When Fernanda Lamelas travels, she tends to disappear. We’ll find her in a quiet corner seeing beauty that often goes unnoticed. Trained as an architect, Lamelas became an avid watercolorist who carries her paints everywhere. Her brushes dance on white paper, making the paints flow with precision and grace. It looks easy, but it takes a lifetime of observation to choose which lines to draw, which contours to omit.

Fernanda accumulated a large collection of sketchbooks filled with drawings from her travels. But they lied in a quiet corner gathering dust. Seeking to infuse life into these sketchbooks, Fernanda used the drawing of an architectural motif from the Carmo Convent in Lisbon to make a silk scarf. The scarf received so much praise that Fernanda felt encouraged to produce more designs. And so details from Rossio in Lisbon, the Serralves Foundation in Oporto, the Pena Palace in Sintra and from many other places came alive on canvases made of silk.

If you’re looking for a memento of a blissful vacation in Portugal, it’s hard to find anything more elegant than a Lamelas scarf.

Click here for the website of Fernanda Lamelas Arts.