The End Draws Nigh

A week is a short time to fly to another part of the world, get set up, do some things, do some art, then pack up and leave again. Tomorrow is my last day, so I felt compelled to do a beach painting today. I don’t spend that much time on the beach, but when I do, people sure are friendly. It’s like a big gringo family down here. They have a reverence for the place. People come down decade upon decade. It’s a little tribe of retirees, mostly in camping rigs or sprinter vans. They stay for months at a time, but most leave around this time: Semana Santa, a big holiday in Mexico. The beaches become completely packed with tents. I hear it is quite the week-long fiesta, but it definitely changes the tenor of an otherwise peaceful spot.

Here is the drawing in preparation for the watercolor:

I’ll admit….at first I was bored with the scene. Another beach, with boats, and waves and palm trees and distant mountain. it’s sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m actually not. Despite my lack of inspiration, I went ahead anyway and started the drawing. The proportions were wrong; I had no room for the curve of the beach that I wanted to include, so i erased and started over.

And as the drawing proceeded into the painting, that thing started to happen, where the common scene you have labeled as such starts to come alive with interest. The act of having to assemble it means really having to look, and reconstruct what is there before you. Details and relationships that are usually passed over have to be understood. You ally yourself with what is before you, and it is happy to reveal it’s secrets, but also keeps changing constantly, which keeps you on your toes.

I am sure there at least a thousand decisions that need to be made with each watercolor done. Art is a Series of Corrections I tell my students. And as the painting develops so does the appreciation for the place that I am looking at, and for the people that come here, and their dogs, and Thursday night at JCs, with the same two man band. And all the stories and intrigue and history. The depth of a place is not immediately understood.

It’s like going to a castle…..and saying “that’s a castle!”. But then a tour guide tells you the history of the castle, and it becomes much more than a castle. it becomes an incredibly rich tapestry of stories, which is what every place and every person inherently is: An incredibly rich tapestry of stories.

My last morning here and Reed is off fishing. The sun is full ablaze and the desert alive with bird sound, broken only by the occasional truck passing by on the the road below. There’s a distant radio…the dog shuffles on her sleeping mat and goes back to sleep. Time is different here.

Feliz Samana Santa!!