Author: Lynn Holbein

At times when some are distressed, and others are relieved, the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer is universal.

77% of Americans on both sides say they feel election anxiety. At times of personal (and national) anxiety, deep breathing helps. In ocean breathing, we visualize a wave hitting the sand as we breathe out, and receding as we breathe in. Try a few breaths like this and watch your body and mind relax.

Kosher salt dropped into wet paint created the sand effects.

This painting took just four strokes. Then, wisely, I stopped.

This watercolor was painted with only one red, one blue and one yellow. Any other colors you see are because of colors mingled with each other. Fun to paint!

Sketching is a great alternative to impatience. Next time you’re kept waiting, grab a napkin and a pencil and sketch what’s around you. Don’t worry if it looks terrible, that’s what wastebaskets are for. Stay away from facial features — they’ll mess you up every time.

It’s your last chance to reserve a pet portrait during my election sale $250 $195 and have 100% of your money help to “get out the vote” in a top swing state! I have just completed five pet portraits including Baxter (below), and sent all the money to Down Home NC, which empowers and protects rural Black NC voters when they face voting intimidation from white supremacists like the Proud Boys. Your painting can be done now or later, for the holidays or a future gift. Reply to make a reservation now while your money can make a crucial difference.

Researchers say the intelligence of crows rivals that of a seven-year-old human child. “Crows and ravens are the only non-primates capable of making tools. They are capable of abstract reasoning, complex problem-solving and group decision-making.” To learn more, click this video.

Watercolor on Yupo paper, which creates unusual textures.

This Sunday 9/22 was the autumn equinox. Fall is many peoples’ favorite season. The heat of the summer is over, the air is cool and crisp, and the colors of the trees can be magnificent.

For the last seven years, I’ve meditated almost every morning for ten minutes, using an app on my phone (Headspace, Calm and recently Insight Timer). Quieting and centering helps start the day well. A small altar in the corner of the room helps to focus.

Gouache, watercolor, pen, iridescent gold ink.

On Friday night I was stuck in the Philadelphia airport, on a connecting flight from Vermont to North Carolina. All the flights kept being delayed, so instead of getting cranky, I decided to sketch the scene outside the window. I had just finished this sketch when I looked up to see a big jet labelled “The United States of America” landing on the runway. It was Air Force Two bringing VP Kamala Harris to Philadelphia to prep for Tuesday’s debate.

How many of us feel a bit sad when Labor Day comes? Perhaps it’s the echo of all those years at school when we faced months of sitting at our desks all day. Or a wish that we had savored more of those long summer evenings. I sketched this while visiting a friend at her lakefront cottage. Like many of our summer memories, it is a bit idealized.

The contemporary coffee shop is one of the best inventions of the 21st century, don’t you think? Dozens of people sipping lattes while working on their laptops, reading and chatting. This week’s sketch is of a guy sitting at the table next to me. His shirt wasn’t actually orange, and there were no paintings on the wall, but hey, this is sketching, not photography. Do you notice the “lost edge” on his face? Lost edges allow us to use our imagination to fill in the rest.

Looking for ways to fight voter intimidation in November’s election? I’m commissioning pet portraits (election sale $250 just $195) so you can do just that in the critical swing state of North Carolina. I will donate 100% of proceeds to NC Black Alliance, which stands up to groups who are notorious for their scare tactics. The white supremacist Proud Boys and Oathkeepers park big pickups with racks of guns near the polls, and engage in hate speech to scare Black voters away. Examples of pet portraits are here; reply if you’re interested.

The art of James Rizzi (1950-2011), which I recently discovered among some used art books, is fanciful and reminiscent of the “Where’s Waldo?” books. It looks fun so I decided to try the style.

$100 original 9″ x 12″ watercolor, 100% to register voters in marginalized communities.

To those of us whose birthday candles are getting crowded …..

What a magical season to cut flowers in your garden or buy them at the local Farmer’s Market.

At our family cottage in Vermont, this morning Lila (age 18) and Maggie (age 6) had a wonderful time painting together. Such blessings.

