ESTAMOS DE MANTENIMIENTO 

En estos días, estamos trabajando en nuestra web, ya que creemos que el actual blog, se nos esta quedando pequeño y anticuado. No va a ser un cambio radical, pero si tendremos dos versiones de la pagina (una en ingles y otra en español), para que cada uno lea las noticias en el idioma que prefiera, mejoraremos las galerías, tendremos una zona de tutoriales y alguna sorpresa mas. 

Evidentemente nos es imposible publicar esta semana algunas entradas, como el videotutorial de escultura que se retrasara a la semana que viene. Sentimos mucho la espera.

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These days, we are working on our website, as we believe that the current blog has been getting too small and outdated. It will not be a radical change, but if we have two versions of the page (one in English and one in Spanish), so that each one read the news in your preferred language, we will improve the galleries, we have a tutorial area and some more surprise.

Obviously we can not post this week some entries, such as sculpture videotutorial to be delayed to next week. We apologize for the wait.

Well we are sooooooo tired. We were walking for 6-7 hours each day, our feet has injuries and my backache is back again, but… it’s the last day (tomorrow we wake up and take our first flight of 3) so we’ve to move.

Of course first of all is having breakfast. We are going to a very chic (and expensive) place wich I truly reccomend you, the friend of a farner has a really anazing bakery. I had some french toast and Cris an applepie, both jst made (we had to wait a little).

We went to Metropolitan museum at the morning. Our plannig was to spend a couple of hours just to see the egipcian expo, but the museum was truly amazing so we changed our roadmap to spend there more time so we saw the arms and armors expo too that took all morning.

Then we had lunch in a very small but beautiful italian restaurant in the 83 st between madison aand the 5th, just to give us a cute time as couple

We took the subway to grand central to see it, it’s smaller than I thought but much more beautiful too. Then we went to macy’s to expend the couple of hours we still had shooping.

Looks as not so impressive day but I feel just too much tired to do anymore eheh.

See you soon!

We decided to visit central park this morning. First step after breakfast is to take subway until the 86th to start from there (more or less at the middle of the park)  and walk south, even if at last we walked from coast to coast of the park several times as we moved south doing zig-zag.

Central park is really beautiful, it’s huge big and it’s in an amazing well condition (conservation cost around 86 million dollars each year’ 85% comes from donations). We saw some lakes, a castle, Alice in wonderland sculpture, lot of bridges, the love boats (no we didn’t took one), carrousel, and so many other things. It was wonderfull!

South park ends in the 59th so we walked just a little more to have lunch, seated today, in hooters (58th with the 7th). Chicjen wings was very good and we could rest a little our feet.

Went to 5th avenue to see the plaza hotel…. and we couldn’t as it was plenty of  scaffoldings… again.
In front of it is placed the apple store and we entered for curiosity(for me Apple is just toomuch expensive). Lot of people looking and lot of people working but not so much so we moved to the toy’s store just right there and yeah THIS is an amazing store! I became a child again running from here to there

Moved to tiffanis as it’s the classical stop before trying to see st. Patricks… again we could’t as in has scaffoldings too… even inside! Are you f***ing kidding me?

With our luck top of the rock will be closed too… but not this time

Views from the top are uust incredible. You can see almost all manhattan, and if you look south you can see a very small and ridiculous dot that it’s the liberty statue. Central park looks amazing from there, except for the baseball fields that looks out place.

We spend a while in lego’s store before walkin to times square (i think in the 42th) so in straight line we walked 44 streets, but remember we did it in zig zag…. my feet are noticing that now.

We stopped half an hour with a coffe before having dinner in the bubba gump. Oh yeah, you have to know time’s square corner had scaffoldings too! That’s important.

Dinner was great but we were too much tired at this point so it wasn’t as fun as could be, so we decided to return to hotel and sleep a while.

Ok maybe I should say something about yesterday. We spend day travelling from philadelphia to new york. Yeah I know it’s only one and a half hour by car but we didn’t rented one because taking a plane was just about 20€…. but  maybe another year if we can avoid to take a taxi…
We arrived our hotel around 6.00 pm after a hard flight with so many side wing… for sure not my best trip. And the taxi was even worst. As we had time and we were not so tired we decided to cross walking manhattan fron east to west and see the high line. It was beautiful but weather was very cold and windy. Then we come back to our hotel to sleep after a pizza dinner.

