 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.  See the garden hose in the top left corner? Yes, that is how this manual washer is filled with water. How to Wash Clothes in Costa Rica:
NOTE: Weather apps are very unreliable. It can be raining in the town that has the sensors, but sunny hot in your town.
NOTE: Clotheslines in full sunlight are the quickest way to dry clothing. The better clotheslines are just under roof overhangs. 22. Using clothespins, HANG clothing on clothesline. 23. MONITOR clothing until dry. CAUTION! Rain will wet clothing and delay drying. The delay can cause clothing to stay damp for days. 24. When clothing is dry to the touch, REMOVE and STORE clothing. 25. Repeat directions as often as necessary.  Our bed and chair covers on clotheslines to dry. If you were expecting underwear, well, you'd have to visit us and take a chance.  Out of clothesline? Use bushes in the sun! Ok, not completely in the wild, but at least in someone's garden driveway! While visiting our neighbor Nacho, I found some rich, black, thick charcoal laying around some flower bushes. The type of charcoal that’s found in a 2x3x1 inch box in an art supply store and sells for a few dollars. The juicy charcoal that oozes blackness on paper…and smudges and brushes away easily to make grays. Nacho laughed at me for asking for his charcoal. Charcoal in Costa Rica is used as deodorant or for gardening fertilizer, not art supplies. He shrugged and offered me more charcoal. I took just what I needed. After all, I just found an almost endless supply, right across our road!!! I finally got to make the value chart I needed for class! If you happen to be in Uvita, Costa Rica, come out and see me and three more awesome artists at Dolce Uvita on Saturday, December 11th, 2021, from 10 am – 3 pm. For more info, https://dolceuvita.com  Finished value chart with the supplies I used. The charcoal is between the tape and sketchbook. The plastic wrap was carefully removed from the sketchbook to “laminate” my value strip so the charcoal doesn’t rub off. We live in a very small, cute house while we build our new home in Costa Rica. This means very limited art painting making happy space. This is ok, as I’m sticking to studying for a class I’m enjoying. Everything is small for this class: paper swatches, painting surfaces, supplies, etc. This is good…because as I make new things there is limited storage space, too. The first few weeks here were spent at the coffee table and the back patio tables. I’m still spending time at the coffee table for things like collaging and cutting paper. I adore my new art table. We decided to have local Uvita craftsman Freddy make us this table. Here’s all the reasons why we love this table:
 The back patio table during a painting session. My heart brother Jim says it looks  My art studio at the coffee table. This space is used only to glue collages, write, and maybe some digital work.  Me with my new table by Uvita craftsman Freddy. Wheels added by Andy.  As I was checking out our outside laundry system at our new home in Costa Rica, a bat landed on the wall above me. It was about six inches long. I was happy to see it, but sad as it was a late morning. It let me get a single photo and then took off. ©Angeline Marie MartinezIt’s very weird being in Costa Rica for October. There isn’t the whole Fall Thing here in Costa Rica. The whole Fall Thing didn’t make sense to me in Florida, anyway, so it almost feels like a bit of relief, lol. It’s great not having to listen and watch a constant onslaught of marketing about Fall Things like harvesting, warm colors, sweaters, pumpkin spice, fire places, Holiday Shopping, etc. Everything is green here, so all this straw stuff makes even less sense in Costa Rica than in Florida. I hate the cold, not a pumpkin spice kind of girl, anyway! So far, Alexa provides tunes to a simple speaker we brought. The music is interrupted by US commercials about…you guessed it…Fall Things! I still don’t understand everyone’s excitement about all this, lol! I did see some Halloween decor in a store here. One store, on what amounts to two long shelves. No candy on display, just decor! There are two seasons here: winter and summer. Cooler or Hot Hot. Rainy or Dryer. There is truly no “sweater weather,” unless you count that Andy and I wish we had an extra bed sheet during cooler nights, lol. This little bat is one of many we enjoy watching fly about our new temporary home in Costa Rica. Happily, this is the only bat we’ve seen in the daylight. It’s a poor photo, but I was lucky to get it! Happy Halloween and Happy Fall Things!  These two bats were sleeping under the outside roof of Los Gatos Locos Restaurant. The music and lunch conversation didn't faze them at all. They snoozed over the outside railing with three more of their family, not shown here. |
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Drawing, painting both analog and digital, and other artsy things while living in Costa Rica.
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