Author: Lynn Holbein

When we were in Brooklyn last week for the birth of baby Maggie, I went to a cafe near the hospital and did this sketch of the buildings outside the window. Such a meditative way to spend a few minutes. Next Friday I’ll post a photo of the supplies I used, with links, in case you’re interested in creating a portable watercolor kit.

We have returned from Brooklyn to Boston, and sadly are not there to celebrate (and sketch) Maggie’s one week birthday. On to more mundane topics.

New Englanders try not to complain, but the weather for the last two months has sucked. Spring is a figment of our memory and hope. On Monday during the Boston Marathon it was 43 degrees and pouring cold rain. The only popular place outdoors was our thistle feeder, and the goldfinches are molting into bright yellow their breeding plumage. As I sketched, I added a blue sky, which — if you live in Boston — you know was pure imagination.

As we await the birth of our granddaughter, I spent this morning looking through some of my older art. Here are some sketches of Sara, a lovable Dutch dwarf rabbit who lived with us for nine years. When we bought Sara, we were told she as a girl, and she looked incredibly feminine. Then one day, we babysat for a friend’s rabbit, and within seconds, Sara mounted the visiting rabbit. A month later this rabbit had babies. Thus we learned that Sara was misnamed, but it was too late for a name change.

Since the invention of the smartphone, we no longer feel we have the time to be bored and stare into space. There’s always email, news and Facebook to be checked. This time, as I waited for my order, I resisted the temptation to grab my smartphone and instead took out my sketchbook to draw the other people waiting to order or pick up their food. Sketching has much in common with meditation, because it brings you back to the present moment.

In his charming book “Everyday Matters,” Danny Gregory suggests we draw our meal before we eat it. This took more willpower than I had at L’Aroma Cafe today, so I ate some of the toast before sketching and a lot of the breakfast before adding paint to the sketch. Watch how Gregory does it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYmVBTrpK0

The Newton Watercolor Society hires models to pose every other Saturday through the winter, and this week there were 20 people there to paint. What a privilege! The model starts with 2 minute poses, then 5, 10 and 20. Here are two of my sketches of 20 minute poses. You can see the pencil lines as I tried to get oriented. The skin color is a mixture of red and yellow.

We have about 30 houseplants, a variable number depending on which ones I’ve killed or bought lately. Yesterday I noticed the little string hanging from this one and decided to sketch it. In case you are interested in the process: first there’s a drawing with waterproof ink, then a wash of variable greens, then two layers of darker greens to show the variations of shadow. Drawing shadows is a learning edge for me. Some people would be bothered by the mistakes on the pot and shelf, but I like the “happy accidents” of watercolor.

Meditation teachers advise us to change our attitude when we can’t change our circumstances. In this case, irritation because of a flight delay morphed into interest in observing carefully when I got out my pencil and paper.

Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of women and men marched in over 100 cities, from Boston to Las Vegas to Juneau, to protest the Administration’s policies and rhetoric. Some cities topped last year’s Women’s March numbers: in Chicago officials counted 300,000 marchers, in New York 200,000, and in LA 500,000. Protests also occurred in dozens of international cities from Uganda to Frankfurt, and from Buenos Aires to Bejing. In Washington , we listened to speakers in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and then marched to the White House. The signs were impressive, including the one on the right, a reminder that Trump lost the popular vote by two million votes, or 1.5%. It was a beautiful day and the march was peaceful and inspiring.

Thanks to Rick Paddock for sharing his photo which inspired this sketch.

Across the country today people showed up at events honoring the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was assassinated 50 years ago in 1968. This holiday is a reminder to fight to change the conscious and unconscious racial barriers and prejudices in ourselves and our society.  Here’s a sketch of today’s MLK event in Newton, Mass., attended by over 700 people.

I haven’t written a poem in years, and perhaps six poems over my entire life. Last Thursday, when a foot of snow was falling on Boston, there was plenty of time for writing and sketching.

As the snow falls

Hordes of juncos and goldfinches bicker at the feeders.

The losers wait their turn

on the rhododendron branches with their drooping leaves.

Abruptly every bird disappears.

A hawk cry?

In my cozy chair, with a cup of hot tea

and a view of the feeders and snowy trees

Cold and danger seem far away.

We finally have just about everything done except some wrapping. It felt good yesterday to sit in the living room with my sketchbook, Sharpie and watercolors and sketch our Christmas tree.

Here’s hoping you and yours have a loving and peaceful Christmas.

It’s late fall, and most leaves are off the trees and the migrating birds are long gone. The colors are subdued and the days are short. A friend who moved back to New England told me that in southern California he had really missed the seasons. “Putting away your summer clothes, and taking out your winter clothes — you don’t realize how important the rhythm of the seasons is until you live in a climate where the weather is nice, but pretty much the same all year.”

Here’s a fall sketch of a nearby pond.