. TIRED. When I finished, my lower back hurt, my knees hurt, my Achilles' tendons hurt, my feet hurt and all I did was walk in that limited space.

I imagined her walking and walking and actually looking at some people, but with a really vacant stare and pretty emotionless face, no sign of recognition, sometimes looking behind them. Mostly just walking around the lights.
It was pretty difficult for me to start and "get into character". And it was still difficult, even after I'd been in the installation for a while, because if I saw a friend or something, I still smiled at them or waved.

SO, here are some of the pictures.

This next one my favorite picture

Here is a link to the album in my page, with many more pictures of my installation and a couple of pictures from the ARTBLOCK: Anything and Everything ARTBLOCK. And while you're at it, DO like my page! I'm really glad and proud, because it made it to one thousand likes last week! I hope that can be kept up and that the page can keep growing, so go ahead and suggest it to all of your friends with the suggest to friends button that is under the profile picture!
See you there and thank you for reading <3

Onyx

2011-01-10T11:39:00.000-05:00

1. I finished my Alek Wek drawing and I'm pretty proud of myself.
I was seriously intimidated by this piece, because I don't think I'd ever drawn a black person before and because I felt like shading her was backwards from how it's usually done.

The picture that made me want to draw her. I'd heard of Alek Wek and seen her pictures and what not and I always have liked what she looks like, I LOVE how long her limbs are, I've always pictured her as a hunter and in my mind's eye, she runs across a savannah with a spear in her hand as she chases her prey. It reminds me a little bit of Janet Jackson's video "Together Again", there's a scene similar to that. There's a picture of her, that reminds me of a panther sitting on a branch resting.
I seriously LOVE how DARK her skin is, I can't get over that and it's one of the things that I really wanted to take advantage of in the drawing, make her look as black as possible.

Close up of same picture, for better reference of her face.
I don't consider her to be beautiful in the same way that I consider Milla to be beautiful, but I still love her features and her body <3

What I used for reference for her ear

From when I was first starting out the drawing

Just about to finish!

Finished piece! <3
Close up

Another close up, I seriously like how her ear turned out XD

I'm pretty proud of myself with how it turned out. It's a 3B pencil over paper, 9 x 12 inches and she's most definitely for sale at USD90.00.

2. Remember that I've added the share buttons at the bottom of each entry, so go ahead and share this entry on your twitter or Facebook!
Also, remember that I have Twitter now, just look for @gabrielahandal
AND, last but not least, remember my page in Facebook, like it so that you can always keep up to date with my work and DO suggest it to your friends with the share with friends link that is right under the profile picture. The more the merrier! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte See you there! =D

Anatomy

2011-01-01T20:44:00.000-05:00

1. I finished "Máscara de Carne" yesterday, it's the second of the anatomical drawings that I've made. The title in English is "Meat Mask", because of the way it's drawn and because the skin of our face is sort of a mask on top of the skull.
As you know, I'm a pretty big fan of the human body, so I really love these two piece and I'm hoping I'll do more kind of like these.
"Máscara de Carne" was the last piece of 2010 <3

The other one of the anatomical drawings is this one, which has no title:

2. I got the second place in the artrise contest in Facebook, I seriously appreciate anybody and everybody that gave me their support in the form of a like, or putting the link up in their profile, journal or blog <3

3. I gave myself a buzz cut approximately on the thirteenth of October, got rid of the mohawk for now, because it was really uneven, because I was trimming it myself and did a REALLY bad job. So I decided to just start from zero.
It's been growing, with no trimming since then, only thing I've trimmed is a little of the back.
I'm curious to see how it's going to look as it grows, but I'm definitely getting the mohawk again.

4. Also, go ahead and like my page and suggest it to all of your friends with the suggest to friends link that is right under the profile picture. See you there! Link to the page: Gabriela Handal Arte

5. Last but not least: Do follow my blog and share it! I added the share buttons at the bottom of the entry =D
Thank you so much for following and reading, if it's the first time you're reading or if you're an assiduous reader <3

Half Skull

2010-12-13T09:22:00.003-05:00

1. artrise contest

I'm participating in an art contest that is taking place in artrise's Facebook page. This is a link to the website: artrise and this is a link to their Facebook page: artrise's Facebook page.
If you wish to participate, by all means, get yourself in there! The contest is going on until December 28 and it consists of making a profile in artrise's website, and publishing that on their Facebook page, along with your contest entry and then getting as many likes as you can in your uploaded piece.
You can upload as many pieces as you like, but you win only with one of them, whichever one got the most likes.
If you would like to support me and my entry, first like artrise's Facebook page and then like my drawing. I entered "Fade", by the way. Here's a link to the drawing and through this same page, you'll be able to like their page and then my drawing:

2. Half skull

This is my most recently finished piece and I'm REALLY proud of her!
I was thinking of the possible interpretations of a half skull piece, but it always comes down to what each person might see and I really prefer not to dissect my reasons for making a piece. Originally I started the piece, because I read a little bit about transhumanism and I wanted to actually make a half human and the exposed part to be full on machine; but then I remembered a piece I'd started a long time ago that was half skull and half face, I wrote a little bit about that one in the previous entry.
BUT YEAH. While I drew her, I saw that my reference, which are these super awesome anatomical charts for artists, had little cracks in it; then I wondered if that was possible while we are alive, but it really doesn't make sense that we'd have little fractures, 'cuz the skeleton would most definitely heal. So, the artist that drew the charts musta been copying a dead body and so maybe the skull side is some kind of look into the future, minus the eyeball.
Otherwise, I just really like the human body and all the body parts inside, so the half face half skull is kind of a way of seeing two things at the same time.
Or something.
So this piece is not for sale, at least not for now, but she is most definitely available in print form, in 8.5 x 11 inch paper (VERY nice paper, mind you) and each print is USD50.00
This original is 9 x 12 inches, I used pencil, colored pencil watercolor and acrylic on paper and it's without title.

3. Share buttons and artist profiles:
I've added the share buttons at the bottom of the entry, so feel free to tweet any entry new or old that you like from this blog or to share it in Facebook or anything you want <3 Also, I've made myself artist profiles in: artelista, blue canvas and artrise, so feel free to check those out or make your own artist's profile on there =D
AND a twitter, so DO follow me there @gabrielahandal

4. Suggest page
Remember that I have a pretty nifty Facebook page and I'd love to see you there, too! Also, DO suggest the page to everyone and they mama with the "suggest to friends" link that is right under the profile picture. Here is the link to the page: Gabriela Handal Arte
Also, remember that for these holidays, there is no gift like a work of art, because it's completely unique! So, if you want to buy any of my pieces, let me know! You can e-mail me: gabrielahandalarte@gmail.com

And, finally, thank you so much for reading <3

New entry lol

2010-12-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

It sure has been a while since I wrote a proper blog entry, I've been doing tons of things. Or at least trying to do proper work, like I'm supposed to.
A bunch of things have happened, although I HAVE written, just not as often. I was in London and had a seriously amazing time, everything about that city is full of art: the people, nature, the streets, architecture. And, well, regular art things like galleries and art stores with all kinds of AMAZING things! I was so impressed and envious of how much more rich they are culturally, there's different kinds of art events constantly and people are so willing to go and look and spend money on something that they love.

When I came back I participated in a one night art and fashion exhibit at a cafè called St. Phillippe, and was helped with the mounting of the pieces and putting up the dresses on their mannequins. I put my little abstract canvases and there were a couple of coverages of the event.
I always want to participate in the putting up of the art exhibit, my work and help other people putting up their work, just because it's such an enriching experience and I learn SO MUCH! I consider myself relatively ignorant of my field, so I'll do as much as I can to learn a bit more XD!!

Then I submitted two paintings in a two week art exhibit at La Musa de Chai. I submitted "Nyx" and this other piece with no title. These two pieces hadn't seen the light since 2008, for my first individual art exhibit XD

Right now I'm participating in an art contest in Facebook and a website called artrise.com, which is like Facebook int he sense that's for networking and socializing, but exclusively for any kind of artist. I'm participating with "Fade", which is a drawing that I LOVE.
If you want to support me, by the way, like their page in Facebook and then like the drawing I submitted. Here's the link to the drawing in their page, the like button in the drawing will be enabled, once you've liked their page =D "Fade"

This piece, I started sometime last week. A long time ago, I was doing this exact same thing, like half the face and half the skull; except the skull had all messed up teeth, 'cuz she was supposed to be some kind of alien type of thing, but you couldn't tell unless you saw her teeth. She was called (or is, I guess, if I ever take her up again) "Woman outside, alien inside".
THIS ONE is just a regular human, I guess it's some kind of anatomical thing, a study of human figure, which I love so much. I really like how she's turning out, I'm seriously proud of myself.

I also took proper pictures of this painting I did sometime this year or the end of last year, which was painted live. It was actually my first live painting event! It's definitely for sale at USD300.00, 15 x 18 inches and oil over canvas =D

I recuperated "Natura", like two days after I got back and I was SO relieved! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to, because the artists are supposed to retrieve their pieces thirty days after the art exhibit and it was like thirty two days when I went. BUT that event was so poorly organized, it was sickeningly embarrassing. That was a national art contest and the first prize was like seven grand.
I don't know who won. Here's the blog entry I wrote about her, if you want to read more =D

I've made profiles for myself in bluecanvas, artrise and artelista XD
They're all linked there if you feel like having a looksy or if you want to sign up yourself! =D

This is it for now! Remember that I have a pretty great page in Facebook, where I'm updating all the time with pictures or status messages, so like it yourself and suggest it to everybody in your friends list! =D Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte See you there!

And wouldn't you know it? I've made a Twitter account lol Follow me there, too! Here's the link: @gabrielahandal

Artrise.com!

2010-12-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

Hello, everyone!

This is a very quick and short blog entry, because I'd like for you to support me in a contest I'm participating in =D

Here is the link to the piece I entered: Fade

It's a contest in Facebook, organized by a new artist social website: www.artrise.com. It's very much like Facebook, except it's specialized for us artists, wether music, dance, visual arts, anything! So, by all means, register to the website and even participate in the contest they have up right now and if not, support ME! XD

In the meantime, I really haven't made a proper entry in a while. I will, I promise, I've just been involved in stuff and working a lot and I'll show you all the shit I've been doing! You guys are great, as always, and remember about MY Facebook page; it's always aching for more people. So go ahead and like it and suggest it to everybody and they mama, with the "suggest to friends" link that is right under the profile picture: Gabriela Handal Arte.

Thank you so much for everything <3

Bleeder

2010-11-01T16:20:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time, they called me the bleeder
Swimming up this river, with sentimental fever

That's part of a song from the Wallflowers' album "Bringing Down the Horse" and it came up whilst I was drawing my most recent piece and since there's definitely blood involved, I called it "Bleeder" =D
It's pencil and watercolor pencils over paper, I didn't take advantage of the watercolor quality of the colored pencils, though; I left it dry. I'm pretty proud of how it came out and the picture really doesn't do it justice, but unfortunately I don't have much more to take pictures with. The red looks more orange in the picture and it all looks a little bit deformed, since I've made it smaller, BUT no choice for now, really.
This one I'm not sure if it's for sale, 'cuz I like it a lot, it's very pleasant for me to look at lol

I actually wrote a little something that came to mind, whilst I was drawing it. Please remember I'm not a writer at all, so don't be mean if you don't like it or think it's lame XD

Here it is:

From the cavern that is her mouth
blood flows out
down the middle of her lower lip
down the middle of her chin
a dark red colored creek or cascade
drizzles steadily out

This is another one finished today, I'm also pretty proud of it. It's just pencil on paper, this one's definitely for sale at USD 50.00.

By the way, I've successfully sold two pieces to United States people, but in a really old fashioned way, through regular mail. Both times it's been people that I know and trust, so it's going to have to stay at that for now. Just thought I'd report that there HAS been some kind of progress and it's definitely possible to be done XD

ALSO, I added share buttons some time ago, they're at the bottom around the area where you leave comments, so feel free to share this blog entry and all the other ones prior in whichever way you'd like =D

And thank you so much for reading, wether it's the first time or you're an assiduous reader, I sincerely appreciate it! <3The page in Facebook is doing great! And if you haven't liked it yet, I'd love to see you there, too. I'm constantly putting up updates of stuff that I've done or that I'm doing and uploading pictures of things or events I've participated in. Please feel free to like it and suggest it to all of the friends you have on your friends list with the share button that is right underneath the profile picture. Here is the link to the page: Gabriela Handal Arte @ Facebook

See you there and thanks again! =D

Affordable Art Fair

2010-10-21T04:40:00.001-05:00

I'm going to go on Friday to the Affordable Art Fair, in Battersea Park. There's going to be 120 galleries, with the work of their corresponding artists there, there's going to be little cafes with foodz and there's going to be talks and workshops and whatever else.

It's something I would have really liked to participate in, but I found out about it like two days before it started XD I wrote to them anyway, 'cuz it doesn't hurt to ask, right? I've not gotten a reply as of yet, but I'm going to take some drawings anyway, in case I get lucky.

I'm pretty excited to see what's to be found and really inject myself with everything I'll find. There's going to be galleries from all of the United Kingdom, to my understanding. And there will be tents with the work of up to three artists in each, and the total under each tent, cannot exceed three thousand pounds.

I feel like London is pretty soaked up in art and culture, what with it's great architecture and sculptures and galleries and museums at everyone's disposition; but you can never get art to enough people, the more people you get it to, the better. You can never make it accessible enough.
Artists supposedly kind of reflect their own times and have some sort of duty with the society they live in, we're supposed to see it with our own eyes and reflect that out into our pieces. But I think of art in general, as something that is supposed to make one's soul feel good, no analysis, no horizontal lines are peaceful, red is for passion or violence, no questions, no why this or why that, "Oh, he must have meant this". I think when one buys a piece or likes a piece, it should be because when you looked at it, it fascinated you and you couldn't stop looking at it and were enthralled by the piece. It made you either feel very good inside or it just made you feel something and the piece caught you.

Nothing against analysing pieces and the old masters or contemporary artists, I just feel that sometimes, just *liking* the piece is overshadowed by wondering too much about what the artist could have meant.

And fairs like this, I think, have the capability of bringing back that simplicity to art. More approachable and not so much something reserved for collectors or something: Anyone can like art, anyone should be able to purchase art!

I'm going to have a pretty good time.

And I really like this picture from the London AAF page:

Thank you so much for reading and DO FOLLOW, if it's the first time that you stumble upon my blog!
And also, remember that I have a Facebook page I'd love to have you like: Gabriela Handal Arte. I'm always putting up some kind of update of what I've been doing and what I'm planning to do. DO LIKE and DO SUGGEST to your friends with the suggest to friends link that is under the profile picture!! See you there and thank you for everything! =D

Tate Modern

2010-10-20T06:21:00.001-05:00

I went to Tate Modern yesterday, because I figured, I could see the old masters online and it's better for me to soak up in my contemporaries and see what's up with some real art these days. And I amused myself at how excited I was to see a HUGE Monet painting, two Jackson Pollocks, two Dalis, a Lee Krasner.
These are definitely not the old masters, but they're dead and I have huge amounts of respect for them and they seriously made in the art world whilst alive. Pollock and Dali, specially.
And I enjoyed these paintings much more than the other more contemporary work.

Dali's paintings were pretty amazing, I don't remember their names right now
I saw this one:

And another one with a phone, that I don't remember the name of.
They were both incredible to look at, I had to make sure that I could see brush strokes and some kind of texture on the painting, because it was SO SMOOTH!! And the pieces were not big at all, I don't think either of them were bigger than 18 x 24 inches; which is super comforting for me, because I really tend to go for the smaller formats for both drawings and paintings. And him and I have that in common, the small format and the amount of detail. Man, his amount of detail, sure is remarkable!!
Something cool about him and his painting is how he was a surrealist, but he painted in a very realistic way and his human figure and figurative things came out very realistic, indeed.

I don't remember what Pollock paintings I saw. I do remember one of them, that according to the explanation, he felt he was reaching a plateau or something in his work, so he was experimenting just painting with black paint. The other one was this really long painting.
I saw part of the "Pollock" movie with Ed Harris, and he does a really good job at it and it's nice to watch.

Of Monet's, I saw this one:

It really is a GYNORMOUS! painting. I don't remember the dimensions lol x_x
He did very many water lilly paintings, it turns out he was living somewhere where he had this pond as his view, so he'd do a lot of his light and atmosphere studies with that.

I feel pretty honoured to have seen those paintings live.
I mean, I HAVE seen paintings of the old masters in front of me before, but I guess I hadn't gotten *that* much into art myself and the famous museums get so full sometimes, it really killed my appreciation.
For example, when I went to the VanGogh museum, I would have loved to have it all to myself, so that I could get real close and then far from the paintings to look at whatever I want; because VanGogh used so much paint, it actually gave his paintings texture, but texture made of full oil paint. But there would always be a ridiculous amount of people in front of each painting.

That's all for now, I'd really like it if you'd have a looksie in my page in Facebook and liked it, I often upload pictures of what I'm doing and what I've done, you'd keep well updated with my work. Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte
And also, don't hesitate to suggest it to all of your friends with the "suggest to friends" link that is under the profile picture.

Thank you so much for reading and if you're reading for the first time, DO FOLLOW! =D

Blue Lady

2010-10-05T16:30:00.001-05:00

Today is some kind of mixture of my work with somebody else's work, it's like a surf and turf and more so the turf, because most of the pieces that I picked of the artist that I want to talk about have to do with bathing and the sea.

