Halloween 2024 - day after.

On the day after Halloween I went to see the Boo Crew House in San Jose  - all completed after the first night of performance. I knew that it would be different from the "work in progress" version I sketched last week but I was not prepared to see so many layers of attention and details added over just one week. It went from a really cool antique store/workshop site to a high-level theater set! 

I had the pleasure to sketch alongside @suhitasketch and @umapaints and met quite a few people from the Boo Crew itself - people who made it all happen brought their families during the daylight to show and tell about their involvement in different aspects of the production. It was just a mind-blowing level of imagination, craftsmanship, enthusiasm, and attention to detail on a huge show that lasted only a couple of days a year! 

And here is a link to a little video about this visit.

Visit their page (@boo.crew.on.church.drive ) and learn more about this volunteer-driven community project that is so inspiring!

On My Table: Beginning of November 2024.

I had a really amazing October with lots of drawings and a wonderful trip to the East Coast. 

This mess on my table is very much the true state of things as I am still unpacking from the trip but already drawing persimmons and working on a bunch of new cards to send to people while drawing lots of everyday things.

Travel Sketching: Catching Some Fall Feelings!

I've re-arranged my sketches from this trip several times - thinking about how to share them, and I think this batch is a series of sketches that will tell you one thing only: I love color, and these all are mad attempts to show you how happy it made me to be in the middle of so much of it on this trip!

These sketches are direct gouache with some underpainting done with a large acrylic marker, texture added with the distress crayons, and some lines added in pen or pencil. Details on the tools that I took with me are in a separate post - see below. 

This is a series of posts about Fall 2024 trip to East Coast.

1. Airport Sketching 

2. Choosing sketching tools

3. Leaf Drawing Party

4. Catching Some Color / Fall feelings

5. More to come!

Halloween 2024

I have heard about this place before and finally made to the magical Boo Crew House in San Jose. Every year a neighborhood crew of enthusiasts puts together a differently themed exposition. This year it is WESTERN! Completed with horses, steam train, Saloon, collection of coo-coo clocks, stained glass windows and a collection of cactuses!

Suhita Shirodkar and I went to see the house as it was being built and we were able to sketch there. The house will be ready by the 31st and will be open for two days only. We saw it only halfway done but the amount and scale of imagination, care, invention, craftsmanship, and community that we witnessed is amazing and fascinating to witness! 

Here are a few words about their fundraising page to give you some background: "The Boo Crew on Church Drive presents Halloween in the Neighborhood Inc. Every spooky Halloween season since 2009, Bob Schiro and the Boo Crew of San Jose, California construct haunted houses from the ground up with the goal of bringing all communities together for 2 nights of frights and fun! Each event is made possible through recycled materials and props, generous volunteer hours from the Boo Crew members, and with the goodness of our fans and community, their charitable donations. With all of those possibilities, the result is that there is no cost for admission!"

My Approach to Anxiety about US Elections

This election season in the United States is complex, hard to navigate, and not easy to live through. Not the first hard election season but probably the scariest so far for me up to now.

I believe that the very idea of democracy surviving in this country is at stake. Autocratic propaganda keeps lying that single votes do not count yet the margins will be slim and every little step in the right direction is a step to keep democracy going. There are many levels on which democracy exists and I think it is important to participate in the democratic process of governance on all the levels that are available for us.

So here are things that are helping me:

1. I do not look at social media as a source of the news. I found several sources for aggregated news from writers that I find balanced and who do a lot of research (I receive one email a day).
2. My other source is www.allsides.com - offers many ways to check sources as much less a sensational source of information.
3. I made sure that I have a local news source - even if you live in a tiny town or if have someone you care about who lives in a small community having that different scale of the news in your input helps to have a different perspective on things.
4. I limit my news consumption in general and try to have a good variety of reading materials ready everywhere. Timer is my friend. 
5. I made sure that I kept tabs on many issues that I care about throughout the whole country, different states, my county, and city - spreading my attention over many important things instead of sinking it all into the results of the presidential race (however important it is).
6. I continue writing letters and donating what resources I have - till the very end. Encouraging people to go vote, make sure that their voice is heard. Sending messages asking people to open their eyes and choose a future in which they are heard and are part of decision-making. I make every card and letter personal. And I enclose my owl "vote" sticker inside :) 
7. And I try to connect to people I know personally - send them a letter, or card or text or place a call - with an unseasonal hello, some news, and a reminder to vote too.
8. I made plans for the election day and days before and after: keeping busy helping people in the community, drawing, and being with people I care about, friends, and connecting to nature. It will be there long after we forget this all.
9. And I voted!

I wish you peace and strength. If you are an American - please vote. For your future, for the future of democracy in this country and in the world.