Costa Rica Sketch Journal ~ July 7, 2008

Days go by in a strange way here ~ as they're passing, they seem languid and slow. But suddenly it seems they have swiftly passed and it's time to go home. How can that be?

The morning of July 7 started out with flocks of parrots racketing by overhead and a brown-hooded parrot grooming on our favorite viewing branches, silvery arms emerging from a canopy tree easily seen from the railing of the restaurant as we ate breakfasts and lunches. By ten, Dan'l and I were down at the beach in the tidepools. Yesterday there had been people walking on the beach, but this morning there were none so we were skinny-dipping in the tidepool basins of warm water. What an elemental pleasure!

I'd gotten slightly sunburned the day before, so I soon jumped out to do some beachcombing ~ finding one of the biggest seedpods we'd yet seen, full of what looked like meadow muffins (horse doo-doo for you city slickers). Then I spent some time sitting on a log with my sketchbook and a spikey brown and turquoise rock-lobster shell I found. The sketch came out pretty well except for the big splotch of bug juice on it, which came splatting down out of the beach almond tree shading me. Ah well, at least it was in the right color range....

When we returned, I spent the rest of the day on our terraza, drinking in the peace and quiet, journaling and sketching the heliconia just off the terraza, drawing my beach treasures (I painted them several days later), and starting my bird list for this Costa Rica trip. I'm not an avid birder, but I do love to see new ones, or watch even ordinary birds doing interesting things, and I'm fairly good at identifying them. Daniel enjoys them, too, although he doesn't make a list. He's sharp-eyed and often spots them first to show me.

When it began to sprinkle/mist around 4:30, a mixed flock of birds appeared and a gorgeous little euphonia began eating the brilliant red seeds of a palm-like plant next to the terraza. While it hung around for only about five minutes, I examined it minutely, then when it left I plunked down on the concrete and sketched the plant. Using the bird book and my brand-new sharp memories of the euphonia, I drew it, gumming the seeds as we had observed, onto the plant.

I finished the watercolor pencil painting of the little euphonia by the dimmish overhead light, sitting on my bed. The cabinas are only sparsely lit, to avoid attracting insects out of the forest and disrupting their lives. To further discourage them, we closed all the louvred wooden blinds on the windows as suggested by the people at El Remanso. Painting by that dim light didn't seem to hurt the rendering too much.

More later.

Costa Rica Sketch Journal ~ July 5&6, 2008

I've been trying to get my journal scanned in, but yesterday I ran out of time and got ahead of myself with the photos. So step back a day into my sketch journal.

JULY 5. I had some time in San José to do a bit of sketching and watercolor pencil painting as Dan puzzled out the news from a San José newspaper (in Spanish, of course), which kept him busy for quite some time. At the bar I did a modified contour drawing (in which you don't lift the pen point while drawing) of my margarita. Sketching and journaling in the bar were easy because the light was soft but decent and CLASSICAL music played in the background! I complimented the hotelier on the choice of music. I would recommend this hotel without hesitation.

I worked on my page with the "black cow" and the fig leaf that night in bed, but then realized I would need to plan page designs better ~ these last two pages have almost identical format. I do love how mess-free the watercolor pencils and waterbrush make the process.

But all was not mess-free. When I pulled out my glue to stick the fig leaf on, I found that it had expanded during the plane flight and the ziplock bag containing it (and my toothbrush, sunscreen, etc.) was muy sticky inside. I was very glad to discover that the glue was water soluble, but I was in and out of bed for awhile, cleaning up the gluey mess.

The Nature Air ticket was so pretty I wanted to make the back of it visible, too (plus save room on journal pages) so I accordian pleated it and just glued in one end of it. The graphic here shows it unfolded ~ there were a lot of Photoshop steps required between scanning it in and making the ticket look 3-dimensional. Just having fun. [There -- that catches me up on the journal pages.]

JULY 6. After arriving at El Remanso from Puerto Jimenez, we got settled in our cabina and had breakfast with Adri and Danni, who run the lodge. Then we headed down to the beach ~ Dan'l's favorite place. He simmered in the wonderful tidepools for ages, but I got cooked before he did so I beachcombed and enjoyed the soft tropical air while collecting treasures from the sand.

That afternoon I painted the lavender vine flower while Dan read in the hammock. The more I use these watercolor pencils, the better I like them. I sincerely doubt you could tell these sketches were colored with watercolor pencils rather than straight watercolors.

