#BLOWFISHDAYS - FIGURE SKATING ILLUSTRATIONS

Basically one month later I'm back. With thousands of things happening at the same time it's quite hard to keep an agenda.

Our Airbnb apartments are being quite requisited, which is good, but also means hard to predict days.

I'm also planning my collection of paper jewelry collection and taking many classes... so: big news coming soon! =)

To relax a bit of all the formalities from Fashion Illustration classes, I've been creating some illustrations for a couple of figure skaters and the feedback is being so nice! ♥

04.12 was Kaitlyn Weaver's birthday! She's a beautiful and skilled ice dancer from Team Canada!

The inspiration came from Kaitlyn and Andrew's short program:

And she was so sweet in her answer! I got a combo: like + comment + stories' post! ♥

 

When she featured me on her stories, and right after a post featuring no other than Andrew Poje, I nearly fainted. Like...really!

04.15 was the last day of Yuzuru's ice show Continues ~ With Wings ~ and also the b-day of Javier Fernández! He skated a bit of his Impossible Dream program and everyone sang happy birthday to him. My choice of outfit was obviously his costume for the gala program Super Javi, coreographed by the - also super - Kurt Browning. ♥


"I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life" ♪

In the end, Javi himself probably didn't even notice my post. Buuuuuut! A sweet sweet sweeeet heart from Belgium did! ♥

Thank you so much for the love, Jorik Hendrickx!! ♥




He has probably no idea, but since he skated to Il Divo's Aranjuez version, his base of fans here in Brazil did grow a lot! Something I'll let him know on his birthday post, also coming soon!

Last, but not least: Javier Raya! ♥ He's been through such difficult times! I'm so glad he's recovering his heart and emotions! Also, on this post there's also a short video with the illustration steps!

Javi, thank you so much for your efforts, your inspirational words and all the love!!

#HappyMonday, everyone! ♥

PHOTOGRAPHY: RYOSUKE KOSUGE - aka RK

Since I have many friends in Japan right now enjoying hanami and so on, here's inspirational post! Click below to se 20 awsome pictures of Ryosuke Kosuge aka RK: a japanese photographer, designer and DJ! His night pictures are out of this world! ♥

FASHION ILLUSTRATION CLASSES - I

It's been two weeks since I started with the Fashion Illustration post graduation course. And tomorrow I'll also start the Jewellery Collection course.

So far we've been through human figure and some references researches... 

Trying to find a mid point between the realistic style and the manga style is not easy. And I can't say the professor loves manga. But yeah... I'm surviving and learning a lot, or so I want to believe, hahahaha.

"You can find great references at Vogue and Elle magazines." - Yup, it's quite obvious, isn't it? Maybe way too much obvious for my liking... So I decided to go a little outside the box and take some references I knew the other students would not take to the classroom =P

 Some scans from japanese Seventeen magazine.

Bridal editorial, from YES WEDDING magazine.

Camila Klein's jewellery collection.

Gekkan EXILE's editorial with Takanori Iwata

Again, Takanori Iwata, but this cool poses are from his first photobook. ♥

And Yuzuru. Obviously. You saw it coming, didn't you? ♥
Now, really, his movements are very elegant - that's why he's here again.

Not only Yuzu though. Kaitlyn Weaver, Yuna Kim, Carolina Kostner, Karen Chen, Kaetlyn Osmond and Maia Shibutani too. Because Figure Skating is elegant. Period. ♥

Later on, I'm going to make a post just about my production and its evolution, but for now, here you have an illustration of the canadian figure skater Gabrielle Daleman. It's the 3rd illustration since the classes have started:

Gabby herself gave my post a like, so you can imagine how over the Moon I became when I saw the notification! ♥

So far so good it seems!

GARRET KANE @ apART PRIVATE GALLERY

   Yesterday I had a chance of visiting Garret Kane's exposition here in Sao Paulo, at apArt Private Gallery!

   apArt is a private space where, through a scheduled appointment, you’ll be able to appreciate, purchase or rent fine art and design as well as meet and engage in conversation with the artist or designer.  It’s also a place for book signing events and any other kind of cultural activities.

   Everything is organized on a privé basis for VIP individuals or small groups. Even though here in Brazil it's still not so common to have crowded art galleries - unless there's an event going on - one of the things I liked the most about apArt is the fact that visits are scheduled! It was a slightly intimidating thought at the begining but there was an adorable lady opening the apartment door when I arrived and offering water and coffee, and then a very welcoming apartment full of art in every detail! It was a nice scape moment during a busy friday... ♥

Since the gallery is at a very familiar neighborhood for me, in a certain way it felt like visiting an auntie's place... hahaha.

