Tulip portrait - unusual pattern, rogue petal, and unexpected closing and opening.

I enjoy having more plants than I have space for and inevitably end up gifting some, killing some, and re-planting some of my plants in strange new places - all with varying  results. This is how a little guerilla garden appeared in the communal area near my balcony (if you are a neighbor - please don't tell plant police that it is me). And this week I am putting one more plant there (please don't ask me about the timing). This was a tulip bulb that stubbornly did not want to start and then got out with a flare showed some very interesting color patterns on the petals and had one special petal too. It delighted me with repeated closing and opening at the times when I did not expect and I documented this bloom in my sketchbook - here are the highlights:

Drawn reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. May 29 - June 3, 2023.

May 29 - June 5, 2023. Days 461-468 of war.
We spoke about all the flowers of June: from peonies to roses, and discussed the names in different languages - not all the names were easy to pull out of our heads but still - five languages are a fun combination!

There was a trash-collecting machine that fascinated my Mom and they spent part of one morning watching it work. Mom is amazing that way - I once left her and a kid next to a fire station to go get some food and when I came back in an hour both of them still were not ready to leave.

Mom and Dad found a new bread and new cheese and are making a list of things for me to try when I come to visit them :) New dog friends were made (Dad is a magnet for dogs no matter which part of the world he is in - I think if tomorrow he would go to Mars, all the Martian dogs would be running to him to get a proper scratch). More walking adventures happened this week, almost all sane. And even a swim and a half happened too. 

Peony Season 2

Did I mention Peony Season?
Well, this bouquet made my kitchen a place of the explosion of color and joy for a few days :)

Urban Sketching: A Street View World Tour / June 2023

This month the demo artist was @sue.heston - he r demo started me thinking about "sky holes"  - looking for them around me, in my photos, in a mess on my table, and even trying to make some :)

I went with stencils for all three sketches ;) Top to bottom these locations are:

Old Bridge - Mostar , Bosnia and Herzegovina
Esfahan, استان اصفهان، اصفهان،، Vank Church Alley, Iran
La Ventana, New Mexico, USA

A Street View World Tour is a fun, no-pressure gathering hosted by Jenny Adam and Eleanor Doughty via Gage Academy. You can learn more about these monthly free events and about these locations at the links above.

On My Table: Beginning of June 2023.

Beginning of June:

1. Sketchbook #149 is almost completed and I am thinking about what to do for the big 150 :) 

2. My gouache box still travels with me with some sort of mixing surface but I am almost done selecting colors for the new pocket palette with a hermetically sealed cover.

3. A set of brushes are my gouache selection. The "My island brush" is a 1/2 inch synthetic angled flat - I think it might be a strong contender for "You are going to live on an island without access to an art store - what is one brush that you will take with you?" 

4. I enjoy attending a fantastic monthly online gatherings Street View World Tour 

5. Peonies are all over my sketchbook these days - but I still did not make it to the peony garden yet - so there might be even more :)