Daily reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. May 22-24. 2022

May 22, 2022, Day 88.
Dad is reading poems and singing areas from the operas. Mom says: "It's been a long time since we listened to opera." Then she says: "How is this relevant to what is happening now?" 

May 24, 2022, Day 90.
This day's story is not about the war at all, but to appreciate it in full, you need to know that part of the word for "lawyer" sounds like a word for a "cat". So - they start the conversation (with serious faces) by telling me that three lawyers came over. One was especially impudent and even tried to enter their home without an invitation. Then they proceed by telling me that he was completely black and had a very nice, springy tail and loved the sausage that Mom offered. And they start laughing like little kids. In short - we had a good call today :)

Daily reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. May 18-21. 2022

May 18, 2022, Day 84.
The weather was menacing, the wind was blowing, and it was raining. Dad was cold and miserable and they were in a somber mood. More shelling in Kharkiv, more people without houses, and more uncertainties in the future. But there was an unusual moth which reminded Mom about one of her University colleagues who was an ornithologist but "for himself" - he was collecting moths! Description followed :) I wonder what happened to it. 

May 19, 2022, Day 85.
Mom reports that two delphiniums are about to start blooming and I managed to make only a small drawing on that day - it was a vyshyvanka day and we spent quite some time discussing all kinds of family heirlooms that I have - so instead of drawing them I was showing shirts and pillows and asking questions :)

May 21, 2022, Day 87.
The day was full of changes: weather, nature, and mood - all kept changing. Parents received a present of the very first strawberries of the season (thank you, dear neighbor!), and we discussed the best way to eat them. They ate some with milk yesterday and just plain (Dad) and with some sugar (Mom) today. Delphiniums are about to start blooming. There is an unidentified tree that bothers Mom (Carl Linnaeus would be stomped too - there are no flowers!). There was a lot of poetry today - connected to the conversations and absolutely out of the blue. They miss their home but don't talk much about it - though every day I get an update on where Kharkiv was hit in the last 24 hours. 

Daily reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. May 15-17. 2022

May 15, 2022, Day 81.
There were a lot of poems and quotes from books for kids. Dad said that they read very similar books when they were children. To which Mom laughs and corrects him that that is not true - but they read the same books to me when I was a kid :) It always gets their spirits up when they start reading poems out loud together and help each other with lost lines. I am glad that sometimes I can help too - but not too often :) They got some potatoes and bread from the neighbor. The conversation turned to what we call the truthful person and honest one and what is the difference. Mom said that one word is related to what is inside the person and another is to the language one is using. 

May 16, 2022, Day 82.
Mom is making friends with the cat but it is still a very distant relationship. We discuss that Kharkiv restarted some public transportation. Their blood pressure requires adjustment of meds and, we keep going over the options. We talk about how many jokes are outdated these days and how many jokes are no longer funny because of the war. 

May 17, 2022, Day 83.
Dad started a conversation with the main news: Mom was a cinderella today. She was cleaning all day long. There was a lot of arguing that day but we got over it. Sometimes I wish I could control their sources of information. Then I try to think about what I would say to someone who would try doing that to me. 

A new inspiring book in my library! (and my sketches are in it too)

Virginia Hein is an amazing sketcher with such a zest for trying new things! She is an expressive and comprehensive colorist, and mark maker, and her ability to sketch in a moving car makes me so jealous! Her work is always an inspiration and despite my dislike of heat, I think I will make it to the desert to sketch the places Virginia had shown me in her works. 

In the middle of the pandemic, I got an email from her that there is a book in the making. It had two authors - and the second one is Gail Wong - whose detailed Seattle sketches I know well through the Urban Sketching community! And they wanted to use a couple of my sketches in this new book about... ABOUT NATURE!  the subject dear to my heart pandemic or not :) 

And this week I got to see the real book (The Urban Sketching Handbook Spotlight on Nature) and it is filled with wonderful ideas to try and so many great examples of different approaches to sketching nature! Many sketchers I knew and many were completely new to me - and it is such an honor to be in this extraordinary company! 

On My Table: End of May 2022.

 There are way too many things on my table now and I hope to clear some of them away this month - to make space for new ones! And some of these experiments I will write more about:)