I’ve been working on my idea for days, but just in my free times. Conclusion: I had to finish everything yesterday, 8th november! I spent all day drawing and painting it, and I believe I exaggerated, doing something too detailed with 6 caricatures. Today at 3am, my right hand was aching and having involuntary movements… But I was near finishing that! So, I thought it was time to stop and give up. Turned off my computer, and went to bed. I slept.

But I woke up at 5am and decided to finish that. I finally did it and sent my illustration to Iron Maiden. Now I’m officially (I guess… Nobody sent me any email confirming that.) in this competition!

Well, I don’t think I’ll win… I never won any contest… Because of that I don’t like contests. But I wanted to draw it anyway, and even if my artwork would not be chosen, at least they’ll put their favourite ones on website. My husband and Facebook girls are confident – yes, I already have a kind of fan club. Then, fingers crossed!

Edit: I forgot to mention I woke up at 3pm and my hand is still aching… Yes: I got RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury)!

***
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• Steve Harris and Steve Jobs…
• Inspiration: Irma Gruenholz
• Skunkworks!!!
• Tati Viana’s Shop
• Inspiration: St. Victor

Irma is from Spain and uses her artworks in books, magazines, advertisement, etc. She works with molding, something I always wanted to learn but is not so easy as it seems!

Honestly? I don’t have more words to speak about Irma and her artworks. Just visit her website and Flickr page!

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• My Iron Maiden Xmas Card
• Inspiration: St. Victor
• The Fotologger Vampire
• SketchCrawl Natal (april 2009) – photos
• Dolls

But I’m still too young to be mom, and kids are really expensive nowadays! My husband, Fernando, always said he would love to have a dog more than a child. I didn’t like dogs nor any kind of pet. He spent 2 years to convince me to buy a Shih Tzu puppy – perfect for a couple of nerds like us, who lives in a little apartment. Well, I’ll not tell all our journey to bring our baby home. As you may know… We named him Dexter… Dexter Morgan – yes, the serial killer of tv… Pedigree dogs can have name and last name XD.

It was love at first sight! He’s cute, smart and… Did I say cute? Oh, and very friendly! All those months (he’s now almost 10 months old) made me perceive that dogs are the best living being of entire world! No matter what I’m doing, he’s by my side. I feel as a boy (on cartoons, movies, books or tv) with his inseparable dog. Sometimes I note that Dexter wants to help me… Because of that I call him “ajudante” (helper). Of course he just watch me. But he’s helping me anyway.

Thanks to him, I don’t wish to be mom as I did before. I guess this dream is true now. Purists would say: “This is just a dog! You’re not his mother, you didn’t give birth!”. I know that, and I don’t treat him as a human baby. But, let’s think… I separated him from his real mother, when he was 45 days old. I feed him, I give love… If I’m not his mom, please, let me know what I am!

My Dexter knows some tricks. Give paw, get the ball, lay down… And COUNT UNTIL FIVE! Yes, that’s true. I show two fingers, he barks twice; three fingers, he barks three times; one finger, he barks once… Until five. Nando read an article on internet, saying dogs can count. I didn’t learn any method, just showed my hand and he counted all my fingers. That’s my mathematician!

Fernando is a good father, but he’s a busy guy. Dexter spends more time with me. For that reason, he thinks “Mom: I have to behave well; Dad: HAVE FUN!”. Well… We play a lot together… I’m not so serious. We run around the house; he bites me; we play with his toys … etc, etc, etc… That’s a good friend! Even when I’m sad, he’s with me and makes me happy.

I didn’t give up of my desire. I still want to have a baby… Or two… But, not now. Actually, I want to have another puppy! Nando and I decided to get Dexter’s first son on future. Just imagine how cute is that: Dexter and his baby together! Ooooh!

***
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• Dexter, the Shih Tzu – coming soon
• Dexter, the Shih-Tzu
• My Obsessive Compulsive Husband…
• New member of family
• tati viana’s vlog #3

Yes, his “grunge and commercial” work, as people say. I preffer to call it “experimental”. Well, that’s why I love this album… It’s completely different of everything he did before, he’s doing now, he’s going to do and will do. Oh, and Tattoed Millionaire too, I can’t forget this one. As I said on beginning, Skunkworks is my favourite album EVER… No, not my Bruce’s preferred album… My WORLD’s most favourite album EVER! I listen to it everyday, and never had deleted it from my mp3 player. Then, I decided to have the original Deluxe Power Plus Extreme Master Double Expanded Edition CD on hands. Actually, I HATE CD, and never spent my money with that, not even pirate – I download mp3s (free or paid). I don’t like this shape, how to play it and the concept of have a rounded big disk nowadays.

