LELE DOLL AND THE TULIPS, HOUSE PORTRAITS AND ANOTHER YEAR TO CELEBRATE

 Hello! I am so excited to present my new oil painting, I have been working with a Lele doll this time and I am very happy with the result.

LELE AND THE TULIPS

For a long time, Mexican art has been strongly associated with the image of death: catrinas, altars, skeletons... beautiful and profound symbols, but also very recurrent.I have decided to focus my art on another equally powerful, but less explored symbol: the Mexican Lele dolls.

For me, they represent what is alive: childhood, joy, the indigenous roots that continue to breathe, create, and resist. Each Lele is a song of colors, a flower that never withers, an expression of tenderness and strength that lives on in the hands of our artisans.

Painting them is a way of saying: "Here we are, we are still alive, we continue to create beauty from the everyday."

I choose to portray these dolls not only as cultural symbols, but as a reminder that our Mexican identity is also woven with love, play, hope, and community.

Lele: A Living Symbol of Light and Roots

In this work, I decided to depict the Lele doll, a figure deeply rooted in Otomi culture and recognized as an emblem of Mexican folk art. Originally from Amealco, Querétaro, the Lele doll—whose name means "baby" in Otomi—is much more than a toy: it is a living heritage, handmade by Indigenous women who transmit with each stitch the memory of their ancestors, their worldview, and their connection to the land.

While many artists are inspired by catrinas—which are also part of our cultural richness—I felt the call to go in another direction: to portray what lives on.

For me, Lele represents sweetness, feminine strength, innocence, indigenous identity, and the pure joy that reminds us who we are.

She is a symbol of life, color, and hope. Instead of focusing on the symbols of death, I decided to celebrate what flourishes, what grows, what heals.

Painting her is a way to elevate energy, to connect with the sacred in everyday life, and to honor our roots from a softer, brighter, and more spiritual place. I want this painting to be a reminder that the beauty of Mexico lies not only in its legends of the afterlife, but also in its hands that create, in its colors that heal, and in its dolls that tell stories of love, resilience, and joy.

Between life and death: I choose to paint what flourishes

In Mexican art, death has always been a powerful and beautiful presence. Catrinas, calaveras, altars... they teach us to honor what was, to remember with love, and to laugh at death.

But on my artistic journey, I felt the call to go in another direction: the life that still breathes.

I choose to paint Lele, the Otomi doll, not only as a cultural figure, but as a symbol of what lives on in our roots. Lele represents childhood, community, feminine wisdom, and the vibrant soul of our Indigenous peoples.

While the catrina honors those who are no longer with us, Lele reminds us of those who still struggle, create, laugh, and embroider their history with vivid colors.

While the art of death has an undeniable symbolic and poetic depth, Otomi art offers a more luminous vibration, focused on what flourishes, what endures, what continues to beat.

By choosing to paint Lele dolls and other manifestations of this culture, I honor life here and now, the living heritage of our people, and the spiritual strength manifested in simplicity, color, and love.

While the catrina honors those who are no longer with us, Lele reminds us of those who still fight, create, laugh, and embroider their history with vivid colors.

Both are part of Mexico. But today, I choose to focus my brush on tenderness, hope, and colors that heal and uplift.

To paint a Lele is to pay homage not to death, but to the life that persists. To the hands that create it. To the culture that endures.

It is an act of love, a prayer of light, a vibration that invites us to see the everyday as something sacred.

I chose to paint tulips even though they're not typical Mexican flowers because they're a part of my life in Missouri. Every spring I see them bloom in my garden, right in front of the window, and for me they've become a symbol of rebirth and connection to my present. By placing them next to the Lele doll, I wanted to unite my Mexican roots with the beauty of what surrounds me.

You can buy this piece  HERE

CHANGING OF SUBJECT....

I have started to make house portraits as I find this very creative. How many of us can remind the house of our childhood or our fist home? Well, now I am happy to recreate in paper that special place and you can request yours. HERE

This month so far has been amazing, I have celebrated myself for another year and I made the most delicious lemon cake ever! I promise I will share the recipe next time with proper photos, so far here some favorite pictures.