First we have "Blue Lady", she's finally been finished and I really like how she turned out, her facial expression is great, it really reminds me of some kind of medieval portrait.
I'm pretty proud of her hair and it's the reason for the title, 'cuz it's all like Baroque or Victorian, just not as complicated. Her mouth looks pretty delicious and super plump and reminds me a little bit of Angelina Jolie. One of the other things I really like is her eyes and the facial expression, there's some kind of indifference and untouchableness.

The other artist I want to talk about is Bouguereau. Here's a cool website with a bunch of his work: Bouguereau
Click on the pictures to be able to see them at a nice size.
"The Abduction of Psyche" is the first piece I saw of him, I think. It's been printed on cards, his themes can be very romantic <3
I thought/think this piece is beautiful in every sense: The bodies of both characters, the fabrics, the landscape, their facial and bodily expressions, the story upon which the painting is based. It's hard to notice, but one of the things I really like, is that Psyche has butterfly wings, because that's how she's represented in Greek mythology.
I like her facial expression and bodily expression, especially, because she's completely surrendering to Cupid's arms.
There's a floatiness to them, but the weight of their human bodies also seems so real. The places where their skins touch and they're all just so palpable in general. The fabrics around them are amazing, I always admire the work of fabrics in old paintings, how REAL they make them is enviable.

I discovered the guy's name after a while that I actually paid attention to the back of the card ('cuz I'd only bought it, because I loved the illustration so much) and many years later, after having used Wikipedia and the internet in general for everything, I looked for more of his work and I'm in love.
Also, you can't tell me that's not a crazy name.
But, anyway, yeah. There's plenty to look at in the website I linked you to, but I picked out some of my favorites to show you here.
His favorite subject was the woman and, like I said, his themes tend to be really romantic. He makes skin look so creamy and LIKE skin! And his human figure is just flawless and at the same time, everything else he paints is faithful to reality.
Bouguereau was looked down upon by his contemporaries, I don't know how they couldn't appreciate the talent that he had and how maybe that's just exactly what he wanted to paint.

So that's all for today, thank you so much for reading and DO FOLLOW if it's your first time here and also like my Facebook page and suggest it to all your friends using the suggest to friends link under the profile picture: Gabriela Handal Arte

Colored Women

2010-09-29T19:06:00.000-05:00

I just want to show what I've been up to lately:

1. "Blue Lady"
This one's finally nearing completion, she's one of the ones that was put on hold until I finished the Pet Portrait. And she's looking pretty great.

2. I have no title for this one yet, but I had an idea kind of the same as for "Blue Lady" and using one color only. I thought I had a name in mind, but I've forgotten it. Either way, since I've managed to do two pieces with something linking them (being painted with mostly one color), I thought I could do some kind of series. In this case, it would be called "Colored Women".

3. "Labret Choker"
11 x 14 inches
USD 70.00
This one's pretty great. The paper I'm using is the same brand I usually use, Strathmore, but this one's greater, because it's smooth paper; the other ones have a slight texture. And I used for the first time a brand of pencil called "Trident". I have like a million and one 2B and other grade pencils everywhere, 'cuz I never want to run out.
And, yeah, she's awesome and finished and IL her.

And that's about it for now, as far as current work that's going on. I'm going to participate in a live painting event tomorrow, it's the second time I do so in this place. It's a discotheque called "Pure", which is a pretty awesome name D:
And, yeah, going to paint there again with another fellow artist, and this painting will also be put up for silent auction.
So that's it for now, here's a link to the page in Facebook: Gabriela Handal Arte, you should like the page and suggest it to all your friends and they mama with the suggest link that's under the profile picture.
Thanks a lot for reading!

Girl.With.Mohawk - Live Painting v. 2.0

2010-09-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

I participated in another live painting event, this time at a discotheque called "Pure" and I painted alongside my colleague Mariery Young. Here is a link to her blog: Organized Chaos
I was really excited to work next to her, because I completely envy and admire the way she works. My impression is that it's very instinctive and improvised and there is a freedom to it; freedom and speed are two things I'd really like to add into my work, as mentioned several times before, there's kind of a stiffness when I make human figure, I feel. I just want to be able to make more.
And the day before yesterday, I wanted to soak up on Mariery's vibes. I have no qualms on taking inspiration from other people and I have no care about where inspiration comes from (I wrote a little thing about that in one of the notepads at work: "Inspiration? I'll take your inspiration, no matter who you are and feed off of it". I like it.), so I tried to relax and trust my gut whilst I worked.
Which is something I believe in, anyway. Trusting your gut.

So yeah. I really would have liked to just look at her while she worked, but I had to do my thing too and since I work so slowly, I couldn't dick around XD

I did a couple of sketches, one at work with the reused paper notepads and when I got back home, I threw another sketch down on a 14 x 17 inch sketch book; just so I'd loosen up my hand. I also had NO idea how big the canvas we'd work on would be and I wanted to have a good idea of what I had in mind and I also didn't know how big our selection of colors would be. And both, the canvas and the colors were pretty generous XD

So, anyway, on to the pictures <3I seriously love this picture <3 Mari at this point was actually waiting for the acrylic paint to dry, that's just how fast she works x_x And I was like "lol I don't have to wait, 'cuz I work so slow".
I really like how Mari looks in this picture! I think there's some movement and spontaneity (it's also a little bit blurry lol) and those two things emulate her work.

I was lusting at her work LOL

Side by side <3

Mari's piece.

And that's it! It was a very satisfying experience <3Thank you so much for reading again! Please follow my blog, to keep updated on what I've been doing and also like my page in Facebook: Gabriela Handal Arte Also, suggest it to all of your friends with the suggest to friends link under the profile picture, I would also like to see you there!

A video!

2010-09-01T09:01:00.000-05:00

A friend had an amazing idea for a video, based on the pictures that I take sometimes to show what I'm working on, since my face is seen only partially. And he wanted to do some kind of stop motion thing, using that.
What came out is pretty amazing. His name is Anel Reyes Saldaña and this is his YouTube channel if you want to see more of what he's done: Anlr

And there you have it! XD
I srsly love how it turned out and I love the ending even more!
DO remember to like my page and to suggest it to all of your friends with the suggest to friends link that is under the profile picture: Gabriela Handal Arte
Thank you for viewing, reading and following; if you've just started following or you already were. You're the best! <3

S/T

2010-08-26T17:02:00.001-05:00

S/T in Spanish stands for Sin título, which means no title.

I came up with this piece, sketched it and finished it in three days, I think. Which is pretty fast for me and I'm pretty proud of myself for my speed this time around and how she came out.
Moreover, the space itself is certainly bigger than what my usual 9 x 12 inches, this one is a very oblong 12 x 18 inches. I've only two other drawings in that size.

I ROVE HER <3Please forgive how bad the pictures are, I have no scanner and I have a shit pulse and I ain't no picture taker and I also have no patience for taking better pictures, these will have to do for now. There's a little bit of light getting in the way of the pencil, but I think she looks good enough.

I hadn't made a drawing in a while and it's always very comforting to go back to my most familiar medium.

Thanks a lot for reading, if it's your first time or you're following. If it's your first time, do follow and leave me lots of comments, likewise if you've already been following!
Also, like my page in Facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and suggest it to all of your friends with the "suggest to friends" link that is under the profile picture. I put updates up every day and sometimes, more than once a day, of stuff that I'm doing, I'd love to see you there as well!

Thanks for reading and thanks for everything. See you in the next entry!

97 Obras

2010-08-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Today is the opening of the art exhibit to which I submitted Arianrhod. I have a history with the place, it has the word "museum" in it's name, but it's more some kind of a really fancy and uptown gallery. I have a history, because I think it's an amazing place and I went there to ask if I could make my first art exhibit there and they were like "lol we only do recognized artists" and I was like "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU". So what I got the notice about this art exhibit, the only thing I paid attention to was that it would be in this gallery, I NEEDED to be in there XD
Then, when I went to turn in the paintings to see which ones/one would be chosen, a teacher told me it was only for ex students and current students of the school and I was REALLY embarrassed, but he told me he'd accept my work anyway and see if anything was chosen and then I high fived myself, because all the embarrassment was worth it, because a piece of mine is IN that gallery hanging right now! @_@
So there are the pictures that were taken today, for the opening. DO notice how ridiculously happy/crazy I look XD:

THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.

Natura

2010-08-17T17:45:00.003-05:00

There is currently a national contest going on, the Roberto Lewis contest and I made this piece, called "Natura" to submit to it. I'm having a hard time thinking of leaving her with strangers and getting lost or something :(
I found out about this contest maybe four or five weeks ago? And Natura came to my head soon after that, did some sketches and whatevers, got the canvas and I put her down. I didn't take many pictures of the process, because I really didn't have time to dick around with this one; me working so slowly and the deadline being today.
This painting means a lot to me, I love everything about her and what she means. I'm proud of myself for the amount of color I used and that I put in realism/human figure together with abstract in a big piece (big for me, anyway, she's only 24 x 36 inches). I have a little weight on my chest thinking of letting her go if I DO win x_x
EITHER WAY. On with Natura and the pictures:
1. Only picture I took before she was finished:

2. All these I took today, after she was finished. You can't see the little bit of white paint spatter I did in the blue part, which is meant to be kind of a universe kind of thing. The very first one is all of her, the rest are details:

~o~

This piece really took my attention and put everything I have pending on hold to work on this piece, because of the deadline. The only thing that I worked on, while having this piece pending, was Arianrhod's frame, because the installation for that art exhibit is actually tomorrow and I had to turn her in last week. So, yeah, she was the only one that had permission to distract me from Natura. Moreover, with Natura, it's been one of the few times that I've thought up so much meaning for a piece. Whilst I painted it, sometimes I felt as though I would have to explain myself in front of a jury or something at some point, like one of those ridiculous reality shows; but she just legit has all these amazing vibes full of significance, a lot of things that I really liked and didn't want to forget, so I took a lot of notes and actually printed them out to turn in for the contest, besides all the other documents and information that had to be turned in. I don't know if it will mean anything, but I thought I'd throw a little extra something in there XD
Originally, it was written in Spanish and I really like how it came out; so here I'm going to post both here: In English and in Spanish. It'll be like getting Reader's Digest LOL

Spanish:
Natura

La naturaleza que nos rodea tiene tantas formas, el color alrededor de su cara no tiene ninguna forma específica; son manchas de color, listas para transformarse en la siguiente estructura. Natura representa toda la naturaleza de todo el planeta, el sol, los cielos, el universo y su cara es de mujer, porque la naturaleza es Madre Naturaleza. Sin mencionar, que en el idioma español la naturaleza es género femenino.

Los hilos que tiene por detrás, siento que tienen alguna clase de relación con "String Theory", de que todo el universo y todo y todas las dimensiones están unidas por hilos.
No entiendo exactamente de qué se trata el String Theory, pero me parece hermoso pensar que absolutamente TODO está conectado por hilos. Pienso en los hilos de coser, que son tan frágiles. El destino se teje con hilos, las mujeres que tejen los destinos de todos en las tragedias griegas.

También, son como un círculo que se cierra, pienso que Natura es como un nudo celta súper complicado. A la vez los nudos celtas tienen que ver con la infinidad de la vida y del universo

Tiene algo del ying yang, con los colores amarillos que le salen de los lados de la cara, brindan algo de simtetría y orden. Así como el ying yang, Natura tiene bondad y maldad sin que ni uno ni el otro sea absoluto, igual que la naturaleza; y entre bondad y maldad, tiene su propio equilibrio perfecto. Un equilibrio típico de la naturaleza, que a veces nos cuesta entender.

English:
Natura

Surrounding nature has so many forms, the color around her face has no specific shape; they're stains of color, ready to transform into the next structure. Natura represents all nature from the whole planet, the sun, the sky, the universe and her face is female, because nature is Mother Nature. Also, in Spanish, the noun is female.

The strings behind her, I feel have some kind of relation to String Theory, that the entire universe and everything and all dimensions are joined by strings.
I don't understand exactly what is String Theory about, but I think it's beautiful to think that absolutely EVERYTHING is connected through strings. I think of the sewing threads, that are so fragile. Fate is woven with threads, the Fates that weave everyones' destinies in Greek tragedies.

Also, like a circle that closes, I think Natura is a super complicated Celtic knot. At the same time, Celtic knots have to do with the infinity of life and the universe.

It also has some ying yang, with the yellow that comes out of the sides of her face, they bring some symmetry and order. Like ying yang, Natura has good and evil, without being either or absolutely, and just like nature, between good and evil, it has it's own perfect equilibrium. A typical balance in nature, that sometimes is difficult for us to understand.

And that's it <3- Here is a public link to the album in my Facebook: Una pieza muy especial
- Here is a link to the album in the Facebook page: Una pieza muy especial
- And last, but not least and most importantly, here is a link to the Facebook page, which you should like, if you haven't yet and you should also suggest to all your friend list, if you haven't yet. The suggest to friends link is under the profile picture, by the way: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thank you so much for reading, wether you're reading for the first time or you've been following me for a while now. If you're reading for the first time, please follow and like my page in Facebook, and feel free to leave me all kinds of comments!

Blue

2010-08-06T20:26:00.002-05:00

"Everything's blue in this world"

1. "Blue"
This is one of the most fresh and recent things I've been working on and I have to apologize for everything lately being pictures from my webcam, but it takes me a while to get to a scanner and a lot of things have been bigger than the scanner and, most of the time, I'm also too lazy to take pictures and then put them up in photobucket, pictures with the webcam are so much easier XD
EITHER WAY, the thing about this piece is that I'm only using tones of blue (when I get tired of working on the pet portrait, the blues that are left are used on this piece =D) and that it's the second piece in my life, I think, that I'm making "alla prima". Meaning, I went straight with a brush and paint onto the canvas, there was no sketch previous, either on paper or drawing with pencil on the canvas. This happened precisely one of the times that I was working on the background for the pet portrait that I didn't want to waste the paints.
So, yes. Here's two pictures of it. I was annoyed that I showed to my brother and he said "Oh, I like it, it's a nice cartoony style" and I was like "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU", because that just seems to be the way that my pieces come out: with a tint of cartoon to them.
I have mixed feelings, I have no interest in hyperrealism, but I DO in realism and when I don't have a model to follow, copy or take guide from, a cartoony thing is what seems to come out XD That's fine, though, I don't mind, I'm still REALLY excited about getting to work on her face. I always have to obligate myself to work on the background first and leave the foreground for last.

2. I've been sketching more. Or trying to.
I was in Rhode Island last year, at the house of a very dear friend (she's really my bestie, bff lol ILher), and her super cool grandma showed me a book of something called "Natural Drawing" and what it talked about fascinated me, because it goes the opposite end of the way that I regularly work. I tend to concentrate on the details of the drawing and then work outwards, rather than getting everything in it's place and go from big to small.
I only remember parts of what I read and I really didn't read that much, but form what I remember, it's called "natural drawing", because you follow the outward lines of things and when practicing, you make these super wavy lines. And it requires a lot of practice and sketches, just to get your hand used to it and then you become a genie at it eventually.
Milla has been my victim of the sketches, I think it's her that I have the most pictures of, so I just open up all of them and draw every single one, one after the other, no matter what. And that's something that I've been really wanting to work on: giving my hand freedom, so that my human figure won't come out so stiff all the time and being able to draw it in every angle, position, size and everything. I'll get it <3
Here's a little sample, 'cuz I really like how this one in particular turned out XD

3. It's been about two months since I got the mohawk and I gotta say, I think me and this thing on my head were meant to be together.
This is probably the second or third boldest change to my image, after shaving my eyebrows. I had my hair down to my buttcrack at the beginning of this year, then I took a picture of Milla with this super cool haircut she had and got that hair do; then I was going through some personal issues with communication (because I just have a horrible time with confrontation and just SAYING things) and I took some scissors and gave myself a haircut like a little boy and reminded myself of my mom a lot; and then I got over that shit and gave myself a mohawk.
I feel like I should elaborate on the little boy haircut: at the time I just wanted to be more honest and open about what I felt and needed to say and getting the hair really short, kind of symbolized that want for bareness. Something gay like that. THEN, I got awesome, and got the mohawk, 'cuz I've srsly wanted one for a really long time and, like I told a friend of mine, it's like the epitome of rebellion!
I don't consider myself a rebel at all or even any of the things that a mohawk could be associated with: punk, aggression, violence; for example. BUT, I just legitimately happen to like how it looks on me and how well it looks with my outfits. I like that it gives me masculinity, just because it's so short; but it also adds femininity, because my neck and shoulders are almost entirely bare.
I like the little bit of androgyny it gives me, but that I never fail to look like a girl <3
So YES, I love the mohawk.

Thank you very much for reading this time around as well, wether you're reading for the first time or you're an assiduous reader. And if you're reading for the first time DO follow!
The page in facebook is absolutely fantastic, it gets updated almost everyday with something that I'm doing, pictures and whatnot, so you can keep updated with my work. So if you haven't liked yet, please do and suggest to your friends! The suggest to friends link is under the profile picture, it would be really great! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Bvlgari

2010-07-13T13:23:00.001-05:00

I got hired to paint Bvlgari perfume bottles over the weekend. The offer went that for every 100 ml bought, I would personalize it.
I was really excited and nervous; nervous, because I was afraid somebody would come up and ask me for something ridiculous. It's a funny story, the whole bottle painting thing, because I'd been contacted prior to this weekend to work, but my call center schedule didn't allow me to do it, so they hired another artist that behaved like a complete prima donna, was rude and bitter.
One of the purposes of the job, was to interact with customers and to have people see the artist working, precisely so they'd become interested and so they could tell the artist what they wanted and these things, and this previous person didn't want to be seen, didn't want anybody to talk to him, didn't want to sit in the stand that had been prepared.
So the girl that hired me called me anyway to work over the weekend and we settled on the time and that was that. Here are pictures of two bottles I did on saturday, these were both testers, because there weren't any purchases saturday or sunday, so I painted tester bottles the whole time, just so I wouldn't be sitting there.

