Apple-Pine: June 2018

100 Views of Silicon Valley: San Jose / Mustard Fields

Mustard Fields in spring are all over the valley and San Jose has an amazing contrast of the urban and developing landscaped with these bright yellow flowers all over the place!

Today’s direct gouache

a slice of watermelon painted withpainted with 20 brushstrokes

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Altos and San Francisco

Top: Chamber os Commerce, Los Altos.
I've learned about this super cool corner of Los Altos through instagram's comments and went to paint it as soon as I could - it's a really neat park tucked between two roads and a standalone mostly-glass building looks very cozy between large trees.

Bottom: San Francisco.
I did not paint enough of San Francisco for this project - but I will! This is a very colorful part close to the Bernal Heights Library.

Sketchbook #113: Trip to Bonaire - Underwater Sketching / Scuba Diving with a Sketchbook

Next part of my underwater sketches if scanned! You can see how jellyfish occupied a lot of my attention on some dives, my attempts at drawing spotted cow fish and a sketch of the largest spotter drum fish I've even encountered in my scuba diving adventures. And more eagle rays!

Nina Khashchina Sketchbook #113: Trip to Bonaire - Underwater Sketching / Scuba Diving with a Sketchbook

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Redwood City

Redwood City has a sign at its entrance "climate best by government test" - and I just had to paint that as it was one of the first things I saw when I visited the city for the first time.
Downtown is filled with people at all times of the year and I loved painting it in early spring as I was able to see more of the buildings against the signature color of the sky in California.

Sketching Trio Workshop - I had a BLAST!

This past Saturday I had a blast teaching next to Gay Kraeger and Suhita Shirodkar at our first "Sketching Trio" workshop. Suhita was working on sketching people quickly, Gay - on quick sketching, lettering and design techniques, and I presented basics of gouache and landscape. We provided all the materials (big part of which students were able to pack home to continue playing) and spent day in a magical garden in Santa Cruz Mountains on a beautiful day.

The format was a little unusual as we divided 30 students in three groups and taught simultaneously and then switched and taught next group and then again. It allowed us to have some quality learning / teaching time in small groups but also to have some amazing interaction before the class, after and during breaks - in larger groups. Punctuated by very tasty breaks (thank you amazing Brenda) we designed, drew and painted all day long and I am excited and inspired to do more classes like this!

Unfortunately I took very few pictures - but here are some gems.

Sketchbook #113: Trip to Bonaire - Underwater Sketching / Scuba Diving with a Sketchbook

We got extremely lucky on this trip and saw a group of eagle rays on several occasions. They were completely undisturbed by our presence and continued slow swim (though it was not that slow - I had to work pretty hard to keep my distance and keep drawing :)

I enjoy recording little anecdotes about things I see under water - it's amazing how quickly one's mind is overloaded with information when there is such an abundance around you. And these little notes help me remember :) Can you find three groupers having a fight? How about a sergeant guarding eggs? and a pipe sponge that was spawning?