Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Colorful Guatemala - an Artist's dream adventure

I met this little lady on one of the two main streets of Panajachel, Guatemala the day I arrived. I went to Guatemala with Flying Colors Art Workshops to be a student in Don Andrews AWS, NWS Watercolor Workshop last month. I had taken a workshop from Don over 20 years ago at Asilamar and enjoyed it so much I promised myself I would take another workshop from him someday when he was going somewhere exotic to teach. So this was it.
Guatemala is so colorful! The main form of transport between villages is recycled American school buses but the Guatemalan's give them their own colorful look. Each one is painted different, chrome polished to shine, and often decorated with neon signs and flashing lights.
Young Mayan women at the market in Chichicastenango selecting dyed yarn for textiles they will weave using backstrap looms.

Antigua was once the capital of Guatemala. Many colonial buildings now in ruins, from a great earth quake, still exist. This one seems to be a colonial structure but the designs carved on it look Mayan to me. Interesting.
I found the Mayan culture fascinating. This "laundry" has been used for centuries, and like laundry mats I have used in other countries, it seems to be the town center for gossip.
Here is my painting I did in my watercolor journal of the Laundry Ladies of Antigua.
Don and his wonderful painting of a street scene in Antigua. Don is an excellent instructor, loads of fun too, I strongly recommend his watercolor workshops. Johanna of Flying Colors made the trip easy and fun and we are talking about doing a workshop in Guatemala for my students and I soon. I enjoyed traveling with everyone in the group, and hope you all arrived home safely.

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