On My Table: Beginning of May 2026

April ran away from me - but I 

• enjoyed working on sharing my underwater drawing tips and tricks with a bunch of people online.
• witnessed one of the most abundant rose-blooming season in my neighborhood, and now I even have a rose in a pot! 
• marveled at the late California rains and the sudden greenery of the hills after them
• made a bunch of pots and vases
• finished a sketchbook number 164
• painted outside at least once every week!
• worked on a bunch of graphic design projects and projects that are at the stage where progress seems super slow and there is nothing to share, but I know that it will change.

Flanders Poppies 2026 - Part 1

Flanders Poppies are on my sketching calendar in May usually but since the heat wave we had this year (I know I keep complaining about everything blooming at the wrong time) I went to check the "House with Red Poppies" earlier than usual and found a field in full bloom!

This year I got to chat with the master of the poppies himself and got an invitation to check out his other crops later this year - so now the "house with red poppies is in my calendar twice! 

As you probably already guessed, more sketches are coming because there is no way to paint so much red beauty in just one sitting, but I need breaks between such colorful excursions too :)

I Mave a Vase

A few months ago, I went to a wheel-throwing class, and little by little, I got hooked :)  I've been trying to write this post forever because of how much there is to say about this activity by itself and how it fits into my practice. But since the big overview is taking forever, I decided to start by drawing some of my clay experiments and sharing them here :) 

The first vase appeared on my blog in the post with the bouquet of roses.

And here is a second vase:

For those affected with pottery bug: this vase was thrown on a wheel with speckled buff clay, I used green underglaze (UG38 - Key Lime) and then after first firing applied some wax resist and had satin white glaze inside and light blue outside. 

Bike and Sketch

I rode my bike and stopped to sketch along the path. It was a good day to be out. Some process photos below. 

This was a little more bike and sketch outing where bike works as a means to get to a sketching spot. As opposed to I go for a run or bike ride and sketch when I stop by for a quick rest / stretch. The inspiration for the expansion comes from Pedal&Paint outings by Mike Dutton, who is making very atmospheric and inspiring movies about his bike and paint process. 

Urban Garden: Two Sketches From The Same Spot

I sat down to paint an urban succulent jungle on a street in San Jose. It looked like a place where one can spend a vacation drawing plants. It was perfect. But also overpowering. I cut some stencils and made a plan, but got so overwhelmed by everything green that I saw that the only way for me to keep going was to start another sketch on the same spread of the sketchbook and keep switching back and forth. Luckily for me, there was a Jacaranda tree available for sketching - first one this year!