Tips for Drawing at the Protest

Last Saturday, I participated in a peaceful No Kings protest in the Bay Area. There were many people, dogs, music, and of course, I drew there!

I found a nice corner with some shade, and because it was a corner, there were people coming from many sides, and there was a traffic light where they would stop for a little bit, so I had a few extra moments to draw. I took with me a minimum amount of tools - see my sketchbook with a little pen pouch attached to it with an elastic band. When drawing a crowd, I apply the following techniques: 

• drawing some of my subjects in whole, especially if they talk to someone near me (that duck suit with a lady who gave me a button);
• combining some people out of many looks at them as they stand, talk, and walk (three people who were actually waiting for the light to turn green - on the second sketch, or a group on the corner (first sketch, right side)
• putting together some figures out of several people (little humans near the tree), plus adding notes and taking a break to draw something else from time to time (like trees). 

My Radish-Growing Update

After devouring my first radish, I was looking forward to the continuation of the season. But it proved to be quite short! The second radish was pretty cool and deserves a few of portraits (I used thicker gouache with this one and tried different techniques of applying paint while waiting for lunch time). But since then, we had a heatwave, and I believe the rest of my plants promptly decided to "bolt" - meaning they now have beautiful flowers and no edible root. The Internet is full of ideas about why and what now, but I think I will enjoy drawing beautiful plants instead of beautiful roots. 

Fremontia at Google Campus

I ventured to the google campus to draw this beautiful sprawling Flannelbush also known as Fremontia. It is a native plant (Fremontodendron) within the same family of plants as Mallow and Hibiscus but also Durian! (Malvaceae)

It was a very bright and warm day (again - where did spring go??) and yellow flowers surrounded by dark green foliage and branches played amazingly well against California blue sky - in fact, I think this scene is made to be painted in gouache! I am working in Lumia sketchbook from Pith - and enjoying it a lot. This sketchbook is almost completed, and I will make a flip-through with some comments on the paper and what I like about it soon.

How to Cut a Stencil, How to Make a Sign.

This short video illustrates how to cut a stencil to make a sign. I am making some signs like this to put around so that people know when the event is. These events will be happening all over the country, because NO KINGS IN THE USA! 

WHEN IS THE EVENT? 

March 28th, 2026 - this Saturday. 

WHERE TO GO?

In my experience, it is best to go to the event where you have friends (ask them) or go to one near you - here is a map where you can find one quickly: https://www.nokings.org/ 

WHY GO? The main message of this event is that America has no kings. The current administration is threatening democracy and advancing an authoritarian agenda where there is no rule of law but the interest of one person, where loyalty to that person is valued above truth, and where freedom of speech is under assault. This is your chance to be heard, to make a stance, and to openly defend democracy. This is the reason to go.

Some people bring other agendas to these events. I always encourage people to know what they are there for, what they are standing for. There are so many issues to talk about! I do not have to agree with everyone at these events. But we have a common message: democracy is worth our time and energy. Carry a sign that you are ready to stand for - here are some of the amazing examples my art friend Rama Hughes made. Chant what you agree with. Or do not chant. Walk. Or stand. Bike. Drive. Pass by and wave. Bring kids, dogs, and cats. 

What is happening is not normal, and being with people who understand this is very helpful for our survival. Not normalizing the current attempt to make America an authoritarian country is why I will be at the No Kings on March 28th, 2026. 

Another Apricot Orchard - Another Remedy

After a week of drawing lots of people (aka #oneweek100people) I needed a break in the chase after human bodies to sketch and I knew that Suhita Shirodkar (who organized a whole bunch of super cool events for the #oneweek100people this year - from short morning sessions to guest artists to a marathon session) was even more ready to draw something other than humans. And that is how we ended up in one of our yearly sketching locations - Apricot orchard at the Saratoga Public Library. Only the trees were almost done blooming... unseasonable heat pushed blooming time at least 2 weeks ahead, said the caretaker of the orchard (before warning us that sprinklers would be tested soon, so we'd better move to the other side of the library, where there are some blooming nectarines and plums and where sprinklers were not scheduled to go off any moment).  And that is how I ended up with one view of an apricot orchard and one view of what I think is a plum tree ;)
P.S. This is a second Apricot Orchard Outing that saves my sanity this month - here is first one. 

Redbud Tree (aka Judas Tree) in Bloom

My Friday outing was a lot of fun as I ventured into the google campus to draw some blooming trees - and will be back for more as they have some amazing specimens!

Right now redbuds (aka Judas tree) are in bloom, and their delicate branches are covered in magnificently magenta flowers and just a hint of leaves to come (I love the shape of their leaves and the fact that old seedpods are still hanging on many branches). And California Blue sky provided an amazing background - on a bright (and HOT for March) day it was a joy to sketch!

DId I draw 100 people last week? Yes I did! #OneWeek100People2026

This year I took part in #OneWeek100People2026 - this is a challenge organized by @lizsteelart and @m.holmes.art - they run it every year - sometimes via facebook, sometimes on instagram - but the idea is to give your people sketching muscles a workout for a week. I encourage you to check out a blog post from Liz as this year she drew 100 people twice and got interviewed about the project by Guardian - here is a link to the article! 

