Aikya Param

The Buddha achieved enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi Tree, a fig tree (ficus religious). It offers shade, fruit and privacy as daughter trees grow up surrounding the original trunk and create little natural meditation cells among the trunks and branches. Reverence and care for the tree, or for special trees, is integral to spiritual practice around the world in every tradition.  Thus we preserve trees which give us so many benefits. An early art class outside my home was with a local artist. The medium was pastel and I clearly remember sitting outside on the grass, pastels beside me, and looking, looking so hard at a tree. I was nine years old. Recently I joined one of the monthly Nature Journal Club outings in Berkeley, CA organized by artist and naturalist   John Muir Laws. Birthday Tree, Park Street in Alameda, California. Sketched on Jan. 26, 2016. A group of about 35 people including at least half a dozen children and two women in wheelchairs met in the

"Fruitvale Mona Lisa" I was sketching the background and this striking woman came and sat on the edge of the fountain pool.  She figured out that I was sketching her and didn't stay long.           Gandhi's birthday is October 2 every year.  Is it the beginning of the Season for Nonviolence? Lynnette Carr-Sykes  The portrait of Lynnette Carr Sykes for her memory card   was the high point of my 2015 portraits and the most beloved portrait I did this past year.  It was not the only one I did, however. Margo Rivera-Weiss done when East Bay Sketchers went to Jack London Square   Sally Bartholomew Man on Mobile Phone - Jack London Sqiare; from East Bay Sketchcrawl at Jack London Square Sandy Guderyon Boldly, I tried a group of people, a scarey prospect for me.  I only did two -- one from our Jack London Square Sketchcrawl and one at Oakland Zoo. Family Visiting the White-handed Gibbon at the Oakland Zoo. Done for

Slightly wonky drawing done in the eminent company of Prashant Miranda and the East Bay Sketchers in Oakland CA's Spanish Colonial neighborhood on Otis Street pasat Versailles in Alameda, CA Houses in Alameda, apparently, are what I keep drawing. I'm a slow artist, so the appeal may be that they don't move or walk away to do something more interesting than pose. Delightful little Victorian at 966 Park with an overarching old tree Last time I opened my old edition (1984) of Virginia and Lee McAlester's A Field Guide to American Houses.   the cover photo surprised me.  It is a Queen Ann Victorian like one I sketched! Flag Day Sketch in colored pencil 1601 Lincoln Way, a wonderful Queen Ann Victorian across the street from The Frank Bette Art Center Notice the similarity between the house on the cover of this book and my painting to the left, 1601 Lincoln Way

Donna Burris Stroop sketching at Oakland Zoo Guy Vinson with inventive sketching gear August 2015 Artist Guy Vinson invited artist Donna Burris Stroop and I to sketch with him one day at  the Oakland Zoo.  It's expensive to park and to visit. It took Donna and I no time to decide that we wanted to return many times so we joined. Now all three of us are happy Oakland Zoo members who sketch there often.  Here are some of my sketches there in the past few months. Done in a Traveling Sketchbook - July 2015 Giraffes and Eland - done in a Traveling Sketchbook Several of these sketches were done in one of another of the 24 Traveling Sketchbooks making it from one artist to the next in the U.S. Since that means I no longer have them, I decided to get an Sennelier accordian-style sketchbook to fill with sketches from the zoo.  In case any of my artist friends want to know how to get one of those cool things -- click here .  Moleskine also has an accordian book

My default indoor subject is flowers.  Blessedly, they are available for reasonable price.  Even though I prefer that all house plants flower, I patiently care for them during their leafy rest period. The royalty among my plant family is an amaryllis who sends up a stem nearly 4 feet in height.  Her red and white lily-like blossoms are as big as my face. From the day the bud first starts to emerge, I am enchanted.  At the start of Beginnings , the first Sketchbook Skool class taken in April 2014, she bloomed in all her magnificence.  Several of my first sketches featured her Royal Ms. Peppermint. My real love is sketching outdoors and sometimes the weather does not cooperate or there are too many other things demanding attention. A moment of peace gazing at a flower is on time in time every time. Currently in bloom is the exotic orchid pictured at right.  I found it in the Lakeshore Trader Joe's.  I had looked at the orchids many times but never found one I needed to

First car sketch of a Victorian in Alameda, CA         Previous to April 2015, I was well influenced by my naturally talented and New York Art Student's League trained father and whoever taught him there after WWII. Work was much larger surely than my present sketchbook, materials heavy, art mostly done indoors, Oil paint, pastel or charcoal were the media.         Now I thrive on sketching and painting outdoors in a small book in pen and ink and watercolor.         I live in a most unromantic apartment building made of cement slabs and I love drawing houses. John Muir House: First 4 Hours John Muir House further along.         Victorian architecture thrills me.  Its details also frustrate me beyond compare. Its many details and odd angles are the very things that draw me to the houses to start out. John Muir House sketch in progress         Under my father's watchful eye, as a child, I must have shown a tendency to get stuck trying ot capture detail.  My