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Art Journaling: Whales, Birds and a Little Tequila – Jacqueline Newbold
Art Journaling: Whales, Birds and a Little Tequila

Art Journaling: Whales, Birds and a Little Tequila

Ok, well maybe a lot of tequila!  We are off on a camping/wildlife adventure with wonderful guides provided by Mar y Adventuras.  We camped on beautiful white sandy beaches on two different island in Baja California, Mexico.  

Our guides took very good care of us, offering lots of tequila, fresh fruit, and fresh caught fish.  Happy hour awaited us every day when we returned from a day of bird watching, whale watching, hiking and kayaking.

 I added at least 15 new birds to my life list.  I started this list as a young teenager in Alabama so you can imagine how exciting this is for me.  I finally see blue-footed boobies!  

Zoom in to see the blue feet!

I see two birds that are endemic to Baja California, the Belding’s Yellowthroat and the Gray Thrasher.  

The drive to Magdalena Bay, for gray whale watching, is a four-hour van ride through a land of cactus, lizards and turkey vultures, bare and hot. We stopped at a tiny cafe for fresh empanadas and quesadillas, which were served from a rancher’s kitchen.  

There is no menu and we satiate our appetites by ordering from the kitchen window.  The rancher’s wife quickly warms up our food on a wood burning stove.  Delicious!  We all order seconds.  I wander outside to find meat hanging to dry like freshly washed laundry.  Surprising, there is a flock of brightly colored yellow birds.


 I take photos and identify them as Lesser Goldfinches.  Off in the distance at the tip of a cactus I take a picture of another, not so colorful bird and find out that this is a Gray Thrasher found only in this region.  All this is wonderful inspiration for painting in my Arches watercolor journal that I brought on this adventure.  I had to pack my traveling light kit, as I knew there would be limited space.  Here are some photos of how I prepared my small Winsor Newton palettes.  I filled one with my warm colors and another with my cool colors.  

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