Trees in Bloom: Pears and Cherries That Bear No Fruit

Right before the super hot spell we had in March, I had a chance for a quick sketch of super white pear trees on google campus.

As that hot spell moved all the blooming schedules for this year forward, I found myself painting Japanese Flowering Cherry much earlier than I expected.

Neither this cherry nor this pear bears fruit, which might be a gift or a curse depending on your point of view. But the flowers are amazing, and I was overwhelmed by the complexity of trying to show these trees at their peak in both cases. With the first sketch, my solution was to get far away and see the trees as a part of a much bigger scene, and limit the amount of time I allocated for this sketch. With the flowering cherry trees, I decided to drop the building in the background to enjoy the grays and pinks of the tree against the greens of the shrubbery and grass. 

First Page on a New Sketchbook: Five New Sketching Tools I Use

I started my sketchbook number 165 on Monday. Usually, I draw "my most used current tools" on the first page. But Monday is a busy day, and my table was in such a state that finding my most-used tools was a task that would put me way out of the time allocated to my daily sketch. So I picked five odd / New sketching tools I've been playing with recently and drew they with some comments. Gave me a chance to think about what I like/dislike - win-win. 

Almost Green Hills of Pleasanton in Gouache

A wonderful trip to Pleasanton and a hike in the hills with sketching with friends. I had a plan to keep all my sketches of that day feeling like they were a series, and I think it almost worked. Gouache on all sorts of paper - one was a blotter page, I think - which is a shame - I like that sketch a lot.

Roses in a Jar

I drew roses last week in my vase and then came home from the mountains with a rose-in-a-pot (I now have my own rose - let's see how soon I will draw it and how long it will survive!) and with a bouquet of roses in a mason jar.I enjoyed drawing complex shapes and layers of these fragrant flowers as they aged and became simpler and simpler until it was time to let them go. 

My oak leaf hydrangea dry flower

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I am admiring my oak leaf hydrangea flower, and since this beautiful dry flower is still on my desk, it kept popping up in my sketchbook: