Leora

Crocus with Red Filament

April Fools a few days late – have you ever seen a crocus with a red filament? I haven’t. And the petals didn’t have blue streaks, either.

Raritan Avenue Watercolor

My watercolor is of Raritan Avenue, between North Third and North Second Avenues. One of the stores is Jerusalem Pizza. The one on the end, by the big tree, used to be Charlie Brown’s, which went out of business. A new restaurant appears to be opening in its place. Here is a sketch I did prior to this watercolor.

Rutgers Gardens March Reds

Yesterday we visited Rutgers Gardens. It is mostly winter bare, but if you look carefully, you can find some signs of spring.

These plants with red berries were growing by a stream.

Red buds were in many of the trees. Some of the trees at Rutgers Gardens have little signs stating what type of tree it is, but most don’t.

And more red buds in trees!

If you take red and white on a paint palette and mix them together, you get pink, like the pink bud of this saucer magnolia tree.

For more red, visit Ruby Tuesday:

Raritan Avenue Photo + Drawing

A continuation of my Raritan Avenue studies – here is a photo on top of a drawing. I worked on adding watercolor to the drawing today. I plan to post the watercolor in the middle of this week.

This is same as above, converted to black and white. One can see the lamppost in the drawing doesn’t match with the photo – no matter, it matches in the “finished” watercolor.

Raritan Avenue Watercolor Sketch

If you have been to Route 27 also known as Raritan Avenue, you will know there are usually tons of cars. I used photos from a few hours before the 2009 Memorial Day Parade, when the street was clear of cars.

Lemon Tree by Julie

My friend Julie sent me her painting of her lemon tree to post on this blog. Julie, who lives in Hashmonaim, Israel, writes: “All of the fruit on our three citrus fruit trees are ripe. We also have an orange and a pomelo tree.”

This is one of the trees in her backyard. I took this photo in June 2008, when we visited her family.

See more of Julie’s art and photos on her new blog, Israel Inspirations Art.

All the Lonely Radishes

There is a concept called “anthropomorphism” – one attributes human characteristics to a inanimate object. Such as a radish.

So I am imagining this radish staring out the window, wondering when other little radishes will pop up in my garden. Perhaps you have your own thoughts or feelings for the radish by the window.

For more photographs with red, visit Ruby Tuesday:

Review with Watercolor Detail

On My Blog

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• This week Jill and I went to see Ilana Shafir at Rutgers. You can visit her beautiful website and read my review from when she spoke in Highland Park two years ago. Her daughter, artist Leah Zahavi, lives in Highland Park.
• My friend Debbie wrote about the Rambam movie we saw last week. I wasn’t as enthusiastic as she was about the movie, but I thought the story was well-written (it was written by Robert Avrech of Seraphic Secret). Maybe I was a bit judgmental of the graphics; I would have liked a Shakespeare-like presentation instead of the stiff drawings.
• Mason Resnick put a pasta recipe and photo on his wife Lori’s blog. Today I went to visit the Asian market in Edison he mentions, H-Mart; I bought some varied mushrooms and other produce. Maybe next time I’ll bring my camera and take a few photos for a blog post. I had a good laugh when I met another friend there, also there for the first time.
• Rayna Eliana wrote a review of The Violin of Auschwitz.
• Felisol talked about her illness, ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). She related her difficulty with (and expense of) some alternative therapies. And then in the comments she speaks of how T’ai Chi, Qigong and Feldenkrais have been helpful, as have been her friends, family and prayers.
• If you haven’t seen it yet, visit the Purim song by Maccabeats on Mrs. S.’s post. Esther is adorable, and the astronauts are cute, too. Catch the calendar scene.
• I enjoyed Ilana-Davita’s creative question: Choose eight records you would take with you on a desert island.
• Robin’s anemones are stunning.

Kale Radish Watercolor

Chagall Style Window

There are the famous windows by Chagall at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. And then there are the Chagall-style windows that my daughter (above image) and other students at her school created and displayed at the recent art show. Many paintings were on display. One technique her art teacher uses is to learn about an artist, and then the students create works similar to those of that artist. Some of the paintings, for example, had the red, blue, yellow and white rectangles of Piet Mondrian.

For more images with red, visit Ruby Tuesday: