On Tuesday morning of the Tom Hoffmann Oaxaca Workshop, we got up early and headed up the hill, in a direction we’d never gone. Our landmark was a tree. We found a Mercado easily enough, and the sign even said “Mercado Sanchez Perez” but when we asked people where it was, they all pointed in other directions. Finally, after almost a half hour of waiting around, Tom rescued us, we’d found the right Mercado, but the wrong tree. The rest of the class was waiting for us near a different tree. The subject of the lesson once again was simplification. Tom painted a wonderful demo of three pots full of flowers. He painted the entire picture in light blue and while the paint was still wet, he dabbed other colors all into it. So of course, we all tried to do the same, with varying results.

When it started getting close to lunch time, Tom led us to a park, where we found a street vendor who made the best chili relleno any of us had ever had. We sat there in the park facing a fountain. One of the students wondered how you painted a fountain. And we were off. I watched as Tom experimented with ways of making water look like… water! I decided to join the fun and painted the fountain too.