INVITING SPRING INDOORS AND INSPIRATION

 Winter has slipped away with its bone chilling days and icicles dancing in the Maple tree. Hibernation was my mantra in those months spent indoors with puzzles, audio books and a new, most time capturing hobby. Surrounded with sketching and watercolour paints I signed up for an online art class called; 

"Meditative Botanical Sketching." 

As you may know, I love flowers and have hundreds of photos which I could use as reference material but I was now faced with a new challenge. My art instructor is a sketching artist from Barcelona Spain. His drawing of buildings in his city inspired me as I reflected on time spent in Barcelona some years ago, which has the most unique architecture I have ever seen. But wait, my photos of that city were not my subjects either.

I found myself in the dead of winter searching Home Depot for green plants and a lovely florist shop for stems of flowers. They graced my living room and kitchen but also spent many hours surrounding me on my art table. As I listened and watched  each lesson I became captivated and almost obsessed with the intricacies of leaves and petals as Lapins ink sketchings inspired me to be courageous enough to start moving my ink pen to the rhythm and flow of these living botanicals posing inches from my nose.

With instructions on mixing watercolors I began to bring colour into the boundaries of black lines. Such a rewarding process, and with a humbleness to overlook mistakes I will move forward with anticipation of more lessons from the professional.

In the quietness of these hours I have been praying for the people of Ukraine

 and for a stop to this crazy war. This sketch is my prayer.