Anaranjado Flor

Orange Blossom
Found this small tree that an incredible fragrance was coming from. Just the sweetest smell, I had to take a couple branches inside. The whole house is smelling so sweet.

Carlos ( grounds keeper) finally got me a christmas tree tonight, a long tall top of bamboo, it is perfect and beautifully shaped, so now the trimmings will be fun to find, pods and whatever to else will hang on it, my earrings, my necklace, I will buy some ribbon tomorrow and try to find some lights too. I experimented with some more monotypes today using a rolling pin, watercolors and then colored pencils, I have been doodling on the prints and they look very "organic", I would say. I found a t shirt with that word on the front of it to bring here and now, it is my word for the week.

Fresh chicken tamale for lunch tomorrow, busy Saturday planned. Today was pretty busy I have been working on the computer with some graphic projects, in between power outages, designing post cards and a menu, and concerned about my baby, Aja and her pain, she did say she received the childrens book in mail that I ordered for Hudson Jai's 4th birthday. She loved it and it made her laugh, it is a book with Hudson face in place of one of the characters and his name is mentioned through out the book, his birth date and his hometown, Very cute!

Fig Tree

This is a "Strangler Fig Tree" It's seed comes from the canopy and the roots grow downward, eventually strangling another tree and then that tree dies inside the fig tree with its entertwining branches and vines and becomes hollow, so cool, so I started painting one here on the property and this is a detail of it, the finished size will be 11 x 22 like the rest of the series I am working on here in Costa Rica, the shiny leaves on the detail is a masking fluid, it rubs off leaving white areas to paint in later. An amazing tree. Well, I now have a phone, in my room, there are some beautiful bougainvilia around the pool today in big pots, white lilies in the sunroom, pointsettia on the table and a wreath of gold garland on the bar...sharpened all of my colored pencils tonight, yea exciting night, decided to watch "Lost" tv show on the computer, it was terrible, changed over to "Sex in the City", that was better & found a cool website I can catch upon all tv shows.

My heart goes out to Aja tonight, she is dealing with alot of pain this week, and struggling with lots of "stuff", I wish I was there, and not here today, wish I could wisk away from all of it. Give her strength!

Air in Air
11 x 22
watercolor, gouache and pastel
by Lorraine Bromley

Lunes en Rio de Colon

Monday by the river in Colon....spent all day at the river painting, a horse farm across the river...big blue and small yellow birds were singing and taking baths in the water, I took this long opportunity again to paint with Patricia and to study reflections, the camera helped stop the motion in order to see patterns of ripples etc.... Rico, our favorite taxi driver took us down to river at 8:30am and he picked us up at 2:00pm. He is always so prompt and reliable. No habla ingles though. Great day!

Today is Hudson Jai's fourth birthday, feliz anos. Yo extranar! I miss him.

Domingo

Out painting the air plants on the grapefruit tree. It also has some wild cacti growing and intertwining itself throughout it. Quite interesting, scary actually, but I am trying to get friendly with it. Caught up with the news online, had my coffee and ready to accomplish something today. Later, Patricia, Katherine, and I are going to the Essentia Restaurant for early dinner and scope out another location to paint. It is an eklectic place and Jorge, the owner loves having us there painting on his grounds. (an artist himself) He allowed us last year and even asked us to leave our marks on the walls of the restaurant. The mandala I painted on wall is #24 on this group of photos.
http://www.cortezaamarillalodge.com/gallery.php try to find it, click on this website. Hasta Luego