Planting Seeds

Reading around on the internet, I read that if you're a gardener (which I'm not), you have to plant bulbs before the winter if you want a nice display of flowers in the spring. It reminded me how much advance work goes into making things. How many drawings have I made to get to the drawings I make now? Last summer, a friend of mine said that it took him about half an hour to make a drawing, and I half-joked, "well, twenty years and half an hour," because every drawing is a direct result of all the drawings that came before. All those years, planting seeds!

I made this drawing last fall, from one of the beautiful reliefs on the staircase between Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. Each relief, sculpted by Jacob Wrey Mould, depicts a different season, and I think must be spring because the tulip is blooming, but the lotus isn't yet.

Tulips!

Spring has finally sprung for real, and I know because the cherry blossoms have come and gone, and the tulips are finally here. New Yorkers love cherry blossoms, but I think we must have a soft spot for tulips too because they're all over the city. I found these at Madison Square Park.

And what is this, you ask? Beats me! It's from the Eternal Flagstaff Memorial in the park, which "...honors those victorious forces of the United States Army and Navy who were officially received at this site following the armistice and the conclusion of World War I." According to the NYC Park website, it was designed by Thomas Hastings (1860-1929), from a famous architectural firm that also did the New York Public Library. The website goes on to say that this is one of four "rams heads, and was sculpted by Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925). " A ram's head with wings? I love it!  It's always fun when scupltors let loose with grotesques and chimeras. It's a treasure hunt to see if you can find them on even the most serious buildings and monuments.

Early Spring at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

It's finally starting to warm up here in New York, but it was still a little chilly when I went out a couple of weeks ago to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with Carly Larsson,  Evan Turk, and Siyeon Lee. We still managed to find *something* in bloom: crocuses!

They're supposed to be the first flowers to poke their buds up out of the cold, cold ground in early spring and there they were! There was even a bee rooting around in one of them, picking up as much pollen as he could. Go little bee! Pollinate!!

I'm sure it was pretty hilarious to see three illustrators (before Siyeon joined us) clustered around the little spot where the crocuses were blooming.

We headed to the Japanese garden next. While it's too early for cherry blossoms, the Japanese understand the beauty of evergreens, bare branches, and the texture of rocks.

I have it on good authority from a friend studying horticulture that spring is going to hit fast and hard in the next week or two. She claimed everything would shoot out into bloom! Be ready, she said. I am!

Macy's Flower Show

Here's a drawing I did when I went to see Macy's Flower Show with Siyeon on Monday. I was so excited to finally see some flowers. It's *almost* like spring is really here! Almost.

After I got home, I organized my thoughts a bit more and did one with perhaps less detail, but more coherence.

And here's the thumbnail I created way back before I went. In my head, it was more about giant flowers, and less about all the black makeup kiosks and shiny surfaces. Such is life.

Trees

Before I came to New York for the first time, I imagined it was full of skyscrapers and cars and roads, huge sidewalks crowded with people, but I never thought about trees. Truth is, there are so many trees around New York — giant plane trees, maples, and magnolias — almost every street is lined with them. On top of that, they are great to draw. Their limbs move every which way as they grow, but they're standing still, giving you all the time in the world to draw them!

It's been a rainy spring here in New York, which is not so much fun for people, but makes the trees very happy. So here's a little grouping of drawings: trees making their way from bare winter limbs to budding spring greenery. Happy spring!







For the locals, here's a handy New York City tree guide, if you're interested. And, training to become a citizen pruner!

Carousel Dreams

Lately, I find myself thinking back to some of those unfinished projects from years ago. I feel like the time might be right to try to finish them for reals. One of those projects was this story about a little girl who falls asleep in the car on the long drive to the amusement park. She has a dream, heavily influenced by medieval tapestries (that's just the kind of girl she is), about a magical day at the park. She gets to meet the knights and spend time with the ladies. I envisioned it as an accordion book and this scene is right in the middle, so it's really one part of a looooong illustration, but it's also made to stand alone. They're taking a break to pick some wild flowers while the carousel horses fly in the sky above. I mentioned it was a dream, right?

Time for Sake

While my very favorite drinks are caffeinated (the title of my blog is "Time for Tea" for a reason), I have been known to indulge in stronger stuff. I recently had an opportunity to taste some sake, although I opted for plum wine, or umeshu instead. Technically, to the Japanese, I was still drinking "sake" which refers to alcoholic drinks in general (it must be true, I read it on Wikipedia!). Plum wine is made from green unripe plums, or ume. The one I tried came in a bottle that looked like so:
Those are little ume floating at the bottom. The particular type I tried was called Kairakuen, and the lady was nice enough to write down the name for me in kanji.

She poured me a tiny little glass, and even gave me an ume, which I ate last. The little green plum was so strong—sour and filled with alcohol! It was quite a zinger!

In fact, even though the glass was only a few ounces, I was completely tipsy as I did these wine labels. Maybe that even helped? They feature ume (of course), as well as plum flowers, and the kanji that the helpful Sake lady drew for me.



The uber-minimalist one with the plums:


And here are a couple with the same design elements in different proportions. They're not exactly labels yet, I kind of like them just to describe a mood.

Cherry Blossom Festival

A few months ago, when spring had just sprung, I visited the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It felt like walking in a fantasy garden. The trees were laden with pink and white blooms, and every time the wind stirred the trees, pink and white petals would float past. It was magical.


It was also nice to see New Yorkers of all kinds, usually known for our "rush-rush-rush" approach to life, gathered to appreciate something as simple as a garden. Many were sprawled underneath the trees to contemplate the beauty of the blooms.

And of course, there were plenty of children. These three girls were posing to have their picture taken by their father (in the plaid shirt at the left).



The trees themselves are so much fun to draw, with their twistings and movements in space. They are *almost* as satisfying to draw as people, and they certainly move around less!