My first day experimenting with soft pastels, which are fun and easy to use.. A frame of artist’s tape until you’re finished keeps the edges clean.

Soft pastels, white acrylic paint, india ink, artist’s tape.

Watercolors, diluted acrylic paint, water-soluble crayons, india ink. No pressure, just playing and watching it flow. The only questions are: When is it finished? And which way is up?

May this month offer you some well-deserved rest.

Isn’t it interesting how a bunch of dots can come together to make a believable scene? The Impressionists discovered this.

The longest day of the year is this Thursday, June 20. Here’s hoping you have lots of sunshine and nature in your life this summer.

Your dog or cat can help you make sure all humans who want to vote can do so! In North Carolina (where we moved 3 years ago), if you are a person of color, it can be scary to register and vote — from restrictive voter ID laws, to Proud Boys’ pickups trucks near the polls with shotguns in their gun racks. When you commission a pet portrait, 100% will be donated to fight voter discrimination. Election season sale: pet portraits are not $250, but $195. Yesterday I finished this painting of Zeke, a long-haired dachshund, commissioned as a Father’s Day gift.

For the first Monday in the seven years since I started this blog, I forgot to post my weekly painting on Memorial Day last week!

Drawn by the variation in the fields and sky, I snapped a photo of this view and painted it later in a wide sketchbook. It’s a good example of one-point perspective, as all the lines converge on a single vanishing point in the middle. I find the scene appealing and hope you do too.

Our Farmer’s Market is starting to sell zinnias in many colors. I began to paint these from the standard side view of the tops of the flowers, the stems and the vase. But that didn’t show much of the flowers so I switched to an aerial view. Isn’t it amazing how intricate and almost mathematical the petals are?

Look out your window right now. How many greens do you see? It’s a challenge for painters to portray the many greens of nature: new leaves, mature leaves, evergreen trees, deciduous trees, all sorts of plants, fields, lawns, the effects of light and shade, and more.

Here’s a landscape of patchwork greens followed by a green color chart.

This started with three shades of red acrylic paint (magenta, alizarin crimson and cadmium red) on paper. I made different rectangles, combining reds and diluting some with white. At the end I added some green and white colored pencil. No plan, just following what looked appealing at the moment.

People who love color are drawn to abstracts because they celebrate color without being tied to reality. I discovered the work of Evalyn Boyd recently, and now I’m excited to learn more. Here’s my first.

Acrylic & graphite on 9″ x 12″ canvass, $95. All proceeds to color-blind voter registration.

Lila has come a long way since I snapped a photo of her learning to read, from which I painted this picture. She’s graduating from high school in June, and has decided to go to North Carolina State University in Biomedical Engineering next fall. Hooray for women in science! Then and now ….

Lila was eight when I took the photo on which this painting is based. She was walking in the woods with her brother Soren (our step-grandson). Now Lila is choosing a college. A magnet on our refrigerator says, “Cherish family, the days are long, but the years are short.”

These figures were my final assignment for a class I just took on sketching people. It’s challenging, but art comes alive when you populate your scene. Sketching moving people is too hard, so I snapped photos on my phone and drew from those, first in pencil (making corrections, especially in proportions), then in pen, finally adding just a few colors, mostly magenta and turquoise.

It’s funny (and sad) how often you see paintings of scenes that look great except that everybody has left town. I’ve been taking a Zoom class called “People Alive!” with the goal of populating sketches with casual figures, and also better understanding how the head changes with different angles. Here’s some of my homework. Not easy! Art is fun and frustrating because you’re never as good as you want to be, and you can keep learning for the rest of your life.

Hibiscus are such beautiful plants, with flowers that only last a day. Is this a metaphor for cherishing the days of our life? Though watercolor is my primary medium, I also love the fluidity and brightness of acrylics. 100% of sales go to voter protection this election year.

6″ x 6″ acrylic on museum board $75. Frame available.

