Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 53

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 53 December 27-January 2 

The nature’s jewels whether it’s the largest rough diamond mined and then crafted into a necklace or the vibrant colors of the blueberry bush in winter are all wondrous!  ‘The Cullinan Blue Diamond necklace’ in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar  2020  a gift given to his wife Annie by Thomas Cullinan ‘ features nine blue diamonds and 253 colorless diamonds in rose gold and silver setting made around 1910. Suspended from the bow is the 2.60 carat Cullinan Blue Diamond, named for Thomas Cullinan, then Chairman of the Premiere Mine in South Africa.’  It was to commentate the largest diamond ever mined at 3106 carrots.  That diamond was gifted to King Edward VII of England.  I don’t know if the miner who found the diamond received any bonus! 

Blueberry bush in winter colors watercolor by Meera Rao 

A year of sheltering at home savoring the beauty and wonder of nature, moved me to appreciate and be grateful for every day miracles. I revisited the  year 2020 as I  posted these 53 sketches and my thoughts! In January of this year I received my first covid-19 vaccine.  Yet, ten months later, the pandemic is definitely not quite over and life is going on in a new normal- much different and still masked! 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 52

The Great Conjuncture of Jupiter and Saturn 

On December 21 2020, we were fortunate to watch the great conjuncture of Jupiter and Saturn as the the planets appeared closest to each other in the night sky. It was a treat to watch it right from our backyard soon after sunset without a telescope ! The conjuncture happens once every 20 years when Jupiter overtakes Saturn in its orbit. This one was the great conjuncture because it is the rarest of the conjunctures between naked eye planets -separations of less than 10 arcminutes have only happened four times since 1200- this being the most recent. According to NASA website  : What makes this year’s spectacle so rare, then? It’s been nearly 400 years since the planets passed this close to each other in the sky, and nearly 800 years since the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter occurred at night, as it will for 2020, allowing nearly everyone around the world to witness this “great conjunction.”  We, at first could not really believe what we were able to see with the naked eye - double checking it on NASA and other astronomy websites, and watching live streams from astronomy centers. We went in and out of the house admiring the universe’s wonders ! 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 52 December 20-26

Grandma Moses Out for Christmas Tree 1946 (oil on pressed wood) graces this week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020. ‘This winter landscape includes a number of charming vignettes as people pick out Christmas trees, pull sleds up a snowy slope, and chop firewood.’  As sweet as the scene in the painting is, my cherished Christmas memory for years to come will be the great conjuncture !!! 

This is week 52 - but there is one more page and one last sketch to share to complete my ‘Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020’ ! 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 51

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 51 December 13-19 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar had an unexpected benefit for me - I learned a lot of interesting history through the photos for each week from the Smithsonian collection. The stamp pictured is a $1 beer revenue stamp proof single, 1871 Card, scarlet and black ink engraved frame and vignette from the collection of National Postal Museum. Who knew there was a beer revenue stamp !!! According to the write up on the page, “at the time this stamp was printed, the federal beer tax was $1 per barrel. Brewers purchased sheets of the stamps without gum or perforations, cut the stamps apart, canceled them and pasted them over the stopper of the beer barrel so that tapping the barrel destroyed the stamp. This 1871 proof contains two mistakes : Secretary of Treasury Hugh McCulloch’s name is misspelled ’McCullogh’ and the word ‘printing’ contains a typo.”

I am not much of a beer drinker - beverage of my choice is coffee with lots of soy milk ! This particular morning a rainbow fell  through the window across the tablecloth and the coffee mug - best start for a beautiful day ! The table cloth and the patterns on my cup complement the photo on the opposite page quite well. Savoring the moment, I knew what to draw for that week :) 

Rainbow cup watercolor and pen by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 50

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 50 Dec 6-12 

The shirt pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for week 50 is from Harlem Globetrotters from 1960s. It is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  The caption reads: ‘Although founded in Chicago in the 1920s, the Harlem Globetrotters name helped identify them as a black team. While barnstorming through the Midwest, the team developed many of the comedy routines that would lead to their international fame.’  Mushroom is a ‘fungi’ that is why I paired it with the Harlem Globetrotters  -  fungi /fun guy - get it ?  ;) 

Mushrooms  Watercolor by Meera Rao 

 

