Grateful: a new hiking adventure!

The other day my friend and I took a long lunch hour and spent it in a place I thought I knew pretty well - a campus of Stanford University. But I was wrong: there was a LAKE I did not know about and a bunch of hiking paths that I'd never seen and some jackrabbits, wildflowers and an amazing view! We found a good spot to eat and sketch and then hurried back to work - what a gift!


I taped this drawing into my sketchbook next to some drawings I've done from memory after a little hike on the other side of the hill. 



Nonagenarian update: spring is here!

Little things are a sure way to keep track of time with our nonagenarian. There are new leaf buds on the rose plant. Nasturtiums are out - she grows the fiery ones! I hope to get a small plant when it gets to the viable stage as one of my spring-summer plans is to draw so many Nasturtiums (Tropaeolums) that I would feel like I had enough. I have yet to track different colors but even if I manage bright orange ones out of nonagenarian favors it would be great! The fig tree put out lots of leaves and there are 8 fruits (actually they are inverted flowers) and more are coming. Herb plants keep her salads fragrant and I plan to introduce an idea of growing some green onions. We try to stay on top of getting the correct cheese selection stocked in the fridge and take care of the appointments for her eye health and I've been tasked with finding new books - the request was for "something modern". 


A bee turned me into a grumpy left-handed human for a bit.

Recently I was stung by a bee. I am quite sure that it was a bee and not a yellow jacket - I see them by the side of the pool sometimes. I did not see this one - I reached out to take a breather, felt fire take over my pinky, and heard myself curse. It's been a while since my last bee-stinging experience was personal. I've been around many cases when my little Benadryl+pain management pen helped others and I knew how to talk someone through what is happening when it might stop hurting this much and how a promise on some ice cream helps. But I did not have the medicine with me this time. Self-talk quickly turned into self-observation. I was surprised by how outraged I felt at this act of a fair case of self-defense, how I cataloged all the tingling and swelling and numbness and pain, and how much time I spent checking if the bulge was gone and if I could fold my finger. How much I knew that this is blown out of proportion if taken in any sort of perspective. And how real it was at the same time. And I ended up drawing it. But since it was the right hand that was affected - I drew this whole page with the left one. 

And while I drew my shirt I realized that it needs to be patched - which is something that I decided to draw next :)

I never know if orchid is real or fake.

I always avoided orchids - both as plants and subjects for my drawings. To thrive for a long time they require greener thumbs than I have. And to draw them I had to believe that they were real and not plastic - they always look artificial to me :) 

But recently I was exposed to a different approach: think about orchards as a long-lasting bouquet / composition - not as a living plant. And with this thought in mind, my parents got two lovely orchards as presents. Personal exposure to the roots and leaves allowed me to believe that these are real plants and not fake ones and I ended up drawing them :) With real pleasure - not a fake one :) 

 


One Week 100 People: 2024

This challenge (#oneweek100people) was organized and curated this year (again) by Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes. The idea is to give your people-sketching skills a little boost. There are no rules apart from what is in the name of this challenge. I did not set any specific rules for myself except to try and sketch people every day during the week and see how many I would end up with - no pressure to get to the number was my thing.

After I started with some passers-by whom I saw in the window on Monday I realized that I lived in the wrong place to find so many subjects and quickly devised a plan: I scanned my weekly plan for things that I planned to do anyway but which had a potential of seeing people and introduced a little extra time to those activities for sketching. Some of it was in person, some or online, some involved attending a lecture, some watching a sport. And I also looked into my options for aligning this with an idea of finding like-minded people - this is how I ended up joining pencils4tea on Thursday and Suhita's substack group on Friday. 

you can see all the results below - however number I got to I am happy to count this as a successful challenge - I drew more people, made a bunch of mistakes and tried to correct some and had fun along the way :)