Reaching our full potential.

Each one of us has the potential to do great things in every area of our lives. But what keeps us from reaching our full potential sometimes? Some possible answers are: distractions, lack of focus, lack of direction, lack of mental clarity, laziness and most of all, loss of control over ourselves. In other words, we give up the power of making optimal use of that amazing organ called brain.

First, we need a leader: Ourselves. Nodody else can build our own life. If feels wonderful when we become the leader of our own existence. This means being in charge, taking full responsibility for our actions. Then, we need to define what is our main mission in life. What do we want? Defining this clearly, in writing, makes a huge difference. That becomes our map, our mission statement. Then we need a list of concrete actions. And then we need to follow through.

Perfection is not possible, it's not even human, so mistakes will happen. But we can always learn from them. The most important thing in my opinion is to be alert, to see ourselves from the outside in order to evaluate how we're doing so we can decide how we can do better. Time is going to pass by fast, it's very easy to let ourselves go in the wrong direction. That's why we need our brain to be our best friend. Our brain will make sure that we don't get lost, but for that to happen wee need to be in touch with it every single day.

Update: This image is now available on my Etsy store as a print.

REVEALING THE SECRET BLOG

I'm here to finally unveil the mystery of my new blog. If you want to see it, please click here.

I hope that you enjoy it!

Elsita :)

Nature is the Most Amazing Artist.

 

I just discovered Mr. Romanesco Broccoli at Whole Foods . It was love at first sigh. When I saw this amazing green "sculpture"  I couldn't believe my eyes. So much perfection. I bought the one in the pictures and then I spent a good deal of time studying it in my studio. Isn't this a beautiful creation from Mother Nature? I am totally fascinated.

Wikipedia info about Romanesco Broccoli

(Even the name is beautiful)

The way I ate it didn't require any cooking. The texture was so tender. I just separated the rosettes, put a bit of himalayan salt on them, some fresh grounded pepper, walnut oil, lemon and then I massaged everything with my hands for a couple of minutes. After a few minutes of rest the juices "cooked" the whole thing. It was just amazing! 

Some Special New Prints on my Etsy Store.

 

LIMITED EDITION OF 25 EACH.

(Already available on Etsy)

$28 per print

(Signed and numbered)

 

Ever since I started offering papercut prints on Etsy I have wanted to create some colorful designs with my silhouettes. The experiments started a few years ago but it's only now that I have finally gotten what I had in mind. Using color with these kinds of designs is a little tricky. But after much trial and error I discovered that the magic formula was to combine very bright colors with neutral ones. I couldn't be more pleased with the final result. These prints look absolutely amazing on paper! The colors have the same velvety look of the back and white prints. I will always love my black and white designs but these ones are pure color therapy to the eyes, they make me really happy. Yay! :)

These prints will cost $28 each. The reason why I'm offering them in a limited edition is because the amount of ink that it requires to get this dense, high quality print is huge. The ink I use is pretty fancy. The printer uses 8 different color cartridges and the price of a single one is about $11. I will need to replace them very often for the kind of setting that I am using for these 4 designs. But I didn't want that to keep me from offering these colorful designs on Etsy. Once these designs sell out, they won't be printed again.

(I will be listing these 4 prints on Etsy tomorrow Friday)

These prints are already available here.

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Places I have "visited" this week ;)

This week has been intense. Several meetings to attend, things to do in the house, work to complete, e-mails to write, calls to make... When my weekly calendar is fuller than usual I feel like stopping for a second in order to go away in an imaginary trip. Below are some of the beautiful places that I have visited with my imagination so far this week:

Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

Egeskov Castle

Beautiful and quiet winter place somewhere in the world.

I went for a walk and listened to the water run up there in that amazing place. It was so relaxing :)

 

I also went for a walk in the forest up there. Everything was so green and calm. I heard the birdies sing and it was magic. Then I felt energized and ready to go back to my weekly to do list. 

All images from www.wallpaperweb.org

Natalie's Art.

These are two drawings/cutouts created by Natalie. I am in love with Natalie's characters. She makes the cutest little animals ever. I need to start a blog for her, to document her creations. But then, I will need to create one for Diego as well. They're both so prolific. Natalie is into cute animals right now, Diego is into Robots, Bill is into exploring the box of old letters that he found in a flea market and I am into finishing my new blog. What a busy family we are :)

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The inspiration and The Actual Creation.

The inspiration:

A photograph that I took of a tiny little bottle and some charming red fruits from my garden.

The Creation:

A woman ("bottle") which head is decorated with tiny little fruits from her inner garden or emotional world.

There are infinite choices for what it could be put into our personal "containers"; the body container and the mind container. Making good choices is up to us. Think of a vase. Once the flowers in it start going bad, it's better to replace the dirty water with clean one and bring in some fresh flowers. That's more or less how I see the cycle of renewing ourselves inside and out. It's a constant process and a labor of love. It all starts with being aware or ourselves physically and emotionally.

Three Illustrations from Fifteen Years Ago.

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I painted these three illustrations fifteen years ago. They were intended to be in a children's book, in Cuba. I can't even remember who was the author of the story. But I do remember that the story was about 6 (or 8?) very special old ladies. Each one of them carried an umbrella in a different color and each one had a particular talent. 

The first lady (on the top) was a dreamer, the second was a gardener and the third was a story teller. I can't remember what the other ladies were, my job got stopped in illustration number 3. The project never got completed, I think that for budget reasons or something like that. But I am so glad that I kept this work. These images make me happy. If you take a second to look at them in detail, you will find lots of funny little characters. My favorite is the cactus head with a big nose and a flower on his ear. He's in the garden illustration, next to the tree on the right upper side. I also love the flower with a long tongue and the ice cream (first picture). Oh! I forgot to say that the old ladies were all sisters.

(Regarding my new blog, it's almost ready. I will launch it this very month. Many of the guesses in the previous post were really close. One is practically 100% right. Thank you for playing along! It has been lots of fun!)

Can You Guess?

For a few years now I have been working on a new blog. There is only one person who knows what that blog is about. I told her a couple of years ago but only now is when I'm finally close to finishing it. I have been extremely excited about this new creation. I promise that it's going to be super nice. Now, let's have fun with a little question game:

Can you guess what that new new blog is about?

 

:)

Books.

I didn't get to own books when I was little because my parents could't afford them. But also, to be honest, because they had no clue about how important books were for children. Dad never went to school and Mom attended school only until the 3rd grade.

 

Fortunately, curiosity guided me to books anyway. My appreciation for them grew even more as a teenager, when I fell in love with our public library in Holguin. I can still close my eyes and remember the smell of paper and wood in that beautiful place. It was a nice building with elegant wooden carved furniture and marble columns.  

 

How intimidated I used to be about the very idea of walking into our public library. It was such a foreign world to me. I had to wait for a long time before I felt strong enough to open the door and get inside the building.

 

I remember the day when I finally entered that world and came out with an official library card with my name on it. I felt so proud of myself. It was as if I had just become a member of some important organization.

Sometimes books are taken for granted in developed countries. But in places where they're not available or hard to find, books are like gold. Now I have my own personal library with tons of books. Each one is important to me and each one has taught me something different. I'm eternally grateful to Johannes Gutenberg for starting the printing revolution back in time. We're now in the middle of the digital revolution, which I deeply appreciate as well, otherwise I wouldn't be able to be in touch with you via this blog. I just hope that both worlds: the printing world and digital one can find a way to coexist in peace forever.

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