“I don’t belong to nation, state or dying race / I leave my prejudice with you, my religion’s in space / So have a little respect”

I only have two CDs: Tiranny of Souls, that I got for free, when I bought the Anthology DVD, and Iron Maiden’s A Matter of Life and Death, which I bought just because of bonus DVD. Well, as you can see, I like DVDs a little… I like videos and extra stuff – it’s difficult to find digital versions of them. Oh, and just to let you know: I never played those CDs. However, to have something so special like that – and I can’t find nothing better that symbolize it – I bought it on Ebay.

“You taught me to hate to love you / That’s because you love to hate yourself”

Thanks to Correios (brazilian crappy mail service)… my order took a couple of months to arrive! But I learned a lesson: never get nor send anything without track code!

1996… Bruce Dickinson’s best year! His haircut was amazing, he wrote more interesting and very passionate songs, experimented his ideas (without Steve Harris saying NO), appeared more on public… So cool! Unfortunatelly I was only 13 and couldn’t follow him – I din’t even know about his existence on earth. But I’d pay anything just to watch a Bruce’s solo gig, with Alex Dickson, Chris Dale and Alessandro Elena (the band), playing all Skunkworks songs! That’s my fan dream. I would love to write more about all songs, but there’re too many reviews on internet. By the way, I read a good text by Dave Ling inside the CD booklet. Specially Bruce himself saying “When I realised that Balls To Picasso wasn’t going to make everyone take notice that I could do things other than I did with Maiden, it prompted a real identity crisis.” Bruce, my son… YES, YOU CAN!

May I share another thought? Iron Maiden is amazing, indeed. I have nothing against this band… But… Trully? I’d love Bruce would leave Maiden again. I know, I’m being silly. Well, just a thought… In the other hand, Iron Maiden without Bruce Dickinson and its current formation is nothing. I’d be glad if he would try another experimental stuff with a solo tour, etc. Am I asking for too much?

“I’d rather move around and be than figure out and what it means / Fire up some beast and ride the skywaves / Don’t wanna waste my time on you if you can’t travel this way too / Fire up some beast and ride the skywaves”

Back From The Edge live in WhateverLand… As good shows have to be .

Interview with Bruce about Skunkworks. I’m not this kind of fan that loves his appearance, but I can say he was handsome at 90’s. I’m so jealous of him, because my brazilian gene don’t let me have a haircut like that. I just think this rainbow-suspender is a little… suspect…

***
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• Without Robert Plant?
• New Gn’R single
• My Iron Maiden Xmas Card
• Animations and Music
• A Composition About Passion Fruit

Me too… I’m working on new creations, managing this site, buying new supplies, divulging my shop and having more ideas. As I mentioned, I want to sell unique products, all handmade and handpainted. First, tiny paintings on canvas… Soon, original arts, greeting cards, bags and t-shirts.

If you’re a regular reader, you should remember that I made my shop on BigCartel.com. I totally recommend if you’re looking for a simple and functional place to host your store. It doesn’t take any percentage of your sales and you’re free to create your account, stay as long as you like and cancel anytime. Gold account is free, but limited. Then, I thought it limited too much for me, and decided to use my own site.

This new shop uses a Wordpress plugin called WP e-Commerce.

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I’m on Twitter: @tativiana. Follow me and have a little more art and blablabla…

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• Paintings: Tooongue and Musik
• Inspiration: St. Victor
• tati viana’s vlog #3
• tati viana’s vlog
• Tati Viana and Boreal

One thing that’s certain… João Pessoa is pretty much better than Natal. I’m in love with this city, and have to confess I’m planning to move there. Cost of living is very cheaper, specially speaking about real state. Beaches are wonderful, all city is wooded and people are nice! I’m not saying that as tourist… Natal, where I live, is really crappy!

We met a lovely couple from Twitter: Rubia (or @donabuba) and her boyfriend, Thiago (@lthiagol). They were our guides, showed us good things. We drank beers, chatted a lot… I loved to be in their company! We went to a gay bar just for Babão (a drink that mix Vodka, Tequilla, Control, and Beer – or something like that)… Nando and Thiago drank that, and they really got drunk! Pretty funny both of them dancing Bob Marley while Buba and me laughed out loud.

Fernando and I did a lot of things in João Pessoa, as good tourists do: visited some nice places, went to the handicraft shop, bought some stuff, ate on Manaíra and Tambiá Malls, etc, etc. Oh, I can’t forget to mention the hotel we were hosted (Portugal Flat) is amazing and very cozy! Aaaand… Yes! We went to the beach! We live in a coastal city, but rarely we see the sea. You know… Nerds! And Natal isn’t a neat place… It’s naturally beautiful but people and government don’t take care of this beauty. I was wondering why there’re too many foreign tourists here, but the answer is simple: prostitution! Well… Back to the subject, as I said, we went to the beach, and had a boat trip! Okay, I confess… I vomited.

