Spring Garden In a Pot (Table Gardening).

I love following flowers on a day-to-day basis, and every spring, I get some sort of bulb to grow, and this year, I got a whole little garden of bulbs to follow! It was a marvelous adventure, impossible to draw (at some point apart from a two hyacinth flowers there were 6 tulips and over 20 daffodils - all miniature and all sitting in a 6" pot on my table). But I got to draw some of them! Today I was moving the bulbs into "summering" storage and realized that I never shared any of these sketches - so here is part one of my selection  :) 

Another Vase I Made!

This vase has lots of things that I would do differently today but I learned a lot! See some notes around it :) I names it honey skep. 

Two Very Different Sketches from One Great Place

I got to sketch at the Allied Arts Guild this week and went with a plan and a friend. While catching up I completely abandoned my plan (without realizing it) and ended up drawing people at work in a really cool workspace. In short, it was a great sketching outing that needs part 2 to go back to my plans!

People Drawing!

I love drawing people - moving people, working people, sleeping people, faces. One of my regular outlets is portrait parties in real life or online - like pencils4tea and drawingisfree. But I've been skipping a lot of them lately - so when there was a chance to jump on a zoom call and draw some faces, I did so without hesitation. And what fun I had! The music (used to time each portrait) was super funny (some sitters had a really hard time not laughing :) Of course, my favorite was chicken singing one of the songs from the movie Frozen! In short - I should do it more often ;)

Here are some of the previous people drawings I did not share before - I only recently realized that I've been posting more of these on Instagram, so this is a little catch-up. 

Flanders Poppies in a Landscape

It is impossible to translate all the feelings a field of poppies gives. I enjoyed painting separate flowers and groups of flowers, but something was missing in what I was trying to say. That is when I knew that I had to try and paint a bigger view - and what a joy it was!

I found some dogwood flowers!

I missed my "scheduled" dogwood tree blooming time (and ended up enjoying an early season Pride of Madeira - so no loss!) But then I realized that there is a rather tall group of dogwood trees near my library - and they are very late bloomers every year - so perhaps I was not that late after all?

Flanders Poppies 2026 - Part 2

Follow-up on the last week's post about my trip to paint Flanders Poppies: more gouache plein air ! 

Little Things Here and There

These are little sketches that fit between larger sketches in my sketchbook. Mostly "this is a super busy day! let me draw whatever is in front of me on my table, otherwise I might not find time to draw today" :)

Another Vase I Made

This was my second time when I was able to make a closed form on the wheel (you make a cylinder and then you make sure that it has no opening at the top). I let it dry some and made a hole for the entrance to the vase. This clay is gritty, rough, and strong, yet when completed, this little piece looked very gentle. I put some grasses from around my home in it before giving it as a gift to a friend :)

On My Table: Beginning of May 2026

April ran away from me - but I 

• enjoyed working on sharing my underwater drawing tips and tricks with a bunch of people online.
• witnessed one of the most abundant rose-blooming season in my neighborhood, and now I even have a rose in a pot! 
• marveled at the late California rains and the sudden greenery of the hills after them
• made a bunch of pots and vases
• finished a sketchbook number 164
• painted outside at least once every week!
• worked on a bunch of graphic design projects and projects that are at the stage where progress seems super slow and there is nothing to share, but I know that it will change.

Flanders Poppies 2026 - Part 1

Flanders Poppies are on my sketching calendar in May usually but since the heat wave we had this year (I know I keep complaining about everything blooming at the wrong time) I went to check the "House with Red Poppies" earlier than usual and found a field in full bloom!

This year I got to chat with the master of the poppies himself and got an invitation to check out his other crops later this year - so now the "house with red poppies is in my calendar twice! 

As you probably already guessed, more sketches are coming because there is no way to paint so much red beauty in just one sitting, but I need breaks between such colorful excursions too :)