O Meu Brasil

Our latest ATC challenge was to choose a country - well and good - and then to try and create something that country meant to us - on something the size of a playing card! To make matters more difficult for myself, I chose Brazil - a country very dear to my heart. The thing is, Brazil is HUGE! And not only geographically! It is rich culturally, environmentally, historically, and so many other 'ally's you can think of!

I managed to narrow down (so I thought) my subject matter to a place called the Pelourinho, in Salvador, Bahia. You can do you own googling if you'd like to know more - I don't want to spring a history lesson on any unsuspecting reader! Suffice to say, the name "pelourinho" comes from the Portuguese for "pillory", or whipping post. It is the historical centre of Salvador, where slaves were punished for any number of supposed offences. Slaves were bought into Brazil (slavery ended officially in Brazil in 1888) to work on plantations, mainly sugar, but I have chosen to represent cacao on my cards (because chocolate is - she pauses to think of suitable adjective and comes up hopelessly short - chocolate. Why wouldn't you choose it? If you wouldn't, I will probably still like you, just not understand you so well :)

The Pelourinho was restored in 1993 (and again in 2007) largely due to Paul Simon, and has featured in video clips for Michael Jackson.It is a fascinating and vibrant area filled with fascinating and vibrant people. Some elements of which I have tried to incorporate in my cards, yet which did not photograph particularly well. In particular, I tried to include elements of the 'Baiana', the strong female leader associated with all things Baiana (from Bahia). She is always wearing the most seemingly outrageous head dresses and dresses, swathed in white lace or cottons and strings of beads. There are plenty of personal interpretations, and they are always to be seen at carnivals (especially Catholic feast days, particularly the Lavagem do Bonfim) and festivals and parades, or even on streets beaches selling acarajé, which I LOVE and miss desperately! Have to go back....! That is a long way of saying, the lace and beads are to represent them!

So, in the back ground, I have added a distressed image of young Baianas, which are too dark to photograph well. Then I have added a chocolate foil (tinted with alcohol inks) that has images of the cacao fruit on them. On top of that are the lace and bead string.

At the bottom of the card, I have tried, unsuccessfully I think! to capture a bit of the historical architecture of the Pelô. I used texture paste on a 12x12 piece of cardstock to 'shape' the houses that are juxtaposed on top of each other as if they crept closer together as the years went by. Fanciful? Yes! But I love the jumbled feeling of the Pelô. I used a couple of paintings I bought back (I had to have them!) as a reference for colour and style.  I then painted the texture paste with gesso and water colours, and attempted to mark in windows and doors and the distinctive terracotta roof tiles with an acrylic pen, which looked fine on a larger scale sheet, but lost a lot when cut down to size.

A painting of the Pelourinho 

Buildings in the Pelourinho with dancing 'Baiana's 

So I cannot say with conviction that I managed to capture much of the magic of Salvador - good thing I am not on their tourism board! But I highly recommend you visit - and go to Carnival there! I think to make up for my feeling I had done Brazil an injustice, I made brigadeiro as a consolation. I think that was the right decision!