This was my work station:

I painted three more tester bottles on Sunday, but I'm really not a picture taking person by default, so I only took those pictures. Here's the album in the Facebook page, and while you're at it, you can like my page and continue to keep updated with my work! =D
And just for shits and giggles, here's the link to the page itself =D Gabriela Handal Arte, like it if you haven't yet, suggest it to your friends; the link to do so is right under the page's profile picture! I'm always putting some kind of update, wether something I'm working on, a gig or whatever.
Also, thank you so much for reading my blog, wether you're a follower or if you're reading for the first time. And if it's the first time, I hope you liked it and feel free to leave me all kinds of comments and follow! See you next time <3

3 Art Exhibits

2010-07-09T10:05:00.002-05:00

I went to three art exhibits about two weeks ago, I wanted to get the entry into June, but I didn't. Either way, yes, three art exhibits.
It's important for an artist to keep going to art exhibits to be aware of what fellow artists are doing; after all, art is also a business as is any other career, and to keep ourselves rich and our imaginations fed with new stuff all the time.
By the way, I made all the images smaller, but linked them to an outside page so you can see them full size, if you click on them <3

1. "Hechuras" by Martanoemí Noriega
I liked this art exhibit for the most part, I found some of the pieces to be too busy for my taste, but a couple of them had this nice movement about them. I guess, it's because they involve wood burning, ochre colors, black and very dark brown were very present. The only one piece with the color red in it, reminded me of a comic panel in which an explosion just happened.
I liked that a lot of the pieces were vertical, I think that lends itself a lot for being bought and to decorate a home and I thought that the ones that were horizontal would have been better if they'd have been vertical, except for the one that's called "Sol", which is the one that has like a black sun dawning over the edge of the piece, it's certainly very nice <3
I HAVE however mixed feelings about the wood burning, I read about wood burning in Wikipedia and I guess it's a super old form or art, but I feel as though it pollutes?

2. "Vaivenes" by Kansuet
"se nace en la hamaca,
se duerme o cescansa en la hamaca,
y se muere en la hamaca"
I am incredibly envious of this person's work, just because it's SO BEAUTIFUL! This was my favorite of the three art exhibits I visited that day, I love the surrealistic vibes and bubbles that surround his perfect human figure, which is also perfectly consonant with what happens whilst one is asleep. I'm amazed with how perfectly well he achieved the facial expressions of sleep, that very peculiar face of vulnerability and innocence.
The title of the art exhibit: "Vaivenes", which is kind of like, coming and going, is allusive of the swaying of a hamock. This artist is a Kuna and hamocks are a really big part of their lives, hence the amount of images of the kids on hamocks =D
Something else I noticed was how the pieces didn't have the prices, yet they were still sold. I guess that's what happens when you're famous or people know you, if they're really interested in a piece, they'll go ask how much it is and regardless of how much it is, they will buy it ***ENVY****
Moreover, I really liked the gallery itself, it's called Allegro and I'd never been there before, but I really liked the vibes of the place, the soft lighting and how welcoming it felt and kind of like a home <3

3. "Crónicas de una Visión"
This was the least favorite of the three art exhibits, a collective one. I have no problems with collective art exhibits, obv, I just didn't feel as though this one had anything out of the ordinary, moreover the place itself gave me strange vibes, it's some sort of a loft place, with bare walls and floors and very angular. The pieces here didn't have any kind of information next to them, no title, name of artist, media used, price, anything; the place and that peculiarity of no information on the pieces actually made me feel kind of confused or something.
The pieces that I did find really interesting were the one with the bull, just because I thought the way it was painted was curious and there were some with this really old school looking human figure, with bits of objects painted onto the piece, like one had a lighter, another one had a blue rose; but at the same time, I didn't notice any kind of brush strokes on the canvas, it didn't even look like canvas. I thought it was some kind of collage or maybe it had varnish on it.

So, those are the art exhibits I went to. I'm proud of myself, 'cuz I went to the three of them in one day XD
SO YEAH. The page is going on nicely and I update regularly with status updates, pictures of things I'm doing, wether at my day job or at home or gigs that I've scored; such as the one that I have for this weekend in which I'll be painting Bvlgari bottles at a mall here. I'm REALLY excited about that =D
Like my page please and tell everyone you know, suggest it to them, so that we can be more and more and more in there! The more the merrier! Here's the link: Gabriela Handal Arte

Thanks so much for reading, wether you're reading for the first time or you follow this blog, thanks a lot! And if you're new, feel free to follow and leave me all kinds of comments! See you next time! =D

Work In Progress

2010-06-24T09:39:00.007-05:00

A good friend of mine told me a long time ago that it's ok to have several projects going on at the same time and to work on them simultaneously, up to that moment, I felt as though I HAD to finish what I was working on and if I'd forgotten something, I was somehow not allowed to go back to it. I don't know where I'd gotten that idea or why I needed somebody to kind of "give me permission" just by saying it. Since then, I've been much more ok, with that: Finding really old work and going back to it, working on it and finishing it, having plenty of things going on at the same time. It makes me feel much more productive and as though I have much more freedom.
Several times, it's happened, that I have several pieces on paper, waiting to be worked on and I take out the colored pencils and watercolors and I work on them one by one, within that same period of time. It's like I'm a little factory! =D
SO, these are some of the things I've been working on, a couple of them are finished:
1. "T Tree"
9 x 12 inches
Pencil on Paper
This piece will belong to a girl named Tiffany. It's a gorgeous tree of some kind, she wants it for a tattoo.
I love it, it's gorgeous! <3

2. Work @ Relic Bar
There's a bar here called Relic, they have an artist go there every Thursday, make a painting live and then the painting is up for silent auction for six weeks and 10% of the price goes to charity. It was my turn on Thursday, June 17th and it was a really great experience and I think I'd like to do it again, sometime in the future. So here's pictures of the piece and here's a link to the album in Facebook, if you want to see some more pictures =D And while you're at it, you can like the page, so you'll be updated with my work =D!

3. Something
Yes, something, as I'm not quite sure what this is, except that I used newspaper to cover the piece of wood and then I glued the little canvases on and I don't know where I want it to go, except maybe paint certain body parts on them. So far, I only have those two eyes. EITHER WAY, I like it! It will probably be somewhere around USD500.00.

4. Pet Portrait
14 x 18 inches
Oil on canvas
This piece will be bought soon by some very dear friends. It's probably the first time ever that I've seriously painted animals and I have to say I'm real proud of myself! This one is taking me a while, precisely, because I'm not familiar with painting/working on animals at all, but I think it's headed in a good direction and with some more work, it will be a great piece very soon!

SO YEAH! That's what's been going on lately! The Facebook page is doing really great and I update it often with pictures of stuff that I'm working on, little status messages and things, so you should really drop by, like the page and suggest it to your friends! Gabriela Handal Arte!!!
And if it's the first time that you're reading my blog, thank you so much for reading it and go ahead and follow, so you can keep updated with my work! =D
http://condron.us/

Heroes and Villains

2010-06-07T16:35:00.001-05:00

I've had in mind for a good while now to make a series of illustrations of heroes and villains, some of them that I really like and a couple that I don't particularly care for, but I know are super popular.
The only one's that's gotten on paper so far has Catwoman, but in line and upcoming are: Black Widow, X-23, Elektra, Aeon Flux, Kabuki, Poison Ivy, Rogue, Storm (<3), Phoenix, Mystique, Wolverine, Gambit, Magneto, Emma Frost, Spiderwoman, Vampirella, Iron Man, Witchblade, Hulk, SheHulk, Angel. Maybe I could do Lara Croft, too, now that I think about it.
It's a long term project and it will take a while, but either way, I wanted to show off what I've done with Catwoman, even if I haven't touched her in a while, 'cuz I have difficulty working with architecture LOL
Here's the two that I've done of Catwoman <3
1. Very nice and all.

2. This one's my favorite, can you tell? XD I really like how she's turning out and sometimes when I like something a lot I slow down a bunch more, 'cuz I'm afraid I'll mess it up. And well, I made the mistake of working on the background last, so even more x_x
Either way, I only have ONE Catwoman comic and I'm not a really big comic book nerd or anything, so I don't know that much about her; but I DO know that she's some kind of an antihero and she's not really on anybody's side, but hers and doesn't really mean any harm. And in this image, I seriously like how her facial and body expression turned out: You catch her in a chilled moment, she looks really comfortable in her "habitat" and she gives you some kind of friendly, but distant look.

- BTW, there is never enough of this, but: LIKE in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and suggest to people, too!
http://condron.us/

Workin' for a livin'

2010-05-13T10:14:00.002-05:00

Workin' for a livin' by Huey Lewis and the News
LOL
This is related, 'cuz it's the title of the entry and because I have a day job that I have exclusively to help me pay for bills, because my artistic work doesn't give me much income at all on it's own.
And this is just an idea for fellow humans in the same situation, even if you're not an artist, you can always have something to write on, big or small, where you put down any and every idea until you have time to dedicate to it. Once you're out of your shift =D
So, if you don't have dough to buy notepads or an agenda, you made a notepad with whichever paper that's been printed on one side, cut it into fourths and staple the piles of it and you have a notepad ^_^

This entry will have A LOT of Photo Booth pictures, it will be entertaining =D
SO, remember that previous entry I made about the notepads?
I thought that, as a notepad, it can still be thrown away, once you're done writing things on it; so I though about making them into little visual diaries that can be flipped through over and over again and that way they won't be thrown away. I've only started one up so far.
I thought I'd give it a theme, but that got old real quick, so I've just kept drawing and writing things on it, it's been very nice and it really helps the four hours of work at the call center go by fast and I feel like I'm not completely wasting my time.
Reused paper notepad:

An agenda is also always useful and it's good to get used to having one, using it and looking in it every day. I'm not a very organized person, although I try real hard, even if I hardly ever look into the thing, I always go at the beginning of the year and get a brand new one for the same purpose and intention.
It's good to ALWAYS have it on you, so you can write future appointments, people's phone numbers and emails, ideas, things you want to remember, anything.
I've also started taking the agenda to work and drawing all kinds of things on it.
In the agenda:

I hope whoever has found this useful. It's amazingly comforting to me that time goes by faster with me drawing on a notepad or the agenda and that if I suddenly remember something or have an idea, I can write it down and it won't be forgotten; or that if I've just made a potentially important contact related to my work or just somebody I think is nice and could be a friend, I can write down their information for future interaction =D

So the group has been offed, but something strange happened. The process to delete the group, is to delete all the members and then you delete yourself. There was this one member, who I think didn't have a facebook page anymore, but the name was still there and the last time I saw there were actually four members in the group; which makes me wonder if somebody else has taken over the group and changed the name of it and what not.
I think I dreamt about that last night, somebody becoming administrator and changing the name, so I couldn't find it anymore and doing whatever they want with the pictures I uploaded :(
I should have deleted everything and not just the members =/
EITHER WAY, you must become a fan and "like" the page I made in facebook. Please do it =D
Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Medusa

2010-04-29T11:37:00.003-05:00

I've been out of a scanner for a while now, so you're getting a bunch of pictures of the process, that I like so much anyway, and a picture of the end result. I tried as best as I could to not have the flash overwhelm the image too much, but be aware it might not be as faithful to reality as the drawing CAN get a little bit distorted with the angle and lighting and whatever.

ANYWAY.
I discovered a girl with a VERY symmetric and curious face, named Kandee Johnson. This is the link to her blog: Kandee The Makeup Artist.
I saw a video she made on doing the Queen of Hearts make up video tutorial and saw she has a fan page in facebook and that's where I found this super cool picture:

I like how her eyes look yellow, I love the lip makeup, the overall colors on her face, combined with the rest of the picture, how it's over exposed. Or at least, I think it is, I ain't no picture genie.
She reminds me of Medusa and Maleficient, she looks so amazingly EVIL. She reminds me of a snake, too. And her eyebrows being so high, I think, also add something on there.
In the end, though, I decided she's Medusa, I guess, because of the top she's wearing, it looks like her head is just hanging/floating there or something. It's 9 x 12 inches and USD80.00

SO. Here are the pictures:

Sketchy sketchy. At first I was just sketching.

Srs shading then began

Placement of hairz

Along the edge of the hair, I put a thick line, I don't know if it can be appreciated. It has an Alphonse Mucha thing going on.
AAAAAAAND LE FIN

The other one I want to show off is this one up next. She's untitled, but she's also 9 x 12 inches and USD80.00.
The original picture:

Melancholy is a beautiful thing.
Here's a couple of pictures again of the process and the end result =D

In other news, I offed the group, because I thought it was kind of annoying to begin with, and I'm sticking with the fan page. I like it much more, because it works more like a regular profile page and I can make different albums for different things. Very nice <3
Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Pieces of the Universe

2010-02-23T13:18:00.005-05:00

I've always found the Universe pretty interesting, beautiful and fascinating, but usually it's so OUT THERE and INFINITE, INCREDIBLE, UNENDING and all those big words; but it's shit that's so far out, that I'm usually too dumbfounded to really get into it and can only admire and drool. It's just shit that I'll probably never understand. Does it really matter? Is it meant to be understood? Fucked if I know.
Sometimes I think my abstracts are me trying to channel my feelings for the universe. Or sometimes I have an urge to imitate those beautiful shapes the nebulas have, that remind me of my abstracts. Or maybe they're what I'd like my abstracts to look like if I was a super genie at abstracts. Previous entry about abstracts
BUT ANYWAY, I found this video a long time ago (a long time ago being maybe more than a year? Maybe?), and it never fails to make me cry. For lots of reasons: We really are SO small and meaningless and we worry SO MUCH about such stupid shit that matters only to us and really has no consequence; the Hubble is a pretty amazing thing and watching the video makes me think it's alive; NOTHING MATTERS, not really.
I guess, the feelings the video gives me could be taken as depressive; but I find it amazingly relaxing and relieving: It doesn't matter what I do, when I'm gone, nobody will remember me, nothing I ever did will matter; so I can just chill and do whatever I want while I can and enjoy it <3
Youtube link to the video
In the previous abstracts entry, I'd talked about how I tried to do the same abstracts with little canvases, but I didn't really like how they turned out; well, I've taken them up again and finished three of them yesterday and today. I seriously seriously like them: They're each a little window of something into something and I feel wondered when I look at them. I imagine maybe I'm seeing something, somewhere in the universe is happening right at that time, live as I'm looking at the painting.
Here they are ^_^ By the way, the prices include the frames.

~o~

1. "Cracks of light" 9 x 6 inches USD50.00
This one's pretty old, I LOVE the name, it has acrylic and oil, I love the colors. It's some sort of stellar event going on there. Or light breaking into the permanent dark of space.

~o~

2. "Explosión" 6 x 8 inches USD40.00
I love how dynamic this one is, to me it looks as though it's moving, it's an explosion somewhere in space that *just* happened. I can almost hear it!

~o~

3. "Nubes de apocalipsis" 7 x 9 inches USD60.00
In English, the title is "Apocalypse Clouds". Or something like that.
Ok, this one's not the universe LOL, but it goes here, because I finished it along with the other two, it's an abstract and it reminds me of the sky, which is less mysterious than the universe, but it's still fascinating and full of wonder.
It reminds me of those post-apocalyptic skies, how they're usually illustrated in comics or movies, with a lot of ochre colors, brown, yellow.

~o~

4. "Nervio del sol" 5 x 7 inches USD60.00
This one's title in English is "Nerve of the Sun", it's just the impression it gives me. It's deep under the part of the sun that we see, the sun is not just a ball of gas, it's alive and has nerves like we do.

- Remember I've got the group in facebook going up still, join it, invite friends, leave comments, ask me things, look at my work, everything is for sale Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook, invite other friends to become fans, look at my work, buy me something! Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
- I also made an email exclusively for all these art type things, so if you want to ask me a question about pricing, commissioning, buying, art classes, please feel free to send an email: gabrielahandalarte@gmail.com
http://condron.us/

Arianrhod

2010-02-09T12:47:00.002-05:00

Arianrhod in Wikipedia.

I don't know when did I first come across Arianrhod, maybe when I was as lot more into mythology and really wanted to get into Celtic things, but that's some really convoluted shit, so I eventually gave up and remained liking Arianrhod's name and that it means something about a silver wheel.
THEN I found out she really doesn't have any amazing goddess powers, except put curses on her three sons.
Either way, I like the name, she has something to do with the moon and I don't know when I decided that this painting would be her, but she's done and I like it! =D
I like the painting as a whole, I like how the hair turned out, how I got it to look proper windblown without a model; her mouth, because it looks super pillowy and her smile is discreet; and her eyes, because I got the brilliant idea of doing the brightest parts with the same tone of yellow as the moon she has behind her head and I love the aqueous quality they have.
A couple of close ups for details =D

At the same time, I made this one other piece that I think I'll call "Face off of hot and cold colors", on a watercolor canvas that I'd been eyeing for a while now, it looked so nice to work on and the day before yesterday I finally got my shit going and did something on it and this is the result.
I really like it: How many colors I used and the end result. I think the description I've liked the most so far by a viewer is that it looks like a fire inside a wave, what a beautiful thing to say <3
ANYWAY, yeah. I dig it and I'm real proud of myself, more so because it's watercolors.
It's 12 x 16 inches and I'll put it up for USD 60.00 I think.

