Que le doy? Que le sirvo? 
Unas papitas y unas tortillas porfis.
This is what went through my mind as I worked on this piece.

Whenever I feel stuck on what to draw, I think back of old memories or experiences and then many times that works out to inspire a new piece. For this one, I wanted to capture a childhood memory of visiting the local mercados in Mexico. 

If you've ever been in one, you know it's a treasure chest full of surprises. 

From the señora that sells candy, to Don Juan selling quesos, to the viejita selling her handmade piñatas. There's so many different kinds of stands. 

Like anything, to be authentic, I look for reference of mercados in Mexico. I love to make a mood board for inspiration. Some where I've visited, and then the others are from the biggest market in Mexico City known as La Central de Abastos! I always would end up leaving with a big jugo de naranja and zanahoria. The BEST. Also, they're like a few pesos. If it was here in the US, It would've costed me like $20 bucks haha. 

From there, I doodles some quick sketches just to get a feel of what I want to do. 

They're not pretty, but doodling fast helps me think quicker and add ideas as I see from my mood board. You can see they all have different ways they layout their products to their best display. Some use woven baskets, crates, flour sacks, display cases, etc. The list goes on! There's always a pulley cart laying around as well as a mop and a cubetita. So you know I had to add that in there! I also love their sticker price labels. Sometimes they're ornate with fancy lettering or with simple sharpie.

Anyways! Enjoy this Timelapse from Procreate below and see how many times I got distracted and draw off subject haha :)

 He dicho, CASO CERRADO!

I hear this show on a daily while i'm in my office working as my Mom watches TV on the other room. This latina grew up on this tv show and it's amazing to see it's still airing til this day. Granted, they're all re-runs but I've seen to see any repeats for the past couple years that I've had my Mom be with me. Anyway let's get to it!

If you're familiar with the show, you KNOW there's interesting characters from time to time. And this was the one time. I usually sit on the couch with my Mom at the end of the day and doodle while she watches tv. Usually it's Caso Cerrado haha.

I actually took a quick photo on tv of her back in a December episode but it was't til the other night I remembered I took the photo and decided to revisit it.

At first it started out with a few quick poses from her on Procreate. I wish I could remember what she was claiming but nonetheless, she was sucha character! 

From there, I sit there and doodle some of the other people from time to time. I highly recommend watching the show even if you don't know what they're saying. Or just crazy shows like this in general. Lots of interesting people to see!

Fun fact, many moons ago, back when I was studying at Ringling for college in Florida, we once met Dra. Polo in Orlando for some local event! My grandma, one of her last wishes was to meet her. So there we go trying to find her. It was sucha fun day. You can see my mom grabbing her hand in that one photo and me doing sucha terrible camera job LOL. The one on the left was her reaching for my Grandma, then my mom PULLING her hand in LOL (embarrassing haha) and then her Peace-ing out haha.

And lastly, this SUPER quick scribble of her. (I was very sleepy and had the ipad angled so low I had no idea how this was going to turn out). I'm pretty sure if she saw this, she'd kick me out haha.

Bonus doodle: 

In Universo (Owned by Telemundo) they play Caso Cerrado, Storage Wars (in spanish) and so sometimes we end up watching that because there's nothing else. So here's just a couple doodles from the bidders of the show:

Also doodled in a very sleepy-state of mind. 

 Mexico isn't Mexico if there aren't cables running all over the place. And yes, many other countries also have this too I'm sure! With that, an illustration based on a photo I took on the way to somewhere back in 2019

I wanted to capture the lighting and other typical features from this colonia in Roma Sur. The houses are very different than other colonias in the city. There's ornate window treatments, detailed arches etc. 

While I may have opted out of adding the typical tinacos or perritos on the roof tops, I've added them before for these other house explorations I've done before in other neighborhoods. 

Different neighborhoods have different types of structure. I'm more familiar with the houses in sector popular. When I used to visit grandparents house many years ago in Colima, you would hear all the neighborhood kids running with the clacking chanclas while holding a bag of papitas ready to play canicas or make paper boats and race them down the street stream after a rainy day.

I loved going to the rooftops and check out the city. It wasn't very uncommon to do that because the water tanks would always have to be checked. 

Also the dogs over there are built different than the US. They roam around everywhere! So you know I had to draw them in there too. 

Here's some personal photos throughout the years of quick pics I've taken from Mexico City & Guadalajara that helped inspire the above :)

That's something I wish I'd see more here. More colors! Specifically brightly colored houses. If we have these colors that exist, we might as well use them! Out with the clean white aesthetic colors and in with the fun bright colors :)!

 Meet Sylvia!

Or that's what I like to think she's named, haha. 

I was scribbling with one of my 1000's of photoshop brushes that I've collected over the years. Sometimes I like to use a brush I'd never think of using just for the pure texture of it. Even if nothing comes from it in the beginning.

You can see how I went in there with another brush and just refined it a little more but I still kept it loose til the very end.

Next part, was thinking about who she is and what I want her to be. Does she garden? Is she a librarian? Is she going to the farmers market? What did she buy? Does she like Death Cab for Cutie or total opposite and listen to Bad Bunny??

Just little things that make your characters more believable and relatable.

Millions of thoughts go into my mind when I think about the colors and outfits into my characters. Sometimes that doesn't always work out for production IRL, but they're always fun to explore because you can always tone it down :)

But since this is made up and for fun, I just go with the flow!

SO, let's break it down shall we?

I chose a monochromatic scheme for this one. She seems like a background character in the end because she doesn't stand out too much so I didn't want to pursue that color palette. Still trendy and hip though!

I was mostly thinking about if she likes to garden, her overalls would be covered in dirt all the time so she'd want something that can blend in without having to change outfits all the time. But still throw on a cute cardigan for the farmers market. Still wasn't feeling like she wasn't THE main character of this made up scenario.

And lastly, I went with a bit more colors because I want to show she's the type of person that isn't afraid of pattern and colors. If you notice, I pushed a bit more with the gardening aspect of her in a sense that she likes nature. So you'll see little tree shape pattern on her cardigan. And the stripes of her overalls representing the tall redwood trees in SF. 

For inspiration, looked at this insta account called WatchingNewYork. It's fascinating! I can only aspire to dress like that in real life, haha.
Here's some inspo from it:

Til next time! 

Let's start off this brand new art blog with some...tacos! 

It'll be nice to share some behind the scenes all at once instead of having to swipe to see it all. Plus read a little blurb :) 

You know how inspiration can strike at any time? Well, while I was having lunch the other day, I started to think what's a food memory that I miss? and immediately zoomed mentally back in time to few years back in Mexico. 

Then as I was working on this, my boo said it reminded him of paintings usually found outside taquerias, pollerías, etc. Like a logo! So I tied bringing that nostalgia in the text and the look of it. Here's some personal pics from when I visited:

I wish I had more photos but you get the idea. 

Before coming up with that specific taquero, I went through a few iterations trying to find the sweet spot I was looking for: 

I drew them 3 times on top of each other and in the end I found a balance a bit from the 2nd version. Lastly, some other pics of my outings to taquerias. I wish I had more photos but I was so focused on the eating part that I forgot about the photo part haha! 

If you've made it this far, thank you! I hope to bring more behind the scenes from time to time. I might do breakdowns of other pieces. Now who's hungry?! 

 Hii world!

Trying to see if I want to come back to Blogspot days.. I kind of miss it! Might start slowly posting stuff here from time to time to try and get the hang of it again. It was kind of nice to just post and leave :)

Feel free to follow along!