Hello,
Two weeks ago I was  invited to meet with a multicultural women's group. Today I met with six young women from six different countries.  Daniela from Germany, Nathaly from Venezuela, Monica from Brasil, Wen from Taiwan, Michele from France and Sophie from China. They were lovely.
They meet twice a month on Thursdays in a coffee shop on West Broadway. They just finished their ESL baking and cooking project and now they decided to keep continue meeting just to talk and have a coffee together. 
I felt confortable with my english and sometime I spoke spanish with Nathaly, which was very very nice.
I am looking forward to meeting them again and to know more things about them.

PS: Thanks Stephanie for introducing me to this group. I hope to see you soon.

Hello,
Yesterday I went back to The Holy Family Parish. I have a small project.
 I have to gild some parts of an oak pew for the church, to be exact, the corners of the 8 legs and the 4 crossbeams  of the back.
As the piece has a varnish finish, I must apply the gold leaf 22 Kt. with mordant gilding, it's the simplest and easiest method. I use a water-base size, it's a type of glue with adhesive qualities for application of gold leaf over a varnished wood.
If you look at "Gilding" section of my web site, you can see my gilding work in this Church.

At the same time I continue working in my icone, I already drew the icone on the gesso surface but I havn't chosen yet the drawing of golden backgroundand, I have many ideas I have many beautiful patterns of antique fabrics, and it's difficult to choose one.
To be continued.....

Hello,
after almost one month without writing anything, the other day I promised to post some interesting things about my wonderful trip to Spain for Christmas time. 

Today I would like to show my new project. I am doing a large icon of Saint Nicholas. 
Saint Nicholas was a historic figure, a Christian bishop who lived in Myra what is now Turkey in the 4th century A.D. 

I brought the old board from Madrid, it's an interesting piece with a shape curved at the top, and the surface for painting it's not flat, it's curved.
My mother gave me a few images of icons of Saint Nicolas, I have to choose one.  
I really like the image in white and black but I must to look for the colours I don’t think it will be difficult.