Category: Art

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FLOWERS de Selva Verde

God’s artistry is different in each and every little blossom and so I continue to show photos of flowers from almost everywhere I visit. Enjoy the photos below as what I call “Nature As Art!” – the name of my short-lived photo business in the states.

Selva Verde Flowers

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Considering a Move to Costa Rica?

If you are one of those readers considering living here or retiring here, I strongly encourage you to get acquainted with the ARCR, Association of Residents of Costa Rica, who will become your best help as you consider and then plan for a move here, with their two-day seminar an absolute necessity for your preparation. In the meantime you might want to consider joining now and receiving the bi-monthly digital magazine El Residente. Hoping that link gets you to the current edition without membership, so you can see all the interesting & helpful articles other expats here write every two months.

And by the way, for those keeping up with me I got back from Selva Verde Wednesday afternoon with a doctor appointment Thursday afternoon and back into life in Atenas when not on a trip. I’m also finishing up my reports on Selva Verde, a good hotel/lodge for nature lovers!

¡Pura Vida!

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Living Among Trees

My January week at Maquenque Lodge was special in many way, especially because I lived in a treehouse for a week – well I recently realized that I almost live in a treehouse in Atenas, on the side of a hill with trees and treetops surrounding me! It is beautiful with their myriad of birds singing, movement by the breezes, and my “galleries” for photographing birds! They are the most valuable thing about my little rental cottage:

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.

~Martin Luther

From My Kitchen & Living Room:

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Trees all around! The same from my office, bedroom and even bathroom!   🙂

 

Entering My Favorite Room, the Terrace:

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Where I eat, read and relax, surrounded by trees.

And 2 “Gallery Trees” for Photographing Birds

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Cecropia Tree I planted 4 years ago – the perfect open bird perch!
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Ficus or “Strangler Fig Tree” is the bird’s favorite “Hiding Place.”

¡Pura Vida!

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Sundown

Sundown is a nice, quiet time at my house in Atenas, Costa Rica. Winding down for a good night’s sleep and a great tomorrow!

My casita or “little house” at sundown.

To watch a sunset is to connect with the Divine.

Gina De Gorna

¡Pura Vida!

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Monteverde Gallery Completed

Finally, all the photos made during a week in Monteverde, Costa Rica have been sorted, culled, labeled and organized into the few best in each category as one of my “Trip Galleries” labeled as:

2019 April 7-13 — Monteverde, Costa Rica

Now I will start working on the photo book about Monteverde and making more photos around here as I report on things in Atenas like the progress on our central park remodeling and the climate fair here next week with our annual oxcart parade – always something happening!    🙂

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

~John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

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44 Species – 16 Lifers – Monteverde BIRDS!

Now that I am wrapping up the photos from my week in Monteverde last week, I’m better realizing how good a trip it was! It was one of my best birding trips in recent years with useable photos of 44 different species of birds, 16 were first-time sightings for me or what birders call “Lifers.” See the 44 birds in the gallery:

2019 Monteverde BIRDS

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Emerald Toucanet with an attitude!

My Lifer List This Trip

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Golden-olive Woodpecker
  1. Coppery-headed Emerald
  2. Magenta-throated Woodstar
  3. Ruddy Pigeon
  4. Buff-fronted Quail-Dove
  5. Golden-olive Woodpecker
  6. Paltry Tyrannulet
  7. Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher
  8. Long-tailed Manakin
  9. Azure-hooded Jay
  10. Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush
  11. Swainson’s Thrush
  12. White-throated Thrush
  13. Lesser Greenlet
  14. Gray-crowned Yellowthroat
  15. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
  16. Black-thighed Grosbeak

The featured photo at top is of a Wilson’s Warbler. And I am now working on the other parts of my trip gallery like other wildlife, the hotel, flowers, etc. which will go much faster than my huge collection of bird photos!   🙂    It’s at  2019 April 7-13 — Monteverde, Costa Rica  which the birds gallery is just one part of.

