Los Mercados de Mexico

Sometimes when I want to sketch a lively scene I head to the markets, the hub of every Mexican city. It can be overwhelming to try to capture the bustle of people, colors, and chaos of the marketplace, so sometimes I focus in on details and vignettes. Here are a few samples from the past several years.

This market stall in Pátzcuaro sell everything from mops to garlic

A flower seller at the indoor market in San Miguel de Allende

You can find anything you want at the Tuesday "Tianguis" market in San Miguel

Fresh fish at the Tuesday market in San Miguel

The view from my lunch at the San Juan de Dios market in San Miguel

Scraping the spines from the prickly pear (Nopal) is a common scene in any Mexican market

Living the Sketchy Life in Mexico

Recently the Mexico Daily News featured an article on my urban sketching adventures in Mexico.  Although I don't entirely agree with many of the ways the writer interpreted my ideas on urban sketching it was nice to get a bit of publicity. Here are a few out takes:

Artist and teacher Susan Dorf has been drawing daily life in Mexico for a decade....For Dorf, sketching is a way to both be part of the action of a scene and yet keep a kind of journalist’s distance, allowing sketchers to be both participant and archivist. And if you think that after years of teaching and creating, sketching would lose this transformative force, Dorf insists that the experience is always fresh, no matter what the scene. And here is link to the article.

  

Vistas de San Miguel Book Flip Through

Here is a flip through of my bilingual book, Vistas de San Miguel, a Sketchbook.

10 years of sketching places and events in the streets of San Miguel de Allende,

now available on amazon.

Artesanos de Michoacán

Michoacán is well know for its master artisans. 

Here are a few sketches of some of the ones I have visited over the past few years.

Jaime Horta from Tocuaro carves delightful animals from wood and the reeds of lake Patzcuaro.

Felipe Horta is a master award winning mask carver from Tocuaro

At Taller Ahuanda in Santa Fe de la Laguna Nicolas Fabián and his wife Rosario
produce beautiful hand carved ceramics

Juan Valencia Villalobos produces intricately carved Maque
on wood and gourds painted with hand made pigments

The village of Ihuatzio is famous for baskets, animals, and furniture
made from the local reeds called Chuspata.

Sketching the Pandemic

               Some Sketches from the past few years during Covid-19 Pandemic

Cubrebocas

Ice Cream Break

Lining up for Las Vacunas

Social Distancing at the Mercado

Tree Removal Protests in San Miguel

Sketches from the passionate protests against the removal of 41 trees from Avenida Guadalupe
in San Miguel de Allende by the local municipal government.

Many children actively participating in the protest

The crowd urging the driver to step down.

Trees being lifted out of the ground

Machinery, police and protesters at a temporary standstill

People have been told the 22 year old trees will be transplanted, but no one believes it

                 

Today I went to say goodbye to the trees.

There were only a few left standing, adorned with ribbons and signs.

It was strange not to see anyone else there.

No protesters, no children.

Only the police and the workers with their machines,

and the people in the market passing by.

Hoy fui a despedirme de los árboles.

Solo quedaban unos pocos en pie, adornados con cintas y letreros.

Era extraño no ver a nadie más allí.

Sin manifestantes, sin niños.

Solo la policia y los trabajadores con sus maquinas

y la gente del mercado pasando.

The Art of Conversation

I love sketching people, and especially enjoy capturing the interactions between people in conversation. For one thing, they are usually holding still, and there is also the challenge of capturing the nuances of body language and gesture. The tilt of a head or position of the hands can often say more than words about the relationships between people.

Nothing like meeting up with a good friend at a local café in San Miguel and catch up over drinks.

At the beach in Oaxaca these hipsters were conversing long and hard about deep and meaningful topics. 

Our local urban sketching group meeting up at a rooftop restaurant to sketch and chat.

At the bus station this couple argue over maps and schedules while the daughter looks on.

This couple sat down across from me at a coffeehouse.  They don’t seem to be conversing, but the woman is actually issuing a loud running commentary on the news she is reading from her phone. The husband is obviously used to tuning her out. I think my dislike for them came out in the way I sketched them.

Choice and Chance- Sketching over Collage

I have always loved making mixed media collages and have been wondering how to incorporate them into my sketches. I decided to just randomly glue down pieces of different papers I have been collecting over the years onto my sketchbook pages and see where it would lead.

Some of the collage papers I used include various Japanese rice papers, printed papers from India, and photocopies of my own line patterns and text. and torn papers of watercolor washes.

I glued them to the paper with acrylic gel medium.

Part of the joy of this process is the chance way the sketching interacts with the paper background with lost and found edges, layering of lines and shapes, and randomness of how it all comes together in an unexpected way.

In these pages I used ink, white markers, watercolor and watercolor pencils.

This is a great exercise in incorporating choice and chance into a page, 

and a good way to let go and take a few risks.

***

View from my Capuchino

On cool winter days days we are always 

in search of good hot coffee in San Miguel.

Fortunately there are lots of options-

Under the orange trees at Sacrista Cafe in San Miguel

At the new Silverio Rooftop Bar

At PANIO in San Miguel de Allende- with irresistible chocolate muffin on the side

At the Cafe Buen Dia in San Miguel de Allende

Sketching the Patzcuaro Parade

The day after teaching my Sketching Patzcuaro workshop turned out to be the the birthday celebration for the town- costumed dancers, charros on horseback, and indigenous Purepecha music paraded through the streets and plazas.

Danza de los Ambakatis

Preparing for the parade- danza de los Kurpites

Musicos con Toro

Why I love to sketch in public

New amigas

Unfolding Images- Playing with the mini concertina sketchbook

I have always loved handmade books- even as a child when I would staple together sheets of typing paper and fill them with drawings and writing. These mini concertina booklets, or accordian books, are made from strips of drawing or watercolor paper and force me to look at the environment in a different way, incorporating multi faceted views, searching for repeated shapes and forms, and finding ways to unify the piece through line and color.

Concertina of the Jardin in San Miguel

Mini concertina on watercolor wash of a courtyard in San Miguel

Multi view mini concertina of my neighborhood

Sketching Mexico's NationalTattoo Festival

Sketching at the En Tinta La Piel Art Tattoo Fest yesterday at the conference center in San Miguel, where Mexico's finest tattoo artists were busy adorning bodies with incredibly imaginative designs.
The perfect setting to sketch people sitting still.
Each person had a story to tell about the images they were choosing to adorn themselves with, and chose their artists carefully after perusing the many portfolios of styles.

Dia Internacional de La Mujer!

Celebrating International Women's Day with a few sketches from the past few years in Mexico.

The Art of Waiting

As a person who suffers from perpetual impatience, sketching has saved me from losing my mind while being forced to wait in countless airports, bus stations, restaurants, doctor's waiting rooms, long queues, et cetera, et cetera... 

Now waiting is an opportunity to draw, and the challenge is to make an otherwise tedious environment into an interesting sketch, experimenting with composition, design, and color.  

Three hour unexpected layover at LAX

A hundred ways to draw people on their phones, and one newspaper

Two hour wait at the Mexico City Bus Station

Waiting for lunch at Betty's burgers in Santa Cruz, CA