Ze Celso Martines sketches 01

Ze Celso Martines, legendary man from brazilian theater, and Gustavo Amarante. I was sketching them while he was making a speech.



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Ze Celso Martines, homem lendário do teatro brasileiro, e Gustavo Amarante. Eu os desenhei durante uma de suas palestras.

Artsyshark

Dear friends,


I am the featured artist at Artsyshark this week! There's a text about my artwork. Please visit it! www.artsyshark.com or the direct link: http://www.artsyshark.com/2010/08/01/featured-artist-lucas-albergaria-de-magalhaes/
Here's the full text:
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Caros amigos,

Um texto apresentando meu trabalho artístico está disponível no site Artsyshark! Por gentileza, visite-o (disponível apenas em Inglês no momento, com cópia em baixo):


“Before considering yourself a draftsman, you have to commit your first 5,000 mistakes”. I heard this strong sentence, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, from a classmate in university. She told me that after seeing my first solo exhibition. If Leonardo da Vinci really pronounced those words, I don’t know (and after studying a little bit of Italian draftsmen, this sentence sounds to me more like Michelangelo’s). But I believe in the power of it. And hearing it moved me to work harder.



I used to draw a lot when I was a kid. You can see scribbles, doodles on the borders of my textbooks or the back pages from my notebooks. I have a degree in Graphic Design and before graduation, the piles of drawn papers just grew bigger! At some point before getting my diploma I got frustrated with the situation: I had LOADS of creative insights for children`s books, fan arts, art pieces; but I felt that I couldn`t develop them, there was no way to establish a cohesive idea. Part of this feeling was in the use of loose sheets of paper – ideas could be separated or even got lost! And it was difficult to find a certain image or a note again. I feel that basing my art project became easier and clearer right after adopting a sketchbook.


Getting in touch with my first sketchbook (hardbound with heavyweight drawing paper) made me develop a big interest in traveler`s visual diaries – especially the ones kept by Jean Baptiste Debret, Rugendas, Taunay – artists that came to Brazil in colonial times to register their impressions about this country. Also, I admire their courage by passing through difficulties in their journeys to register a scene – and to do it beautifully with a restrained palette of colors. That`s what inspires me. I wish I can become a traveler and develop beautiful illustrated journals and publish them.


I started going to a public park nearby my hometown – Vitoria, Espirito Santo – with the objective of drawing people according to a question I asked myself: “how does a person use a public space?” – a simple question that guided me for 5 years, or 26 books.


I have worked on public parks, airports, subways, historical sites, inside museums and art galleries, folklorical manifestations and art classes. It gives me pleasure to see my sketchbooks on the shelf. I feel like I have a history, a body of artwork.


Sketchbooks have been part of my artistic development since October 2005. I use this support in two ways: as a space to conceive future works – to write, doodle, question myself what kind of visual world I`d like to develop – and as an art piece itself.


The structure of the book appeals to me – you can see sequences of a certain investigation from a draftsman`s work. I like to think of drawing as a part of a whole, instead of an isolated image. Drawing – part of a volume formed by a sketchbook. Volume – the same expression used in airports to designate a single part of a luggage. Somehow, drawing and traveling are associated.


Those five years drawing people made me capable of being a fast sketcher, a discreet observer and gave me enough material to show as a portfolio or even as artwork. Every book is worked through a single medium (portable and practical according to the situation, in preference. There`s no way of using ink inside a trembling bus car). I explore a technique until I get tired of it and then try something else. I`m also very concerned about finishing the book I`m working on the moment.


I upload part of this production at virtual art communities – especially deviantart. As a result from my effort, a Spanish art dealer got interested – but I wasn`t spiritually ready to sell my sketchbooks. Also, there was an invitation to make part of the 1st Biennial of Artist`s Books in Naples, Italy.


At the moment I just finished a 40-page visual diary, based on the memories I have from a 48 hours experience with the Congado festival (an African-based festival, very colorful) at Uberlandia, Minas Gerais. This journal I sent to Naples. My future projects consist of organizing projects for traveling journals, aiming to publishing them in a book format.


You might ask me if I reached the 5,000 drawings that started this project. I don`t know the answer – probably I did reach, but why should I be concerned with this right now? I won`t stop drawing after getting to that mark. Drawing takes me to pleasurable moments in my life. I wish to keep on drawing and traveling as long as possible.

Sketchbook 2 - a view from Vitoria's mountains

A view from Vitoria's Monutains. One of the first pages from sketchbook number 2. This is a watercolor worked from light blue tones to dark ones.

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Uma vista das montanhas de Vitória. Uma das primeiras páginas do caderno número 2. Esta é uma aquarela trabalhada a partir dos tons azuis claros até os mais escuros.

How did I started to use sketchbooks as support for my drawings?

Everything I post here is part of a project that I keep on a public park near my house since october 2004. Yes, it's been 5 years of work.

Some time ago I bough a very expensive sketchbook - it cost me 75 reais (something around 35 dollars), very expensive for a student.

It was so beautiful, I had to buy it. That found object really moved me…I was enchanted with it’s cover texture, the weight of that book, the idea of producing a volume of drawings. At the same moment I remembered many draftsman that used the book as support for drawings: Jean Baptiste Debret, Taunay…This daydreaming period lasted for a month, when I finally got the courage to unwrap it and start drawing.

