Author: Lynn Holbein

On Wednesday, Bruce and I made a day trip to visit Keith and Ann Palmer. Keith was Bruce’s high school science teacher many years ago, and Keith and Ann have been “honorary grandparents” to our children, attending every graduation and wedding. They live on a ridge line in the hills north of Hartford. After we ate lunch, I sketched the view out their windows.

The Newton Watercolor Society hires models during the winter months to teach us humility as we try to sketch a model who stays in one position for 2, 5 or 10 minutes. Izebel, our model last Saturday, is very experienced, modeling for art schools around Boston. Here is my effort to capture one of her 5-minute poses.

This Mexican market was even more colorful than my painting shows, with bags hanging from hooks all over the ceiling. The produce was plentiful, fresh and fragrant. Passing through the market was an overload for the senses.

Painting this picture for you made me think about how much of our fruit and vegetables come from Mexico or are picked in the US by Mexicans. As I passed through the Dallas and Boston airports to return home last Tuesday, every TV screen blared the headline, “Trump orders increased deportations.” If undocumented immigrants are now unwelcome, are their low-wage jobs in our fields, which keep our produce prices low, really jobs Americans want? Or should we be grateful to the men and women who do this backbreaking work to support their families, and who bring healthy food to our table?

I arrived back in Massachusetts last night. Waiting in the passport line at a stopover in Dallas, I felt both relieved that it was so simple for me to get back into the U.S., and anxious for the many others waiting in line for whom it might not be so easy. Arriving home, I learned that Newton has become a Sanctuary City.

Though I’m home, you’ll be seeing sketches of Mexico for a couple of weeks, as I paint from my memory and photographs. These are from the Botanical Gardens near San Miguel Allende. You can see the cactus in the first sketch. It’s the winter dry season there, and the colors are muted green and gold.  There were two young men climbing the rocks as I did the second sketch.

As in many countries in this latitude, rooftops in Mexico are an extension of the house, almost a second living room. On Sunday morning I stood in the rooftop garden and made this sketch of the hillside. In this deeply religious country, I could hear people singing at Mass in several nearby churches.

On Tuesday I will return to snowy Boston. Every Mexican I have met has been generous and warm, and I have felt I should apologize to them for the way they feel insulted, stereotyped and bullied by our new President. 

Why, in North America, are we so stingy with the colors we paint our houses? Here in Mexico, the houses are orange, yellow, turquoise, green and tan. Our house in Massachusetts is white with green shutters and a gray roof. What about yours?

Here’s a sketch of what I can see from the balcony of my bedroom in the house my friend Linda has rented. The fuschia bougainvillea grow up from the courtyard below.

The Parroquia is the central landmark in San Miguel de Allende, and is next to the Jardin which I sketched on Monday. The church is built of amazing pink stone which glows in the afternoon light. My sketch cannot possibly do it justice, so I enclose a photo as well.

On Saturday I flew to San Miguel de Allende at the invitation of my friend and fellow watercolorist Linda Rinearson, who lives in Newton but rents a house here every winter. Bruce isn’t that interested in travelling to places where you can’t drink the tap water (whereas I am intrigued to do so), so he is happily at home manning the snowblower.

San Miguel de Allende is in the central highlands of Mexico, about three hours drive northwest of Mexico City. It’s a lovely town, a UNESCO Historical Site, and there are plenty of Americans and Canadians roaming around. The Jardin (Har-deen) is the park at the center of town life, and Linda took me there yesterday.  Here’s my quick sketch of one little corner, with a bench in the foreground and a street vendor in the background. 

Yesterday was Bruce’s birthday, so we went to the Museum of Science in Boston. When we got tired of walking around, I sat and sketched their most famous dinosaur. They put a scarf on him (or her) during the winter months.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself at a mall without a sketchbook or pen, but with my iPad. Using the app Sketches, which is very user-friendly and also works on an iPhone, I made this little  drawing. Can you imagine the scene I was looking at?

I’m working on a sketch of the Women’s March, which I will post on Wednesday. What an amazing event it was –half a million people in Washington, and over a million around the country and the world! Such amazing spirit, peaceful and generous people, and inventive signs!

Meanwhile, here’s a sketch of a coffee shop I did on location last week when my friend Candy and I went into the South End in Boston. I like to put people in my sketches,  that I don’t put facial features on them. I’m not a portrait painter, and in my experience putting in faces, hands and feet into my paintings is the surest way to mess them up.

When painting a complex scene, it’s best to simplify and eliminate a lot of detail. The question to ask yourself is, “What is my favorite part of this scene?” In this case, I love the contrast of the colorful fruits and vegetables with the dull winter clothing. I also love the woman’s striped hat.

My blog is launched! To see it, go to www.LynnHolbein.com.

Our son Andrew and I have always enjoyed visiting art museums together, and starting in fifth grade I would call him in “sick” once a year, and we would go out to lunch and visit the Museum of Fine Arts. Though he is grown and married now, we still try to go to a museum once during the holidays. Yesterday we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The courtyard was full of poinsettias. I did the drawing, and then the guard said I couldn’t use watercolor in the museum, so I retreated to the library to add the paint.

It’s really interesting how making a sketch of something makes you pay more attention and improves your memory of a place and an event — a sort of meditation.