Scott and I went for a week to Puerto Vallarta to participate in a painting workshop by Studio Vazquez-Mackay. Painter Mark and his wife Carmen run Studio Vazquez-Mackay tours in Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta.
We booked an early morning flight that went through Vancouver in order to arrive in Puerto Vallarta in the afternoon daylight.
But an almost 3 hour delay because of fog put an end to that plan as we arrived about 7:30 pm and after getting through passport control and customs meant it was well and truly dark before we headed to our hotel.
Once through the airport, we were well looked after. Mark met us and we took an Uber to the hotel so had no problems negotiating our way from the airport. He also found a restaurant still serving food. As it turned out, La Palapa was a restaurant recommended by others and a block and a half from the hotel next to the beach. We returned a number of times over the week. It was not the most economical restaurant but was convenient and the food was consistently good.
Our hotel, Petit Hotel Pilitas, used to be apartments then recently converted to a hotel so the rooms all have either a kitchenette or full kitchen. Ours also had a second bathroom. We had lots of space.
Above is the street the hotel is on. The white domes are the hotel building. It is one block to the beach.
The accommodation was included in the price of the tour but I expect it is reasonably priced especially for the amount of space. There was a small pool and jacuzzi which we never used. The hotel provides lots of cool filtered water and coffee. The side we were on was away from the street and very quiet except for the roosters roaming the neighbourhood who would crow every morning before the sun rose.
The hotel is in the LGBTQ district.
Our first full day started with a Spanish lesson by Carmen. We covered greetings and how to introduce ourselves. Most days we had a beginner Spanish lesson focussing on colour words, pronunciation, numbers, food and phrases we might find useful during our stay.
After Spanish we walked to our painting location.
For the painting, we went to Isla Riva del Cuare where Mark had picked out an area for our group of painters who numbered eight or sometimes nine as the wife of one painter occasionally joined in.
Mark started each painting session by explaining principles or techniques for painting. The first was on composition and then we were off to chose a subject and employ those principles. Most of us were painting in watercolours but one person used oils all week and one painted in both oil and watercolour.
For our lunch break, everyone was on their own. We went to River Cafe, another recommended spot which handily was on the Isla. An egret waded in the river next to the restaurant.
After lunch we resumed painting in the same area of the Isla. Most tried a different subject.
Dinners were on our own but Mark and Carmen invited everyone to go to dinner with them if they wished. They chose a lot of small locally run places which were very inexpensive. The places we went to with them were all very tasty. Many open quite early and some, like taco places, looked to be open through the afternoon and evening.
This tiny place, Panchos, was always busy as there are not many seats but was very popular.
I hardly took any food photos or in general, photos other than our painting spots. This was tortilla soup.
One evening Scott was going to have a light dinner so ordered seafood soup. It was full of so much seafood—half a small crab, half a small lobster, about a dozen shrimp—not so light after all.
On the first evening, after dinner, we met on the hotel terrace to show our work, discuss our thoughts about our own work and offer critiques to each other. Accompanied by wine and snacks, which helps to get over worry about embarrassing yourself, it was fun, informative and interesting to see others’ works.
On the second day of painting, we ventured to the beach nearby the hotel and walked to the end near a rock outcrop.
We had brought folding stools which allowed us to stay in the shade and work. Our objective was to create atmospheric perspective through use of detail and colour intensity.
After our lunch break we had a free afternoon before heading to an early dinner and a night time painting session in the plaza commonly called the mosaic park where various different artists had decorated benches, walls and columns with designs in mosaic tiles.
This was a new challenge to start drawing while it was still daylight then paint in the dark.
The third day we stayed at the hotel and worked from either of the terraces to create perspective as we looked either up to the hills or down to the ocean. We chose ocean.
After another free afternoon, we went to the home and studio of David Aldrich, formerly from Calgary and the Alberta College of Art and Design. We looked at his hyper-realistic portraits and enjoyed the views from his condo high in the hills.
He talked about his work and methods.
Watched the fireworks as we were leaving.
The fourth day was a free day.
We walked to the historic centre and the main plaza in front of the Cathedral, Parroquia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. A book fair was happening in the plaza so views of the Cathedral we obstructed but we found a bench in the shade where we could sketch the church towers.
After we walked along the Malecòn, a walkway that follows the shoreline. It was quite busy and full of tourist shops, restaurants and bars.
Pelicans were diving for fish and resting on boats.
We made it as far as the Parque Hidalgo where we could see the other large church in the historic centre.
I was going to look inside but a hearse parked in front caused me to change my mind.
We had a dinner reservation at Cafe des Artistes nearby. Before our dinner and to get some relief from the heat, which was around 30, we stopped at a bar along the Malecòn. While we were having cold drinks we spotted a mother whale and her calf. Too excited spotting them to remember to take photos.
It was a short but hot walk to the restaurant in a very colourful area.
Dinner at Cafe des Artistes was gourmet and we were somewhat under-dressed.
After dinner we joined some of our fellow painters to go on the Art Walk which happens weekly at the many galleries in the area. There were at least 12 participating galleries but we did not visit them all before calling it a day.
We enjoyed the moonlight on the ocean as we walked back to the hotel.
The fifth day we returned to Isla Cuare to paint in a different location employing principles of colour to create distance and composition.
Unlike some art classes where instruction is limited, Mark moved among us and would talk to each of us individually as we worked and would provide helpful suggestions.
In the afternoon we met for another show and tell which focussed on our earlier experience of painting in the dark and what techniques worked or did not work.
Then in the evening we returned to the mosaic park for another evening painting session where we were encouraged to employ cool colours to achieve the effect of night time.
Our final painting day was back to the beach where we were to use all the principles and to try to show texture.
Some of us scrambled over the rock outcrop to paint on another beach.
We could stay as long as we wanted but I finished in the early afternoon because there are no bathrooms (banos) on the beach.
After a last dinner together, we had our final show and tell and chat about how our week went.
We departed in the late afternoon the next day. This left us plenty of time for a last breakfast at The Patio, a small restaurant which only operated from 8 am to 1:30 pm serving a short but delicious menu. We went most mornings where we discovered chilaquiles, basically nachos for breakfast.
We wandered a bit. This is a hotel nearby with a funicular instead of an elevator.
We looked at the Saturday market which had crafts, food and various clothing and souvenir items. It was very crowded.
After another stroll along part of the Malecòn, we returned for a final lunch at La Palapa and then took Uber to the airport to fly out.
We overnighted at the Vancouver airport to avoid getting into Calgary in the middle of the night. We were upgraded to the gold floor of the Fairmont airport hotel. The views were pretty nice from the top floor.
