Art Workshop: New Inspirations in Costa Rica

February 2009

This will be my 3rd year painting in Costa Rica. I would love to share it and show you the wonders of this beautiful South American country. I paint in watercolor, use photography as a reference tool and love to draw with markers, colored pencils and experiment with mixed media. My art is influenced by the rolling patchwork fields, flora and fauna inhabiting the magical landscape in of Costa Rica. It's the colors, the weather, the peacefulness, the air is sweet and soft. The various climates of the rainforests, beach, city, country, farms and waterfalls give me so much inspiration to paint. Join me next year and experience Costa Rica with me.

10 day workshop includes accommodations, breakfast, welcome dinner, transportation for workshop travel only. Flight will not be included. Price TBA

Interested artists should email me at lorrainedesigns@cox.net

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Just passing through

I did not want to leave CR....I am quilty, yes. I have not been journaling, I do not know why. I keep forgetting actually. Right now I can not sleep, it is 12:30am and I am at my Mom & Dad's house in Florida. Flight was not bad at all, just feels like a wasted day. I did some drawing with all the waiting for planes, in the restaurant, and looking at rivers and farmland from up in the plane, so I quess it was not wasted. I doodled with some pencil designs on my new square banana paper.

I plan on doing more doodling here in Florida with Hudson Jai. Alot of swimming too, I hope and playing. We are going to play the whole week. I can't wait. Coloring and playing and playing some more, and maybe play even more. We have toy trucks and a make believe roadway and coloring books, crayons, puzzles here at great-grandmas casa and we will practice our spanish too. Maybe he will teach me some.

A Day of Rest

No Way. Cal has left early this morning, of course in kind of a rush, couldn't find his colones, he forgot his medicines. And he did not want to leave so soon, felt like he just got here. Especially after being so sick on the first part of his trip here. Well we will be back next year for sure. He got a taste of CR and we had a really nice time considering everything. We went to Essentia Restaurant (my favorite right now) for a romantic dinner, went to open markets, explored & walked the property trails, did some work too (very little).

Now I am off to the Pacific again for a catamaran boat adventure. Chantal, who lives here and I are driving to the shore and hoping on a catamarn for the half day tour, snorkeling, beach and lunch and be back at colony in early afternoon. Oh boy more pictures. Gotta run...

Playa Carillo

Back from the beach. It was an adventure, ocean was great for body surfing, shallow water for much of the beach and great tumbling waves we rode all the way in. Beautiful! When we arrived to Carillo, Cal was very sick, on the verge of pneumonia, called a doctor and he gave him a shot and prescribed some antibiotics and congestion medicine and he was feeling better on Tuesday, so we spent the day on the beach, drew pictures in the sand, went for a delightful lunch with Bernarda, her Mom, Dilia and her daughter Isabella, we had a great time with Isabella, she is 5 yrs old. Bernarda took us to another beach, Playa Islita, little artisan village in the middle of nowhere, through rivers and jungle and then had just enough time to walk up through a jungle path to see the sunset over Playa Carillo, along the way we saw howling monkeys up in the trees and when we reached the top, it was 360 of the most beautiful scenery. We then had a wonderful dinner at the place we stayed at, the Colibri. It was an Argentinean restaurant connected to the cabinas. The six of us had a great time, Susan, Bernarda, Isabella, Dilia, Cal & I. Then on Wednesday we headed back to the colony. Then I got sick again. But feeling better today, Friday, and looking forward to the last week here in Cuidad Colon.

Adventure Continues

I have been showing Cal around Cuidad Colon (he is feeling much better today) and we went to my favorite restaurant "Essentia" tonight. This is the restaurant I painted a design on the wall back in Dec. He loved it, it has a special ecklectic ambience that is magical at night with fancy chandeliers that have been enhanced with ornamaents and cozy corners with curtains and white lights among jungle-like fauna and the sounds of the aviary in close distance. Really nice delicious dinner.
So, Monday we are off to Nicoya Pennisular to the beach where will meet Susan and then Bernarda on Wednesday for the ride back to the colony, so we will be out of touch for a few days. Will get back to blog on Thursday.

Anticipation

The anticipation of Cal's arrival was killing me. Cleaned up things around the studio, to make room for him, nice of me huh? Went to town to buy him some juice, cause I plan on pumping into him when he gets here, and some vanilla ice cream, ice cream always makes you feel better. Only vanilla. Came back from town and we had booked a model for figure drawing session for an hour. That was a great exercise for me, I love the female figure and Cecelia has a wonderful big body, and beautiful Costa Ricence face. She was a fantastic model for us.

Nancy, collage artist showed me her works that she is showing next month at the National Gallery here next month. One piece has handmade paper beads hanging on it. She said she didn't have time to make enough beads that would have finished it off nicely, so I said lets all get together one night over a glass of wine and make some so you can finish your piece. So last night we set-up to make paper beads and made more than what she needs. She was tickled that we all made them for her and we felt good to help her out. Cool beads!

Carlos and Christine drove early to Limon on the Caribbe, a 7 hour drive to the coast to look at some land Carlos would like to preserve. He has some big plans to try to keep it from being sold to big hotel/condo type developers, it is a problem right now in CR, more and more of the jungle is being destroyed for hotels etc..., it is not so good

I looked up Cal's flight ticket and found out the flight was an hour late, and I am glad I put up a sign at gate to what number to call so I could let him. Good thing I didn't wait down at the gate. So the taxi came about 11:00pm and he made it. A little under the weather, but not for long, because he will be soaking in pura vida here today.