Testimonies
Dear Fernanda
We are grateful for guiding us on this inner journey towards Soul and Heart!
The USEMA Meditation Class -2020
In addition to the enormous pleasure it gives me to paint, it also gives me great pleasure to realize that I have become a different person through working with Fernanda das Neves in the “Expansion of Artistic Expression” course. And we also see our friends who were more closed , who did not like to talk about feelings so much , are much more open . The way Fernanda makes us work is magic. It's a very rewarding experience. It fills our soul a lot. It's thirty times better than taking anxiolytics. The evaluation days are very intense. We evaluate our work and so often we have the emotions at the surface, we cry, laugh and hug each other… It's worth putting on the screen everything that comes to us and this is magic. People feel good. It's great . It's three hours in which we surrender ourselves alone.
A few years ago, after having attended the National Society of Fine Arts, I felt the need to see painting with a different approach. As I knew Fernanda, I told her to develop other skills. We formed a group, and we advanced in an interesting and new way of seeing and above all feeling painting through the course “Expansão da Expressão Artística” that Fernanda created for the group. Of course, we had some difficulty in accepting new concepts because our heads were formatted in another way. Nothing else was the same. We learned to put on screen what our feelings told us. It was a fresh start, a wonderful experience. Even today, those who continue in this area paint with a different sense.
The development of creativity, which Fernanda took us to, gave us tools so that, from a blank canvas, we can use our intuition and let's paint without barriers. It was good, it's still very good.
Francisca Seville- 2006/2018
Painting porcelain is quite different from painting feelings. I come from classical porcelain painting. At the beginning of the course "Expansion of Artistic Expression" it was difficult but now it's something that gives me great pleasure to do what I feel makes me very good. Fernanda says that now I even do “tousled” landscapes. It's therapy. It is not always easy to carry the themes that Fernanda gives us to the canvas, but it often just depends on how we feel. Sometimes we paint and then we cry. Painting together is also a very interesting and enjoyable exercise. We have to continue what our colleague started and things have to talk to each other, but what is certain is that things appear. It's really cute! If I can, I will never give up painting.
Anabela Marques - 2016
The objective of Fernanda's ateliers is that each one conveys to the canvas what she feels without worrying about being good or bad. This is what comes out naturally and in this way a tree can be square and the cat has the opposite ear. It's what goes into our soul, it's what we put on the screen and there is no criticism. We can also always go back and change because the day I painted I thought I was fine, the next day I feel other things and I can think that everything is horrible. In these days the painting serves as therapy. already me It happened arriving at the studio very upset and painting everything dark gray and I spent an hour wasting paint. Then Fernanda told me to go wash the canvas and from then on it seemed that I had washed my head from the inside. Then I started again with a different feeling and as Fernanda doesn't criticize, everything goes out without fear. It is this inner journey that Fernanda wants us to make. She taught us that those who do not understand what we paint are because they do not know how to see beyond the obvious and then we began to not worrying about the opinion of others and being ourselves. Fernanda's goal is to make us believe in us. It is a great personal satisfaction. I'm more uninhibited and more relaxed. I am aware that I am not the same person.
Maria Carlos - 2006
Mixing colors and exercising the mind is all about me. I didn't feel at peace because my life as a math teacher lacked something creative. From the moment I started painting I have everything what I need. In the “Expansion of Artistic Expression” workshops I managed to achieve a lot of peace with myself own. In the beginning, painting emotions and feelings costs horrors, but then we start to free ourselves and put everything on the canvas, which also makes us completely exposed. Fernanda makes the fear disappear over time.
Helena Trigo da Roza - 2006
I always liked painting but had never tried painting. I accepted Francisca's invitation because I found it interesting the way the “Expansion of Artistic Expression” course works. When I started in the group I felt that I couldn't convey everything I felt, but as I worked and followed Fernanda's guidelines, I became more relaxed and more uninhibited with me. Whenever I manage to free myself from fear, very interesting things come out. But it is not always easy to transmit to the screen what is going on inside. This is the challenge that Fernanda makes us and this is the bet that excites me in Fernanda's workshops. Another reason that makes me feel good and motivated to come and paint is the great relationship that exists between all of us during the workshops.
While I'm there, I don't think about anything else.
