Hello my friends, I'm writing this journal, before I go to Madrid. I'll stay there for two weeks and I won't be able to be on the internet that much, so I'll miss you all. I couldn't go before expressing my profound gratitude to =ELYPhAS for the one year suscription. Thank you so much, dear friend, for all your support, which I've felt many times, and for all the exceptional work at two of the most amazing clubs I've came across on DeviantArt.
=ELYPhAS , Hèctor Pineda, is a great artist whose work has been so inspiring for me and for many of us. His work reveals something, which I consider to be a real treasure: the combination of a powerful imagination, true technical skills and a great sense of aesthetics. Definitely, a gallery to visit and enjoy.

Thank you also to everyone at the Surreal Arts Club for this award and the prize to Human DK. I'm truly surprised and completely honored. I wasn't expecting it and I confess I wasn't even aware of a contest going on, as my brain has been so absorbed by too many things.
It has been such a great pleasure for me to be part of the =the-surreal-arts. This club is so great because it has so many talented artists, visionary persons and such a dynamic atmosphere to which no one can be indifferent. I've been absent enough and even though I have felt this dynamics. You guys are truly great!
I can't remember talking about this (if it matters to anyone) but I particularly enjoy to move through these worlds of surrealism where there's always "food" for thought, where art (for me) seems to be content rather than being the container (if this makes any sense in English), where artists greatly expose, not only their deep inner selves, but the entire humanity - it's dreams, fears, frustrations, achievements. More than a personal tendency of mine or a general "needed" categorization, it's something so natural for me as my own crazy self and it's maybe because of that that it seems to keep flowing and I normally don't think of it. It just is.

Ok, I could go on forever talking about this with lots of passion but I must start packing.
It seems there's an awful A(H1N1) pandemic going on. In Portugal there are just 102 infected persons so far. Many more are expected in the coming months. Please, take good care of yourselves, wherever you are, and I'll do the same.
Ok packing!

See you soon.
Damn! I'll miss ya!

Love,

Paula

Time flies!!!
Hello, dear friends. I hope you're all doing great. Tell me how you've been and what have you been doing. Holidays, anyone?
So, if you were able to read anything, and before I proceed with the bla bla bla, let me tell you that I tried to change this CSS journal thing and I had no idea of what I was doing. If this isn't readable or if it shows up all out of place in your browser's windows, please hit me in the head with an extremely heavy digital shoe. If it works ok, then I'll consider replacing these testing images.

So, I've been great and immersed in a lot of new exciting projects, to maintain the rhythm of the last years. Let me share:

1-Two new books are on the way. I'll give you more details soon. Both are interesting projects having the future as central theme. (as if this subject wasn't already a huge source of excitement for me, I was invited for these 2009 projects, paper editions).

2-my work (older and recent) will be featured in a cool magazine - DP, digital photographer- July, edition nº15, that will focus on creativity. Such an interesting theme. This is the second time I'll get a highlight in this magazine, number 9 and now number 15, paper editions. This is cool.

3-one of my movies for the Darwin project will show on TV (American independent TV channel). I'll give you more details as soon as I know when that will be. We're still negotiating.

4-Darwin's Evolution show in Madrid is almost out there. The opening will be this month. I'll fly to Madrid next week (so I won't be visiting DA for 15 days).

5-I've been experimenting a lot in the fields of concrete and visual poetry. I'm telling you, this is quiet a cool universe for me as it is a real synthesis of my ideas on how art developed to its digital forms (even if I don't like to separate through terms like "traditional" and "digital". That separation smells like it has gone already as things developed naturally towards a new vision). Am I traveling too much?

6-I'm rebuilding my entire website. That place was a real mess. I really haven't had much time to update it. Hopefully it's getting better, in some ways. I also added some new sections, including equipment design and series (painting and mixed media). There's some new work in there. Still, I haven't scanned the huge amounts of work I've been polluting the world with, made by good old traditional media (ink, charcoal, acrylics, oil, etc.). All my portfolios digital forms are waiting for me to learn about and buy a great new scanner. (btw, Any tips on an excellent one, would be greatly appreciated, A3 at least)

7-I've been developing a wearable computer, which has kept my neurons busy enough. Wearcomps have always been of great interest for me, as a designer, for their conceptual complexity and the series of new considerations and implications involved. A prototype must soon come out from this effort. This is crazy, yeah, but yeah, so do I and, yeah, I wouldn't change anything if I could.

