Finished this pastel painting today

[lunatica]

70. I can smell the salty ocean air!

This reminds me of a vacation I took with a group of college students and spent the entire time on a beach in Mexico in a small town named Zihuatanejo. We camped behind a sand dune on the edge of a jungle in a small bay. It was so hot that one guy in the group would go wild struggling to get out of the tent and then run screaming into the surf to cool down. Eventually all of us followed him.

It was gorgeous there. Our beach was in a half moon shaped bay on the side of a peninsula and we could trek through some jungle to the other side of the jut of land where there were cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. From that height we could see Manta Rays swimming under the water close to the cliffs. It was marvelous! I have never forgotten the magical feeling of that place and I’m grateful for the experience. We ate fresh catch of the day in an open space restaurant hut on the beach where we could watch the locals cook freshly caught fish, clams and sea turtles over a makeshift fire. Though I must say I couldn’t bring myself to eat turtle and only ate one clam because when I squeezed some lime on the remaining clams they squirmed! They were supposed to be eaten alive but I was unable to eat any more of them.

Your painting brought it all back to me because that’s how our beach looked because Zihuatanejo is on the West coast of Mexico, a couple of hours drive north along the coast from Acapulco, but not yet a huge tourist center. I can feel the waves washing around my ankles and see the luminescence of our footprints when we walked on the beach at night. It’s another, very magical world!

Thanks so much!