Also! Remember there's a group and a fan page in facebook that you need to join and become a fan of! That way you'll have more current updates and a bit more often, also, I strongly recommend that you get into both and invite other people to join and become fans and leave whatever comments, thoughts or ideas on the walls or pictures =D
- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Fairy with bee wings

2010-01-25T11:59:00.003-05:00

- I finally finished another piece. Painting always takes me so much longer than drawing, but these days I've been a diligent little bee and I finished this one relatively quickly.
And this little thing is small, strange and I get some animosity from her face and eyes, but I love the shit out her and the strange colors and texture within her 10 x 12 inch frame <3
It's called "Fairy with bee wings". Don't ask me why her background looks like really thick smoke or why she has bee wings; the only thing that was clear about her when I started her, were her skin, eye color and hair, other than that, I had no idea the wings would be bee wings and I was completely lost about the background.
Although I like her eyes, I think what I like most are her lips and the wings. I'm really proud of the wings, they look beautiful.
So yeah, here you have her: "Fairy with bee wings", I think I'll put her up for sale at like USD250.00 :hmm
1. Full picture. I think I'm going to do the usual and get some regular wood, paint it black with the acrylics and frame it nice like. They always look so beautiful and complete when I frame them <3

2. Detail of face and wings. Really proud of that little mouth <3

3. Another detail of wings and face, a bit closer now.

- In the two art exhibits in December, I sold a piece in each <3 I hardly made back the money I paid to put the pieces in one of the art exhibits, but it doesn't matter. I sold "V", a good and fond friend bought it.

And I sold one of the five little drawings, the one called "I will be a beautiful rebel", to some dude that was super awesome enough to write to me in facebook and tell me. Srsly, it made my day/week/year/life:
Como estas Gaby, mi nombre es Rodrigo, tebusque en el facebook solo paera decirte que soy el feliz poseedor de un Handal hecho a lapiz, si mi memoria no me falla(la tengo en la oficina) se llama I am a beautiful Rebel o algo asi ..... quiero decirte que desde la vi donde Analissa me gusto asi que ahora esta en mi pequeño cubiculo mirandome con sus extraños parpados en formas de alas...... Que estes muy bien !!

Rodrigo

He says he looked for me in facebook just to tell me that he's the happy owner of a pencil made Handal piece :lol
And that from the moment he saw it, he liked it and now he has it in his cubicle, looking at him with his strange lids shaped like wings.
PFT. BEST FEELING EVER. :die

- And I'm algo going to participate in another art exhibit for female art. I haven't decided what piece I'm going to put there yet, but yeah <3

- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

The Tiger and The Dragon - v. 2.0

2009-11-27T09:47:00.002-05:00

So I finally finished the tiger and the dragon tattoo and I have to say, I'm SO proud of how it turned out.

It took me a while to finish it, because I was very intimidated by both animals and because I don't often draw and paint animals. But this piece needed to be AMAZING.
AND SO. Here it is finished, in all it's beautiful and colorful glory.
As you remember in the previous journal entry that I talked about this commission, it was very bland and the floral designs in the background were very bold and I had no intention of changing them really, but they also looked so stiff and not flowing in comparison to the ones the owner wanted.

And both animals looked good, but I was taking it real slow with them, because I didn't want to mess them up.
So, I layered the colors and painted them both real slow and thinking about it long and hard, as I advanced. And also, something I wanted to add was some sort of blue background. I just felt as though, it would look so much more rich and it would go very well with all the other colors that are present.
As I was finishing them and as I worked on them I see how their images and their physique also reflect their personalities and the fighting style they're meant to represent:
- The tiger has really bold colors, not that much detail and is looking straight at the spot in the dragon's body that he's going to attack. This is consonant with his instinctive and gutsy personality and how his fighting style is more about brute strength, rather than strategy and elegance.
- The dragon has many more colors and detail about him, long thin body and limbs. Easily is going around the tiger's attack. This is consonant with the delicacy that he is meant to represent, how his personality and fighting style are more about wisdom, patience and planning.
Also, the black designs I was asked to put around them, they're nature, which surrounds them as their fight goes on. A fight of extremes must take place in a neutral setting.
And the blue that I wanted to add, I wanted to make it something that was flowing in between the both of them and it ended up looking like the "S" shape that divides the Ying Yang, so it's present after all XD

Some pictures of close ups and details =D

And there you have it! The tiger and the dragon looking beautiful and amazing. Last night, the owner came to pick them up and she liked them very much, too! A successful sale and piece.
I'm SO proud of myself!

Remember about the group and fan page in facebook, you NEED to join and become a fan, invite other people, leave me comments and look at my work and, when I figure out how, buy me something.
Thanks for reading! <3 ^______^
- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

A fairy and an Alien

2009-11-16T12:58:00.002-05:00

Before I start, I just want to point out that I don't know why the colors came out so bright after the scan! Not that the originals aren't bright, but they're definitely not as bright as they look here.

Today I'm featuring a drawing I made from the picture of a girl I know called Charlotte and another drawing, for which nobody was my model.

1. "Fairy Type 2": The original picture just gave me the impression of the liveliness that is associated with fairies. And she also has some mischief and playfulness in there.

This is the original picture
So pretty much from the moment I saw the picture, I wanted to do something with it. And the end result is not exactly the same as the original, but it wasn't really the purpose. It was more to imitate the pose and the expression.
I'm pretty proud of how her hair came out, because it looks really thick and nice.
"Fairy type 2" is 8 x 10 inches, pencil, colored pencil and watercolor on paper and it's USD 70.00.

~o~

2. "Alien Type": This one, was one of the times that I was sketching without copying anything and just seeing what came out and as I drew her, she gave me the feeling of an alien; although there's really not much out of the ordinary in her other than the ears and maybe the color of her eyes and hair.
"Alien Type" is 9 x 12 inches, watercolor and pencil on paper and USD 80.00

I'm seriously considering getting rid of the group and just keeping the fan page, as they have pretty much the same features, but the fan page lets me separate and organize pictures in different albums. We'll see D:
Thanks for reading! <3

- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Duane Bryers

2009-11-09T11:54:00.003-05:00

Not too long ago, I saw these images by Duane Bryers and thought they were very cute.
The character's name is Hilda and I love the childishness and innocence, how free and playful she looks, with the fingers of her hand spread.
I'm putting here my favorites and here's a link to a page with many more to see.

- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

A self portrait

2009-10-28T10:35:00.004-05:00

FINALLY another blog entry! I got a part time day job and my time to work is reduced by six hours.
I'd been working on a self-portrait for a while now, that had taken me long because I'm lazy, frustrated and there was a lot of hair in the piece that had to be painted. Also, I really liked how it was turning out and I was intimidated with hurrying up with it and fucking it up. So I was taking it slow on top of everything else.
So, in this blog entry, I want to show you the original picture, the process and the end result of the self-portrait.

1. The original picture: Sometimes I go on a personal photo shoot, just so I can have "up to date" pictures of myself and record what I look like from time to time. AND SO, I really liked how this picture turned out, it has an interesting facial expression. Originally, I was just sketching and was only going to draw the left eye, but I liked the picture so much I HAD to draw the whole thing.

2. The process: This series of pictures are the other way around, because they were taken with Photo Booth.
As stated in a couple of previous entries, the process is ALWAYS interesting. The medium is a compressed wood board, 17 x 19.5 inches, covered with several layers of reused news paper and then I cut up a bunch of pieces of paper that I have and stuck them on there.
I used white glue, as opposed to the spray on glue that I have, so there's a certain texture that pushes through the paper, I'd completely forgotten that I have spray on glue x_x

3. The end result: I'm VERY proud of myself. I like how it turned out and I really like how thick the texture of the hair came out.

The group and fan page in facebook are still going on strong, join them both, invite other people and leave lots of comments and feedback!
- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
I'm also still going to use that PanamaNetBuy place to sell my things, but I'm intimidated by it, so I'm first going to choose one small piece to sell through there and see how it goes, I'll let you know how that goes <3
http://condron.us/

Mario Benjamin

2009-10-13T09:08:00.003-05:00

In the art exhibit I was helping to mount, out of all the things I saw, the works I liked most were from an artist called Mario Benjamin. Maybe somebody's heard of that art exhibit, it's a traveling thing called "Latitudes", it's gone from here by now.
Unfortunately, I didn't smarten up and take pictures and I haven't found those pieces in the internet; but OH WOW, they were amazing.
These are some examples of his work:
1.
2.
These resemble the ones at the art exhibit a lot, in the way they're painted and the colors and wotevz; I don't know if it was the yellow lights and the vibes inside the museum, but the ones there were so hypnotizing and beautiful.
One of them, was vertical not horizontal like the two posted above, red and black and looking down at the viewer with this defying, careless and angry stare. It was my favorite piece in the whole exhibit.
It made me feel as thought it was some sort of creature, that was in it's human form for now. But whatever it was still showed and he still emitted the angry vibes of the creature he is and it constantly struggles to go out.
A pretty mediocre source, if you want to read more about him
I WAS a little frustrated when I read the exhibit's catalogue, though, because I was hoping to read more about him, his paintings and how he feels about them and there was nothing about that. He was saying something about the identity of the artist's country and the stroke or some sort of puzzle type of thing.
I'd like to really pick at his brain and see what's up in there.

I've been pretty busy with a day job I found and working on my usual things, but I'm not stopping!
The group and fan page in facebook are up and going strong, JOIN both of them, invite other people, leave me comments, feedback, opinions, ideas in the wall or the pictures; that would be seriously great! <3

- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - V. 2.0

2009-09-24T11:24:00.003-05:00

I finished two pieces made with recycled materials :D
So, I'm featuring those two here and talking about a couple of other things I'm working on <3

This is the finished piece "negative - positive"

Detail :D
1. This is the first one and the image above is what it looked like the first time I talked about it here in the previous recycled material pieces entry. At that moment, I had no idea what I'd call it, but I knew that that was exactly what I wanted the girl to look like and that each box would have shading.
So, I thought of the name "Super Slow motion Seizure" first, because it reminded me of those gifs that change color quickly that cause seizures on some people; but then towards the end I decided for "negative - positive". I'm very happy with the result :D
I used a 24 x 24 inch panel of compressed carton, then gave it several coats of reused paper, like receipts, flyers, things like those and then painted each side black and white.
This one's USD 200.00.

~o~

Most recent finished piece with reused materials :D

Detail
2. I don't have a name for this piece yet, but I DID want to make it solely with blocks of colors and then in the end, I decided I'd make it look dirtier by going over it with some dry black oil paint.
It's made with a 17 x 20 inch compressed wood panel, a bunch of coats of reused news paper and the blocks of paper are just reused pages of bond paper that were only printed on one side, that I cut up into different sizes.
The color blocks are painted with acrylic and the black in different parts and on top of the color to make it look dirty is oil.
This one's USD 50.00
~o~
3. These are two REALLY old pieces that I've taken up again and I'm going to finish sometime soon.

- First is Arianrhod: I started this one VERY long ago, maybe more than five years. It wasn't meant to be Arianrhod at first, it was just a portrait of a woman looking at the viewer, whilst the wind blew in her hair.
I've modified it by improving her facial features, which were made very clumsily and now she's standing straight, at first she was kind of slouching. Her eyes used to be all weird and had a stupid mouth, now she's awesome. And, of course, I added the moon behind her head.
This painting is 14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas and it's going to be USD 300.00

~o~

- Then is this fairy type with bee wings, which is probably a bit less old than the Arianrhod painting. I don't remember what kind of wings I wanted her to have at first, but they certainly weren't bee wings. And the proportions were way off, her neck is still really long, but I like how it looks. She's pretty far out now.
~o~
4. And a couple of pieces I'm working on that were from when I was still in school and we were copying works from the masters.

- A piece by Kandinsky: What I've been doing to this one is refining the colors and the circles, because I don't know WHAT I was looking at when I started, but the colors are way off and the circles were all horrible. Maybe my reference was off D:
This one's 18 x 24 inches and it's going to be USD 250.00

~o~

- I don't remember the name of this artist, but it's a surrealist piece, also from back in school when we were copying works of the masters. This one's going to be USD 300.00
I remember I was doing really good in that period, until we got to pointillism and I was set back, because I HATED doing pointillism so much >=/
BUT ANYWAY, those paintings in which I copy the work of masters, is an ongoing thing I'm thinking of doing. Like "cover art", like when somebody makes a cover of a song, except I'm making covers of master pieces XD
The art group is up and going great and so is the page I made. It would be seriously great if you'd joined and became a fan and invited other people to do the same. See you there! <3
- Join my group in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte, and invite other people!
- Become a fan in facebook Gabriela Handal Arte and invite other people, too!
http://condron.us/

Art Event :D

2009-09-21T18:39:00.002-05:00

Our flag atop Cerro Ancón :D
I've decided to participate in art events, wether it's paid or for free. This entry is about my first art event (I think, I don't know if helping put up that art exhibit counts as an art event x_x) and it's with a group called SembrArte, about painting some benches in one of our historical places, called Cerro Ancón. In this case, it's to celebrate the first time our flag was put up in the Canal Zone; so the theme is free as long as it's related to Panama.

The bench I chose is right next to this Panama tree, it's an awesome little spot and I have constant shade during the scorching sun filled day.

There's plenty of imagery to be used: butterflies, fish, trees, the forms that our indigenous groups use, the sea, the colors red, white and blue; among other things.
My sketch only had to do with a cute fairy with butterfly wings and the "magic" that came behind her would be swirls and stars and when I got there I saw that the back of the bench was pretty thin and wide, so I still used the fairy, swirls and stars, but I also wrote "Panama" and "Cerro Ancón", because the short height of the bench's back made me think that it could be used for a logo.

This is what I got done on the first day of work :D
I'm painting the legs of the bench as trunks of trees, with vines around them and the back of the back (LOL) of the bench, will be clouds.

Close up of the fairy :D

What I advanced on the second day of work. It looks a little bit more polished
After working on it for a while, I thought as a whole it was a representation of our rich and exuberant nature and the fairy represented the magic of nature. Also, the magic that comes from her is changing into different things, like the swirls, then "Panama" and then "Cerro Ancón", so that represents how we're in constant change. And the city really IS constantly changing and growing, what with a bunch of new buildings that are being built, streets fixed and improved <3

Here are a couple of the other benches being painted by fellow artists :D
I'm really glad I took to participating in this event, because I've met several colleagues and just being surrounded by artists in general is a nice feeling.

I made an album for all the pictures I've taken so far in the Gabriela Handal Arte page, there are these pictures I posted here and the other benches and some really nice nature shots; so while you're there looking at them, you should also become a fan! Gabriela Handal Arte - SembrArte @ Cerro Ancón
Also, here's the page itself so you can become a fan Gabriela Handal Arte
And here's also the link to my group, so you can join that, too! Gabriela Handal Arte
In the group you can see a wide selection of my work, feel free to join, invite more people, leave me a comment on the wall or on any of the pictures and buy something :D
Also, in the page (the one where you become a fan), I've not uploaded that many pictures quite yet, but I really like that I can make separate albums for things, so it looks a bit more organized. Go ahead and become a fan and suggest it for your friends, too!
See you there!

Barbarian

2009-09-14T16:58:00.003-05:00

Today's entry is about a drawing that most people have disliked, but I SERIOUSLY like it XD

I like it, because I like the end result, I like the colors I used and how they turned out, I like what it's about, I like the character's body, her facial expression and general attitude; although I have to agree with viewers on her body's position being awkward and her body itself being awkward considering the amount of strength she's supposed to have. But that's who I visualized it, I can't help myself.

This drawing is meant to be a barbarian woman, that wields a double handed sword and said sword is about her size, if not a little bit bigger. She's some sort of mutant for her time, because of the amount of strength she has and that's contradicted by her body not manifesting her strength: she's not very strong looking, but very feminine, young and tight.
I don't really know what Vikings looked like and what they wore, because I haven't cared enough to look for that information, but I think of her as some sort of Viking.

We see her in the drawing, at a moment in which she's just picked up her sword and is holding it in a confident, but sort of playful manner. I wrote a little thing concerning the moment of the drawing, I hope I'm not mocked about my poor writing skills XD

I used pencil, water color and colored pencils for this drawing, it's 9 x 12 inches and I don't know if it's for sale D:

This is the drawing:

This is the passage:
The sword is almost as big as her, maybe bigger
She lifted it up, with her arms stretched out in front of her and her muscles are tense and she feels them contracting, but she's more than used to it and she lifts the sword with ease
She turns her head, her brow tightly frowned in concentration; her eyes directed and centered to who she's cutting up next, but the corners of her mouth a little bit raised in confidence and enjoyment
The wind blows her long orange hair and her loin cloth, but it doesn't distract her eyes from where they're pinpointed.
The smooth, svelt and economic body of the barbarian walked decidedly in the next chosen direction and she swung her sword in fron tof her like it was merely an extension of her arms and sliced accross three men at a time, cutting a path through the bodies, tearing them down like they were trees.

So that's it. I really like this drawing and I like what I wrote about it.
The group in facebook is up and running with a very wide selection of drawings, paintings and other things; it would be very nice if you went in the group, saw my work, joined and invited other people that you think would be interested in it! See you there! :D

Gabriela Handal Arte
http://condron.us/

Something of Everything.

2009-09-10T16:39:00.006-05:00

I've not made an entry for a while D:

Today it's going to be a bundle of several things.
- Commission of a tattoo design.
- Notepads made from recycled paper.
- Hand made earrings.

Tiger and dragon as you'd find it in the internet or something.