8-I just found out that the new DA portfolio has lots of new features. How cool that is. Have you created yours already? They're looking great. I tried to edit mine and added some new stuff. Still, it will be on "stand by mode" until I get more time.

9-Summer has arrived at my part of the world and I'll soon try to take some weeks out of work to enjoy the beach and the perfect Summer nights outside.

10- I bought a new car. Had to find one with the needed "cubic" ...err.. space for my dog's volume. Now, I've also a van and it will be great to take Zurk to the beach on Summer afternoons. This dog is weighing exactly 95 kg (which is, I think, something like 209.4 pounds). Thin but tall... and clumsy enough.

All for today!

Thank you all very much for the visits and comments on my work. please, forgive me my silence when I add something to my favs. It really is a matter of having not much time. Some days I can do it, other days, i can't even find the time to login.

Wish you all the best.

Hugs!

Paula

For the recent visits, comments, favs and all that sweet jazz. I'm very grateful for all the feedback. It's just impossible to reply to everyone... A thousand thanks!!!


Hello dear friends. I hope everyone is doing great. Paula just turned 39. Stuff happens! I'm getting old but, fortunately, not extremely adult.

Work has kept me busy these days and I haven't had any time to paint lately. The Darwin's show in Lisbon has reached the crazy number of 100 000 visitors. I have some work to be done to adapt my films in the show for the Madrid opening. Muy bien! I'll travel to Madrid by that time. The exhibition will be present there at the National Museum of Natural Science, in June 2009. Well, all this means zebibytes of work, werk, trabalho, trabajo, travail... Humpf! Ah but I'll try to have lots of fun... paella... and flamenco.

I'll upload some stuff as soon as I can. I must translate all texts to bad English which can take me weeks and some headaches. Meanwhile, you can check out some small isolated skeleton morphs in the following links [with absolutely no viruses, boring loading, crazy Kbits/s and hopefully no missing plug-ins for ya]:

>> [skull-horse/man]
>> [fb-giraffe/horse]

On a different note, Aura's cd was recently released. "Human DK" is the cover and I just got a copy of the cd. I'm very happy with the result. I must thank Dean DeMers and the rest of the band for their honesty, professionalism and also for the nice autographed gifts. Was a pleasure for me to collaborate with you guys on such a great project: The Fall of '08.

To listen, please visit:
>> [ms] and >> [cdb]

Also, the official release of the eXcubitors album “Operation Observation” is April 30, 2009.
A version of my painting "Power of Observation" will be the cd cover for the band's second album. Such eXorbitante dark electronic music!
Many many thanks to Sascha, Thomas and Stephan. Was a real pleasure to collaborate with you guys on this excellent album: Operation Observation.

To listen, please visit:
>> [eXcubitors] and >> [X]

Hello dear friends. I hope everyone is doing great. I apologize for my complete absence in the past weeks. You guys have no idea... I've been working so so so much for the Darwin show. Basically, from 7 am to 2 or 3 am. My pauses have been just for the meals and for err... other physiologic needs (which includes, of course, industrial quantities of a nice coffee). Other than that, has been work, work and more work. I've finished it all today and I still can't believe it. Such a nice feeling of relaxation now, only broken by a slight anxiety feeling, so common before each opening show. I just looked at my nails and wow they grew so much. I really have been completely absorbed by this work but I also know that that's the only way to make it work in the end.

For the first time in my life, I feel happy with the work I did. I have been having the recurrent thought that I may had transcended myself this time by doing the apparently impossible thing. I still can't believe I did it. To explain it better, I was proposed to create a series of 23 skeletons morphs that could show clearly the lines of the evolutionist theory by Charles Darwin. All of us who have ever tried our luck with a morphing software know how limited it can be. They basically "move" things in similar areas or negative spaces of the images. So, in order to maintain some rigorous scientific line, I had to invent and reinvent permanently to be able to morph correctly such complex structures as real skeletons, with different poses, different alignments of the bones, different number of bones and so on so on. In the end, I like the result and the team composed by biologists recognized them as perfect. It worth the effort, undoubtedly.

