September 21, 2008 -- an artist's way

In case you have wondered what we've been up to lately -- we've been painting. Not walls or ceilings or house fronts, but alebrijas -- in this case fanciful papier mache lizards. When we went to Cuernavaca, we bought a fantastic giant lizard which hangs on our wall in the sala and simply, we wanted more. Could not find them though we scoured marketplaces and talked talked talked about them. So, being resourceful (and a bit foolish) we set out to make our own. We didn't exactly make our own, but had them made leaving the painting to us. Here is the before look of the two before we applied any paint:

These are each about a meter long from tongue to tail tip and really were pretty interesting all on their own. The craftsman who helped us out, Roberto, normally makes much smaller things, something a tourist could take home in a suitcase easily. He does some awfully clever statues and we were delighted with his work on these. He ended up making an extra lizard since his wife thought they were so cool and his son, the rock musician, had a blast painting it.

We had a bit more trouble, not being artists ourselves, but with Sandy's perseverence and Eva's massages of her aching shoulders, we completed the two. Jose hung them for us and we are delighted!! Here then is the after view of the two lizards --

We think that false eyelashes and glitter would not be too much here!!