The floral designs for the background

1. Commission of a tattoo design: The tiger and the dragon.
This was requested to me by a girl named Dalys, she wants a tattoo of the tiger and the dragon, with floral designs around them. She just wants to make the design her own.
The tiger and the dragon are seen pretty often with the ying-yang as a background, because they have opposing characteristics and complement each other. They're meant to represent two different fighting styles: The dragon being all elegant, stylish, delicate and thought out in his moves and the tiger being more driven by brute force and instinct.
In the usual ying-yang representations, they both look too much the same to me and the ying-yang, although a cool symbol, it's pretty worn out. SO I'm not using a ying-yang, they will be surrounded by the floral designs as if they were fighting in some natural setting and their physical position is meant to represent better their fighting style.
Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner big enough to scan that image, so I could only take a bad quality picture in Photo Booth. And I'm not finished with it yet, so it looks very bland right now, it's still in it's in between stages. But I'm definitely happy with how it's turning out and the future owner is also happy with it so far, what with her input for the design, too :D
It's 14 x 17 inches at this point and I'll be charging her USD 70.00. I think it will be really cool, that with this size, she can frame it and hang it wherever and show off her tattoo even more!

Most recent picture of the design

~o~

All of them together
2. Notepads made from recycled paper: This is really simple and easy. I take a bunch of paper that's only been printed on one side and the blank side isn't dirty and cut it into quarters and then staple piles of paper together and make the notepads! :D
I want to sell them in this flea market thing, so to make them prettier, I've made different drawings and things on them and the prices will range from USD 00.50 to maybe USD 5.00, the more elaborate ones.

These are my two favorite ones!

~o~

3. Handmade earrings:These are maybe more like hand assembled, because, really, I just bought the things that go in the ear lobe and attached different things on there. BUT I'm really happy with everything I've made and I'm thinking that I may buy more stuff and actually make several pairs and also sell them in that flea market ^_^

All of the earrings and necklace that I've put together

So, that's some of the stuff I've been doing.
The selling through eBay, I've given up on for now, because it's proven so difficult. The accepted payment methods that eBay has, all require me to have a physical United States address and actually BE IN the United States, so that's shot; and to have an account in a United States bank, some of them require an initial deposit of USD 3000.00 :(
BUT all is not lost, it was suggested to me by a friend to go to this store real near where I live called panama net buy, to sell my work and I went and they I CAN sell things through them (they have an eBay account and bank accounts and everything set up) and they'd charge a commission, but that's fine by me. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with them.
Also, doing alright with the facebook group and page, JOIN and invite more people! Gabriela Handal Arte ^____^

I got rid of that Twitter thing, because I logged in one time and it showed as if I was following a bunch of people that I'd not added and some people that I WAS following were no longer there and I couldn't add them. So I shot that.

Improvement and Practice

2009-07-24T15:43:00.004-05:00

I try to improve myself in my craft and I try to be critical and objective and whatever. And among my defects, I think, are: Difficulty with use of color, bad pulse, stiff and rigid human figure. So, what do I do to improve those? The following:

1. Difficulty with use of color: When I'd just started out in university (and whenever I tried using colors, really), it was hard for me to choose and combine colors. I guess that situation stems from having drawn most of the time and just not coming that much in contact with the need to use color and the difficulty to use color manifested itself with much more strength in university, because I was obligated to paint.
And what's the point of painting, if you're not going to use that gorgeous spectrum of colors that oil paints have, right?
SO, to try to remedy that, I've started coloring on a regular kid coloring book. The one I've been using is a Precious Moments coloring book, that's REALLY REALLY old! And I DO feel it's helping me a lot, although I've only been doing it for maybe two weeks. Maybe less.
But each time I get started on a new one, it's easier to visualize what colors to use and I'm very slowly becoming less intimidated when I realize I have to use color in other things.
This is the coloring book:

These are the latest ones I've colored:

And this one's my favorite so far. I think it's so cute, because it reminds me of Christmas so much and she looks so warm and cozy with her kind of tartan skirt. And I really like how the colors resulted, I think I almost smell pine when I look at it:

2. Bad pulse: I don't know where it's rooted, I guess it's just something that some people have by default and some don't. I have bad pulse and I know this, because when I'm drawing, I find myself making a kagillion lines, then erasing them and practically making the whole drawing again so it's cleaner. And when I'm making the clean lines, I have to concentrate and pretty much not breathe, to be able to make a straight line x_x
And sometimes, even, I'm obligated to make the line more than once, because it's so difficult. And I'm helping that with tracing, which I haven't been doing for more than two weeks, either, but I know that it's helping me a lot.
So this is one of the drawings I've traced. I'm just using the coloring book and when I'm done with this one, I'll just get a new one and repeat the same thing.

3. Rigidity and stiffness in the human figure: Before, I didn't care much that my characters or human figure drawings were just standing up with their hands behind them, for the most part. And I actually got really intimidated when I had a mental image of a figure in another pose, other than standing.
I actually kind of still have that difficulty with that, but it's much easier now, with PhotoBooth and pictures from everywhere and knowing that anything and anybody can pretty much be a model or reference. BUT this problem is simply solved by sketching, which I still don't do as often as I should and I'm thinking of just incorporating it into the coloring and tracing routine and just sketching after I'm done with those.
Here's a very light sketching session from sometime this week.

I intend to be as good as I can in my craft.
And, really, the masters had so many difficulties and such perfect work, that there's really no excuse for an artist these days to be nothing short of FANTASTIC with all the resources and materials and KNOWLEDGE that we have these days.
It may seem dumb, but a quote from that movie "The Last Samurai" always gets me, when he sees how the Japanese are so dedicated and devoted to whatever their task is. He says: "These people wake up everyday, to perfect what they strive for" Or some shit along those lines.
That's what I want to do.

I'm still working on the eBay and PayPal thing. I've already found out how I'm going to ship things and about how much it's going to be to ship and pack and with what company. How convenient is it that USPS has a branch RIGHT HERE in little ol' Panama? So I'll be sending things through courier with them and add the price of packing and shipping to the price of the piece.
And I'm looking into what account I'm going to use to receive payments in and building the shop in eBay.

Also, remember about the group in facebook! Feel free to join, invite whoever you think will be interested in my work, leave comments, ideas, feedback, thoughts or anything in the wall of the group or in any of the pictures. And if you want, even, add me to your friends, but remember to tell me that you found the group through my blog, because that would seriously make my day <3 Gabriela Handal
I've been thinking of making a Gabriela Handal Arte fan page D:
The purpose of that would be to make separate albums for the different categories of images, like, paintings, drawings, tattoo designs, commissions. Stuff like that. It would also be really great, because I'm pretty sure much more people would be able to see.

ALSO, can you believe I have a twitter account now? x_x
Thank my fellow artist Richard for that XD
Here it is, if you want to follow: GabrielaHandal.
condron.us

Abstract with human figure

2009-07-21T08:25:00.005-05:00

After a while that I'd discovered the ability to make abstracts and actually *like* them, it occurred to me that I could maybe mix them somehow with the human figure, since they look to me like vibes, fire, incense smoke and those mysterious things.
And drawings that involve both human figure along with an abstract have actually occurred to me with more ease these days that I've gotten much more practice with the human figure and loosened my hand with the abstracts.

Here are some examples of the abstracts I've made and the entry in this blog that's only about the abstracts, if you want to see: Abstracts

1. "Birth": This is probably the first human figure that I mixed in with some abstract, at least that I can remember. And I was also much more into fantasy art, as you can see by her many fairy wings; but this creature along with the abstract beneath her, made me think of her being born of a cocoon, that's what the abstract reminds me of. And I love the vibes of this drawing and the drawing itself, it brings me a lot of comfort to look at it. And also, back then I had much more imagination for writing little things and little mental blurbz came while I was drawing, so that's the stuff that's written there on the side. It's barely intelligible, I wrote it like that on purpose, because I didn't want anybody else to be able to read it XD!

2. "Burning": The abstract around this floating human figure are meant to represent something like passion or fire and it's that passion that lifts and lights her up and will eventually consume her.
This one's 9 x 12 inches, just pencil on paper and it's USD 90.00.

3. "Passion": This is a very small little drawing, it's 4 x 6 inches and it's USD 40.00, pencil on paper. This one, also as "Burning", has passion burning all around her and she has her eyes closed, because passion is meant to be felt. I like a lot her relaxed facial expression.

4. "Dreaming": This is one of my favorites in the combination of human body and abstract. As the title suggests, this character is sleeping and she's in the moment when you begin to dream and so out of her comes what could be herself, going off to have adventures, or just her own vibes reaching out into the world, while her body rests.
I feel this one very close to me and I'm thinking wether I put it up for sale or not, but I've priced it for now at USD 90.00 and it's 9 x 12 inches, pencil on paper. I seriously love this one.

5. "Disintegrate": This one has more to do with what I'd written in the entry about abstracts, that sometimes they remind me of something that's disintegrating into the air. Her own smoke is going up into the atmosphere, but she's perfectly at peace with existing in another form that's not human.
She's also USD 90.00, pencil on paper, 9 x 12 inches.

These are some others of the combinations of human body and abstracts that I've drawn. Respectively: "Fuego Visual", 4 x 6 inches, USD 40.00, first; "Eyelashes" (and this one, although not meant to from the beginning, reminds me of that girl thing that we have to kind of put on make up and stuff, so in the drawing, it's eye makeup that's kind of like a little monster XD), 4 x 6 inches, USD 40.00, second; "A whole world", USD 40.00, 8 x 10 inches, third; "Eye Smoke", 9 x 12 inches, USD 50.00, fourth.

And I think the most recent abstract, with an incredibly mushy title and just because I can: "Eternal Flame", 8 x 10 inches, USD 50.00.

Please remember about the group I've made in facebook. Feel free to go on in there and join, invite whoever you may think is interested in my work, leave any kind of comment, feedback, thoughts, ideas on the wall or any of the images and, if you want, also add me to your friends; but tell me that you found me through my blog, because that would be seriously cool: Gabriela Handal Arte.

Also, I'm still working on an eBay and PayPal accounts, so I can begin selling my things to whoever wants to, that's not in Panama. Yesterday I came across the information to send things through courier, because that way it's better than through regular mail, as I've been told by the people that I've sent drawings to through regular mail that they arrived all folded and wrinkled D:
So, if you bought something from me, I'd just add whatever the shipping and packaging is over the price of the piece.

I thought I'd link too, to this really cool website that's like a slide of all kinds of blogs and if you link to them, your blog may appear in their slide and you can increase the amount of views to your blog <3 condron.us

The process

2009-07-17T14:39:00.005-05:00

For today's entry, I took pictures whilst I was working on a drawing, so the process of the drawing from beginning to end would be recorded. It's an interesting thing to look at.
Originally, I'd only set out to do some sketching, but these eyes are so pretty that I decided I'd finish them and move on to another sketch. They belong to a girl named Katie and I don't know her personally, but we frequent the same messageboard and she posted this picture to show off her make up.

And then as I drew more on them, I felt obligated to add an entire face to them. I had a whole facial expression in my head and I used the Megan Fox picture for some help with the mouth and the picture of Milla for the nose, because Milla has a great nose and it's the shape I usually use.

So this is the process of how it all went:

The process of stuff is always interesting and everything goes through some kind of metamorphosis: We do physically, wether we're growing up or getting fatter or thinner, the landscape does, relationships do, our ideas do, our opinions, thoughts, desires and passions, insects, plants, the whole world and the whole universe.
It's interesting.

Remember that I have a group in facebook and I'm really proud of myself, because it hit two hundred members a couple of days ago. Feel free to join the group, leave me any kind of comments, thoughts, ideas or opinions on the wall or on the images. Invite, if you want, whoever you think may be interested in my work and once I've set up my eBay and PayPal stuff, maybe you can also buy me something.
I've put the pertinent information of each drawing underneath each image, like dimensions, price and medium.
Gabriela Handal Arte

Discipline, Education and Differentiation

2009-07-13T12:46:00.005-05:00

Today's entry is going to revolve more around musing, rather than my most recent work, because I've actually been working on two tattoo designs I found, that a guy asked me for when I was still at the call center. Meaning SOME OLD SHIT.
BUT I'm still going to post several pictures of something that I made back in university and that's where the musing and the title come in.

I've talked to a couple of people and read opinions of a couple of people that I know about receiving an artistic education and it made me feel incredibly disappointed, frustrated and angry that they were completely close off to the benefits of it. According to them (and surely according to A LOT of people) receiving an education in any art or craft is hindering, detrimental and nothing good can come from it. If anything, their schools, universities and teachers, never let you do what you want, they will just order you around, not let you create your own shit, teach the exact same shit to every student of every class they ever get, they only care about creating robots that think in the same path and that's it. Artistic education completely discarded and discredited, simply because there are some rules and direction.
Yeah, a teacher is showing the same thing to a group of people and putting certain limitations and you're not allowed to create your own shit WITHIN THE CLASS. WHO ever said these things are bad?

First of all, a group of people being shown the same thing, doesn't mean they're going to ALL interpret it the same and that what comes out through the filter of their mind is going to be the same thing. The foundation may be the same, but that construction site and building will be WORLDS APART from one person to the other. And this happens, because everybody interprets things differently, that's pretty much the reason for which there are fights about religion and politics and everything else, because although the source was the same, everybody thinks differently and everybody concludes whatever makes sense to them. That's just the way it is, because we're human, and OH MAN it's amazing and beautiful how many DIFFERENT things we can produce from the same thing.

Second, what's wrong with limitations? They're only for a short amount of time. It's like an incredibly stimulating game, it's like different sports and martial arts: You need to get this ball into the goal, but you can only use your feet, or only your hands, or all of your body. Or all you have to do is push the guy out of the circle, but you can't fall yourself, or you can hurt the guy, but only with your feet and hands and not your elbows and knees. All these rules do, is stimulate you into THINKING, and thinking is NEVER a bad thing.

Third, ok, you can't make whatever the shit you want in this particular class. This is only, because you're still in the learning stage and you're still learning the basic rules, so that in the future you can break them. But the right to break the rules has to be earned, just like when you wait until you're a certain age to do certain things.
Moreover, just because you can't do something within class, doesn't mean that your ideas have to be completely forgotten about and thrown into the trash: that's the kind of shit that you do on your own time to develop and improve yourself even further.

It saddens me so much, that there may be SO many people out there that seriously believe their creativity is stifled so easily D:

SO all of this shit ties in with the images I'm going to post today. When I was still in university, the teacher had us cut compressed carton into geometric shapes with specific measures and the only requirement was that we used texture and the shapes he told us. I don't remember anymore what my classmates did, but it must have been cool to see what each one's final result was and just put them all beside each other to compare and look at. These were mine:

1. In this one I used some waterproofing stuff, those plastic things that come with canvases that you put in the inner corners, behind the fabric to secure the wood and was painted with.... I *think* oil paints D:

2. In this second one, I think it was also oil paints and I used popsicle sticks.

3. This one I think was also oil paints and I used a spatula to make those marks. It reminds me of maybe somebody putting their hands in plaster to get a hand print, but it reminds me more of maybe like a bird walked on it ^_^

4. This one's probably my favorite one, except that I don't know why >=/

All of them are for sale at USD 10.00 each and I'd like to remind you that I'm working on an eBay shop thing, so that all the non Panamanian people can buy a piece if they so wanted to. I'd charge whatever the shipping may be plus the price of the piece itself.
I'm SERIOUSLY looking forward to this, I'm just reading up on the terms and conditions of eBay and PayPal ^_^
Also, remember that I've made a facebook group so that I can upload as many pieces as I can. Feel free to join the group; leave comments, feedback, thoughts, opinions, ideas on the wall of the group or any of the images; invite any of your friends that you'd think would be interested in my work and, also if you want, add me to your friends, but remember to tell me that you found me through this blog, because that would totally make my day <3: Gabriela Handal Arte
Each of the images has all their information in the description, their dimensions, medium and prices and sometimes comments regarding the piece or a link to here, depending XD

Religion

2009-07-06T18:02:00.004-05:00

Religion according to Wikipedia.
Catholic according to Wikipedia.

I was raised catholic and consider myself catholic and pray and whatever, but I don't like talking about it much more than that, because it makes me feel preachy and pretentious and because discussions about religion annoy the shit out of me. Religion and politics are just things that shouldn't be discussed about with friends, because they just seem to be such incredibly TOUCHY subjects, it's ridiculous.
I KNOW it's ridiculous, because of how much it pisses me off to hear people's opinions that don't coincide with mine, so I just steer away from that shit and keep my mouth shut and never participate if it happens to come up.

BUT ANYWAY, today's entry is titled "Religion", because I've actually found myself a couple of times making drawings and paintings with some religious connotation. Wether they're my own creation or I was recreating the work of a master back at university.

1. "Fervent": I made this little drawing, because I want a tattoo of a cross on my right shoulder, so I made this as an idea I had. I'm not going to get this, because it's not the look I want, I DO like how it turned out, though, and I think it would certainly serve somebody else as a very nice tattoo or just in a really nice frame, hanging up in somebody's wall. It's called "Fervent", because of the vibe it has: All the floaty things around the cross strike me as spiritual vibes.
"Fervent" is 6 x 8 inches, pencil on paper and it's USD 60.00

2. "Take the blame for the downfall of humanity? Certainly! - Eve": I. AM. VERY. Proud of this! My reference/model was a girl from Vampirefreaks, but I can't remember her username and I don't have the picture anymore D:
The theme of Eve having bitten the apple intentionally and well knowing what she was doing, has come up each time that I've drawn her, but that hasn't been very often. There's only one other time that I can remember that I drew her and she was pulling the apple from the tree with a daring and evil look in her eye and the other hand on her hip. I don't know *WHY* and haven't cared to delve more into that to see where the shit I got that from. I don't think it really matters.
So that's the same trip in this one. Eve's lips are barely touching that apple and she's pulling it towards her with her own hands and has an entranced and lustful look in her face. The dark swirly stuff in the background is meant to be like the bad vibes of what's happening.
This itty bitty awesome thing is 9 x 6 inches, it's pencil on paper and it's USD 90.00.

