Clover, thyme, sage, and a twisted twig.

Today's drawing and salad ingredient.

A white blossom from the black locust tree. The blooms are clustered in big, fragrant bunches, but I drew a single one in this sketch.

Creeping Charlie, drawn while sitting along the Hudson River today.

I drew this set of dried spice bush twigs this evening. I have postcards and stamps to post, but my sketchbook keeps calling me. I mean, who can resist drawing a twig?

A dandelion drawn in a retro steno pad I found at Staples.

I sketched the flower while my kids played soccer with their friends in the park yesterday.

As soon as I pulled out my colored pencils, a group of girls surrounded me. Some kids said they couldn't draw, but I think having simple things on hand like a weed, a notepad, and pencils took the intimidation of drawing away. Soon all of us were sketching something and admiring each other's work.

One of my favorite ways to unwind is to draw a flower or plant. I received a bouquet of Gerber daisies from a cast member after the show closed and last night I put on some good music, poured a glass of nice wine, and drew one of the flowers. It seemed like such a civilized way to spend a late night at home, after everyone else was asleep.

Built sets, made costumes, rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, sold tickets, printed posters, cued the actors, applauded and cheered, pulled the curtain, had a party. Another show is over.

I can't wait to see what I got in the mail while I spent every waking hour (and some sleeping hours) at the theater.

By one of my Favorite Artists

I just love the look of this.

Postcard on wheels

Old postal delivery vehicle, on display at the James A. Fareley post office in NYC.

Postcard received in the mail.

Lassie lives in Finland, Clarice lives in my Neighborhood

This stamp and postcard arrived last week from Finland.

Clarice hasn't set up her farm stand in the neighborhood yet. She's a musician who lives in the neighborhood, and she has a farm upstate. Every once in awhile, on no schedule that I've figured out, she sets up a tv tray on the sidewalk and sells fresh produce from her farm. We have some bigger farmers' markets around here, but I like Clarice's stand best. When she brings jars of homemade pickles, I know I live in heaven.

If the portrait on the postcard included a cello, and if the woman were 30 years older and wore a colorful skirt, floppy sunhat and a fanny pack around her waist, I would swear it was a painting of Clarice from my neighborhood.

From China

A postcard from China with charming stamps arrived the other day. The red pig diamond-shape stamp is my favorite.

The sender wrote on the card that Shanghai is the largest city in China. How embaressed I am that I didn't know that, and I would not have guessed it if someone asked me. Collecting postcards and stamps from around the world is bound to improve my education.

Plus, collecting mail is really fun.

Birthday on Paper

I celebrated a birthday recently. A little girl who knows her mother well slipped this envelope under the door as a special-delivery birthday surprise. The stamp and postmark made me smile, but knowing my daughter made a card that so suited me really warmed my heart.

As a birthday gift to myself, I bought this little bookbinding kit:

I'm no Leonardo da Vinci, that's for sure, but he was an Aries just like me and was born this time of year. He liked to write and draw on loose leaf papers, not in bound notebooks. So I'm taking a cue from Leonardo and I'll write on the pages first and then bind into a notebook later, rather than making the notebook with blank pages.

Happy Easter!

The Easter bunny brought colorful Gel Gems window clings to our home. They feel a bit gooey, but it's fun to make a design with them on the windows and perk up a room.

A gem of a deal! Get sorta free gel gems. (You do have to pay shipping & handling and are limited to one free item per order.) click here.

Life in the Big City

Three postcards I recently sent:

A dear friend of mine when I was growing, sort of a second father to me, told me never to move to a big city.

"There's no lonelier place than in a crowd," he said to me.

This was a man who took vacation in the early spring and spent it at his cabin in the woods, hoping to hear the ice crack as it broke and melted on the lake. Have you heard that sound?

I still hear the sound in my ears, if I imagine myself in the places were I heard it, an eery sound that surrounds the area around the lake and echos beyond.

Sometimes when the cold crowd gets to me, when the city drowns me, I think of the ice cracking across the lake and an old man writing down the date in his weather log. "The ice went out early this year," he would write as a note to himself to read next year.

On the Dot Thanks

Receiving the stamp surprise (see post below) gave me a reason to open a new package of stationary.

I wrote my thank you note for the stamps on this set of cards made by ecojot.

Super Cool Stamp Saturday

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I'm disappointed I'll miss the upcoming stamp show in NYC. Next thing I knew, she sent me a bunch of stamps from Australia and a few from New Zealand. Thanks for the pile of postage, pal!

A Postcard and a Tree

"It will never grow," my father said to my mother as she and my aunt dig up a clumb of sapling birch along a river. My mom and aunt put the saplings and some dirt into a bucket and stuck the bundle in the backseat of the car.

"It will never grow," my father said to my mother as she planted the little trees in the front yard of their new home.

The tree planting happened before I was born. As long as I can remember, I lived in the blue house with the big white birch tree in front.

I recently received this art gallery postcard with images of wood pieces:

Back at the Magnolia

Some blooms are fading and dropping from the tree.

San Francisco Postcard

A photo of the beautiful houses in San Fransisco arrived in my mailbox this week. If I were the art director of this postcard project, I would've moved the cool green pick-up truck a bit forward. Against that red brick wall, it would look even cooler than it already does.

Then again, the postcard isn't about the cool car and perhaps moving the car would distract from ths houses.

This morning on the subway, a woman walked up and down the aisle and explained to the crowd that she didn't have a home. She was homeless, she said, and was selling candy from a box to support herself. One of the people who gave money (she didn't want the candy) was dressed in a white sweater and black skirt. Her make-up was done to perfection and her bleach-blonde hair was pulled into a neat up-sweep style. The candy-seller took the dollar and said to the woman, "You are beautiful. You look just like Ivana Trump."

On the way home on the subway, I overheard a dark man with gray-hair wearing a white knit cap tell a group of young men, "Don't conform to the trash. You hear me? Don't conform to the trash." The boys nodded in agreement.

It was a long day for me, and it seemed like every friend and acquaintance I encountered today had negative comment to say. It's easy to slip into negative thinking and talking, and it's a fight somedays not to comform to it.

As I slipped into my apartment building, this old art-deco building that is my home, I recalled the two uplifting moments of the day - a homeless woman telling an elegant woman how pretty she was, and an old man giving advice to young guys who seemed to be actually paying attention.