Portraits of My New African Violet

My new african violet is tiny and has flowers of a marvelous astringent burgundy color. It lives on my art table and is often a subject for my experiments. Here is a couple:

 (as always click on the image to see it large :)

From The Summer Trip: Sunrises on Adriatic Sea (Part 2)

Images below are the second half of my experience of following the sun getting out from behind the mountain. (Part 1 is here). 

I shared these sunrises with my parents (who continue meeting the sun regularly), people sleeping on the beach, people cleaning the beach, many birds (pigeons, seagulls, crows, and some I did not identify), several serious cats, and a few agile kittens. After the sun would get up and I would get my swim, locals would arrive for their swimming time, many already knew my parents and greeted them in Ukrainian, and others got a reply from my parents in Croatian. Then dogs and their walkers. First shop owners and farmers arrive at the market. It was amazing - seeing a town waking up slowly. Now I am thinking that I should have drawn all of that - but by that time the temperature was scorching! You cannot have it all - and I had my sunrises :) 

Starting the Orange Season Early

I never could choose which season I like the most because each of them has some amazing things happening :) But for someone whose color palette always has to contain some version of orange color, fall is a special time of the year :)
I recently heard an interesting sentence while listening to a podcast interview with Mark Hearld: he said (about standing in a field in fall) that it is "one of the great color experiences of my year". I've been thinking about my personal set of "great color experiences of the year" ever since :) And fall is filled with them! Yet there are almost no hints that colors are going to change here in California (yet) but there are pumpkins everywhere!!!
So - I put on an orange shirt and went sketching with Suhita at a pumpkin patch at a local farm! Cosentino Family Farm is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has been cared for by a lovely local family since 1945! They have some very tasty local fruit, an orchard where you can see how it grows, with people who care for it right next to it and they organize some interesting food events - you can learn more on their Instagram: CosentinoFamilyFarm.   

There was so much orange!!! I had to do another sketch and concentrate on greens :) Figeater beetles were circling us (I want to catch one now to draw!) as we packed up our sketching gear, picked some apples, and made plans to come back. 

Drawn reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. September 18-24, 2023.

September 18-24, 2023. Days 571 - 577 of war.
My mom continues writing her memoirs and this week told me that she found a new trick for remembering dates for some of the events: she corresponds them with my changing teeth and my artwork :) She tells me: "I remember you did not have front teeth on that trip and painted this and that". I remember different things from that trip - but that is what makes these memoirs such a rich topic!

We spoke about people who are returning to Kharkiv and how some are finding new life possible but others find that they are not capable of living with the continued bombing. This week was hard for Kharkiv again. Some schools in Kharkiv are working online but others bring kids in. We talk about how scary this is for kids, parents, and teachers. Yet it also becomes a new normal. Which is scary by itself. 

From The Summer Trip: Sunrises on Adriatic Sea (Part 1)

Sunsets are amazing! Never-ending attempt to see everything and notice simultaneously all the changes, enjoy the view, and try to put it on paper. It is a challenge that you can rely upon. Even when it is cloudy and looks like there is no change in the light - there is so much to see. In short: I love sunsets. But as I learned on my summer trip - sunrises are just as amazing :) Not that I never saw a sunrise - but this time I saw a whole bunch of them in a sequence. It added such a glorious rhythm to my days and a relished layer of memories about the trip! I would walk through the dark streets, sit on the beach, and enjoy painting up until the sun would blind me and make me go for a swim. I divided my sketches into two parts - here is the first of them: