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 wheelchai...

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