Sitting on the terraza (Spanish for terrace) was wonderfully peaceful yet exciting at the same time. There always seemed to be something happening right before our eyes. Every afternoon at about 3:30, for instance, a coati bounded up out of the ravine and across our lawn, barely six feet from our bare toes. A heliconia flower daily lowered a petal, revealing flower parts feasted on by little black furry bees. Rains came some afternoons, and we reveled in the lightning and thunder as the storm rushed up the ravine, huge raindrops tapping on wide, rubbery heliconia leaves, the forest canopy, then finally on our clay roof tiles ~ to then cascade off the eaves in silvery waterfalls. It was mesmerizing. This photo shows the terraza view with a storm coming up from the beach.

That first evening on our terraza, I journaled the wonderful night sounds I was hearing with words and color. Those are what I miss most since my return ~ the dawn and dusk choruses.

More tomorrow.

Costa Rica Nature Journal/Sketching Workshop ~ 3

Plane rides can be deadly dull as well as leg cramping and other assorted evils. I always request a window seat so at least sometimes there is something interesting to see. Going south out of Medford takes one close to Mt. Shasta, but from the west side of the plane I could only see Lake Shasta, so I drew that. Sketching through a plane window requires speed ~ the dang pilot won't circle back around if you miss details the first time.

That occupied me quite some time, and we arrived in LA just in time to sink the sun. After finding my next terminal and getting some dinner, I began "profiling" the women around Gate 45. Adriana, who makes all arrangements at El Remanso, had told me that two of my students would be taking the same flight to San José as I, and I had a fine time watching for them, discarding some easily, wondering about others, checking a few out by peering at luggage tags and even striking up a few conversations. But to no avail. In the end, my students, Marilyn and Jocelyn, found me, having looked up my picture online. Out maneuvered! They seemed exceptionally nice. I started to relax.

This was the red-eye flight to Costa Rica, and we arrived at SJO quite early, to be picked up by Carlos, holding up a sign saying "El Remanso, Irene, Madelin and Vaselyn." From then on, Marilyn answered to Madelin and Jocelyn to Vaselyn ~ "Madelin" does sound like a Spanish version of Marilyn, but we never did quite figure out "Vaselyn."

Carlos was a charming Tico (what Costa Ricans call themselves), and he spirited us away downtown for breakfast since it was quite some time till our flights down to the Osa Peninsula. Traffic was hair-raising, but Carlos is obviously an old hand at driving his turismo van, and scarcely blinked as he threaded his way through downtown San José to take us to a special restaurant, one with some atmosphere, when we told him Denny's wasn't our first choice for our first Costa Rican breakfast.

We started to inhale the essence of Costa Rica as the waiter made us coffee Costa Rica style, pouring steaming water through ground beans in a bag, into a tin pitcher. It was absolutely delicious, as were the gallos pinto (rice and beans) served on a banana leaf, which the others had, and my fried platanos (a large, starchy type of banana). We treated Carlos to breakfast as well, and got acquainted with each other over breakfast.

Then, much sooner than we wished, Carlos hustled us back into the van and we returned to the airports ~ I to Sansa, the others to NatureAir, for the trip to El Remanso.

A little crowd gathered when I started sketching in the Sansa terminal. First I drew the parking lot, practicing the modified contour technique on the cars ~ you just run your pen around the outline without lifting it from the paper. It makes a nice, fresh drawing, and gives an interesting tilt to inanimate things.

As it warmed up, I went inside, drawing the people and practicing my titling font ~ it's a fun font, very vacation-y and with the freedom to make any given letter look different every time you draw it. I don't mind if people watch when I draw. It amuses them, and it's such a crowd pleaser.....I don't think I'm a show-off, but when you can give people pleasure just by doing something you enjoy, why not?

The trip down the southern half of Costa Rica takes almost an hour, and passes over coffee, pineapple and banana plantations, plus a lot of forested mountains and along the coast, mangrove swamps. It's a fairly low flight, so the scenery is very visible and fascinating.

Adriana and Elyer were there to pick me up at the airport for the eleven mile drive to El Remanso. We were delighted to see howler monkeys in the trees along the way, but I was even more delighted to arrive and settle in a little.

I packed up my sketchbook, binoculars and camera and headed up the road, sketching and photographing tropical marvels to my heart's content. By the time the sun sank into the sea at 5:39, I was lounging by the pool sipping a margarita.

Ah, the life.......the good life.