Please remember that I've made a group in facebook, All the stuff you see here is on there with it's respective prices, dimensions and mediums; except that there are a kagillionz more pieces for you to look at. It would be seriously awesome if you joined the group and, if you want, added me to your friends list and told me that you found me on facebook through my blog! <3
Feel free to join the group and leave any kind of comment, feedback, thoughts, opinions, ideas or ANYTHING on the wall of the group or the images themselves: Gabriela Handal Arte

Also, I'm working on a MySpace page and an Ebay and PayPal accounts, so all the foreign people that want to buy things from me, will be able to do so! Once that happens, I'd send things through courier service and I'll charge the piece's price plus whatever it costs me to ship the piece to you. I look forward to all of this VERY much! I'll let everyone know when this is ready to go ^______^

The paintings (and one sculpture) that were part of my first art exhibit. Part Four.

2009-06-28T14:18:00.006-05:00

This is the fourth entry on the paintings that I put up for my first individual art exhibit. I think it will be the last one.

1. "Transformación": I LOVE this painting. LOVE. I love how her body looks, her back, the dimples on the small of her back, her arm, her dripping blood, her fist, her butt, the horns tearing through her skin, the ochre, the crimson. She's SO beautiful.
This character is transforming, as said by the title of the painting. The three horns coming out of her forearms are the first change her body is making and she's closing her fist, because it hurts and because she won't be human anymore. So there's mental and physical pain in there.
There's not much more to her than that.
This painting's 24 x 36 inches, oil on canvas and USD 1000.00.

>
2. "Hunter": I made this piece back in school, that I was much more into fantasy art, so this came to me relatively easy. With all the piercings and shit, like in the Luis Royo and Dorian Cleavenger work.
It's a creature, that's having kind of a bad time hunting, because she didn't find much except a mouse and is just looking at the viewer with a bad trip on her face.
This one's 24 x 24 inches, carbon on.. I don't know what it's called, but it's the same paper as the brown paper bags; and it's USD 350.00.

3. "Nyx": A picture in ZINK! magazine was my reference for this painting, because she was just standing there, looking at the camera and I don't know what they did, but some of her hair was floating. Like a little bit of breeze blew, really cute and mysterious looking.
SO YEAH, this is Nyx, Nyx is the female personification of the night, according to the Greeks. And, because she IS night, she's awesome and I like how she turned out. She has a nice fixed, confident and curious stare and she's just materialized herself from the colors of the night.
I made her eyes orange, because blue eyes are boring and too much of the realm of my walking life, so the background is blue and I chose orange, because they're the complementary color of blue. They actually remind me of a tiger or something, I guess it's the tone.
"Nyx" is 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas and USD 600.00

4. "Autocreatura">: This is a self portrait and I know it's a weird painting, leave me alone XD
Her skin from the chest down is meant to be like red salamander skin and she's also meant to have the horns.
Her trip is that she's an envious demon and I realized this after having worked on her for a while and looking at her. The smile on her face and her eyes, tell me that she's looking at me because she's enjoying the thought of little bad things happening to me. Like, she'd pull stupid pranks at me, like tripping me as I walk by or me dropping my shit or whatever and she's get a kick out of it. Or you, if she was looking at you.
Anyway, her face and stare are enough for me to overcome her strange background, which I guess is consonant with her envious thoughts and wishes.
This painting is oil on canvas and it's USD 700.00

The paintings that were self portraits, weren't/aren't about me wanting to present myself in a certain way or showing a hidden thing about me. I don't really *see* myself in the self portraits that I've made, I just happened to be an appropriate model for the image I had in mind.

I want to post again that website, that you can go to to see a bunch of other blogs and if you link to it, your blog will appear in that kind of blog slide they have going on. Which is super cool. condron.us

Also, and finally for this entry, please remember that I've made a group in facebook. And in said group you can see SO MUCH MORE of my work, that is if you don't give a shit about words and want to see more images XD
Seriously, though, there's like five pages with twenty images each in the group, right now. I'd seriously love it if you joined the group and left any kind of feedback, thoughts, ideas, comments, opinions, whatever on the wall or any of the pictures. And it would also be nice if you decided to add me to your friends list, but REMEMBER to tell me you found me through here, because that would totally make my day!
Gabriela Handal Arte

The paintings (and one sculpture) that were part of my first art exhibit. Part Three.

2009-06-23T13:53:00.003-05:00

This is the third installment of the pieces from my first individual art exhibit.

1. "Wolfshook": First of all, the wolfshook, according to wikipedia.
For this piece, a model from the Suicide Girls was my reference, I don't remember her name and I don't remember at what point during making her, I decided she would be a werewolf. Or maybe I had decided it from the beginning? I don't remember, who knows. The thing is that, at some point, I knew I wanted her to have some sort of mark that was shaped like whichever symbol that represented werewolves and that's when I found the wolfshook and I added those two bits under it, because on it's own it would have looked stupid. Her kind of werewolf, is born with the mark and have dark grey skin, no whites, purple eyes and jet black hair, like the Incubus, I guess those colors come up so often, because they just look so good together. In the painting, she's in her human form.
As I worked on her, I loved everything about her and how it was coming out and to this day I love looking at her and her peaceful and beautiful face. I love her so much, that I wanted to somehow be the same as her so I got the wolfshook tattooed on my left shoulder, because if I was a werewolf like her, that's where I would have gotten the mark. And I also wanted to have something of her left in me, if I sell her.

I actually don't know if she really IS for sale, but she's priced at USD 1500.00, oil on canvas and the dimensions are 24 x 36 inches.

2. This one doesn't have a title, but the background resembles "Energía"'s, because it's kind of the same vibe, that she's emitting some sort of energy as she's moving. When I made this piece, I was seriously into Luis Royo and Dorian Cleavenger's trips of piercings. The piercings all over the body are more present in Luis Royo's work, but Dorian Cleavenger's piece "The Gift" has a good amount of piercings that always hypnotize me, so it's kind of a combination of those two things. Long time after I finished her I noticed that all the piercings call attention to the body parts most related to women and femininity: Breasts and hips or just along that section of the body. And the corset, also as a way to accentuate the female figure.
This broad is just kind of walking, moving or dancing, I'm not sure, but there's some sort of movement there.
This one is USD 500.00, 18 x 24 inches and oil on canvas.

3. "Elf": This painting has awesome vibes and I love looking at her, too. It has awesome vibes, because when I painted her face, I did it super quick and it was kind of instinctive, because I told to myself "just paint the colors you see on the reference" and I did and I was so proud of myself how good it came out. For me, this painting is also a rarity, because I have hardly any work done in acrylics, because those fuckers dry so fast, I can't do anything fast enough, so all the more reason for which I feel proud of it.
And other than that, she just looks so chilled out and refreshing, with a breeze that blows her hair back a little bit and everything and when I look at it, I feel kind of refreshed, too.
I have NO. IDEA. Why I made the frame that way. It's just wire that I sowed around the edge and I remember it being a pain in the ass to do. I used this small drill to make the holes, but the drill was all shitty and I could only make a few so I made the rest with a nail? I'd just hammer a nail into the canvas until it came out the other side and then moved on to making the next hole. FUCK, it was annoying as shit. But at least it came out looking awesome and very in tune with the kind of primal jungle vibe she also has.
This painting is USD 800.00, it's acrylic on canvas and it's 24 x 36 inches.

4. "Male": Nothing much to this painting, except that I found a picture of a guy that I really liked, 'cuz I thought he looked all melancholic and shit, with his hair all over his fayss and I wanted to use him as a reference for this werewolf painting. That's what the painting is, it's a werewolf in human form, that's going on a really bad trip, because (as I found during my research) werewolves, whilst in human form, are painfully aware of the damage they've done as werewolves. Which is beautiful and interesting.
This painting is USD 500.00, oil on canvas and 22 x 28 inches.

5. "Subject for Testing": I think this is the only other acrylic painting, except this one is on recycled pieces of paper. This character is meant to be a person that was caught by an unknown entity and said entity is somehow experimenting on her. She has her outfit that's kind of like a prison outfit thing, she was tattooed some number for filing and had all her body hair shaven off. There's not much sign of damage, except for her pale mouth and her head is being held in place by the silver ring that's coming out of the sides.

Please remember that I've made a group in facebook, in which I upload pictures of my work (old or new) pretty often. The vast majority of things are for sale and, if they're not, it will say so in the legend of the image. Please feel free to join my facebook group and maybe even add me to your friends list and remember to tell me that you got there from here, 'cuz that would be awesome.

Feel also free to invite whoever you'd think would be interested in my work and leave any kind of comment on the wall or any of the images and any thought, comment, feedback or ideas on the group's wall.
Gabriela Handal Arte

The paintings (and one sculpture) that were part of my first art exhibit. Part Two.

2009-06-15T09:19:00.002-05:00

This is the second installment of paintings from my first individual art exhibit.

1. Hadamila: There's not really that much to this painting. Milla was my model, it's this super cool black and white picture. She's just a fairy type in this case and she's materialized from the colors that are around her.
I was actually trying to do some of those abstract things, but with colors, to make the background a bit richer. Originally, I didn't set out to copy Milla, but more the pose, but the sketch came out so awesome and it resembled her a little bit anyway, so that's just how it stayed. That's why the painting kind of looks and kind of doesn't look like her.
"Hadamila" is USD 900.00, 22 x 28 inches and it' oil on canvas. And the name "Hadamila" is the composition of the word "hada", which is fairy in Spanish, and Milla's name.

2. "Wounds of War": I did a very limited amount of sculpture in university and "Wounds of War" started out as a clay sculpture, with a wood, wire and news paper skeleton; then it was covered with plaster until it dried and then the plaster mold was filled with white cement and another material that I don't know what it's called. "Wounds of war" is meant to be a veteran elf warrior; she was an archer, but did her share of close range fighting, hence the bags under her eyes, her tired eyelids and a variety of scars left from her battles.
She's 14 x 15 x 12 inches, USD 850.00.

3. "BROOHA": The title of this one is just how you'd pronounce "bruja" in Spanish, it means "witch" and it's called "witch", because I usually imagine witches with windblown hair and all mysterious and shit. And what's more mysterious that a woman looking out from a mirror?
Originally, I wanted the mirror's frame to be really baroque and complicated, but in the end I went for the more simple approach and made some pretty awesome triskeles.
My grandmother bought this one from me.

4. "Disdain": A picture of Keira Knightley was my model for this painting, she has this super awesome arrogant expression and her neck looks nice and long. "Disdain" is meant to be some sort of petty demon that's looking at the viewer in a disdainful manner, because he's turned himself into a gorgeous woman and the demon doesn't care that it's only a mirage and that he'll go back to being ugly eventually; even in this temporary form, he STILL looks down on others around him.
"Disdain" is 20 x 24 inches, it's oil on canvas and its' USD 700.00

5. "Insolent and Lewd": This one's also a type of demon and she's just sticking her tongue out in a lewd way to the viewer, pretty much just to be an asshole. Anything that's to do with the tongue that's not food or talking is considered taboo in society, it seems, so this demon is just out to see what the viewer will do. That's why she has that indifferent and challenging look in her eye.
She's 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas and is USD 650.00

Remember I've made a group in facebook and I'd love it if you joined it and, if you want to, add me also to your friends, but tell me that you found me through my blog; because that would make me feel seriously good!
Gabriela Handal Arte
Feel free to join, invite your own friends, leave a comment on the wall or the pictures, leave me ideas, feedback, thoughts, constructive criticism or anything at all!

The paintings (and one sculpture) that were part of my first art exhibit. Part One.

2009-06-08T18:50:00.006-05:00

I'm going to talk in this entry and several entries to come, about the paintings I made for the art exhibit, except "Incubus", 'cuz I already talked about him.
There's nineteen pieces to talk about, so maybe I'll do five paintings per entry.

1. "The Devil in a Fucking Suit": I know it's a stupid name, leave me alone XD
The concept for "Devil in a Fucking Suit" comes from the devil in the movie Constantine. At least my impression of it. In the movie, Lucifer appears as this really well dressed man, but he has a disgusting substance that comes off his feet and has tattoos peeking out of his neck and wrists. As in, the suit just hardly covers what he inevitably is.
So the representation of my devil, is a beautiful woman with a spiffy outfit and a hopeless look in her eyes, with adornments around her; but her hair is disheveled and the adornments are dirty and smeared.
And just to make sure the viewer knows he/she's looking at the devil, I carved a pentagram onto the canvas, because the inverted pentagram is so regularly related to him.
The devil, in this case, came to be after I'd been working on it for a while, as it happens with a lot of the pieces. I didn't *know* I was going to decide it would be the devil from the beginning. And, I don't know why, but the title just seems fitting and it amuses me, so it stays XD
This painting is 24 x 36 inches, it's oil on canvas and it's USD 1000.00

2. "Male": This character is just a creature that lives off of blood and he just finished his most recent meal and so is cleaning the remains off of his mouth with his hand and right at this time, the viewer catches his attention and looks with more indifference than curiosity. I refuse to say he's a vampire, 'cuz that's some old boring shit, man. Surely vampires are not the only ones who need blood to survive.
This painting is 18 x 24 inches, it's oil on canvas and it's USD 500.00

3. "Energía": There's not much to this painting, but only because I don't remember what I meant to do with her. She's definitely a meditating creature that's emitting energy from herself and has natural and artificial body modifications. The energy coming out of her is not meat to be harsh like thunder, but more kind of like the purple colored electricity of a plasma lamp.
"Energía" is 24 x 36 inches, it's oil on canvas and it's USD 1000.00

4. "Banshee": I drew her, because I meant to copy this AMAZING picture of Christina Aguilera I'd found. I don't remember if I wanted to exactly copy the picture or I was only using the awesome lighting as reference and I also don't remember if I meant for her to be a banshee from the beginning. Banshees are announcers of death and my banshee has dark circles around her eyes from crying for the upcoming death of whoever and has an empathic smile and stare, because she understands the pain that comes with death.
"Banshee" is 24 x 24 inches, it's ink and pencil on paper with a cardboard support and it's USD 700.00

5. "Feathers": "Feathers" is inspired by Dorian Cleavenger's painting Obsession, except in a much less elegant setting. This character is in a dark and disorderly room and she's using candles, because she's probably not paid her electricity bill in a long time and has a bunch of bed sheets on the floor because that's where she sleeps. We catch her in the moment when she decides to begin her transformation into a bird and she's already sown several feathers onto the skin of her arm, we happened to walk into her room at this very second and she looks up at us with a mixture of feelings: She looks really tired, but determined and she's annoyed at us for interrupting her. Her expression is a little bit threatening and we better not try to stop her.
Her room has become a heavy and oppressive place, filled with her despair of becoming a bird. Everything is dark and only illuminated with candles and everywhere there are images that relate to birds, flight and changing the human form into something that can fly.
"Feathers" is 24 x 36 inches, it's oil, feathers, fabric and paper on canvas and it's USD 1000.00

Please remember that I've made a group in facebook, so that you can see a much bigger selection of my work. If you have facebook, go ahead and join my group and if you want add me to your friends list and let me know that you found me through my blog, 'cuz that would be seriously cool!
Gabriela Handal Arte

Steampunk

2009-06-01T19:06:00.004-05:00

Steampunk according to wikipedia.

I like steampunk and it pleases my eyes, but I don't think I could get dressed like some people do. I haven't *tried* it, because there aren't those type of things here yet, but I think maybe I'd get really frustrated pretending to be in such an awesome place and then just walk out of it and remember that it doesn't exist. I mean, yeah, halloween is probably my favorite holiday and it's about pretending and putting on a disguise and playing, but I seem to have no problem with that.
I mean, for me looking at a good image of fantasy art or whatever, steampunk, futuristic, science fiction type of thing, totally hypnotizes me and I look at the details and imagine what it would be like to live in that world, but I think trying to bring that world out of the image would frustrate the shit out of me. Like me just being in denial of the world I'm in.

BUT ANYWAY, I found a steampunk group in facebook, with nice pictures and whatever and I only had to look at some of them to make me want to do something and I came up with two images. I don't know just how steampunk they are, but they were definitely inspired by it.
1. This first one is called "Steampunk Light" and it's 11 x 14 inches, I used watercolors, acrylic paints, pencil and colored pencils. It's USD 80.00. She's meant to have really long arms, hands and fingers and a really long neck; she's holding what was meant to be a monocle in her right hand, but it looks more like a little magnifying glass; her corset and neck piece are meant to be brown leather and her skirts: the red, burgundy and black, are meant to be velvet and the white parts just like.. white fabric. I don't know the names of all fabrics. Her skirts are meant to be super heavy and warm; her hair is supposed to be kind of messy and I was inspired by a picture of Milla that I saw that she has pretty much the same hairdo. It's supposed to be messy 'cuz she's like a studious type and she does her hair, but it gets messy during the day. The hair band has peacock feather types there.
I don't know exactly why I wanted her arms and neck to be so long, but I'm glad I did it and I like how it looks. The neck brace thing is meant to bring some support to her super long neck, with some help from the bit that sticks out from the back of her corset.
I think at first she was meant to have been subject to some sort of modification, so her body would end up how it is now with the elongated arms and neck and super small waist, but now I'm not sure what the shit I wanted it to mean.
The background is meant to look like rust. Not necessarily rusted, but like.. worn out, I guess, worn out and humid and old. Yet some MORE shit that I'd like to imitate from Luis Royo's work >=/

2. This second one is called "Vox". I don't know if it means "voice" in some other language, maybe Latin or something, but in Spanish, "voice" is translated to "voz", so the title has something to do with that. Vox, I'm not sure if she's a modified human or entirely a machine that looks like a human or a cyborg or whatever, but she definitely has speakers instead of a wind pipe and vocal chords and that is pretty much her trip. The two silver arms are coming out of the sides and opening up the incision on her neck to expose the speakers and the copper cylinder they're attached to. She's also wearing a corset and has kind of the same hairdo as "Steampunk Light", but not as messy and without the little peacock feathers. Same thing as "Steampunk Light" with the background, except I achieved it a little bit better in this one.
This piece is actually a really old drawing that I'd started back in university and I've kind of been recycling them and finishing them (cue recycle mode - don't throw anything out).
For this one I also used acrylic, watercolor, pencil and colored pencils, it's also 11 x 14 inches and it's USD 70.00.

