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.

A Blooming Cacti!

My friend found some incredible blooming cacti and we had a lovely lunch & sketch outing drawing them! 

Surprising for me was the length of the flower itself and how much space you can see. Star-like stigma was especially beautiful! Also - how much fragrance do these flowers carry! (still sneezing :) I did not see bees but I believe they are the main pollinators - though judging by the amount of space a small pigeon also can be tempted. 

The most challenging part was judging colors in a very bright sun - so I picked a few markers and pencils and was disciplined about not using everything I had. I really liked little super-furry cacti babies on tops of the plants - they looked like a good reason to come back to this corner :) 

Magnolia Season

Magnolias are among my favorite plants and when they bloom it is one of my "great color experiences of the year." So when it is upon us, I try to make it count. As we have many microclimates in the San Francisco Bay Area, the season rolls south to north and depends on waves in weather - so I got to sketch some in Suhita's neighborhood on a very hot day, and when trees near her started dropping their heavy petals on a sidewalk, trees near me were in peak - so we arranged for a second outing and got some time with these glorious flowers. 

I went to draw outside!

The war in Ukraine takes a lot of space in my life right now. But I draw with friends online and even went to draw outside when my friend stopped by - it was such a wonderful break!

Gouache on toned paper and blooming san pedro cactus.

The other day I found a blooming san pedro cactus - It was over 6 feet tall and had dozens of flowers (mostly closed during the day).

I had just a few minutes but toned paper allows me to paint with gouache very quickly.

Wonderful Nova paper from Stillman & Birn is now my standing choice for the toned paper and I had some black pages tucked with my pocket gouache kit.

Later at home I taped the sketch in my main sketchbook with some washi tape and added a protective layer.

I often add a layer of tracing paper over my gouache sketches because of two reasons: it protects the sketch and also semi-transparent surface allows me to have a second take on the composition or just plain doodle some more over existing sketch - in this case I drew a few flowers with a brush marker.