Once Upon A Monday in Mexico

As we gathered around the table for breakfast on the Monday morning, we were delighted to discover that Judy Wise had gifted us each with a hand-painted face she had created, which she had randomly tucked under each placemat.

This pretty woman came home with me:

We couldn't wait to take pictures of the group of faces together, and experimented with different display ideas:

Then it was time to make some art of our own.  Our Monday workshop was led by Katie Kendrick, who started us working on triptychs (a piece of art comprised of 3 panels, 2 of which fold open to show the 3rd).  Here she is showing us the beautiful one she made:

Here are some pictures of my fellow artists in creation mode (click on their names to visit their websites and/or blogs, some of them are woefully out of date but several have been blogging about our trip!):

Bonnie

Rebecca

Ann

Sherri

Kathie and me

Judy

Alexis and Jeanne

Paula and Mary

Karen and Judy

Paint was on the menu, in every colour of the rainbow.

Rose petals floated in the fountain while we worked.

We Remember 2013

Tonight is our November Journal Junkies meeting at Bizzy B.  The scheduled theme was "suffering".  I can't remember how we picked that one, it seems rather an odd choice for our group, but I hadn't really focused on any ideas for my journal page until we got a reminder email for the meeting that suggested we could also use the theme "memories".  Combined with the date of the meeting on November 11th, I immediately knew exactly what I wanted to do and here is the result:

Please note that the soldier standing by the grave on the left hand page was not drawn by me.  I used an image from the Internet that I found here.  Unfortunately, there is no indication as to whether or not this image was created by the person who posted it there.  It appears to be similar to the image found here (which, as far as I can tell, is available for use for non-commercial purposes) but it has been altered, so I do apologize to the original artist(s) for using his or her work without permission and without proper acknowledgement.  It is not my intention to take credit for this image in any way, I merely collaged it into my journal page for artistic effect.

The same goes for the photograph used on the far left of the page, which was printed from an article about University of Toronto students and alumni who went off to fight in World War I, one of whom was John McCrae, the author of "Flanders Fields", the poem which appears on the right hand page.

The Doors of San Miguel

I read somewhere that there are over 1,000 doors in San Miguel de Allende.  Many of the ones we saw were beautifully carved works of art.  The local woodcarvers are renowned for their skills.  Here are just a few examples:

Saloon doors of El Gato Negro (The Black Cat)

That's Bonnie peeking around the corner!

Some of them had numbers written on them in chalk like this:

I never did find out what these markings meant.  It was probably something mundane like a gas reading but I like to imagine it was some sort of secret code, known only to a few.

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."  John Barrymore

Sunday in San Miguel - The Workshop Begins

Our first day in San Miguel de Allende began with an exercise in sketching the beautiful church that dominates the town square in the Jardin (pronounced "Hardeen"), the heart of the town.

La Parroquia

My sketches of the church itself didn't turn out too well, I was too distracted by all that was going on around us - the excitement of our first day of being in Mexico, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the church bells, the vendors selling hats

baskets

and even balloons!

In the end, I drew Judy as she sketched the clock tower.

After a brief tour around the town square to acquaint us with the location of the bank machine and Starbucks (known worldwide for their coffee and free bathrooms), and our first look at the beautiful architecture that surrounds the Jardin

we returned to the Casa Carmen to continue our art lesson in the courtyard there.

The floor of the courtyard was soon littered with drying canvases, in preparation for tomorrow's lesson.

In the late afternoon, we headed to La Sirena Gorda (the Fat Mermaid), where our bonding really began in earnest.  Deep conversations at each end of the table, interspersed with much laughter and the consumption of Mexican beer and/or their famous ginger margaritas.

Katie and Karen

Happy girls leaving the Fat Mermaid

Afterwards, we headed to a restaurant across the street from Casa Carmen called El Pegaso, for further nibbles and/or dessert.  It was here that the famous cake eating incident took place.  Ann left the table to go the washroom moments before her chocolate cake was brought to the table, only to find it looking like this when she returned:

Ann discovers something wrong with her cake

While she was gone, not one but 3 people scooped bites from her cake, while the rest of us looked on in shock.  The amount of laughing and giggling that transpired after that was legendary.  And with that, as our first day in San Miguel drew to a close, our bonding was complete.

All that was needed was one more peek at that beautiful clock tower and church, all lit up in the night:

Haiku My Heart Like Petals in a Fountain

My memories float,

like petals in a fountain,

adrift in my heart.

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