Art Deco Weekend at Miami South Beach.
The second sketch opportunity of our sketch crawl moved several blocks north. I became fascinated by two trees that were blown over at an angle. The two trunks spiraled around each other like a DNA helix giving the trees the appearance of being one. Most of the sketchers sketched more art deco hotels on Ocean Boulevard. From my vantage point sketching the tree, I could see several sketchers in the distance as they worked. We only had about an hour to sketch so I wanted to pay attention so I could finish about the same time as everyone else. Knowing me, I might get lost in the process and just keep working as everyone else packed up to leave.
I noticed the artists starting to gather and put their sketchbooks on the ground so everyone could see what had been sketched. There was some amazing talent in this group of artists from Orlando Urban Sketchers and Miami Urban Sketchers. We walked towards a light in the ocean side park so photos could be taken of us as a group. We all held up one sketch along with the Orlando and Miami Urban Sketcher’s logos.
More than a dozen of us went to, Naked Taco, a local Mexican restaurant to chat and share stories about the experience. The server started up all off with free shots. Pam Schwartz and I split a queso dinero which feature crispy grilled chihuahua and manchengo cheese. This wasn’t what I expected being crispy chunks of cheese instead of creamy melted queso. I ordered a naked maarguarita. The margaritas were expensive and the servings small. My dish has hot peppers on top which made me spit out my first bite. Once I dissected the Dish and removed the offending peppers, the dish was fine. In Miami beach, a 20% tip is written in to the bill.
Artists were gathered from around the world. The couple next to me was from Puerto Rico, other artists were from were from Columbia, Argentina, Guiana, Vietnam, China, Israel and a gentleman from Virginia happened to be in Miami so he joined us as well. He had to be the most enthusiastic artist I have ever met, It is always fun to meet new artists exploring someplace new.