I think the steampunk trip has stopped for now, though. All those cranks and trinkets and shit, I don't know if I have patience for them.
By the way, if you have facebook, I made a group where you can see much more, MUCH more than you can see here of my work. Please feel free to join and maybe even add me to your friends list, I'd love to have a bigger crowd, even if they will only be viewers and not necessarily buyers. Also feel free to leave me comments on the wall and on the images and any kind of feedback, suggestions, ideas, thoughts, opinions you'd like
I put all the information of the group in English AND in Spanish and all the pieces have their respective information in their legend.
Gabriela Handal Arte
ALSO, there's this thing called condron.us where you can put up your own blog in order to get a bigger crowd AND you can see other people's blogs. Whoever else has submitted their blog. Pretty spiffy shit.

Abstracs

2009-05-12T15:46:00.006-05:00

First of all, what is Abstract Art according to Wikipedia: Abstract Art

I first tried to do abstract things when I started university and the teacher told us to just stain the paper and had us listening to some classical music and told to use the music to help us. On my 14 by 17 drawing book, I did my best with poster paints and brushes and sucked at it.
I remember making these flower types, painting the whole paper one color and making some window shaped things and the teacher saw what I'd done and he told me that that stuff was still too figurative.
I don't remember when it occurred to me to try again and I tried drawing *nothing* and I drew my first abstract and the result was super satisfactory: There seems to be some kind of atmosphere in them, it reminds me of the misty and vaporous atmosphere in Luis Royo's work and the edges of things that were perfect matter, blur and disintegrate into the air. It always brings me a lot of satisfaction to look at them, I feel a mixture of comfort and mystery. I don't know if mystery can be felt, but whatever.
Most of the time, their titles are about what they remind me of when I look at them.

This one's probably one of the first ones.

This second one reminds me of fire and those shapes come up often in other abstracts.

I usually finish the abstracts faster than things regarding human figure or anything based in reality, I guess because they're not bound to following specific lines and I allow myself to go whichever way I please and finish whenever I feel satisfied.
They also offer the opportunity to really practice my shading, which I love so much. With them, really is when I practice controlling the pressure to be applied when going from really dark, to really light or if I need to make an even coat of one shade.

I've tried adding color in some cases, making abstracts with colored pencils or with oils, but I don't like how they look. Maybe I need more practice or be much more patient with them and work on them more.

These two are pretty recent and are also one of the first kind of bigger abstracts that I made. These two are on 11 x 14 inch paper, most of the others are 9 x 12 and smaller things.

Sketching.

2009-04-30T09:07:00.007-05:00

This was a very short sketching session, but I like what came of it

A sketch is mostly a quick and rough outline of a finished work, it's kind of the skeleton on which the artist will have the muscles and skin of the work stand. A sketch is kind of like taking note of an idea to work on it later.
Most of the time, it takes place on paper with a pencil, but it can definitely be done with pen or whatever the artist has at the moment. It can also be done right on the canvas, if the artist doesn't want to draw on the canvas and will just start working right away with brush and paint, I think this is called painting "a la prima" or something >_>

ANYWAY, sketching is very important for an artist to do everyday as exercise to keep his or her drawing hand limber and as a form of constant study of the forms that surround us. Depending how it's done, it will help one to work faster, make more precise lines and be more accurate in the drawing.

Sketching is something I don't do nearly enough, I hardly ever really just sketch and that's probably why I find it so difficult to draw the body or the face in a lot of different positions and my work tends to come out really stiff and immobile. BUT, when I DO, even if it's just a couple of pages of sketches, I can see and feel myself working progressively faster and better. So, srsly, I should sketch more and stop dicking around with that.
An artist can sketch anything, he/she feels like at the moment or based on whatever he likes working on most; in my case, it's the human body, so my sketches usually revolve around that: different positions and angles of the human body and face.
Sketches, because they're outlines, don't have a lot of detail and not a lot of shading.

These are two things that were meant to be sketches, but I got carried away XD

I LIKE shading, so I tend to concentrate on that, instead of moving on to the next sketch and a lot of times, I just end up with a finished drawing XD
Back in school, the drawing teacher would time us and give us shorter sketching time for the next sketch and we didn't do it a lot, but even one session of that was INCREDIBLE progress.

This and the other sketches that don't say so, are from a single sketching session that I pulled the finger out and actually worked on like three or four pages

Strange World

2009-04-29T16:24:00.012-05:00

This was the invitation/flyer. The only thing made by computer is all the writing except for "Mundo Extraño", I made that with watercolors.

"Strange World" was the name of my first individual art exhibit and I had to put it together all on my own. From finding the place, to making the paintings, to decorating the place, getting foodz, making invitations, fliers, posters, hiring somebody to cater, putting it on some kind of medium of communication. EVERYTHING.
The purpose of it, was for me to be able to get my Bachelor of Arts degree, specializing in easel painting. I don't even know how that measures up to the rest of the world, because I always get impossibly confused whenever I want to look for Masters or something. I GUESS? A master is what comes next? I don't know.
ANYWAY, yeah, before being able to make the art exhibit and work on it, I had to write like a little thesis that revolved around the theme that I wanted to make the paintings about, which was Fantasy Art. And why I chose it and why I like it and an analysis of the paintings, glossary, whatever the shit. I say little thesis, because I didn't go over one hundred pages of written stuff. So I had to present that shit, talk in front of three teachers so they'd grade me and whatever and THEN I'd be able to make the art exhibit.

I was actually pretty clear on how I wanted the place to be decorated and what shape I wanted the room to be. It's relatively simple: I just wanted the paintings to be hanging all over the walls of an entirely matte black, square room. I didn't even think of framing the paintings, because I think that's up to the person that buys each painting and it's better if they see each painting in it's most bare form. In MY opinion, anyway >_>
There IS such a room as I wanted here, in the "Museo de Arte Contemporáneo", funny thing about that joint, is that it's pretty far from being a museum, it's just a huge ass mother gallery. But, yeah, they have this little room, that's all painted black, the walls, the floor and the roof; and the time I entered there that I was totally taken aback was with this artist woman that did things in metal. I don't remember her last name, but she had in that room these BIG ASS metal wings, painted silver and they were just hanging in the middle of the room. And, you know, describing sensations is always a ramble and it's always confusing and this is why this is a big fucking paragraph of bullshit right now, but I felt like I was floating in space or just somewhere where I was somehow separate from the rest of the world and I felt immense comfort and wonder. Like, the wings were just these super mysterious.. contraptions, that although I knew were hanging from nylon strings, were just floating there, suspended in time.

These are the wings, except that they're huge wings and they don't look as awesome with that grey background. Her name is Emily Zhukov, by the way >_>

I wanted that sensation for my art exhibit and it's kind of the sensation that I feel when I see my finished works.
HOWEVER, that museum doesn't hold art exhibits for artists that aren't recognized, but the director guy super totally loved my drawings, so that was cool.
I found another place with a nice square room, it's this stupid, trendy library place we have here called "Excedra Books" and they have a conference room where they hold art exhibits. Except, I'd find in the end, I was only renting the walls and not the entire room, so they still held conferences in there and it wasn't an awesome empty room anymore, it was full of folding chairs most of the time. Fucking assholes >=/
So, since I couldn't modify the room itself, I kind of had to work on top of the walls, like I couldn't paint the walls, for example. What I did in the end was just hang black fabric behind each painting and WOW it was amazing how everything looked. The lighting was perfect, because I'm incredibly fond of that yellow colored lighting, it's always been the color of the bulbs in my room XD

It's a pretty big room, as you can see. The paintings looked so small

I LOVED how it turned out, because when somebody approached whichever painting, it would look as if it was just floating in space, because everything was black behind it and with the little bits of air from the air conditioner or whatever, the fabric would move a very little bit behind the paintings and it looked like they were breathing, but the kind of mellow breathing from when you sleep. It was the most incredible thing ever. And I was SO proud of them finally hanging for a public to see.

Fantasy Art

2009-04-22T19:29:00.004-05:00

Fantasy art is a pretty vague thing and I felt really dumb when I was presenting my thesis, in front of the three teachers that would grade me.
I say that fantasy art is vague, because in all the time that I was researching about it, I couldn't find nice and thorough information, like you'd find if you looked for Cubism, for example. I mean, yeah, wikipedia has an article about fantasy art, but it's really short and only has kind of a definition of it and doesn't have the history and hardly any of the ones that practice it.

According to the research I made, Fantasy art has been present from the beginning of man kind, because it has to do with magical and mysterious things that we humans don't have an explanation for. It can overlap with science fiction and horror, but science fiction touches, as the name says, scientific things and horror, fear. So they CAN be filtered from each other. It can also overlap with a bunch of other shit, simply because there's tons of things that we don't understand about the world and ourselves and we tend to make up stuff about them, 'cuz that's just how we humanz work.

Fantasy art was present when we were drawing things in caves, because there's the theory that those drawings, although based on reality, were actually some sort of magic spells. Because the cavemen would draw themselves being successful in the hunt as a good luck charm that would make them successful when they ACTUALLY went out to hunt.

I don't remember WHERE I gathered all that shit from, but definitely part of it was from the wikipedia article and a pretty spiffy book called "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Art by John Clute and John Grant".

ANYWAY, yeah. I'm incredibly fond of Fantasy art and wanted to make this entry about it and mention some of my favorite Fantasy artists.

1. Luis Royo: One of the things that I seriously like about his work, even if it becomes kind of monotone sometimes, is the atmosphere he creates. As if there was this super thick humidity, that makes everything look as if it was covered in myst.
I also like how it's blurry and detailed, at the same time. The women he draws are incredibly beautiful and they manage to stay beautiful, even if everything around them is decadent.
And it's far out how obsessive he is about his work to the point of not having sex and showering.

2. Brom: I don't know exactly what it is I like so much about this guy's work. Maybe it's how NEAT everything looks, the amount of color, just the right amount of reality, proportion and cartoon and how you are CERTAIN there's a story for each image. And I also admire and I'm super envious of him having already written three graphic novels.

3. Dorian Cleavenger: (If you don't have a Mac, you'll probably be able to view his website just fine >=/) What I've always liked about this guy is the stupid amount of IMAGINATION he has. Like, yeah, cat women are cool and so are mermaids, but that kind of shit is also really generic and COMMON and you see it a lot all the time; but this guy has the strangest creatures ever and, although I may not always like what he comes up with, it's definitely always refreshing, interesting and INSPIRING to look at his work.
That image I put up there is my favorite one of his.

4. Boris Vallejo:Boris Vallejo is awesome, because even if he's painting Fantasy subjects, he makes everything look so REAL. The amount of color he uses is super respectable and enviable and his love of the human body is amazing. And I dig that he respects the human body in his paintings and in real life, because the guy is also a body builder or something XD
And HOLY SHIT BALLS they have a blog here, too *dies* Here *follows*
Also, his wife, Julie Bell paints some super spiffy shit, too.

Feelings

2009-04-20T14:28:00.004-05:00

For a long time, I've thought of my feelings as a raging sea inside my chest. Or just thought of feelings in general that way and, it may have been brought about by Björk's video "Jóga", where towards the end she's standing atop a mountain or something and she's opening her chest with her hands and inside there's an island. That image has stayed with me since then and it always brings some kind of comfort and wonder to see it.
So, feelings would be inside one's chest, where the sternum is, and this drawing has to do with that image. The woman in the drawing is overwhelmed by her feelings, which pour out of her chest and are flooding her surroundings and make her weak, so she leans against the back of a chair. And her feelings are moving around her as if they were the sea.

The drawing is kind of like a two panel comic strip, in the first part, she has her eyes closed and tries to stop her feelings from pouring out, by covering her chest with her hand. In the second part, they're still pouring out all the same and even a bit more, but she looks up at the viewer, maybe asking for some help or understanding.

Also, I don't know exactly why, but I wanted to sign the drawing as if it was a print. I guess it just looks that way to me; so on the bottom left there's the number this copy in particular above and the amount of copies of the "print" made below (1/1), in the middle the title and on the right my signature and, under the signature, I put all the other shit I usually sign the drawings with, the date and where it was finished. The drawing is 2B pencil and watercolor for the sea, it's 12 x 18 inches and it's USD 100.00.

This other drawing, was me trying to "experiment" and it's the only other drawing I've made with the same dimensions as "Feelings", that's why I'm talking about it in this same entry >_>. So on that drawing there's pencil, watercolor, acrylic, a Sharpie marker, which is that black stuff at the bottom (x_x) and sanguin. That drawing is called "Sun and moon, respectively", because both faces have Egyptian eyes painted on as kind of make up and the left Egyptian eye means the moon and the right means the sun. This one is USD 90.00 and I seriously like it.

Vincent Van Gogh

2009-04-18T13:50:00.005-05:00

I've been saying that Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist for a while now and I think it's because of Don Mclean's song "Vincent". I DID like him before, but it wasn't until I heard that song and realized who it was about that it really got to me. And I heard the song again today, on the way back home from my grandma's house, and I cried like a moron.

Vincent VanGogh suffered his entire life, because he was too passionate. He had an insatiable fire burning inside and it constantly asked for more, no matter what he did, and he had no choice but to heed to the fire's capricious will. It consumed him throughout all of his life, until he gave in and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. His last words were: "The sadness will last forever."

He was thirteen in this picture

His tortuous way of painting is so consonant with his whole life and him physically, you can see in his face how stubborn, troubled and difficult he must have been, even from the uncomplicated and tender age of thirteen.

I guess it can be seen as depressive and sad, and it sure is, but it's also really beautiful how DEVOTED he was in every sense. And, yeah, his painting was tortuous, but it's also an incredibly colorful and granulated way of seeing the world, where it seems like everything is constantly moving and changing.

I also think it's very respectable and admirable that he could paint like that and he could also make more polished and finished works and the AMOUNT of works he produced, that tells me that he had actual skill and wasn't just dicking around with painting.

Don Mclean's song was banned in Canada when it'd first come out, because they thought it was a song about homosexuals or something related. Now, I don't know shit about poetry, but I feel like the lyrics of this song are incredibly poetic:

Starry starry night

Paint your pallet blue and grey

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry Starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

Swirling clouds in violet haze

Reflecting Vincent's eyes of China blue

Colors changing you

Morning fields of amber grey

Weathered faces lined in pain

Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left inside that starry starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could've told you, Vincent

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Starry starry night

Portraits hung in empty holes

Frameless heads on nameless walls

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met

The ragged men, in ragged clothes

The silver thorn of bloody rose

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen

They're not listening still

Perhaps they never will

Maybe I shouldn't have bothered writing anything, before the lyrics, because they say everything. And maybe all of us future people, in comparison to him, are full of shit and are just idealizing him and he was just a prima donna and an asshole; because we tend to do that. Same as the Scandinavians glorify the Vikings, when they were dicks and the Japanese glorify the Samurais, when they were assholes, too. And maybe I'm entirely biased by that song, that makes his suffering and decadence so beautiful, I don't know.

Regardless, I can only wish for a small fraction of that passion and drive that he had and hope that it will consume me until there is nothing but ash.

Incubus

2009-04-16T08:28:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, I decided this next entry would be about the Incubus.

First, though, here are some links that lead to WHAT an incubus is:
- Wikipedia
- Occultopedia This website is kind of annoying, because some pages have animation and cheesy music, but I don't know if all the pages have sound. Nice to read, though.

This is the original. Or maybe not the original, just the first one. The drawing and the would be story are called "Seduction of an Incubus"

My incubus started out as a little 4 x 6 inches drawing, when I was still working at a call center and they let us have a couple of things atop the desk and I'd draw, when there weren't any calls. I bought the very small drawing book, because drawing on the spare pages from trainings sucked and I could carry the small drawing book around without it getting too much in my way. And it was kind of inconspicuous.
Anyway, when I started drawing him, I wasn't like "yeah, I'm drawing an incubus today", the drawings usually start with a little left eye and then the rest of the face comes along, whatever it may be. So, at the time, I was a bit more dedicated to fantasy art and that's how he got the four horns and as I drew him he started looking like a demon type thing and his eyes were staring out at me and this whole story started occurring to me about how he's an incubus and how he's going to seduce the narrator.

Also as I drew him and the story was coming up, it was super easy to visualize everything about him physically. How his skin would be like polished marble, but still warm and the color of a really gray sky; his thick mouth would be so red, it's almost purple; his eyes with no whites would be a tone of purple that has a little bit more red than blue in it; his hair is super thick, heavy and straight, jet black; and his build is slender and muscular. I could picture all of this in the story.

This is the second drawing I made of him. He's just chilled out there, I trip on this being the cover of the graphic novel. It would be a hard cover *_*

So this drawing is a really long term project that I'd like to make into an illustrated novel or graphic novel or whatever. The story is meant to be super graphic, because the incubus is seducing the narrator and fucks her brains out, but I also don't want it to be lewd, like a Penthouse story or something and I don't have enough imagination to think of "neutral" words, but then maybe "neutral" words will kill the mood for some people and thinking about that rattles my brain. And the story would also have amazing super detailed illustrations, so it would be like a really complicated adult comic. It will be my baby. Don't nobody steal my fucking idea >=/
BUT YEAH, since writing the thing has gotten so difficult, I've laid off that for now and I usually stare at the little drawing, until it makes me uncomfortable and when I was making the paintings for the art exhibit, I decided it would be appropriate to make a painting out of him. As kind of a way for me to get to know my creation better, and MAN it was an awesome experience. I think I enjoyed painting him the most and he was also the last painting to be worked on and finished.