The photography I worked with was amazing, by the great Patrick Gries, and that has also contributed to the success of these animations. They have such a nice aesthetics and a very clean look. Each morph project, composed only by two images, contains more than 1500 reference points/dots, which clearly shows the complexity of the process. Then if 1500 x 23 x 2 equals 69 000 dots, I may have created and adjusted almost 70 000 reference points. Crazy! So, reptiles, mammals, birds, all morphing perfectly. I'm sure if Darwin has had the opportunity to make these morphs himself he would even believe his own theories much more. I'm also sure that each person looking at the final result have no idea of all the effort behind it.

So, yesterday, I saw it all working for the first time in the exhibition area, using a video projector on a wall (6m x 6m). The impact is so great and the whole thing shows up with a tremendous good resolution, a nice slow motion and an excellent sound. That's the way the public will see them from February 13 to May 24. It ended up being the focus of the whole show, which made me feel surprised and very happy too.
I intend to upload some parts of this work to DA after the 24th of March to the film gallery. Can't do it before that.

The team is huge and great. It includes, for instances, the work of Elisabeth Daynès, who made that amazing reconstruction of Tutankhamon, a group of scientists, designers, sculptors, video artists and photographers from all over the world and has been a great pleasure to work under these conditions.

It was already recognized, by the occupied area and the number and quality of elements, as the biggest show ever dedicated to Charles Darwin. Something that cannot be missed, I assure you. After Lisbon, the show will proceed to Madrid and other capitals around the world. Despite all the controversy between creationists and evolutionists, no one can deny the importance of Darwin's work to humanity as the foundation for all modern biology.

My work for the show consists on the referred series of 23 morphs, a short movie about the evolution of forms and a 25 minutes movie about Darwin's Theory on the expression of emotions by man and other animals. An excerpt of the last one will also be on DA after the 24th of March and I hope it will be interesting for you as it has been for me. The theme is interesting for sure and the movie establishes a parallelism to modern times.
To all those in the neighborhood or people visiting Lisbon interested in seeing the show, here are the details:

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Av. de Berna, Lisboa

Opening: February 12
Opening to the public: February 13 (Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 6pm)
Guided tours: (50 minutes - From Tuesday to Friday at 1pm and at 4pm, Weekends, at 11am, 12, 2:30 and 4:30 pm.
Schools: from Tuesday to Fryday, 10am to 5pm.


For the recent visits, comments, favs and all that sweet jazz. I'm very grateful for all the feedback on my work. it just gets too difficult to reply to everyone but I always read the comments. A thousand thanks!!!

Hi you wonderful cool mad sweet deviant friends. I wish you all an excellent new year(s). May all your wishes become realities.

I'm back from the "oh-so-short holidays". I had a great time and I hope it has been equally perfect for all of you. The New Year's Eve was bombastic!!! How was yours?

Nothing better than the end of a year to make a balance and start defining goals for the new year (we tend to do this as we pass the 30s). When I look back, the balance of 2008 was incredibly positive for me. Hopefully, 2009 will be even better (for us all).
I'm having a very positive feeling about 2009, actually. Something I really can't explain but it's certainly there, call it intuition or so... It started well for me since I've been invited for some new projects. One is to be the graphic designer for a great publication about art. The others, involves important shows abroad. I'm not sure I'll accept the first one, even if it is such a great offer and an important add to my curriculum. The problem is that it will occupy most of my time. I must ponder well. We all know the feeling, I'm sure. Wouldn't be great if we could just dedicate to our art? That is my long-term goal, certainly, as part of my idea of a perfect life.


For the recent visits, comments, favs and all that sweet jazz. I'm very grateful for all the feedback on my work. it just gets too difficult to reply to everyone but I always read the comments. A thousand thanks!!!