TO SEE: You can't miss the video about LELE and the tulips, where you can see all about it. It's in spanish but you can turn the subtitles on.

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: THE IMPRESSIONISTS PT2

 Let's talk about Impressionism…

Shop Girls, c. 1912 by Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones. 🤍

I love the rapid, open brushwork, especially when you can see the things that have no detail but it's just our own eyes who create this, also the effects of light and atmosphere it's so beautiful.

In the Sea, 1883 by Arnold Böcklin. 🧜‍♀️ I interpret themes from Classical mythology in an idiosyncratic, I love the combination of earthy and fantastical realism. Mermaids and tritons frolic in the water with a lusty energy and abandon verging on coarseness. I really hope to see more paintings from this artist because they are haunting.

Pardon in Brittany, 1896 by Gaston La Touche. 🕯️

The canvas, depicting people gathered in a religious ceremony, a pilgrimage of penance, under a blush-colored sky. The lights of candles flicker among their white bonnets, like stars twinkling over a blanket of snow. This piece took my attention because the lights, I feel like if I were the painter I would feel so uncomfortable by not finding sense to the figures, but as a viewer, I can totally understand it.

Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890–91 by Claude Monet ✨

The monumental stacks that Claude Monet depicted in his series Stacks of Wheat rose fifteen to twenty feet and stood just outside the artist's farmhouse at Giverny. Through 1890 and 1891, he worked on this series both in the field, painting simultaneously at several easels, and in the studio, refining pictorial harmonies during winter time and I love despite being almost the same image, each time because the light of the day, they all look different. watching his painting it's really emotional, there is some kind of halo or glow that seems to go out of the painting. The colors look absolutely amazing, almost like pastel neons.

Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1901 🇬🇧

Beginning in September 1899, Claude Monet made almost one hundred paintings of the river Thames in London. These works show only three different views—Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, both painted from the Savoy Hotel; and the Houses of Parliament, painted from Saint Thomas's Hospital. In the smoggy, industrial city, Monet challenged himself to capture effects of light seen through a dense atmospheric screen.

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: THE IMPRESSIONISTS.

 HELLO AND WELCOME!

Has been a month full of art, SO MUCH ART! and I want to keep sharing this time my favorite paintings from the Institute of Art in Chicago.

Another haul, now with the Impressionists. 🖼️ 🎨

Fruits of the Midi, 1881 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 🍆

Renoir’s style in this piece is described as an attempt to balance the fleeting luminosity of Impressionism with classical pictorial structure. He emphasizes the three-dimensional shape of the objects through strong contours and diagonal brushstrokes. Personally I like the eggplant and the visible direction of the brushstrokes from the tablecloth.

The Basket of Apples, c. 1893 by Paul Cezanne. 🍏 🍎

Paul Cézanne once claimed, is “a harmony running parallel to nature,” not an imitation of nature. In his quest for underlying structure and composition, he recognized that the artist is not bound to represent real objects in real space. Thus, The Basket of Apples contains one of his signature tilted tables, an impossible rectangle with no right angles.

Then a painting from 1877, The lozenge-shaped pattern of the wallpaper identifies the setting for this still life as the Paris apartment where Paul Cezanne and his family lived.

Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples, 1887 by Van Gogh. 🍇 🍋 🍐 🍎

Here I have explored the use of complementary colors—yellow and purple, blue and orange, and red and green—in the service of chromatic intensity and I love the brushwork which as part of his signature it’s hard not to identify.

Apples and Grapes, 1880 by Claude Monet 🍎 🍇

We can see the play of light on the horizontal brushstrokes that folds in the tablecloth. I like how the light follows the direction of the texture for the tablecloth.

Chrysanthemums, 1881–82 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 🌼

“I just let my brain rest when I paint flowers,” Pierre-Auguste Renoir remarked. "I don't experience the same tension as I do when confronted by the model. When I am painting flowers, I establish the tones, I study the values carefully without worrying about losing the picture. I don't dare do this with a figure piece for fear of ruining it."

I think it looks so messy like if every brushstroke were a petal, even the background or the table, but that's the magic of this work.