Admiring my oak leaf hydrangea flower

Oak leaf hydrangea is a deciduous shrub that can grow to be as tall as a small tree, has gloriously multicolored leaves, and strong cone-shaped panicled of white flowers that dry on the bush and winter in their warm-colored glory among cinnamon-colored bare branches. Recently, I saw that a squirrel tried to bite one flower off. Now - to be fair - I did not see it do the deed - but it was doing something in the corner where the shrub grows, and later I saw that the only thing that was still attaching panicle to the branch is a thin stripe of bark - so I cut it and now am enjoying it as an object to sketch. I decided not to press charges against the squirrel because I am actually happy to have this object to draw :)

On My Table: Beginning of March 2026

February is a short month! And I am still ironing out details for my printmaking toolkit for all the participants of my workshops at the 14th International Urban Sketchers Symposium which will be happening in July of 2026 in Toulouse, France.

I am also:

1. Using my favorite brush pen together with the pen that I am not sure about (love /hate) 

2. Use a little vial of ink to draw with a dip pen on location

3. Using oil brushes with my watercolor+gouache palette

4. Admiring dry oak leaf hydrangea flower

5. Considering taking an enamel tray as a palette to paint on location (it is heavy though)

6. Fuming about scotch changing the packaging for their tape (it is made of less plastic but is extremely flimsy - I could refill the previous holder with tape for over 10 years, but this one broke within months! (my old tape dispenser lost its sharpness for cutting the tape, and had to go to the recycling bin). And the amount of tape inside it is significantly smaller. 

Update on my Parents - Refugees from Ukraine - February, 2026.

You can read a whole story about this series of portraits here: War in Ukraine: Guide Through Posts on this Blog.

Dad's birthday (and this year we celebrated a round number of 80!) is very close to the anniversary of the beginning of the war, which means that there are lots of phone calls in one week, and the war is never too far away from being mentioned in these conversations. But there is a good reason to talk about other things, too. We celebrated with a wonderful lemon cake that he made (as usual, the recipe was modified for the occasion with new ingredients) and a new artwork for their wall and table. 

He is still playing chess regularly and looking to expand the pool of adversaries. The electric wheelchair is allowing him to get out of the house regularly and explore the area in all sorts of ways. 

Mom is reading and writing a lot, and it seems that the latest prescription glasses are actually doing what Mom wants them to do - which is a huge win. New flowers blooming under her window are helping with returning to regular walks outside. Winter in California is not harsh at all, but a memory of what winter was all her life makes it hard to believe that one can go for a walk in February, especially after one reads about the destruction of infrastructure, power blackouts, and lack of heating in Ukraine. 

They talk to family members and friends in Ukraine and spread around the world every week, and try to support people with what they can. 

I collected all the portraits of my parents from four years of war in one place:

You can see them all larger and read about my conversations with my parents during this war here: 
War in Ukraine: Guide Through Posts on this Blog

Five Minute Sketches

Five minutes is not a lot - but sometimes you get two 5-minutes in a row - or even three - like I did while waiting for friends in San Francisco recently (I did black line of a super narrow building during the first 5 minutes, then added gray to the same sketch, and then added another tree on the opposite page). 

Waiting at the Hair Salon:

Little sketches of my glorious yellow chrysanthemum:

Glorious Magnolias Day: Three Trees

I had a blast painting three different magnolia trees while catching up with Suhita Shirodkar on all the things that we did not get to discuss while she was teaching in India (if you ever wanted to travel and sketch that part of the world, I definitely would recommend Suhita's workshop - she will be announcing 2027 dates soon!).

I had two intentions: to see if I can soften some of the lines that I usually start my drawing with, and to do a view of a magnolia tree with a creek. I also wanted to start drawing the moment I see the object because I've been stalling on choosing the "right" point of view lately - it resulted in two first sketches being from basically the same spot - but use of different colors made them slightly different.