I never know if orchid is real or fake.

I always avoided orchids - both as plants and subjects for my drawings. To thrive for a long time they require greener thumbs than I have. And to draw them I had to believe that they were real and not plastic - they always look artificial to me :) 

But recently I was exposed to a different approach: think about orchards as a long-lasting bouquet / composition - not as a living plant. And with this thought in mind, my parents got two lovely orchards as presents. Personal exposure to the roots and leaves allowed me to believe that these are real plants and not fake ones and I ended up drawing them :) With real pleasure - not a fake one :) 

 


One Week 100 People: 2024

This challenge (#oneweek100people) was organized and curated this year (again) by Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes. The idea is to give your people-sketching skills a little boost. There are no rules apart from what is in the name of this challenge. I did not set any specific rules for myself except to try and sketch people every day during the week and see how many I would end up with - no pressure to get to the number was my thing.

After I started with some passers-by whom I saw in the window on Monday I realized that I lived in the wrong place to find so many subjects and quickly devised a plan: I scanned my weekly plan for things that I planned to do anyway but which had a potential of seeing people and introduced a little extra time to those activities for sketching. Some of it was in person, some or online, some involved attending a lecture, some watching a sport. And I also looked into my options for aligning this with an idea of finding like-minded people - this is how I ended up joining pencils4tea on Thursday and Suhita's substack group on Friday. 

you can see all the results below - however number I got to I am happy to count this as a successful challenge - I drew more people, made a bunch of mistakes and tried to correct some and had fun along the way :) 




Magnolia season is upon us!

This year blooming schedules of magnolias are all over the place - many trees that used to greet me with the first flowers during Christmas-New Year time are just now getting the first flowers but other trees are in the peak of their bloom. Despite all this confusion, on the very first sunny afternoon, we got after the great rains of March Suhita and I got out to paint magn







Daylight saving time begins and I celebrate it and suffer from this collective jet lag

I was always a big fan of changing clocks twice a year. I voted to keep it in California (the opposing side won but we are still doing it!). I know the statistic and logically understand why this anachronistim is bad for people in general - from cardiovascular risks to disrupted daily routines and increased level of stress. But it is a part of how I see my year unfold. 

This year though the switch to daylight savings time feels like a collective jet lag. I searched in vain where I recently read about jet lag being caused by soul not being able to flight as fast as airplanes and hence needing extra time to catch-up to the body (was is the snail book?). On the day when we adjusted all the clocks in the house (see below) I read Wendell Berry's essays about relationships between nature and humans and his thoughts on what a good life is. He writes about the jet lag: "I felt present in my body but not in my mind .... as though my mind was still somewhere in the sky over the North Atlantic, hurrying to catch up". So this year as my mind is catching up to my body I am thinking about changing my mind on the whole "summer time" as it is known in Europe.

But on the other hand I will have more light during evening walks. It is a signal to plant new flowers and clear signs of winter from my tiny garden. This switch reminds me to start finding time to go outside during a tea/snack time and I begin dreaming about strawberry season. And in the fall the time change means beginning of a baking season and wintering plans. So perhaps this whole rant will be forgotten tomorrow :)

Drawing Boats (via Street View World Tour)

This month the Street View World Tour was traveling all over the world to draw boats!
I've missed the wonderful company of this bunch of drawing people and will try to sketch with them more regularly this year. 

If you are not familiar - A Street View World Tour is a fun, no-pressure gathering hosted by Jenny Adam and Eleanor Doughty via Gage Academy. You can learn more about these monthly free events and about these locations at the links above. 

My previous participations include a trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine where I was the guest artist, Drawing Sky HolesKenya, and Hawaiian Foliage. (I am quite sure that I participated in a few more but I am not sure I ever posted about them - will try to find and add to this collection!)