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6/22/2022 Melting Watercolor Paint is a MessAndy and I used to live in humid in Miami, Florida. The average humidity in Miami is between 50ish% - 70ish% year-round, like in Ojochal, Costa Rica where are living. The HUGE difference is that Miami has air conditioning everywhere. In Costa Rica, air conditioning is rarely found or used, no matter how hot or rainy. Air conditioning acts as a dehumidifier as it allows the air to dry out. Since there’s no air conditioning…the air stays humid…and… Andy and I are renting a house that has NO glass in the windows. The windows have a decorative and practical ironwork and screens. We have lots of fans to keep the air circulating in our home. The fans keep things dryer and us cooler: double win. The bad is that we also have a lot of humidity, no matter how many fans move the air around…so we use a lot of Ziploc bags to keep things as dry as possible. Sadly, many things stay damp…and there isn’t a way to dry them (no oven, no iron). One of these things are the watercolors that I loved to use with my sketchbooks. I learned that watercolors melt. The binder (glue), that holds the pigment (color) melts when the paint is kept in humid conditions. It takes just a couple of days for most of the colors to turn runny. I’m writing this not to complain but more to laugh. Laugh because no one ever mentions melting watercolor paints. I did Google this…and found only One artist writing about it. In the meantime, my sketchbooks will only have blue or brown line drawings and little if any color. My next post will be how I can maybe fix my watercolor kits…maybe….  I opened this kit on Christmas Day as a treat. By New Year’s Eve, it was a taffy caramel mess. These are “pills” or “cakes” of watercolor paint. I’m sticking the individuals down to the bottom with a double sided foam. 3/23/2022 Why am I excited to support El Refugio? Savvy Blooming Free Lucky Cat Picture by Angeline Marie Martinez Well, dogs and cats are loving. They want to be adopted into safe and loving homes. When they are, these dogs and cats guarantee that you will be loved. Every dog and cat have so much love to give! El Refugio is a very special place for dogs and cats in Costa Rica. Some of these dogs and cats are truly rescued from very sad experiences. Volunteers work from behind the scenes to in person to help and support every dog and cat possible. El Refugio holds spay and neuter events as they try to educate the communities that this is the best way to control the numbers of roaming dogs and cats in the rainforest jungle. As foreigners move in and out of the communities, El Refugio provides resources to help dogs and cats find and keep homes in and out of the community and Costa Rica. El Refugio truly is a special and unique dog and cat shelter. Andy and I love dogs and cats. We will be adopting new family members from El Refugio, but in the meantime, we enjoying supporting them! El Refugio’s official words: 'The goal of El Refugio is to improve the welfare of dogs and cats through rescue efforts, low-cost spay/neuter and vaccination clinics, education programs, and community outreach, with a focus of rescuing and rehabilitating homeless, abandoned, and injured dogs and cats." For more visit this link: elrefugiocostaballena.com You can see some of their characters Instagram @elrefugiocostaballena 5% of my painting sales go to support El Refugio. The dogs and cats send their thank yous!  Cooperative Gilded Adventure Lucky CatPicture by Angeline Marie Martinez What’s new between my art table from November to now? Lights so I can work even at night and during rainy days… Hooks to find scissors and ruler and paint can opener easily…. Gloss gelling (aka wood varnish) my favorite color wheel to keep paper from disintegrating… A stool for being able to work even when tired…. Life is good. Pura vida. Special thank you and tons of brownie points belong to my better half Andy. Want to see how my art table painting space looked before these upgrades? Click this sentence. Want to see a small part of my old painting studio? This video shows my old studio, the one we let go to move to Costa Rica. The easel and other things are currently in storage for my new future studio. It describes what you can expect during an art demo. You can find it by clicking on this paragraph.  Me at my newly received and “installed” art studio table in November, 2021. Andy added the wheels. I added the screw for my paintbrushes. Simple, basic, easy!  After and now! Three original abstract palm tree designs based on Jubilee Abstract Palm Tree are shown on my art studio table. See the beautiful lights? The new hooks? 2/16/2022 Making stencilsAs we set ourselves up in our new home, we throw away a lot of packaging. I am also missing my studio, as most of it is in a Florida storage unit a few thousand miles away from Costa Rica. Between trash and missing my supplies…I look at many things with an eye to reusing and repurposing. Sooo…the packaging! I saved pieces of flat plastic because although small, they are perfect for stencils! As I love staring out at the super tall trees at our new home, the tops of these trees became a simple subject to begin my new hand cut stencil collection. To test them, I experimented, of course. Packaging here in Costa Rica is very different than in the USA. There’s a lot less packaging here. I’m on a search for a packaging that I can use for stencils that is easier to find, and larger, than the little box used here. To see some of my stencils that are in my Florida storage unit, click on through these links: Dragonflies stencil in progress How to reuse the wrappers (I used to) that were on my art drop freebies If you’d like to see some of my hand carved stamps, too, you might enjoy my Luxury Lucky Cats Collection that I’m sending via email to friends. I keep all emails a secret and you can get an inside look at my almost secret collection of Luxury Lucky Cats.  The stencils with paint all over them! With another piece of plastic for a different design.  At my art table working with the stencil.  This piece has no title, but I used collaged packaging and my new stencil to make this. 12/22/2021 Merry Christmas from Costa Rica This is a tiny tree I brought from the USA to Costa Rica for us to enjoy this 2021 holiday season.
May your Christmas be Merry and Bright. Sunshine and warmth from Costa Rica. |
CategoriesAll Art In The News Art Studio Cats Classes Costa Rica Painting Painting Studio Pets Sketching Drawing, painting both analog and digital, and other artsy things while living in Costa Rica.
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