Warm Winter Nights

I have been giving classes in Academia Portucalis since 2007 and, teaching not being a RL activity, I took it as challenge when invited.

My stage fright was not easy to overcome, but blushing on this side of the screen and using written text made it easier and step by step the fright was gone and I am already able to speak in front of an audience without mumbling.

I have been teaching there mostly common Second Life things, like avatar make overs, land and group management, general Q&A sessions. The last mini-course I gave there was about windlight and photography.

And now comes the true reason for this post. I was really overwhelmed with the results obtained. Not only the students kept making clever questions, but did in fact pay a lot of attention to the classes. When asked to do some pictures as homework the results were really amazing. Never knew that teaching could be so rewarding and I am really proud of them.

There is an exhibit of their first works going on in Owl’s Bay Art Gallery which you can see until the end of May. Please drop by any time and check their works (teleport in front of landing point).

Could not end this post without thanking Marga Ferrer and M2Life Paravane for the great work they are doing at the Academia and for making the Portuguese community a bit richer in knowledge within this Second Life of ours.

Leave you a couple of pictures from the classes and the exhibition.

Taken by Marga Ferrer during the class

It was 2 years ago (geezz I’m old!) that I first heard Paisley Beebe in SL. She has this wonderful, clear and warm voice that, even if you aren’t a jazz fan, will make you travel to beautiful worlds.

Later on it came to my knowledge that she hosted this great talk show at SLCN.TV and whenever I could I went there. Being on GMT didn’t make it an easy task though once it is transmitted live on sundays way after midnight.

Two weeks ago I had an e-mail inviting me to be a guest at her show and talk about my latest exhibition (see post bellow). You can’t imagine my face looking at the email and reading it over and over again to make sure I wasn’t wrong, competely chin dropped. Still have to find out who am I to blame for this. Whoever it was a big thank you!

But it was true and after the sound check yesterday with the lovely AutumnFoxx Sutherland (the show Director) I will be interviewed by Paisley on Sunday March 22nd.

The audience must be there at 5:30PM SLT, so if you want to attend please drop me an IM inworld and I will give you the Landmark for the Sutdio.

Meanwhile if you are curious you can see the latest episodes here or visit this site

If you would like to see the exhibition please drop by at Mainland Gallery. The exhibition will still be on until the end of March.

It has been almost a month since I posted here, but I have been really busy in RL and in SL between Hunts and preparing my first exhibition I haven’t had much time left for writing.

Now the hunts have calmed down, so inventory sorting is the next step *sigh

Anyhow, the pictures for the exhibition are now ready and I leave you here the invitation to drop by at the Opening.

This exhibition is born from a challenge made to me by rm Sirbu, after she saw some of my pictures in Flickr and Koinup. I was a bit reluctant at first. In my 2+ years of SL I haven’t been much on Mainland except for some shopping or to get material for blogging, and the idea I had of Mainland was probably the same as yours: lots of clutter and chaos.

I ended up taking the challenge and decided not to go to the recently rezzed sims like the Nautilus but, instead, explore the old Continent and glad I did it.

Starting walking down Route 8 I found gorgeous places along the way, which easily match any private island and I will try to show you some of those places in this exhibition.

The creativity of Second Life residents doesn’t stop to amaze me and I hope that, like me, you will go down the Linden Roads and let yourself be marvelled by lots of lovely spots that emerge at each curve of the way.

rm (Xaraz) and Timo (TD Realty) were kind enough to find me a place for the exhibition and thus the “Mainland Gallery” was born.

Leave you here the taxi and hope to see you there next Tuesday, Feb 24th at 02:00 PM PDT

After all the Christmas goodies is time to go for a stroll to burn all those extra calories. I saw this gorgeous picture of my good friend Looker on Flickr and just had to visit Athan and explore the beauty you could foresee on his pictures.

The island is simply chin dropping. From the cathedral to the small medieval village, lots of nice corners to discover and even the shops are so well blended into the whole landscape and atmosphere, that shopping takes a new meaning.

Leave you with some of the pictures and you can see the rest of it on my Flickr set in high resolution.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And be sure to check under the sea at the bay… you’ll find some great surprises there.

A view of an alley in the medieval village

View of the chapel

View from the landing point

Like I posted here, Koinup launched the Avatar Art Contest in late October. The contest closed on December 3rd and the results were published on saturday.

I rarely check my feeds during the weekends, but on sunday I decided to check Koinup for any new comments on my stream there and I was surprised by a nice comment of Eves Rodenberg, congratulating me for having won.

“What? Me? One of my pictures? Naaa! She must be confused.”

I clicked the blog link and to my complete amazement one of my photos had been selected. I wasn’t expecting it, due to the absolutely stunning pictures that were submitted (you can see them here) and I still feel I didn’t deserve it.

Anyway thank you so much Bettina for having voted for my pic and congratulations to the wonderful people that are my inspiration to do more and better, both with the works they do and the nice comments they leave on my stream.

Koinup is like they state a social network based on user-generated contents. It’s for users who want to share their works with other users. It allows its members to upload their creations and it encourages them to review or comment on other members’ creations. From a general point of view Koinup is similar to other social networks. But it is also unique, because it focuses only on contents created in virtual and synthetic environments as games/mmorpg/3dworld.

I joined the network some time ago and not only have discovered really tallented people, but also made some friends. There is also a showcase with the best places in SL to explore, sellected by the users.

Now they launched a new contest Called Avatar Art Contest. The challenge is to make you avatar look like a painting and you can read the rules here

You can submit your entries from 23rd of October until 3rd of December, so join the community and show to all of us the tallented photographer and photoshoper you are.

Too bad I had already posted the one bellow… I think it could be a good candidate *sigh

Some time ago I came across the Not Possible in RL blog and was immediately hooked by the places they blogged about. When I read this post, I decided to go to Templum ex Obscurum and see the new creation of Baron Grayson. I already had seen some of his work in Intempesta Nox sim on my earlier days in SL and he is IMHO one of the greatest artists in SL.

One of the last things I do before going to bed is to check Flickr for the latest photos published. Yesterday I had a surprise waiting for me. One of my pictures was chosen to be published in their blog (thank you guys!). Don’t know if I deserve it, cause I’m don’t understand a thing about post processing and I just try to take nice pics inworld with the resources available.

Anyway, I leave you here the picture and you can see some more on this set in my FLickr

I came across this post in “Not Possible in RL” blog and just had to check it out.

Chakryn Forest is one of the most beautiful installations I have seen, full of corners, caves and tunnels I didn’t have time to explore, but definitely a place to go back to.

The pictures don’t make it justice so go and see for yourself here. It is chin dropping and I assure it will be worth the visit.

You can find more pictures here and here

All the pictures I have taken are not post-processed and were taken with Torley presets.

Chakryn Forest

Swing amidst the trees

The sun coming through the trees

Tomorrow, May 13th at 02:00PM PDT a new exhibition will open to the public at Galeria LX

“Breaking Taboos” was the title given the authors – Imso Obscure and Elora Lungu. Both of the artists are making photography for some time and this is their first public exhibit.

Hope you can drop by to support these two wonderful people that I have the pleasure to call friends in all the worlds.

At 03:00 PM you can also enjoy the warm singing of Pa Decosta for a half an hour gig he kindly accepted to do for us.

Yesterday I had the honor to celebrate Aggio’s and Katie’s union. When I first met Aggio about 5 months ago he had just arrived to SL but we soon became good friends. I am very happy for him and Katie and wish them a long and blessed journey together. May the Goddess bless you both my friends!! .