The other side of the door

Pen&ink and watercolor on A5 Hahnemuhle watercolor journal

All those old doors which have my imagination wondering what’s behind them made me wonder no more. This sketch is the other side of one of those doors. I sat on the steps by the luscious interior gardens looking at the door that leads to outdoors in the street. The color of the flowers cheered me up and the calming silence took me to another reality for some minutes, away from the uncertainty of the one we are all experiencing worldwide.

Hot springs, last time.

This sketch was done last week when we as other people were still out enjoying ourselves amid of the virus pandemic. There’s no cases confirmed in San Miguel de Allende as of today according to official sources, but government is cancelling all social and cultural events starting today. This scene of people in public spaces will be the last one I’ll see for  a while.  I’ll hang to it until we can do this again. Take care of yourself.

Exercise. A method to transfer a sketch using watercolor graphite.

This is a continuation of the previous post in this blog. The sketch on top is the first sketch I did, I really liked it, but it has some things that bothered me. I did the sketch directly with pen and ink, there are obvious mistakes, the perspective wasn’t right and I didn’t like the folding of the sketchbook right in the middle of the sketch. I liked the sketch so much that I would make an effort to transfer a corrected one to another sketchbook. 

Here are the steps I did.

1. I made a test. I used watercolor graphite and painted a saturated wash in a piece of paper and let it dry. Then I wrote on it to see how clean the transfer would be. It came out clean. Then I erased the lines to see if it was erasable and it was, this was important since I wanted to retraced with ink over graphite. It looked like the method would work.

2. I traced the original drawing by putting a clean piece of paper on top of the original sketch and traced lightly the basic lines.

3. Then I painted the back of the traced drawing with a saturated watercolor graphite wash, making sure all the  lines of the sketch were covered.

4. I placed the drawing on the blank page with the graphite side facing down. I made sure  the sketch fit and it was centered on the page.

5. I retraced the pencil lines of the sketch applying more pressure to guarantee the transfer.

6. Then I inked the transferred drawing making corrections in the process.

Before erasing graphite lines.

After erasing graphite lines.

7. I erased the graphite lines and some spots here and there and it came out clean! The look I was expecting. Then I worked on details and voila! A new and corrected sketch. And I just found another use for watercolor graphite that I gladly share with you.☺️

The Municipal Presidency

Pen&ink on A5 Hahnemuhle watercolor sketchbook.

The former royal or consistorial house, now the municipal presidency is located in front of the main jardin. The day here is very hot today, but as soon as you cross the foyer the temperature drops instantly around 20 degrees, a quiet and comfortable shelter from the afternoon heat. The building is itself very simple, but I found a table and chairs hidden in a corner where the view had an amazing perspective. 

I carried with me a small sketchbook and a pen only today. This turned out adequate for this site. The white walls and the dark wood beams were almost a monochrome theme except for the columns which were made pink stone somewhere in the middle value. I don’t think the sketch cries to define the columns, the contrast of value and the perspective will do. 

Here is some information about the building displayed in site.

A stairway.

Pen&ink and watercolor on HP Arches watercolor paper 10” x 7”

This stairway is in an old building here in San Miguel de Allende. The facilities were built in 1946 and little has changed since then, I was told. I LOVE the charm of old buildings. Many places are built to look old but in this place you breath old, don’t get me wrong, everything is functional and clean. It was hard to render the old surfaces in paper, the steps and the wall mainly. My approach was to use a mop brush almost dry and drag it randomly on the paper, also I thought some ink dots made with a pen here and there would help for this effect. The bench is made of concrete or perhaps red brick and it’s covered with blue tile. It’s cute but it’s cold if you sit! Ha! This area is quiet and away from crowds. I could easily remember this corner but certainly there’s space for it in my sketchbook.

The flowers of Lupita

Pencil and watercolor on CP watercolor paper 7” x 7”

These are some of the flowers that the cleaning lady Lupita put in our place every week. Since Lupita learned that I was sketching them she started to bring more variety. I didn’t rearranged the flowers, I just sketch them the way she does, she have a good eye. Lupita is a kind soul, I love her, more than I do flowers.

Dolores Hidalgo

Pen&Ink and watercolor on HP Lanaquarelle 10” x 7”

I always wanted to visit the museums in Dolores Hidalgo in the state of Guanajuato. Dolores Hidalgo is just a 35 minute drive from San Miguel de Allende, it is not as popular among expats as San Miguel de Allende. Although Dolores Hidalgo is also known for making traditional and extravagant ice cream flavors, this city is better known nation wide as the city where the Mexican Independence from Spain started in 1810. Everything is about Miguel Hidalgo in the city of Dolores Hidalgo as Ignacio Allende is to the city of San Miguel de Allende, two of the national heroes of the Mexican Independence War. 

We spent the afternoon in the main jardin after visiting two museums, the House of the Father of the Independence Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and the Museum of Independence. There’s a statute at the center of the jardin, it’s a monument to Hidalgo shown in the sketch, also the sketch shows the church in the background where the he started the movement. The afternoon was so beautiful, the jacaranda trees were blooming, vendors selling their snacks and families spending the evening savoring ice cream and chilling on the benches around the jardin, all under the shade of very old trees, on a hot day. Funny that I noticed how street vendors change along the day. Tamale and atole vendors in the morning, ice cream in the afternoons and hamburgers and hot dogs at night. Yeah we ate all.

I included later in the sketch, a typical family passing by, the face of the man carrying the toddler looks upset, but it wasn’t the case, it just came out that way. I used Lamp black paint to make the dark green of the statue and the dark blues of the family, lamp black paint....what a beauty! I’m loving using black paint!

Do you want to know what a extravagant flavor for ice cream is? Take a look! Avocado, shrimp, whiskey, beer, mezcal, tequila, mole sauce, rose petals, garambullo, marzipan, carrot, chicharron, corn, aloe vera, and then some flavors we all know. It was a fun visit to see museums and to taste at least a dozen of ice cream flavors!

Celebrities and pozole at Cenaduria La Alborada

Pen&Ink, watercolor, watercolor graphite and white gel pen on HP Lanaquarelle 10” x 7”

I found a cenaduria where pozole is the specialty, if you don’t know, pozole is a corn and pork based soup which can be eaten as a main dish. The cenaduria is located right in downtown around the block of the main parish. I loved the place because it stills has a genuine old fashion look and ambiance that reminds me of my childhood. The walls of the rooms are decorated with black and white photographs of actors and singers from the Mexican Gold Cinema Era. After dinner, I asked the waiter if I could stay longer and use the table in order to sketch, he nodded with a facial expression saying “what’s wrong with you, you are a client and you can stay all the time you wish”.
Adding people to the sketches as part of the composition is always advisable but in this case the people would be the celebrities on the wall. I drew the photos with watercolor graphite, this was an excellent media to reach easily the multiple values in the photos. I had to apply a wash of watercolor over the graphite to prevent possible graphite stains on the opposite page of my sketchbook.
For those who were raised in Mexico and Latin America, here’s the list of celebrities on the walls from top to right:
Left wall: Cantinflas, Maria Felix, Jose Alfredo Jimenez and Pedro Armendariz.
Front wall: Maria Felix, Tongolele&Tintan, Agustin Lara&Maria Felix, Pedro Armendariz, Dolores del Rio, Cantinflas, Emilio el Indio Fernandez and Sara Garcia.

A had wonderful dinner.