Today we went by subway to south manhattan starting in the zero ground that it’s incredible wonderful, even if it has lot of scaffolding. Then we moved to see trinity church and it’s cementery before come back to give a fast looking to century21 comercial center.
Next stop was the famous bull’s sculpure that was covered by people so it as almost impossible to see so we moved a little more to the south to take the staten island’s ferry to see the liberty statue without stoping in liberty island. It’s a half an hour more or less trip and it’s enought. I spected more from the statue that is quite smaller than it looks in movies :-[

We walked a little to wall street to see the bank schange building, but again all was plenty of scaffolding so it looked not so much impressive for me. Moved to pier 17 comercial center near brookling bridge and again was dissapointing so we eated a hotdog in a park close to it even with the cold weather. Hot dogs was at leas better than I thought, and I like a lot classical american mustard.

Next stop was the  city hall that is so beautiful!… at least the small part without scaffoldings:-!  Let’s try with brookling bridge that al people told us it has incredible views.

We almost crossed walking the bridge and it’s true that it has amazing views when you can look outside the f***ing scaffoldings. Bridge itself will be absolutely a reccomended visit from 2014 on when they finish the works…

We’re a little tired now, we are walking since 9.30am and now are around 5.00pm, we took the subway to the 14th and walked another half an hour till the 18th with the 8th to see a posters store… that was closed we’re the luckiest couple in the world this day I think!

A coffe and a cookie to recover a little and we went to hotel to rest a little before dinner. Now i’m writting from the bed and hope to recover enought to go out to look for a restaurant.

See you tomorrow!

TAXI DRIVERS ARE CRAZY!!! CRAZY!!!!

Saturday is the main show day. It’s a little strange for us as we are used to saturday-sunday contest, but it’s the same if you have some holydays after that.

Day started fine. Wee meet our european-italian group at 9.00 (this time we were not late) to have breakfast at a tipical USA coffee where I had my first pancakes while they order some american tipical breakfast with 3 or more eggs, bacon, sausages, etc… so light.

Went to show to see new pieces as inscription is opened on saturday too. Contest is so diferent as we are used in europe. All people are relaxed, all displays are identificated so you can lok for the atist to speak with hin or her or to buy a miniature if it’s for sale (miniatures for sale are identified by a red dot). Talking about level I just can say hgher level was european, aabut that doen’t mean some Americans haven’t very good level too!

Pieces entered were more or less 800, maybe 900. So it’s not a very big show but it’s not so small as most niniatures were masterworks.

We had lunch at the same show in a hotdogs stand at the enrance. Very good and cheap food for me as I need not so much to eat.

As son as we finished our food people started to bring their miniatures to clean the expo so we did our job too but as alwais we were the last ones to get to the award ceremony. It took not so long to discover that’s a different place. They don’t like or thei’re not so used to competition as could be maybe ¿20? Golds in each category. It’s very different as European contest as Monte San Savino were could be 4-5 golds only. If you are wondering I got 4 golds, just as most people did.

As ceremony finished late and it was our last dinner all together we went to the red lobster (you know i don’t like so much fish or seafood, but my wife loves it and Italians wanted to go at al cost so…)
We had to wait 30 minutes for the tables as we were 16, in that tine we saw some people get ill so we were a little afraid but food was very good so I supose those people just eated much more that they could :-*
I ordered a pasta and chiken dish while my table-mates eat lobster in a record time eheh. I asked Francesco for a Legio pictorum T-shirt so i’m writting here to have a proof that he promished me one!

Finished our contest in the hospitality room having some drinks. From tomorrow on until thursday we’ll be just on hollydays.
Remember i’m using the tablet to write so i can’t download my camera pics to here and it’s a little  more dificult to write on, next week i’ll corect some mistakes and posted the pics.

Have a nice day!

Sleeping first day was easy as we were so tired. Our intention was to have breakfast with Diego and our italian friends but we were late so at last we went both to the hotel buffet alone after send them a message. If you are wondering, yes, american coffe is not good (i’m sorry if you are american and read this but it’s the truth)

We didn’t know were the show is going to be, just that is in the convention center of the hotel, but this is a big hotel-casino, so we spend a while looking around until I found it. By this time our friend had come back from breakfast so we all went together to enter our miniatures.

