Costa Rica

I promised to show you some more pictures from Costa Rica. Sorry it's taken so long, but I've hardly been home since I got back to England.

Most of the paintings are on the main blog (see I'm Back!), but there are still a few left to show, including this one. This was my first watercolour attempt in Costa Rica, and the first page of my brand new moleskin, so rather daunting all round. I painted it sitting on a big, flat rock, beside a river. It had taken me ages to choose a subject, as the forest is so intense that I was struggling to isolate a detail from the tangled mass of green stuff!

I also took my A6 sketchbook for pencil sketches. As you can see, the beaches were horrible:


The drawing below, also done on the beach, was one of those spur-of-the-moment ones, where I only had a few minutes to spare:


This next one was even more so. We were in a minibus, travelling down from the mountains, when the traffic was suddenly stopped: high winds had blow large trees onto the road and men with chain-saws were busy clearing the way.


On a whim, I jumped out of the bus and ran as close as I could get away with. I only just managed to get it done, as they were incredibly efficient and cleared the way in under 10 minutes.

I had a bit longer for this one. We were waiting to be picked up, near a little aerodrome on the south coast. There happened to be a little plane on the tarmac:

By chance, this turned out to be the very same plane we flew out on a few days later. On that second occasion, I decided to sketch the ticket office, as it was so wonderfully laid back, compared to New York, where we'd come through:

It was lovely too, spending only about 45 minutes hanging around, compared to the hours you get stuck in a regular airport. This one was done waiting for our flight out, at Manchester Airport:

We had a 4 hour delay, on top of the 3 hour check-in, which is why John is looking so cheesed off here:

I didn't get to draw the animals in Costa Rica, though we saw loads of monkeys, sloths, turtles, crocodiles - all sorts. But they were all too fleeting. So, here is a photo of me holding an iguana, rescued from under a car outside our hotel in La Fortuna. I have no idea why I'm looking so anxious - I love iguanas!