Sketching, Illustration, Design and Everyday Life.
Copyright by © Nina Khashchina except where noted.
This year magnolia trees are blooming earlier than before. I took a bunch of my sketchbooks off the shelves and looked through the months of February and March. Based on my sketchbooks, my main hunt for blooming magnolia trees only begins at this time (mid-February); however, a few trees that I visited this week were already dropping petals faster than I could sketch them!
Never fear - there are still a few trees that I plan to visit - they were usually late bloomers - I like those :)
I traveled (virtually) all over the world this week to draw people at work! I joined monthly online gathering of #streetviewworldtour - and had lots of fun drawing with a nice group of people. This month a guest artist was none other than Eleanor Doughty - she and he co-host Jenny Adam (who was a guest artist last month but that being the first of January I missed) organized A Street View World Tour some time ago and now they have a website streetviewworldtour.com!
It is a monthly fun, no-pressure gathering where we travel via google maps, draw from the street view as a group - online. I had a set of tools prepared for a specific technique to try in this session but at the last minute had to switch my drawing space and glad I had a chance to make some mess with different tools!
Everything is blooming a little earlier this year - and these decorative pear trees are first in my collection of California blossoms this year. It was a gorgeously sunny day. I used my printmaking kit and gouache - you can see process photos below - click on the image to see it larger.
I am excited to be one of the teachers at the 14th International Urban Sketchers Symposium which will be happening in July of 2026 in Toulouse, France! (click on the image to see a short video with a description of my workshop) and here is a link to the program where you can see all the details and an amazing collection of sketchers and teachers from around the world.
And one of the things I am working on this month is finalizing the contents of the toolkit that each of the participants of my workshop in Toulouse will receive!
I made a little video of the Bonaire part of the sketchbook - you will be able to see how all these sketches fit together and tell the whole story of the trip:
And here are some of the sketches from the article in the wonderful Sketcher Press publication "On the Spot": Underwater sketching in the balmy blue sea
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
In this post I collected the rest of the underwater sketches from Bonaire - these were mostly done with just a pencil or a couple of pencils or my rainbow pencil. These have more notes, and you can see some rust where my clip was holding the page. Click on the image to see it larger. Every sketch has a little story - but I picked the ones where people can read some notes and see it happening, share my excitement from finding lobster in the cave, or marvel at the colors of the peacock flounder, and my amazement at the coral restoration efforts that Bonaire researchers are spearheading. I saw quite a few places where corals were visibly restored, and it is such a welcome sight!
And here is a surprise - I have a bunch of sketches that I did not share - they are a part of an article in the “On The Spot” - The Magazine of Graphic Journalism published by Sketcher Press. It is available online and will be published in paper in June - but for now, if you are a subscriber, you can read it already - and if not, I will share some of the images next week.
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
