Standing on the beach of the Sea of Cortez, I saw dorado swimming in the waves.  I'm starting to understand acrylics and eagerly look forward to new ideas and the next painting.  I take a break and go cross country skiing as winter continues to get along but feel as if my toes are buried in the warm sands of the beach as I imagine the sun setting in the tropics of my mind.

 It has been a pleasure although a challenging one, to work in acrylics to express my ideas.  After an inspiring trip to the Sea of Cortez  after the dreary taking a break from the grey of winter in the North.  I think I understand why Mexican art is so colorful.  It must be the light at the Tropic of Cancer.  I look forward to spending more time there to discover why else the house are so colorful and the culture is as spicy as its food.

Sea of Cortez, 12x24, acrylic, Available, email; gcaudell@msn.com

Working with acrylics has been daunting although once I've found the right process I'm excited to pursue more work.  It has it's detractions but it has attributes that oils don't allow.  I especially like how fast it dries so one can proceed with the next part of the process.  It's also less toxic than oils and their solvents.  Something that is problematic in the closed space of my studio, even with an exhaust fan.  I like large washes to achieve effects although I like working impasto en plein air, I have yet to develop a good impasto technique in acrylics but have alot of exploration to do with achieving new effects with acrylic mediums.

My 50 year reluctance to using acrylics has been a dedication to the heritage of art history bias that "important" paintings are oil paintings.  I see now how rediculous that prejudice is especially with the advent of digital art, something like how the artists of the 1800's felt about painting when photography came along.  Today there is a question whether digital art is art.  Of course it is, art is the expression of ideas by mark making.  I doesn't matter if that mark was made by a stone age artist or a person or machine using "code" to generate an image.  Fear of change is fatal.

 San Jose del Cabo, Baja California and the Sea of Cortez otherwise know as the Gulf of California.  The resort Meca of Baja.  Extrordinary disparity between the have and have nots.  One dependent on the other, both in a landscape of sun and the fecudity of the Sea of Cortez, that the famous marine explorer, Jacque Cousteau called the Aqarium of the World.  

As winter buries us in snow and cold we seek the opportunity to re-charge solar selves under the sun at the Tropic of Cancer.  As John Steinbeck wrote in his "Log of the Sea of Cortez", the desert is only a footnote to the Sea of Cortez".  A place that still seems to be full of life despite the assault open Earth's habitats.  Although the fishery may be smaller and pearls no longer the treasure locked along the shore by oysters, there is still an admrable spectrum of wildlife both marine and avian.  Whales and manta rays swim with pelagic fish and frigate birds, pellicans and fish hawks.  I'm sure the desert has it's features but the ocean compels my interest.

Wandering the tourist part of San Jose one finds the typical merch one would anywhere in Mexico's resort towns.  I did find the central palaza which was an energized community event where local families, artists and musicians played off of one another.  

                         

Fishermen that we are, we scored a trip with Captan Allehandro and young deckhand Christian who put us on Dorado.  A delicious fish that is milder than tuna but the same flavor.  A new favorite.  After catching 4 of them we went searching for Marlin without success.  Winter is less successful than fishing in the summer but far more pleasant than summer temperatures of 100+ degrees.  We enjoyed a pleasant 80 degrees and slept outside under the stars in the cool off shore breezes. 

I look forward to going back and make it my own happy place.  Not a difficult task as there will be much fishing and new paintings.  One goal will be to learn enough Spanish to get to know the locals.

Vayacon dios me amigos and amiga.