Porto is a city with pure soul. A nostalgic city with pride and simplicity. It is an emotion that we feel when we mention Porto, who is born and lives with us, who enchants us with his magic, which creates dreams and illusions, which makes us fly to unimaginable places. And so Porto is a mixture of dream and reality. It was this environment that I wanted to convey in a general way, in all my illustration. Oporto is the city that gave the name to Portugal, when it was still called Portus Cale. Later it became the capital of the Portucalense County. I represented this point through the crown in the human element. The Douro River separates the city of Porto from its neighboring city Gaia. It is a mirrored river where the rabel boats loaded with wine glide over there and dock at the city pier. To connect one city to another we have several bridges of great tourist interest. I tried to represent the river through the line in the center of the illustration, which takes the boats in their waves and where a bridge appears to connect. On the bank of this river we find a chaos of tiled streets and open roofs forming a staircase of dwellings. All these rooms are characterized by their windows. Distinct element of other cities. They are all accompanied by the spreads: long yarns full of clothes to dry. It becomes fun to walk the streets, look at the sky and see "the flags" to dry. Often, in lower windows we really have to step aside not to wear the clothes on our faces. I represented this part in the illustration by basing myself on the river line and adding the elements of the houses. The river line also represents the strands of the stall with the underwear to dry. I used the briefs to represent clothing in general, just to make this illustration a little more comical. Over a starry sky, there is a deafening noise. They are the rockets of St. John, patron of the city. In the distance we see colorful dots mixed with stars, close to the saojoaninos balloons take shape, make us wonder why countries will fly and where they will stop, thus taking part of the tradition of our city. Thus is represented the balloon which appears in the illustration, the starry sky, and all the larger spots in the sky. The larger balloon is attached to a thread, secured by the character's hand. With this, and returning to the meaning of the thread explained above, I wanted to imply that the balloon is connected to the city and tradition, to the people of the earth. Porto is not only the cosmopolitan and busy city we usually enjoy. It also gives us green spaces where we can relax, raise our imagination, read a good book ... I have identified this calmness through the organized elements and the vegetation around the image. Lastly I added some doves. The doves are well-known animals throughout this city of Portuense. They are loved and nurtured by certain people and hated by others. They are part of the city tour. I put all of this ideas in this silkscreen notebooks and stitched tote bags.
Project I - ESAD, 2018 | Teacher - Evelina Oliveira | Illustrations - Catarina Vieira