The best part of our trip: we met Mike Deodato – a Marvel’s comics artist based in João Pessoa –  and his friendly wife, Paula! We dine at the Saporo Restaurant – I love pasta, that’s my worst defect and also what makes me fat – had a nice conversation and went to his studio… His house, actually. Deodato got a new toy that’s helping him very much: a Wacom Cintiq (my consumer dream)! He showed some of his new pages, how he works, signed some comic books and everything else. He liked the doodles in my sketchbook, mainly the characters I created and said I can make some money with them. Of course I’ll follow his advice!

That’s it… I love João Pessoa and want to live there – my parents don’t like this idea… whatever, they don’t order me around anymore. I’m sure we will back there soon next holidays. It was really difficult to be distant from our dog, Dexter, that we were forced to left him at Kenia’s (Nando’s business partner) house. But I guess he had his great times too… His own holidays!

More pics and videos – soon – on Flickr and Facebook.

***
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• Fav blogs about design and illustration
• Mimo Artesanato

There’s not too much info on internet, just some videos on YouTube, a short explanation on Wikipedia and Official Website (that I don’t understand). I saw it first on Drawn! (a really great blog about illustrations… I totally recomend!). Ella and Aleksi are a couple of little kids from Finland singing rap. Yes, they’re real people, not cartoon characters. Unfortunately I didn’t found any picture of them.

Would love to know about the studio that created this animation or the artist(s) who worked on illustrations. That blue seal dancing is my favourite part! Have to confess I am trying to dance like him…

I think a bit weird two children, a star and a dog traveling alone on train… And dancing atop the wagon! Speaking about this language (Finnish, I guess): there’s no word I can relate to the languages I know. It seems to be based on sounds or somethink like that. Really interesting.

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• Animations and Music
• Earth Hour
• Dexter, the Shih-Tzu
• Dope Opera
• Song moment

To be honest, I don’t know too much about this artist, but checking his Myspace profile, his songs seem lively to me. Speaking more about this 2D animation, made by Bozom… All characters (the little girl, etc) are already estabilished in Mika’s official website – he and his sister create his album covers. Isn’t it cool?

I love animated music videos! And you?
Feel free to comment and share your fav videos.

***
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• Ella ja Aleksi… Cute a Lot!
• Song moment
• Skunkworks!!!
• Paintings: Tooongue and Musik
• Earth Hour

I googled about it and found this explanation (phytochemicals.info): The name ‘Passion’ was given by Catholic missionaries in South America. The corona threads of the passion flower were seen as a symbol of the crown of thorns, the five stamens for wounds, the five petals and five sepals as the ten apostles (excluding Judas and Peter) and the three stigmas for the nails on the cross.

Missionaries… Always the missionaires! I suspected it had something to do with catholicism. Five stamens, five petals, five sepals… It’s amazing how catholics can see symbols in everything. Passiflora edulis… Come on! Where’s the passion? I don’t feel it when I’m consuming this fruit; I don’t fall in love with the first person I see! On the contrary, I get sleepy.

By the way, I love the sedative and relaxing power of passion fruit – yes, and the best part: it doesn’t cause dependency. It’s really healthy too, with lots of vitamins… A, B, C… Maybe until Z. It’s used as medicine, and I don’t wonder if it cures cancer.

In Brazil, we aren’t so stupid to call it “Fruta da Paixão”. It’s Maracujá – from tupy: Mara Kuya. Something like “fruit to be served naturally “. That’s the real – and the most correct – meaning of this fruit! Well, what do you think about a glass of Maracujá juice now? And let’s toast the indians!

***
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• Skunkworks!!!
• Why so serious?
• Podcasts

When I saw this image, I thought myself: “WOW! Who’s the artist?”. The signature below was just “St. Victor”… I googled this name and luckily found his official website.

Saint Victor is a wonderful self-taught painter, that I can say for sure I’m in love with his paintings! They are so detailed, but they’re not “painted-photos”; his style is easily perceptive. In my oppinion, too realistic paintings, specially portraits, are things of past – we have cameras for this job now. I believe in creative piece of arts.

The best part of Victor’s artworks: they aren’t just cool images together; everything has an explanation, a connection. Checking his gallery, we can read his thoughts and inspirations about each painting. I partially disagree… I think our artworks are self-explained – if we need to explain our ideas using words, we would be writers, not artists. Well, this is my oppinion… Perhaps his paintings, texts and beautiful musics – composed by his friends – are a combination.

Madina Lake’s album illustration is called The Descent of Sophia. It’s very difficult to pick one of Saint Victor’s paintings as favourite, but this one really got my attention.

This is the first post of Inspiration category. I want to share the artists and designers I love and have as reference, and hope those infos are helpful if you’re looking for motivation.

***
Check out my online shop. Yeah, paintings on sale and Boreal Wallets too!
And, I’m on Twitter: @tativiana. Follow me and have a little more art and blablabla…

more posts...

• Tati Viana’s Shop
• Paintings: Tooongue and Musik
• My Iron Maiden Xmas Card
• Inspiration: Irma Gruenholz
• Ladies and Gentlemen, My New Sketchbook!