Treasures

Treasures used to be one of the most frequent posts on this blog. Treasures were things people around me would gift to me for no special reason. Things that one might not pay attention to: leaves, acorns, sticks, dry flowers, feathers, and such. I still pick things up, collect, and draw them - not as many - but here is a recent collection.

Things I Made and Grew Inside Them.

I made two pots and two saucers for them and grew these petunias in the pots. 

They were gifts to two people related to each other. And both had a mix of glazes applied diagonally but it is visible better on a pink and blue set.

I suspect that saucers might have a more interesting life than the pots (after all, they are food safe! and both receivers of these gifts are very inventive people), but we will see :) 

In the orange and blue sketch, the flowers were actually very magenta-pink, and I think I sketched them in true colors, but I cannot find it at the moment. However, it was a period in my packing for Toulouse when I thought that I might survive with just two pencils and an eraser. 

Gouache Adventure on a Windy Summer Day

Recently I gave myself a gift of an afternoon of painting hills and water in the Baylands. It was windy (seasonally so) and pretty cold because of that. Everything was flying away. Gouache was drying so fast that I was having a hard time mixing it in the palette. But when I tucked my chair behind a wall, it was super hot (seasonally so), and my gouache was drying so fast I was having a hard time moving it on the page. And I missed that wind. But there were terns dropping in the water near me. 

I had a great time! 

Here are two sketches that came out of that outing.

A Tiny Vase and a New Flower Pot with a Saucer

I tried some new things: a tiny vase on the top is made with b-mix - the plainest of clays and covered with clear glaze. I changed the shape to almost rectangular, and it has brown spots that are made with a different kind of clay inlaid in the body of the vase. I would like to try making more of these multi-clay pieces!

The bottom contraption is a flower pot that I turned upside-down for this sketch. And it is made with speckled buff and glazed with two beautiful glazes that mixed up nicely: nori green and light blue, diagonally applied with overlap. A new and interesting thing about it is actually a saucer that is on the very bottom. It was not the first attempt at making a plate, but so far, this is the best one I've made!

Grateful: Two Bouquets and a Friendship

My friend gave me two bouquets: one for me and one for my Mom. They were a perfect gift: I got to draw them, looking for similarities and differences. I brought one to Mom, and it was a conversation topic for several days: discussing flowers within, colors of those flowers, if they need more water, if some of the flowers should go, and what we will do with the succulents later. Thank You!

That color swatching was my attempt at thinking about what materials and colors I should take with me to Toulouse :) The choices were changed many, many times :)

Nonagenarian Update: Summer 2026

We celebrated a big 97 just a few days ago. There are figs on her tree and roses just finished blooming. A pot that I made with bright pink petunias was part of our gift. Chocolates are still very popular. Recently she moved furniture in her room. 

I wish you all for your 97th birthday:

a) to know how you want your furniture to be organized; 

b) to have strength and perseverance to rearrange it for your liking. 

On My Table: Beginning of July 2026

June turned into July quickly this year, and I am just a few days away from flying to France! My palette needs to be washed and refilled, and the pencil case still is not closing - so some curation needs to happen (or a larger case would be found - I will let you know!) My plan is to share what colors and tools will go with me to Toulouse, and then what I ended up using or not using. 

Another Vase I made!

This is a present for a friend who is not online as much and is not reading this blog, so I am posting it before it is actually gifted to the recipient. I've been trying to nail the shape of a vase where the top half is larger than the bottom part, but I am still far from my goal. However, this one was a step forward, and I enjoyed making a new texture on the surface and experimenting with the way glazes pulled in the holes. (Spoiler - yellow did not pull as much as I hoped! Possibly because I dropped the whole vase in a bucket with glaze, which caused the layer to be too thick, and I sponged some of the extra glaze off - and, probably, overdid it).

Alstroemerias: Part 2

Here is a second batch of alstroemerias from my sketchbook (first one is here). By the end of the life of this bouquet, I tried to hang it upside down to dry flowers and preserve beautiful colors and shapes, but they fell off within a few breaths.