This election year I’m offering my art for sale to fund the fight against voter intimidation in North Carolina. Unfortunately, efforts to prevent African-Americans from voting are still common, especially in rural areas of the South.

Original watercolor 8″ x 10″ (fits an 11″ x 14″ frame), $225, 100% to fight voter intimidation. Tax deduction available.

A unique feature of watercolor is that, if you pre-wet a shape with clear water before the dropping the paint in, the watercolors will run together and mingle. The paint won’t go where the paper is dry, like the spaces between the tree trunks. Only three colors (red, blue and yellow) were used here, but they mingled to create purple and other shades. That’s one of the reasons I love watercolor.

The daffodils are starting to bloom in North Carolina. Can you tell I painted this quickly? The pencil lines of the sketch (which I didn’t always follow) were left. The background was painted after the flowers, including the negative spaces between the stems, and colors were allowed to run together and form “blossoms.” Watercolor is the only medium which can achieve some of these effects.

Years ago, when we were both volunteering in prison, I gave this quote superimposed on my painting to Don Miller and others. Last week Don wrote to me saying, “That quote has changed my life.  Thank you so much for giving it to me.” He is now reprinting it and giving it to others. Feel free to do the same.

My large piece watercolor paper was divided into four rectangles using artist’s tape. Then I chose three beautiful colors — magenta, lavender and Naples yellow — and layered them in various combinations. The layers make new colors including purples and oranges and neutrals. Which colors dominate in each rectangle?

If you have been to Arches in Utah, you recognize the Three Gossips, an iconic rock formation. This sketch was done on location when we visited a decade ago.

Quality prints: 8″ x 10″ $50, 5″ x 7″ $35, to fight racial discrimination in voting.

The birds are starting to sing — does that mean that spring is coming?

$50 quality print 8″x 10″ supports voter registration.

Here’s a fun exercise to try yourself. Make lines horizontally and vertically down a page, varying the distance between them. Using colored pencils, markers or paint, choose 3-5 colors and color a few (or a lot) of the spaces between the lines. Quite meditative.

And thanks so much for all the positive replies to my plan in 2024 to offer you affordable art to support color-blind non-partisan voter registration in NC.

Martin Luther King Day was last week, but here in North Carolina (where we moved from Boston 3 years ago), King’s dream has yet to be fulfilled. If you are a person of color, it can be scary to register and vote: from inconvenient registration hours, to Proud Boys’ pickups trucks near the polls with shotguns in their gun racks. I hope to partner with you this year so that everyone, regardless of skin color or political party, can vote. So each week my art will be for sale and the price will be listed below the painting (+ $10 postage). 100% of the purchase price will go to non-partisan voter registration in NC. Together, let’s ensure the right to vote for all!

One of our greatest winter pleasures is watching the birds come and go from the feeders.

Loving my New Year’s resolutions, which I’ve nicknamed “SCREL.” S for Spirit: 10 minutes on meditation (on an app), then writing 3 gratitudes + today’s “to do” list. C for Creating something for 10 minutes. R for a couple of minutes of Remembering a past event in detail. E for 30 minutes of Exercise (walking and/or yoga). L for a few minutes of Learning something new (usually on Wikipedia). About an hour total to create a balanced, healthy day! Here’s today’s Creating, which started with a scribble, then stream of consciousness took over.

May the glow of New Year possibilities light our darkness.

The Christmas star over the manger, the Hannukah miracle of eight days of light, and the winter Solstice rebirth of the sun — all our December HolyDays have a common theme. May the magic of light glow in your heart.

And Sammie hopes you got toys, rather than coal, in your stocking!

Bruce and I and our family wish you a joyous Christmas season.

Wishing you a little magic this holiday season.

Playing with background colors and shadows on the birch trees. Preserving the trunks while doing the washes in the background was a bit tricky. (Quality prints 8″ x 10″ $60 or 5″ x 7″ $40 will support fighting racial discrimination in voting. Enquire about original.)

I “painted” this on my iPad on Procreate. So simple, yet somehow appealing.