Telephone poles are fascinating. All those cables and loops and little boxes that somehow make our phones, electricity, internet and TV work — amazing! Drawing is a sort of meditation because you are really paying attention to something you usually only glance at.
Several people have recently asked how to easily find past paintings. All of the paintings I have sent since January are on the home page of my website www.lynnholbein.com. The blog scrolls from newest back to oldest (ten per page on nine pages), a total of about ninety paintings so far.
Our daughter Kate’s debut memoir about her faith journey, “Following the Red Bird” officially launched last week! Foreword Reviews wrote a beautiful review here: http://bit.ly/2suPN4L The book is for sale on Amazon and from other online sellers or you can order from your local bookstore. You can also read more on her website: www.katerademacher.com. Kate and I are in Chicago at the ALA book convention, where she is signing her new book!
Saturday is the last day of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. Muslims (3 million in the US, 1.6 billion worldwide) fast from food and drink (even water) from sunrise to sunset for the entire month. In all three Abrahamic monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), believers fast to strengthen their faith and connect better to God. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with making a declaration of faith, praying five times a day, giving generously to the poor, and once in one’s lifetime making a pilgrimage to Mecca. This sketch is of Muslims bowing in prayer in Mecca.
A toast to the summer solstice, the longest day of the year!
Fun just to make a line drawing without color.
Scenes like this have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s the mixture of machines and men, maybe it’s a day-glo vests. This was hard to sketch on location, so I snapped a photo and did the sketch when I got home. 
Greens are so delicious!
When you look outside today, you’re probably seeing many different shades of green. How to portray those in a painting? In watercolor, you either start with a green like viridian or sap green, or with a yellow and a blue. You add different amounts of water and perhaps other pigments. You can either mix them on the palette or let them mix on the paper. Here’s a practice sheet of mine.
People ask me how I find time to paint. I try to make it a priority, but sometimes I don’t have time, or am uninspired, or (as this week) what I do paint isn’t good enough to share with you. Fortunately, I have older paintings I can use when that happens. This one was painted a year ago of the rhododendrons in our front yard.
Did you know Winston Churchill loved to paint? Prince Charles has published two books on watercolor. Painting is a common activity in Great Britain, and if you go into a bookstore, the section on watercolors is nearly as large as the section on gardening.
I am so grateful to share my sketches with you, because it keeps me painting! On Saturday I took a walk to find something to draw. Our neighbors have a wonderful stand of irises so I sat down on their grass and sketched them. The paint was added when I got home.
Like many others, I am deeply disturbed and saddened that our country is going to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