As we had to wait a little while org finished to set up tables we sit down in some round tables at the entrance to speak and show us our miniatures. There are not so much painters but everyone has a lot of miniatures with them so I think this could be a great expo.

Once we paid the inscription we enter to set up our dispays. People in USA is kindly and try to help a lot in each step but i have to say not all the world have english as first languaje so please if you see i’m not understanding you repeat it slower and easier, not just exactly the same at exactly the same speed!

We wanted to have lunch with our italian friends (who adopted us as part of their comunity as they alwais do), but there is stil some diferences between italians and spaniards so… yeah, we tree (diego was with us this time) were late again so we had lunch alone in the hotel tavern. That’s the problem of being in a hotel that you need car to go everywere, if you are late and loose the car you can’t go .

After lunch we were to show to see it once all people entered their miniatures and to meet people that arrived at last time. Some knowed faces and some new ones. Not so much movement this afternon.

As show closes at early 5.00 we wad enought time to sleep a little befor dinner. This time we are not going to be late!
So we went ti hotel lobby at the right hour and found a large table in the tavern with some guys at the org, our italian friends and some other italians i didn’t knowed in person before as Danilo Cartacci with we had a great conversation with francesco about future plans for monte san savino and the future of fantasy painting.

After dinner we all went to the Joel Glass and Dennis Levy (organizators) hospitality room to have some drinks (man what a whiskey!). And we talked about our future plans as painters and well sone other things less relevants fir a painting blog xD

Near 1.00 was a god moment to stop and went to bed. Yeah I have photos this time but I noticed i can’t download from the camera to tablet so I think I will post a just pics entry when i come back to spain, i’m sorry :-[

Nuestro querido mono novato, Luisete, ha tenido a bien escribir su biografía en la sección “QUIENES SOMOS”. Espero que la disfrutéis.

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Our dear monkey rookie, Luisete, has written his biography in the section, “ABOUT US”. Only in Spanish (sorry). Coming soon in English (I hope)

Hoy quiero hacer una entrada muy especial para mi. Algo que poco tiene que ver con las miniaturas, pero si mucho con la pintura, el arte, la imaginación y el esfuerzo personal y colectivo.

Como muchos ya sabéis, soy maestro de Educación Especial y trabajo en un colegio con niños con necesidades educativas especiales. Un trabajo muy interesante y que me apasiona mucho. Y uno de mis cometidos actuales con estos chicos es un taller de pintura. Un taller que se realiza desde hace ya casi cinco años, pero del que me hice cargo hace tan solo un par de años. Mi compañera predecesora hizo un gran trabajo enseñando la dinámica de trabajo y las técnicas básicas a los chicos; pintando muchísimos cuadros y realizando incluso algunas exposiciones. Y cuando yo llegué al taller, busqué la forma de darle un nuevo enfoque, para que a los chicos les resultase mas divertido aún y apreciasen las infinitas posibilidades que la pintura les ofrecía. De modo que decidimos pintar todas las puertas del colegio! una por una, pintamos las puertas de las aulas, despachos, salas… A veces nos pedían un dibujo concreto y otras veces no lo dejaban a nuestra imaginación. Y cuando acabamos con las puertas… empezamos con las paredes!

Y es que con trabajo en equipo, esfuerzo y pasión, todo el mundo puede hacer arte. Hoy estoy realmente orgulloso de poder compartir el trabajo de estos chicos tan especiales.

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Today I want to write  a post  particularly special to me. Something that has little to do with the miniatures, but much with painting, art, imagination and personal and collective effort.

As many of you know, I’m a Special Education teacher and work in a school with children with special educational needs. An interesting work that I love very much. And one of my current tasks with these kids is a paint workshop. That workshop has been running for almost five years, but which I took as recently as a couple of years. My predecessor did a great job teaching the workflow and basic techniques to the boys; painting many pictures and even doing some exhibitions. And when I got  the workshop, I was looking a way to give a new approach to the kids could more fun and even enjoy the endless possibilities that painting offer. So we decided to paint all the doors of the school! one by one, we painted the doors of classrooms, offices, rooms … Sometimes we specifically asked for a picture and sometimes not left to our imagination. And when the doors were finished … just start with the walls!

And is that with teamwork, effort and passion, anyone can make art. Today I am really happy and proud to share with you  the work of these kids so special.