I love drawing people from life and really enjoyed making this challenge all about my neighborhood in 2025. But my schedule this time around did not allow for so many real-life opportunities - only sketches in the first image were drawn from life:

To get to a 100 I drew from youtube videos - researching movements of tennis players and archers:

And I drew with the wonderful online portrait party drawing group: pencils4tea

And then I joined a super fun 40 min drawing session that Suhita Shirodkar ran this year - her guest artist was a wonderful artist from New Zealand: Andrew James, and we drew musicians:

And on Thursday I was a guest artist at Suhita's substack gathering and we drew from the photos of Ukrainian photographer Alexandra Bolotina. She was a travel and portrait photographer before the full-scale invasion of russian army into Ukraine in 2022 and today her work is spread to photography, organizing creation of adaptive clothing for people who suffered injuries in the war and support children with disabilities. She lives and works in Kharkiv, Ukraine. You can support her work via PayPal donation - send me a note and I will connect you. 

Here is a link to a video recording of our session with Suhita Shirodkar where you can see original photos and process of how these quick portraits were created. 

Apricot Orchard in Bloom as a Remedy for My To-Do List

At the end of a long day, I felt like the more I crossed off my "to-do list," the more I added. This usually puts me in a procrastination mode, out of which I get by asking myself, "What if you did not have to do anything at all - zero obligations - what would you do?" And the answer often prompts me to grab my sketching bag and head out. Which is what I did - because a couple of days before, I saw that this apricot orchard was about to bloom! 

When I got to this sketching location I had little time and felt rather tired and wound up at the same time. My rules for such a situation are: 

1) start drawing as soon as possible

2)  get the first sketch out of my system as quickly as possible with a minimum amount of materials.

So I planted my folding stool within 10 feet of the boundary of the orchard. And I started the warm-yellow line for the roofs behind the trees, because the yellow marker was the first thing I blindly pulled out of my sketch bag. After the yellow, I pulled out the black chisel pen and drew the hero of this sketch: an apricot tree. After that I added details with the purple pencil. That is how the sketch below came to be. And then  I was able to get my gouache pleinair box out and paint the view a little slower - that is the first sketch in this post.

I Grew My First Radish!

I am an aspiring gardener. I find it that gardening is a great exercise for the patience muscle, and a very rewarding experience for someone who enjoys looking at plants and tinkering with things! I sowed some seeds of radish in the fall and watched this pot being soaked by a series of wet winter storms, while little leaves started to grow, and then bigger and bigger ones. And then one morning, I saw my very first radish poking out of the ground. If you do not know, radishes stick a bit when ready to harvest. I pulled it out right away and shared it with my family - right after I sketched this beauty! Now, with the next one (almost ready to be gathered), hopefully I will be patient enough to sketch it still in the ground and then on the plate. At least that is my intention. 

I planted about 12 seeds, some did not make it, but quite a few did - so get ready for a spring series lol :)

Send me your favorite ways of eating radishes! I am also researching some interestingly-shaped and unusually-colored ones to try growing next :)

Blooming Thundercloud Plum Trees

These days, there are so many blooming trees around me, I feel like there is no way to visit them all (and there is no way to visit them all) - but I try nonetheless :)

These thundercloud plum trees have beautifully shaped, slightly toothy on the edge, wine-purple leaves and small plums that are usually consumed by squirrels and birds before anyone else has a chance. But before all of that, out of cool-gray with red undertone branches come beautiful pink flowers. First they appear one at a time, and then an avalanche of blooms that gives a tree a cloud-like look. Leaves start appearing on the bottom of the tree first slowly closing in on the flowers. 

I did a portrait of one tree and then tried to capture what a street of them feels like to me from the shadow of a large coastal redwood. Process photos below.

Virtual Traveling (with Street View World Tour) - Carts & Kiosks!

I traveled around the world (virtually) to draw food carts and kiosks! I did my traveling via  online gathering of #streetviewworldtour organized by  Jenny Adam and Eleanor Doughty - they have a new website for this project streetviewworldtour.com

This months visiting artist was Sibylle Lienhard @sibyllelienhard and I learned a lot about watering holes in Germany (we visited Frankfurt and Offenbach), about elotes and esquites in Oaxaca, Mexico, and drew a gorgeous city square in Montevideo, Uruguay.  

My previous participations include a trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine where I was the guest artist, Drawing Sky Holes, Kenya, Boats, Night Life, Hawaiian Foliage, Light and Shadow, and Japan, Ohio, Arizona and Taipei, Convenience Stores Around the World, Castles, Urban Gardens, and People at Work. 

Yellow Chrysanthemums Part 2

I made a series of sketches of this beautiful plant of yellow chrysanthemums before it became my Mom's flower (she enjoys it very much!). First installment is here, some little drawings I shared here, and below are a couple more traditional and I am still thinking about how to finish experimental ones to share :)

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