This is the enlarged version I tried to make. It's not bad, but his eyes are too small, face too wide, has a stupid facial expression in comparison to the original

First I had to enlarge the incubus' face, because the canvas is 24 x 36 inches (XD) and I tried just drawing it again. The result wasn't bad, but it just wasn't AMAZING and hypnotizing like the original, and then I got the BRILLIANT idea of just photocopying the thing, DUH, right? 6_9 Anyway, I did and then, after a lot of struggle finding a way to get the body and pose I wanted, he was on the canvas.
Painting him was incredibly pleasurable, right from the beginning. And from day one, just stained, he'd stare at me. I went on this AWESOME trip the whole time, that I'd added a body and color, so in no time, he'd walk right out of the canvas. I felt like I was merely doing him a favor, by bringing him to life this way and, by me getting into it like this, he was taking over me and it felt like some really strange kind of foreplay. It was the best thing ever.

Also, while I was working on him, since the incubus is supposed to be kind of a secret lover, nobody knew I was working on him NOBODY. That was also part of my trip, that he's my lover and nobody can know he exists. So, although he was in my room the whole time, neither my dad, brother or boyfriend knew what I was doing.

This is the painting as it was in the art exhibit. Sorry for the watermark and censored part. That's just him touching his balls and hard on, but I'm pretty sure I can't put up naked people here. I thought it was pretty funny, how people didn't stay and look at him and they referred to how several of the paintings had horns, but nothing about how he's a naked demon with a boner. The naked male body, I guess is just not as common to see as the naked female body

So, in the painting, he's meant to be coming out of the shadows, because in the writing, there's no particular source of light; and he's meant to be coming out of the shadows, with confidence that the viewer will allow herself to be seduced and his head full of evil intentions. In the end, the shadows on him weren't as marked as I'd thought originally, but I felt that he wouldn't have been as visible that way.

Looking at him for a prolonged time never fails to make me smile, because I'm so proud of him and all the things that revolve around him.
The painting is USD 1500.00, and I've considered either making it more expensive or just not having it for sale at all, because I don't want anyone to have him. If I had a lover, it would be him and if any demon could seduce me, it would also be him.

Eyes.

2009-04-15T14:19:00.008-05:00

I've been working on this little 5 x 7 inches canvas today, I think I'm going to stop already, because there's wet paint all over it and my pulse sucks and have a super hard time working unless I can lean my hand on something. I mean, I CAN, but I'll avoid it whenever possible.
I started this one a long time ago and it's part of a kind of project of making the two eyes, nose and mouth of separate little canvases, not necessarily part of the same face.

I think the eyes are one of my favorite body parts, there's also the hands and feet, the face, back, abdomen, legs. I mean, I like all of the human body x_x
The eyes stand out a little, I think, all of their anatomy, everything about their shape and components.
I'd rather not go much more into it, I tried and was rambling like a moron. I was painting on the canvas with oil paintings.
The image below is a super close up of the iris.

Rosario Tijeras

2009-04-13T13:16:00.013-05:00

Rosario Tijeras is a book by Jorge Franco Ramos and I've read it maybe three times. The story is situated in Colombia and it's about this super gorgeous woman, called Rosario Tijeras and she's involved in the drug business, sometimes does hit jobs and is the occasional lover of big drug dealers. It's narrated by a guy that sees her in a disco and falls in love with her.
It's a really beautiful book and I feel like it's kind of poetic, although I don't know shit about poetry. Maybe I should say it's more romantic, rather than poetic, because the narrator IS in love, anyway.
I love the book, because of Rosario herself, because she's such an awesome, bad ass, ruthless, impulsive and vulnerable character and because the narrator (I can't remember his name, I think it's Antonio x_x) is SO passionate about her. And passion is a beautiful thing.
The drawing on top is a representation of Rosario and I was able to put her on paper, after I saw the movie. It's Rosario in her walking, day to day life; she has her gun in her hand, with a kind of slutty outfit and has an angry face. This drawing is USD 70.00 and it's 11 x 14 inches.
In the book she's quick to shoot whoever disrespects her or whoever she's been assigned to kill and usually shoots only men whilst kissing them.
I liked watching the movie and I liked the girl they used to play Rosario, but I don't feel they focused it properly. Because it was more about how these two close friends fall in love with her at the same time, rather than it being about her entirely and how she drags these two guys into her hurricane.
The drawing on the bottom is Rosario as a saint, because in the book she becomes a kind of a legend in her home town and some call her a saint. So I drew her in a dress with the Virgin that sicarios usually pray to, a Rosary around her neck and on her wrist, the little medallions that sicarios usually use that have a picture of baby Jesus and the Virgin. I used a picture of Patricia Arquette that I LOVE as model, for posing and shading and I thought the gesture she's doing with her hand in the picture is so curious. This drawing is also USD 70.00 and is also 11 x 14 inches.

Some Artists I like

2009-04-11T07:28:00.008-05:00

I didn't write anything yesterday, because I suck. I had a pretty busy day, with hanging with my dad and brother visiting this AWESOME fort, bathing in the spiffiest beach ever in my underwear and then, when we got back, hanging with my boyfriend.
What I MEANT to do yesterday, was link to some artists that I hold in high regard and that make me incredibly envious at how GOOD they are and how sickeningly AMAZING their work is. I'm going to do these three today.

"Sleipnir" by Keith Thompson

1. Keith Thompson: I'd seen Keith Thompson's work in a book I have called "Anatomy for Fantasy Artists", except I didn't know his name and then I don't remember how I stumbled upon his website. I don't know what techniques or tools he uses to make his pieces, I don't know what he looks like. But those drawings (I think they're drawings) are simply amazing. They're so detailed and meticulous and not a single line wasted. And I love how, in the website, each work has a little story, I mean, he IS a fantasy artist and most things inevitably has a story.

"Chirurgeon" by Maya Kulenovic

2. Maya Kulenovic: I don't know exactly how to describe what I feel when I see this woman's work. I DO know that I'm completely hypnotized, a little bit uncomfortable and sometimes I'm pretty close to becoming scared. She paints just so you can see some details, but at the same time it's kind of rough. I think it's that quality and such high contrast which hypnotizes me. I got the above image from the gallery "Faces"

"El Gato Helecho" by Remedios Varo

3. Remedios Varo: I'm sorry about the website being angelfire, but it's the only one that had sort of properly sized images of the paintings and also the most.
I stumbled upon this lady, when I was still going to university. We were each told to pick an artist and I picked her, because she was the only one that wasn't from the United States and that wasn't European. Turns out she WAS European, because she was born in Spain, but then I don't remember what happened and she was Mexican. I guess she married a Mexican guy or something. Anyway, I'm completely clueless about her technique, because I was reading about it one time and it's this super convoluted shit that I'm too stupid to understand. But the end result is super satisfying to look at. I feel like her works have some sort of childish thing going on, but they're also kind of mysterious. I like looking at her work, because of the amount of detail and because I'm trying to think what the story behind the image is. She was a surrealist, but she definitely had a touch of fantasy art going on in there.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2009-04-09T08:57:00.006-05:00

Lately, I've been in an ultimate recycling mode and I don't want to throw anything away, except organic things and shit that will rot. So, aside from separating things like plastic, cans, foam things, carton for recycling; I've separated other things and decided to make spiffy shit with them. Remember that the pictures are flipped horizontally, because I use photo booth, so everything is backwards.

This one doesn't have a title yet, but under the black and white paint, it has about three layers of different kinds of papers, receipts, a couple of cards, bills, shit like that. One of the few things that aren't sent to be recycled is paper and news papers, because recycling paper is really contaminating, to my understanding. First, I spray painted each side, because it's faster and then a couple of layers of acrylic black and white paint and then the actual work will be oil paints.
I hope the impression this piece gives, isn't something related to "double personality" or whatever, because that's not what I feel it means. Granted, I don't know what's there yet, but it's not that. This one is going to be around USD 400.00. Although the materials are definitely super cheap, it's the painting work, more than anything else. And also the fact that I like so much how it's looking, usually when I like something I'll make it more expensive than necessary XD

This one is about to be finished, I just have to finish gluing the plastic tube on there and finish working on the word "Breathe", which is also the title of the thing. What's being recycled here is the mask and the tube, it may not be much, but I refuse to throw it away, because it's so cool. My dad got this mask and another one and a bunch of other spiffy hospital shit at the end of last year, because he had to have his gallbladder removed and I've kept everything, 'cuz I'm gonna use all those mothers. To glue the tube, my dad gave me this stuff that's used for cars called "GOOP" and it's super sticky and you're supposed to use it in a ventilated area. And the way it works, is you put some of the stuff on each side of what's going to be stuck together, you let it dry for a while and THEN you put both sides together. It smells nice, haha! XD
This one is going to be around USD 350 or 400.00.

I know this thing looks like a fucking mess and that's because it pretty much is. This is the piece with the most amount of recycled things. The piece of wood is covered with news paper, then it has pieces of thin carton bags from whichever stores, then it has some fabric, then a bunch of receipts, a soap, fliers, a piece of a broken dish, a limited edition Marlboro box (some aluminum metal thing, I don't even know, but it was awesome), some fish net, part of some shorts of mine, a cent a container of one of those things that you stick up your nose, when it's stuffed. Then I spray painted part of it and on top of the black spray paint I used some white oil paint and did some shit with that and the stuff that looks like blood, is crimson oil paint and, yeah, it's meant to be bleeding, but not because I love blood and shit (although, it IS some amazing stuff), but kind of because of a song by the Wallflowers called "Bleeders". The song has a line that says "Everything just bleeds". I dig it.
This one will probably be about USD 150.00.

This is the simples piece, but it's the only one that's made entirely out of recycled stuff. I used the box in which my computer came. I cut that mother up in different sized squares and stuck it back together and painted it, that's it. And my dad said he liked it from the beginning, so now that it's finished, it's going to go in his office.

This one is more along the lines of sculpture and what's recycled about this one is the news paper and the base, which is one of those foam plates/dish thing that meat, chicken or pork or fish come in. I usually keep the biggest ones, for when I paint, to put the oil paints on and mix colors and shit.
The "face" is modeling clay with plaster on top, that I sort of sculpted. I know it looks like crap, but that's because it's halfway to being finished.
This one's going to be between USD 90 or 100.00

Guardian of Anubis

2009-04-07T08:52:00.005-05:00

"Guardian of the Temple of Anubis" is one of the most recent drawings I finished. It's a woman, with a spiffy haircut, the eye of Ra painted on her left eye, an ankh shaped birth mark above her heart, holding a jackal mask and "Guardian Anubis" in hieroglyphs behind her.

(By the way, the pictures I've uploaded so far, including the ones in the previous entry, are taken with Photo Booth and everything is flipped horizontally).

Anyway, supposedly, this Guardian of Anubis that I've drawn is a person that was born to guard the temple of Anubis and this is known from the moment they're born, because of the birth mark above their heart that's shaped like an ankh. They're a type of were-people, because they transform into jackals, when they need to exert their duty of guards, but they need aid from the mask. It's what they use to transform.

For the hieroglyphs, I used an online translator from English to hieroglyphs. This one.

I don't know just how accurate it is, but I wanted to have hieroglyphs behind her and I'm cool with how those look.

I used 2B, 3B and 4B pencils. The drawing had started out a long time ago, when I still went to art university and the paper is super old and when I pressed the pencil too hard or erased too much, bits of fiber would come off. And the paper also has a weird color on it, but that's cool, I think it adds a nice effect of being old and shit.

And, finally, I burnt some parts of the edges of the paper, because I thought it could look like a cool scroll type of thing.

I'm not particularly into Egyptian mythology, but they DID have some pretty cool gods and goddesses and their symbols are just super cool. I just like mythology in general and I think the Egyptian's old meticulosity is admirable.

Also, in that picture I put up, I drew my eyebrows on with a brown eyeliner pencil, as opposed to the black one I've used most of the time. I know it looks like shit, leave me alone XD

The art works, unfortunately are only available for sale here in Panama, unless I go to another country and whip them out and say they're for sale, because I've yet to devise a way to exchange them for money outside of Panama.

"Guardian of the Temple of Anubis" is USD 90.00.

The moment when Pink Pinkerton shaves off his eyebrows.

2009-04-06T09:30:00.013-05:00

I shaved off my eyebrows about two weeks ago and I think it's possibly the boldest change to my image so far.

I'm not a big experimenting type in that sense, I HAVE made changes, they've just been rather subtle:

a) Dying my hair red: Whilst I was in a hippie/goth wanna be stage, I wanted to dye my hair fire engine red. I guess Panama is too much of a conservative/boring country for hair dressers to understand that and, instead, my hair was dyed a wine tone color. Like that purplish thing I see on grandmas sometimes. I tried getting the color I wanted maybe three times and then I gave up and realized that, to get the color I wanted, I'd have to bleach my hair and I didn't have the dough or the force of will and lack of laziness to do all that shit, so I gave up/was discouraged. Haven't felt like dying my hair at all since then, because I actually seriously like the tone of brown I have.

b) Dying my eyebrows blonde or orange (like a natural redheaded color): I discovered that I liked this by accident, because when I still had acne and hadn't started on the second acne treatment, a lady in my building told me and my mom to do the following and that shit would be cleared in two weeks or something ridiculous like that: Wash face with soap and water normal like, then with a cotton ball, apply peroxide all over your face, then with another cotton ball, apply listerine all over your face, and then with a cotton ball, apply evaporated milk all over your face until that shit dries up and then just rinse it off.

The acne wasn't gone at all in two weeks time and I don't remember if that was the order of the things, but we kept doing it, anyway, because.. I don't really know why. But I kept doing the three things, if differently from the original instructions.

I STILL use listerine as an astringent after washing my face, because that way I don't have to buy an astringent and the listerine serves a double purpose and I like how refreshing it is on my skin.

I saw how the peroxide died all the little hairs of my face and I was tripping it. I specially liked how my eyebrows looked all whitish/light yellow, I don't know how I didn't notice until they were already a completely different color. Then I stopped and then I started again a bit less, because before they turned light yellow, they were orange and I seriously liked that even more. I thought it was a really nice contrast with my dark brown hair and I feel it made my face more colorful.

c) Cutting my hair super short: I don't remember when was the first time I cut my hair, but I went to my hairdresser and asked him to cut my hair to the same level as my jaw, then I went a couple of times after that to make the haircut better, because it looked ugly as shit at only one length, so he did these little layers. I liked how I looked kind of younger and how I was kind of like Milla with her almost permanently short hair. She was actually one of the ones that made me want to have short hair, she just works it so well. And also Carrie Bradshaw, from "Sex And The City", because in some episodes she had it real short and it looked gorgeous on her.

Anyway, yeah. Those are the changes I can remember doing to my person, before having shaved off my eyebrows.

I watched "The Wall" a bunch of times (I lost count x_x), I think I was up to seven times and the moment when Pink shaves off his eyebrows, for some reason, always really catches my attention. Maybe it's his facial expression whilst doing it or maybe there's something to be understood at that moment that I don't quite grasp.

Like, at first he's shaving his chest hair and he seems child like in his excitement, specially while he's rinsing the shaving cream off. Like, he's just dicking around "oh, haha, I'm gonna shave mah chest hair and it's gon' be CRAY-ZEE haha". But when he looks up at his face and touches his eyebrows and then they don't show his face again until he's shaved them off, that part just gets me.

It's like the moment where he just accepts he's mad and embraces his insanity. And each time I saw the movie, it made me want to do it myself.

I thought a lot about it, because that happened maybe two years ago, now? Surely, more than a year, though.

I'm definitely not mad/going mad, but I try to heed to my impulses sometimes, because if it's something that's lingered there for so long, BEGGING me to do it, then I gotta listen.

I told my dad, brother and boyfriend I wanted to do it and they were all like "pft, it's gonna look ugleh" and they were right XD

It's cool, though, because I'm incredibly satisfied that I did it and it's been very interesting.

My hands trembled as I did it and I didn't cut them off all in one sweep and it was also kind of painful. I guess I should have gotten them wet or put some soap or something.

It was real strange how my brow and forehead looked so flat and how expressionless I looked. And I thought the fact that that protrudes a little bit, would be enough to leave some of the expression in my face, but it didn't at all. I looked expressionless and like I was wearing a mask and looked super weird when I smiled, cried, frowned or did any of the gestures I like making.

I also found it incredibly curious how something dark, like the eyebrows, would cause something to protrude. I say this, because when I paint or draw, dark things are usually used to bring things to the background and to give depth, not to make things stand out. And, in the case of the eyebrows, it's totally the opposite: Something dark, makes something stand out.

Also, I did this at maybe one or two in the morning, after having gone out with my boyfriend and as soon as I went to bed, I got real nervous about what I had just done, I was like "what the fuck did I just do? x____x". And when I woke up in the morning, the same thing.

I tried drawing them on in the morning because there was no way shit fucking hell that I'd go out like that. And I was pleasantly surprised at the good job I did. I guess being an artist really IS useful sometimes XD

I just kind of traced on the shadow that was left of my eyebrows and then, removed the excess black from the eyeliner with my fingers. And nobody could tell they were gone, while they were drawn on.

Now that they've grown out a little bit, I like how it's all looking. It looks like I have really light colored eyebrows and I feel like I look really threatening or scary.

I feel like I kind of look like.. a Victorian type or one of those women from the twenties or whichever of those times when looking like a doll was in vogue.

I'm glad I did it, but I can't wait for them to be back.