A New Class Announcement

Before my travels I planned an online face painting class as a result of requests made by my friends in San Miguel. To be honest, this is my dream class; I get to paint my favorite subjects with you guys by my side. If you want to read more about this class, go here and join the party. Meanwhile I'll be filming and editing and making the class really fun for you.

I bought a full set of Politec acrylics while I was in Mexico so I could paint while I was there. I love and don't love them. 

I love the dry, fresco like surface of the paint but they dry so fast that it's like painting with tempera paint. So for me, unable to blend, it was a struggle to paint subtle value changes.

I missed my Golden.

I put Waterlogue on both my iPad and iPhone while I was there and created the following image. 

Then I copied it very loosely in my journal. I got the idea from Jeanne Oliver  and it was fun.

I tried to match the color and values. I was working under artificial lighting and with a limited set of colors (no dark blue or glaze colors) ... still it was informative.

Paint. It always lifts me up.

And then there's the archetype of the madonna. Who can resist trying to capture her?

As well as that, I've always liked to draw bad girls; smokers and bar stool sitters with a black line up the back of their calves from old fashioned nylons. Winking at sailors. Extremes appeal to me.

Ugh. See that tooth? I went to the dentist this morning and found out I have to have my back molar pulled (a molar that I have fought to save with a root canal and a crown and every kind of tooth saving procedure). So pulled. Out. And then an implant put in. I'm writhing just thinking about it.

You should know my life is more than la la la. 

So yeah. Coming home and hitting reality with a thud.

Anyway, that's about all the news for today.

Sending out good wishes to everyone. Be safe and let's all imagine an end to this brutal weather. 

Oaxaca My Heart

We are home from our month in Oaxaca. I bunched up the photos so as not to bore you. Travel photos. Can be boring.

While I was gone we got our final sign up for the Oaxaca Paint pilgrimage in September. Man, that is going to be one awesome experinece. I checked out 4 art supply stores and every food option I could get my mouth around. I have lots of tips to share; lots of ideas for fun.

We met so many wonderful people there. Vicki, Rick, Yvon, Suzanne, Deborah, Pekola, Verena, Kel and Araceli - you are all in our hearts. We had our eyes opened to new, exciting possibilities. The world is so huge and the people in it are so precious. So helpful and generous. So talented. I am humbled.

Food in Oaxaca. You will never be the same. Forget the diet. Forget the "health" food. I ate everything from chicharrons to chapulines, pastries and cheesecakes, beer and helado and came home 2 pounds lighter (John lost 10). Neither of us got any tummy troubles. It was just the walking and sunshine and happiness I think that trimmed us down.

We both spent several hours a day in Spanish language classes. This is my third year of study and while I can make myself understood (to a limited extent) I doubt that I will ever be anything beyond survival level. I will never stop trying to improve, however. For one thing it's fun. For another thing, I love the language and the people who speak it. 

Art and food are two main reasons we love Oaxaca. World class art exhibitions, artists living in the town and in the outlying towns, huge inspiration and mind expanding ideas to grasp. John brought home gorgeous terra cotta pottery made by two sisters from a nearby village. 

Here is a 2 minute film of a terra cotta artist from San Marcos which is to the southeast of Oaxaca.

The women who made the pieces that John brought back had been to Seattle and Portland exhibiting their work; he met them in the Abastos market.

Okay, nice to have a short visit but my taxes, e-mails and snail mail are piled up to my ears. Dentist appointments and other artifacts of 'real life' are on the work list for this week. It's going to take a little time for me to get my sea legs back under me.

Hasta luego until we meet again.