Friday, November 21, 2014

Oggy The Conqueror

The first paint I used was something called Tempura Gauche. It was in the children's art section at Soriana Grocery Store and turns out to be cheap watercolor paint that wiped off easily with water.

Only the helmet remains
So I had to hunt for enamel paint, which is called esmalte in Spanish. And I could only find spray paint. What I ended up getting was the white and gold metallic acrylic craft paint. I love the gold metallic finish because it's the metaphoric color for the Conquistador's quest. While it's not as permanent as oil or enamel, acrylic at least dries water resistant and can be scraped off with a knife. The sun is rough on paint in the desert and the tropics so I'm curious how long before it fades, but it really doesn't matter because it's a small task to retouch with the paint as long as it doesn't dry out.

I was worried that it wouldn't be legible in the end but now I'm afraid it's too legible. I could scrape it off and put a smaller version on the side but this is the boldness suitable for the van. Right on the hood...no missing it. Every military checkpoint is going to have to comprehend a second Spanish Invasion in a 45 year old American van. If I'm going to name my van El Conquistador then that's about as bold as it gets. The Mexican Flag colors ultimately detracted from the simplicity I wanted...it was kind of a mixed message and also nationalistic. This is a simple statement.

I'm right around the 'A' in Aztec

I wonder if there's interest in a quest for the lost gold of Hernan Cortes while retracing his journey to Trujillo Honduras from Mexico City in a van called El Conquistador? It is the 490th Anniversary of his original trip.This is no small detail as I'm certain Cortes was in this exact valley, maybe this exact hotel room, since the pass between the two volcanoes I see out my window is called "Paso De Cortes" and he had a title 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, which is where I am right now. All these villages, Tochimilco, Huaquechula, Cholula, Atlixco, Puebla, Tianguismanalco, Tlaxcalancingo, etc. were populated in 1520, so Cortes undoubtedly passed this way to inspect future monastery sites and pillage the gold stores and seize female concubines. It looks like he visited La Paz in the Baja too so I only need to go to Cuba and Spain to retrace his entire adventure.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.