Author: Lynn Holbein

In Betty Edwards’ classic “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” she teaches that speech, logic and math all occur on the left side of the brain. Intuition, holistic thinking and drawing are on the right side. When we take a break from the left-brain thinking which occupies most of our day, it feels like a mental vacation. Here, Bruce and I were touring the Museum of Science with our granddaughter Lila like month, and I took a break, between the planetarium and the exhibits, to have a cup of tea and sketch in the food court.

One of my favorite art memories: One sunny day a couple of years ago I sat down on a bench at the playground in West Newton, to draw the swarm of kids and parents on the slides and climbing structures. An older Asian man sat down next to me with his six month old granddaughter in his lap. His eyes were glued to my sketchbook. I did a fast loose sketch which took 10-15 minutes, and the whole time his eyes never left my paper. When I was finished, I dropped the sketchbook onto the ground and took this photo. Then I ripped the picture out and handed it to him; he still didn’t say a word. As I walked down the block, got into my car, and drove away, I looked back at him several times. He was still staring at the sketch.

We have a Tuesday art group that paints together once or twice a month. Yesterday, we painted a variety of overlapping objects in a makeshift still life. Fun!

As I look outside my windows in Newton, MA, I see houses painted gray, white, cream, and other subdued colors, to match the subdued colors of our March landscape. The colors of this Mexican Street, which I photographed in February and painted last week, are far more cheerful. 

Every morning I meditate for ten minutes, using Headspace or Calm. “Beginner’s Mind” is a big thing in mediation, and it’s never a problem when I’m drawing or painting. Though I’ve been doing sketching and watercolor for 20 years, the fascination and frustration is that it always feels new and challenging and there’s always more to learn. “It takes reams of paper to make a decent painting,” one teacher said.  This little coffee cup, with the steam and the shadows on the white cup, is the only thing that escaped the recycle bin after an hour and a half of sketching the other day. 

The New Year is celebrated in Iran on the first day of spring, and Iranians set a table full of plants, goldfish and food which symbolize life, fertility and rebirth. My 17-year-old friend Sara is half Iranian; her father emigrated from Iran with Sara’s grandparents when he was eleven. So Sara and I went to an Iranian New Year’s event last weekend, just a day after we had celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. How blessed we are in the US with our wealth of diverse immigrant traditions and heritages.

The Newton Watercolor Society sponsors life drawing during the winter, and last Saturday hosted this wonderful model.

As the March snow has been falling, I discovered a free online class I’m enjoying, and I recommend it if you’re interested in learning or improving your drawing skills. Here’s the link: http://thevirtualinstructor.com/blog/improve-your-drawing-skills-in-6-days

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.