Beatrice - 2006
After three classes I was very surprised with what I was able to do. I am very satisfied. I come from chemistry, teaching for many years and I had never painted. I mix colors, follow Fernanda's guidelines and am amazed with the result because landscapes that are my fascination almost always appear. The experience environment of Fernanda's ateliers is very cute and relaxed, which makes me feel very good, more relaxed and open. I learned a lot and started to have a taste for painting, which was something I didn't know about.
Today I express myself with ease in painting and that makes me feel happy.
Cesaltina Borges-2018
I was born in Lisbon a few years ago, and like all children I have always liked to paint. Nothing definite, concrete. Just scribbles, lines, lines that expressed my thoughts.
Life/Destiny wanted that, “by chance” became aware of the Expansion of Artistic Expression course and the Intuitive Painting workshops of the Painter Fernanda das Neves/Artessência.
In a particularly troubled phase of my life, I decided to fulfill “a long-overdue dream” - Dedicating myself to painting.
For some time and due to Master's sensitivity, her know-how and her way of knowing how to be and how to be, the classes served as an inner refuge. A place where I felt full, at peace with myself and the Universe.
Thanks to your support and the way of transmitting knowledge in an adequate way to my way of being and being, experiences emerged and learning took place, step by step.
In all the apprenticeships that were, there was a change in me. I became more open to the World and Others. Gradually, I became aware of my potential and my limitations. I realized the fears I had, what I needed to develop, learn, TO BECOME MORE AND MORE ME, closer to my Inner Truth, without masks, without subterfuges. Simply I – of what I want/of what I am.
Through painting, the knowledge transmitted and the monitoring carried out, I increased my self-esteem, I learned to like myself, I became happier, more Expansive, more Secure.
Attending this course associated with knowledge and techniques led me to self-knowledge in the most diverse areas of my life. It taught me to see beyond the obvious, to think “outside the box”, to broaden my horizons.
The result is noticeable...says who knows me...
Each student is seen as he is, special and unique. Despite being part of a group, there is particular attention to each one. There are no generalizations, no comparisons. Everyone has their own pace of learning and this is respected without anyone feeling undervalued. There is respect for what each one is and can become. We are encouraged to be more and more, to overcome the challenges posed, but the support and help are there. Nobody feels helpless or alone. To do this learning with Fernanda das Neves is to discover “in itself” a world of countless possibilities. EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE This was my experience.
Filomena Martins - 2018
All my life I dreamed of following Fine Arts! But my path was to stop Accounting and Management!
At 45 years old, I took the Painting course at SNBA!
During my journey, I met and had training in painting, with the painter Fernanda das Neves in her course “Expansão da Expressão Artística”.
It's my Master and every day I appreciate your classes!
I found the feeling, the emotion, the joy, the identity... in painting and in life!
THANK YOU, FERNANDA DAS NEVES!
WELL THERE!
Aida Borges de Castro - 2018
I had the pleasure of having worked in several areas with Fernanda das Neves, sometimes with him as a collaborator in my works, sometimes with me as a collaborator in her works.
In her area of Interior Designer, I collaborated with Fernanda das Neves on important projects where her technical quality, pride, creativity, organization and verticality were always present, giving fantastic work.
In the creative and artistic intervention workshops within training actions for training companies in the area of Management, in which I collaborated advising Fernanda, her conduction in individual and group artworks has always resulted in fantastic transforming moments for everyone.
I collaborated in the project/store of unique pieces OkaObjetosComAlma that Fernanda created as a laboratory for the development of various techniques with different artisans/artists and where her own creations of furniture, rugs and glass pieces were always the high point of the store. This project was a success, having garnered the very gratifying adhesion of countless newly graduated Portuguese artisans and artists and the national and international recognition of the midea
Finally, in the field of painting, she is the author of wonderful paintings, some of them spread all over the world and others in my house.
In your first book “Words of Love and Reconciliation” your deep essence awakened me giving me important “lights” for my personal path.
Working and living with Fernanda's creativity and humor was and is a pleasure that I hope will continue to happen for many more years.
Teresa Cortez -2018/2021
It is with great pleasure that I come to testify that it was with Fernanda das Neves that I developed my dream of painting. A child's dream... It was with her that I realized in painting. With your guidelines in the workshops of “Expansão da Expressão Artística” I created my own style that led me to successfully carry out some exhibitions. It was a period in my life, when I started to retire, that made me feel that I had some talent for painting.
well be there Fernanda
Celeste Ribeiro-2018