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Collared Redstart

I am thankful that when the Quakers came from the states and founded the little mountain farming town of Monteverde they also had the foresight to start preserving the virgin forest around the town and that other ecologists came and continued the effort with some of the largest forest reserves in the world! Nature is the main attraction of Monteverde!

My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.

~Claude Monet

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Three-wattled Bellbird close to the ground in search of food – A 1st for me!

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Nature as Art!

“Nature as Art” is what I called my little retirement hobby photo business from around 2004 to 2008, selling art photos out of 3 galleries in Nashville and in Arts & Crafts Fairs all over Tennessee and thrice out-of-state. It was fun at first but soon became hard work with back aches from lifting boxes and tent set-up, etc. and bottom line was my “hobby” was costing me more money than I was making! +Back aches! So I quit in 2008 and had no more back aches! Here’s a slideshow of some of my shows in 2006-2007, my peak year:

Nature as Art: Charlie Doggett Photography 2007

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One of my current efforts is to get all my old favored photos preserved in my online gallery as my only backup in the “cloud.” I have added the old sales photos from my computer organized by the sizes I printed them for sale back then. You can look at them and/or order prints from the SmugMug connected quality vendors, just like you can with any of my Costa Rica photos.   🙂

When you click “BUY” at the bottom right of an opened photo you choose first “Paper Prints” or “Wall Art.” The latter menu includes metal images, my new favorite and they have my old favorite of canvas. Check it out on an image you like from these old Tennessee photos with the most options appearing on the popular sizes back then of 8×10, 8.5×11, and 11×14:

Pre-Costa Rica ART PHOTOS   (New gallery)

Or always my Costa Rica photos at:
Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA

I’m not reviving this memory for money with only a $1 markup on an order credited to me. But as a service for anyone who likes to decorate with photo art, especially Nature as Art!  🙂  Their print options are high-quality and cheaper than I could sell them in my business back then!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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The Mysterious

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. 
It is the source of all true art and science

— Albert Einstein

 

I felt the wind move across my face and arm, knowing nature’s way of showing its power and sensitivity would soon end – then a Yigüirro (Clay-colored Thrush) sang its beautiful song that Costa Rica custom says calls in April and May rains that will replace the wind and dryness of our summer. I look forward to the “Green Season” and the freshness my explorations will bring – experiencing the mysterious in Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

Experience more of the mysterious in my gallery: Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA

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Punta Leona Grounds

The development is so large and much of it private that I cannot begin to show all that is there, but here’s some shots of the public or hotel guest available areas with two shots up two private residential streets. It is an old development that has a lot!

General Grounds Shots

 

Flowers

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Public Art

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“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”

~Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

See my Punta Leona Trip Gallery

And visit the Hotel Punta Leona Website for more about this nature place!

¡Pura Vida!

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God’s Glory in the Skies

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Psalm 19 The Message (MSG)
A David Psalm
19 1-2 God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
3-4 Their words aren’t heard,
their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
4-5 God makes a huge dome
for the sun—a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband
leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
racing to the tape.
6 That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies
from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts,
warming hearts to faith.
7-9 The revelation of God is whole
and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of God are clear
and point out the right road.
The life-maps of God are right,
showing the way to joy.
The directions of God are plain
and easy on the eyes.
God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold,
with a lifetime guarantee.
The decisions of God are accurate
down to the nth degree.
10 God’s Word is better than a diamond,
better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,
better than red, ripe strawberries.
11-14 There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger
and directs us to hidden treasure.
Otherwise how will we find our way?
Or know when we play the fool?
Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-My-Altar.

(Emphasis is mine.)  Sharing what struck me in my devotional reading 3 mornings ago as I read this Psalm. And really, everything in nature has God speaking to me whether in a Bible passage or a famous quotation or not. I am in closer harmony with God in the natural places of Costa Rica than anywhere I’ve been before – like an anteroom to Heaven!   🙂    No predictions intended, but I’m ready!   🙂   Being close to nature is one of my ideas of heaven!

¡Pura Vida!

See also my GALLERY:    VISTAS, BEACHES, SUNRISES, SUNSETS 

One little slice of the joys of being “Retired in Costa Rica!”