Voelker

by Hidden Garden Art Gallery Photos

courtesy of Hidden Garden Art Gallery

El Mar de Playa Bejuco

Playa de Bejuco stands out as a place on the central Pacific coast where I can best view the ocean and the sky. I particularly like those big, vertical clouds that reach up from the ocean. The varied colors of the evening sky over the Pacific Ocean is a scene that I don’t get where I live in the mountains of Alajuela. It’s a challenge for a landscape artist to paint the clouds, and so I had to try.

I probably hoped to catch too much in this painting of the fishing dock in Tambor, as I´ve been counseled that too often, I try to paint too big of a scene. But I loved the geometry of the circling of these fishing boats while resting at anchor around the dock. It’s as if the dock manager wanted to arrange the boats in an artistic manner. I haven’t seen them all, but this is my favorite fishing dock in Costa Rica. It makes me feel like I am on an island when I come via ferry boat from Puntarenas to the lower Nicoya Peninsula.

Tom´s Brown Noddy at Cocos Island

I came to Costa Rica from Michigan as a birder and hopeful artist in 2004. So, I can understand Costa Rica Birding Club leader Tom Schultz´s passion to photograph the brown noddy far-off at Isla del Coco. The field guide says “unlike most other terns, it flies unswervingly and close to the ocean surface.” With the boat reeling among dangerous rocks and strong waves, it is no wonder that Tom could make such a nice photo, which is the source of my painting.

Passage to Paquera

The Tambor II ferry boat goes a few times daily between Puntarenas and Paquera, on the Nicoya Peninsula. In the hour-long ride, the boat passes several small, abandoned islands and several seabirds can be seen, like the brown booby in the photo´s foreground. At this destination, I again feel like I am on an island.