Hansel & Gretel

It's one of the best children's plays I've ever seen and certainly the best Hansel & Gretel!

I've been working on a production of the opera version of the story for the Royal Opera House, in London.

Although this production at the Gulbenkian Theatre, at UKC, Kent, is on the other end of the scale in budget and size, Lyngo Theatre Company has made it into an amazingly magical stage space.
Travellings beds with hat-pillows, a soft sugary moon and racoonish witches will envolve you, adults and children, in a story of love and hunger, where the darkest of places can become home.

Their website: www.lyngo.co.uk

Although I'm still commuting every day to work, I've been doing it by train as a way to keep myself healthier and happier. So, quite a lot of reading going on. This is the latest and finest: Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.
As a fan of his work I'm probably not the best person to criticise it since I always think their're absolutely brilliant! Theatre, cinema, books, are all about the ability to storytell. Its detailing, imagination and above all the fantastic linked to the everyday make characters, objects, settings part of the readers' mind. A delight to read for both adults and children. The sort of books I'll keep on my shelves as jewellery to wear during hard times.
Joyous train rides!!!

Commuting 5

Out of focus: colours on speed.

Commuting 4

Colours! Lots of colours in the grey desert that is the A13.

SHAKESPEARE characters

Here's Iago.
On route to commit his horrid crime!

SHAKESPEARE characters

Today the morning was the darkest it has ever been.
Cold, wet wind and a slight rain mad it impossible to use my camera but reminded me of the gloomiest of all plays: the one that shan't be named inside a theatre, MACBETH.
Here's his lady.

Commuting 3

Earth...

And fire...
Small signs of mother nature, lost in traffic.

SHAKESPEARE characters

Aparently Shakespeare can have quite a lot to do with traffic. The sheer violence of it, metal, rust and worn down texture; desperate people and loud music...
As such I'm starting a series of drawing ink sketches on Shakespeare villains.
A witch, for now!

Commuting 2

Bundles of textures everywhere I look!
I've seem to have opened Pandora's box...
But now people are starting to look at me when I use my camera, it seems craziness is only natural on the road, particularly in London.

Commuting1

Still commuting, faster this time but as surreal...

Commuting

From this post on I'm posting a series of photographs on the "art of commuting" to work.
Every day, between 7.20am and sometimes 9.00am, I'm stopped in traffic on the A13, westbound into London. An average of 30mn to do 2 miles, where boredom has had me do the most unbelievable of things: from the traditional nail clipping to essay reading.
So, as my camera is my only passenger, here's what it's been seeing.
CALL FOR ARTISTS: if anyone suffers the same boredom everyday and has a knack for putting it into images or words, please don't hesitate to send them to me!

RICHARD II, a sketch for Spotlites Theatre Company, UK

An experience into digital scenography for Richard II. The trial and error process which is always theatre design, is made easier by being able to re-arrange space, time, lights and textures at a click of the keyboard. But somehow it feels like the distance between my thoughts and the work gets wider and wider.

CUT AND PASTE, by hand

A small model for a touring set of The Three Musketeers, Spotlites Theatre Company, UK. Black and white chess board where all the court intrigues are to take place.

I was browsing through my portfolio and found these:
pen on MDF, about Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, 2007.
It's made me miss mesh drawing.
And there's his new book coming, which will hopefully fill my head with new images to draw.

Check out this link to my friend Stuart Nunn's interview on his latest adventure into opera. Fantastic piece of scenographic work!

http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/birmingham-culture/birmingham-ballet-opera/2008/07/29/an-operatic-designer-for-life-65233-21424500/

These guys have been keeping me company the past couple of weeks. I really can't explain it but there's something about big cats... Perfection in movement! Also my little ones, just as perfect, not as big.

Ainda BATH

Simplicidade e contentamento...

BATH - to become my birth city

We went to Bath this past weekend and realised that we're meant to spend the rest of our lifes there. Strange feeling when you deeply believe you belong to a different country, a different city... Here're some photographs.

Saudades...

Hoje foi uma daquelas Segundas-feiras dificeis... Em Portugues, por alguma razao 'e mais facil escrever as magoas, mesmo sem acentos ou tiles.
Quando me encontro, ou desencontro, sem fio 'a miada, desenhar 'e sempre o primeiro impulso. Algures, na luta por encontrar um traco, encontro-me muitas vezes a mim propria, ou pelo menos um vislumbre de um nicho, s'o meu, no futuro. Por isso, desenhos 'e o que terei para amanha.
E Terca 'e sempre melhor!

A selection of nudes from my 2007 exhibit. These are 600x1200 mm emulsion and enamel spray on hardboard. There's something about painting the women body on a piece of wood that's makes it more real to be. They seem to come alive, even though they're enclosured in a rectangle, struggling for air. I'm looking forward to beginning a new series, on the same theme, this time with an origami background. 3D cubes holding in their form and folds the feminine body.
Will post them soon.

A CHRISTMAS' CAROL

A sketch for a back cloth, hopefully to be seen this Christmas, in Cascais.
Foggy London, and a little bit of Dickensian Rochester.
Looking forward to painting this one, but I've taught myself not to keep my hopes up, because it's usually the ones I like the most that don't get made... To balance the ones I'm not expecting to make!

I must apologize to anyone who's been waiting for a long due update on this blog. As you can see from the work below and also from other to be posted at a later date, I've had a few very hard working months, where I almost didn't touch the computer (mainly because it was covered in plastic, paint and brushes...!).
Painting one flat at a time, planning the end result, flying the canvas to Portugal, mounting it onto the final flats, has been a challenging process!
In the next few days I'll also be uploading storyboards and sketches of coming work.
Thank you so much to everyone who's not lost faith in this blog!

MACBETH - Avalon Theatre Company, season 2008/09

And so here's MacBeth's castle: an empty thone, eternally awaiting a prince, an overlapping of courtyards, towers and arches, behind a tapestry of blood and gold.
The final cloth has also some stencil work, still missing from these photos.

MACBETH - Avalon Theatre Company, season 2008/09

Also for Avalon, a play for the older children (between 13 and 18 year old): MacBeth.
Here's the first sketch and an almost finished cloth. As with Cinderella, this one opens up (two centre doors) into MacBeth's castle, shown above.
Very different colours and a much more abstract drawing, as only Shakespeare allows the scenographer!

CINDERELLA - AVALON theatre company, season 2008/09

Just like last year's sets for the Avalon Theatre Company, Cinderella (children between the ages of 6 and 10) was to be a five flat back cloth.
Nevertheless, this time Cinderella's small room transforms into the Prince's ballroom, as each part of every flat folds back to reveal the main props: crystal shoes, ball gown, pumpkin...
In a school near you!