   Garret Kane is an assemblage sculpture artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Below there are some of his words about art and technology:

   "All human invention is the application of our desires and ideas upon matter and energy - and I believe art is the purest form of this conceit - it's sole purpose being to push matter and energy to the most interesting places it can go.

   Well, that's the idea I like to operate from, and it’s what inspires much of what I do.

   Specifically the mediums, concepts and techniques I prefer all revolve around this association with base nature. They embody the idea that human beings were made by nature and through technology we attempt to recreate nature in our own image.

   Lastly, because nature inspires everything I do and because I love our planet, 10% of all my profits go to the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)".

BLOWFISH DAYS: THE KITTEN

I just came to share a little bit about a crazy kitten I've met these days... Why? Because my life is full of "coincidences" when it comes to the neighborhood!

Have you ever felt like if someone or some unseen force kind of knows it too well?

SEARCH FOR 3.11

Tomorrow (in brazilian time) and today in japanese time is the 7th anniversary of Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

It's still hard to find words. I keep remembering who I was by the time: a 21 year old girl who decided to give up Architecture College (after 3 years of course) to try to find herself in Design College... Since that time so much has happened - many achievements, many painful moments and many lessons learnt.

How would have been the lifes of the 15.894 people who died if nothing had happened at all? Not to mention the 6.156 injured people, the 2.546 still missing... And also the lifes of everyone who is still alive, but missed their important ones...? 

Many babies would be school students, many kids would be university students, other would have graduated from uni. Many would have decided to get married and have kids, while others not at all... But it's really sad that they didn't have a chance.

We have still to help the people who are living under the radiation of Fukushima: the number of kids with cancer keeps increasing. Actually, is hard to predict how hard and for how long we'll feel the consequences... And it's not a japanese problem only. Our waters are getting daily doses of radiation and its effects are already felt in USA and Canada, with ill fishes and strange changes in the sea animals. 

There's a boy - a really easy to love one - who was there by that time. He was 16 by the time and had to evacuate his sports training place and to stay for days at a school, with many other people (and gladly his parents and sister as well), until it was safe to leave again. But knowing everything outside could be very possibly lost and destroyed... home, school. Not being sure who is still alive... - this kid is now a 23 year old young man, 2 time olympic champion, 2 time world champion (and 4 time national champion, also 4 time grand prix final champion, etc) and probably the best one of the sport he was practising that 3.11 day. And he uses his achievements to help the reconstruction of Tohoku region.

(Yuzuru's training and signed Edea boots are being auctioned on Yahoo!JAPAN and all the value will be donated to the 3.11 cause. Right now the value is over 80 thousand dollars. Many other athletes and artists are doing the same.)


The point of bringing Yuzuru Hanyu to this post is not to talk about Figure Skating, obviously, but to set an example and to borrow from him the humble character and the will to help people with the tools we have (in his case, his skating), because our poor Earth has been suffering enough with our bad actions and sometimes with our lack of action to solve the problems.


A little, but good way to start is to use Yahoo!JAPAN website and search for "3.11". The image below is already linked to the project's website. 

Yahoo!JAPAN is going to donate 10 yens everytime there's a search for 3.11 in their website, during the day 3.11 - japanese time zone. The money will help people affected by the 3.11 day in and outside Japan.

Here are the rules:

● Search is made with the keyword "3.11" from 00:00 on March 11, 2018 to 23:59. Search performed other than this time zone (Japanese time zone) is not included in the donation amount calculation.

● As for keywords with different notation, such as "March 11", "3, 11", in principle, it will not be subject to donation amount calculation.

● The number of searchers is calculated by the number of unique browsers searched for "3.11" in the search window.

● The maximum amount of donation will be based on actual results of last year. Last year total 4,294,532 people searched for "3.11" on the day, Yahoo! JAPAN donated to 42 groups, 42, 455, 320 yen equally divided into 6 organizations and donated for reconstruction assistance.

● The donation is planned to be donated by Yahoo! JAPAN and supportive partners to 6 organizations selected for support in April 2018.


It's really quick and for free, so please let's help and also spread the word! ♥
#PrayForJAPAN #PrayFortheWORLD

FOOD ART

We're past the middle of the week already! And a quarter of March is gone already!

And since the week is being tough for almost everyone I know, here I come with a post of cute food art! #inspiration  ~ Enjoy it! =P