I started doing some field sketches on a public park near my house. With no pre conceived idea of what should I do, or wich material to use, I started drawing anything that I saw. As a result, I got some baroque, very busy compositions.

Within the following weeks, I got interested by the people that used to go to that public space, what they do there. Observing people asks for very fast sketching, once that they can change their position at any time. My drawings became quite simple at that time, many of them are just few lines arranged in blank space.

The very beginning of this project is parallel to my last 2 semesters at university. Those were busy times, stressful, I was loaded with reading and writing, but I placed that I should have a time to develop a poetical project. Right after graduation, I decided to take a year break, to let my thoughts concerning the readings and drawings settle down. That was when I got courage to do my first solo exhibition.

Basically, that’s all about my relation with this project.
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Afinal, por que desenhar em cadernos? Quando isso começou para mim?

Algumas pessoas me perguntaram o objetivo dos meus croquis.
Tudo o que é postado aqui faz parte de um projeto que mantenho
em um parque público próximo à minha casa desde outubro de 2004.
Sim, já se foram 2 anos e 2 meses de trabalho.

Há algum tempo comprei um caderno de desenho muito caro - me custou R$ 75, muito caro para um estudante da graduação.

Mas era tão bonito que tinha que ser meu. Aquele objeto encontrando realmente mexeu comigo...estava encantado com a textura de sua capa, o peso daquele livro, a idéia de produzir um volume de desenhos. Ao mesmo tempo fui me lembrando de vários desenhistas que usaram o livro enquanto suporte para desenhos: Jean Baptiste Debret, Taunay...este sonho diurno durou por mais ou menos um mês, quando finalmente tomei coragem de desembrulhar o caderno e começar a desenhar nele.

Comecei com alguns estudos de campo em um parque público próximo à minha casa. Sem idéias pré-concebidas do que eu deveria fazer ou dos materiais a utilizar, desenhava qualquer coisa que eu via. E os resultados eram barrocos, composições sobrecarregadas de linhas.

Nas semanas seguintes, me interessei pelas pessoas que utilizavam aquele espaço público, o que elas fazem ali. Observar pessoas demanda por croquis rápidos, pois existe a possibilidade delas mudarem de posição a qualquer momento. Meus desenhos passaram a ser bem simples nessa época, muitos deles são umas poucas linhas em um espaço em branco.

O comecinho deste projeto foi paralelo aos meus 2 últimos semestres na universidade. Foi uma época estressante, de muito trabalho, estava sobrecarregado de leituras e com a obrigação de escrever, mas determinei a mim mesmo um tempo para desenvolver um projeto poético. Logo após a graduação decidi tirar um ano de folga, para deixar as idéias sobre as leituras e os desenhos assentarem. Foi aí que tive coragem para montar minha primeira exposição individual.

Basicamente, isso é tudo sobre minha relação com este projeto.

First Sketchbook - double pages

Here are some double pages featured in my first sketchbook. Obviously by that time I had no conscience about the structure of the book - I saw the page as a single drawing, not as part of a whole volume. As you can see, all the examples have signing and date, and the drawn line doesn't cross the line imposed by the bindind.

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Aqui estão algumas páginas duplas presentes em meu primeiro caderno de desenhos. Obviamente naquela época eu não tinha consciência acerca da estrutura do livro - eu via a página enquanto um desenho singular, não como parte de um volume. Como é possível ver, todos os exemplares tem assinatura e data, e a linha desenhada não ultrapassa a linha imposta pela encadernação.

Primeiro caderno - páginas simples

Algumas das páginas simples de meu primeiro caderno, desenvolvido entre os anos de 2004 e 2005 no parque da Pedra da Cebola, em Vitória-Espírito Santo. Na época não me passava pela cabeça criar uma composição emvolvendo as duas páginas - cada desenho era visto como único, não havia uma integração entre imagem e suporte...


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Here are some of the pages from my first sketchbook, developed between 2004 and 2005 at Parque Pedra da Cebola, located at Vitória- Espirito Santo. Around that time I had no idea of creating a composition envolving the 2 pages - every drawing was seen as unique, without a relation between image and support...

Estes são os cadernos, parte de mim

Olá a todos. Esta é minha primeira postagem aqui no blogger. Já venho há algum tempo alimentando um perfil no deviantart com o material desenhado em cadernos de artista (http://albergue-man.deviantart.com), mas aquela comunidade não tem muita receptividade aos comentários de usuários externos, fora que é meio difícil descobrir o botão de 'galeria' no meio de tanta informação visual...daí resolvi montar esta página.

Desenho em cadernos desde outubro de 2004, tentando sempre desenhar aos finais de semana. O objetivo aqui é trazer algumas imagens desta produção.

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Hi to everyone! This is my first postage here at blogger. I've been feeding a deviantart account for some time with the content of my sketchbooks (http://albergue-man.deviantart.com), but that community isn't open for external comments, ands it's kind of hard to find the 'gallery' button in the middle of so many visual informations...so I decided to open this page.

I draw in sketchbooks since 2004, trying to do it in a certain frequency (every weekend). Here my objective is to brig some images of this production.