I  found this beautiful, colorful mushroom in our backyard. I loved the colors and it’s shape. There was only one mushroom of that kind. Even after looking through guide books I was not able to identify it definitively. I was not aware that taking a spore print might have helped with the identification. I have since then been reading up on mushrooms/fungi and in awe of their underground network as well as their role in the ecosystem. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 48

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 48 November 22-28

The beautiful Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) carved Eskimo ivory flatware (1920-23) from St.Laurence Island, Alaska, in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 pairs nicely with our Thanksgiving dessert plate :)  We had a simple thanksgiving dinner for just the two of us but we are still so grateful for this loaded dessert plate courtesy of our many friends! Sharing even during the pandemic shelter at home days added that wonderful rainbow to our lives. 

The Dessert Plate watercolor by Meera Rao 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 47 Nature’s Calligraphy

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 47 November 15-21

‘I think I will never see a poem

 as lovely as a tree’

~Joyce Kilmer~ 

My husband and I try to walk everyday and record 10,000+ steps. Every few weeks we get the urge to go somewhere different and change our routine a bit. As always, Nature, during the covid shelter in place days,  has been a source of magical moments and I have been documenting my joys, awe and surprise in small ways.  This particular day last November, we came across this tree with beautiful vines by the water looking like nature’s calligraphy.  Then I saw the photo for the week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 - Adel Ibrahim Sudany’s cover art for One Sky,2018 Album by the Rahim AlHaj Trio. The caption for that photo reads : ‘Sudany’s painting for One Sky echoes the statement of humanity’s oneness found in the music of Iraqi oud players and composer Sourena Sefati, and Palestinian American percussionist Issa Malluf. Sudany is an Iraqi designer, calligrapher, and professor of Arabic Calligraphy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.’   

I feel a beautiful tree like that may have inspired the writers long ago to create flourishes and calligraphic styles! 

Nature’s Calligraphy watercolor and ink by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 46

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 46 Nov8-14. 

Deepavali, the Festival of Lights is celebrated in India and by Indian diaspora all over the world.  It is a five day festival around the New Moon day of lunar month of Karthika (October/November) observed by lighting of rows of Deepas/ Diyas/lamps, puja/prayers/worship, exchange of gifts, wearing new clothes, sharing of lots food and sweets, and of course getting together with family and friends. The festival is a celebration of good over evil, knowledge/enlightenment (light) over ignorance(darkness), While the stories behind the celebrations vary from region to region within India, the essence remains the same - cherishing the inner light, hope and restoration. 

It just so happens that I am lucky to have been born on one of the days of Deepavali festival- and in addition to my actual Gregorian calendar birthdate, my family also celebrated it on one particular day during Deepavali. So it is a very special festival for me! I sketched a festive ‘rangoli’ on the page using the age old dot system (this one has 5x5dots scheme) 

Rangoli for Deepavali by Meera Rao 

The photograph in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for that week is of William James Aylward’s American Schooners, Old Harbor Marsellie, 1919 Charcoal and Watercolor on paper. ‘Aylward was one of eight artists commissioned by the U.S.Army to join the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War 1. Having grown up around the docks and shipping of the Great Lakes in Wisconsin, he here adeptly captured American schooners docked in the harbor of Marseille, France. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 45

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 45 Nov 1-7 

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 #repurposed 

What could be more appropriate for this week than the gavel presented to Susan B Anthony at an 1888 meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association, an event marking the 40th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention in the United States ?  I spent twelve days around the Presidential election helping out with the Virginia Voter protection hot line. Hoping and praying to have a woman, who happened to be a woman of color, of Indian heritage, as Vice President, wanting to see nation back on right track, I had written and mailed hundreds of postcards over the preceding months.  Of course, Democracy cannot ever be taken for granted and all of us have to make a commitment to be engaged and keep it going.  

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 44

Great Blue Heron by the deck watercolor by Meera Rao

This Great Blue Heron Ardea  herodias is in our yard almost everyday! It is either busy fishing by the waters edge or staying in shade by the bushes grooming or ‘meditating.’  Scanning for the heron whenever we come out the back door is a habit now as we don’t want it to get spooked by us - though these days it accepts our presence in the yard :) This particular day it sat nonchalantly very close to the deck. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 44  October 25-31 

Pictured on the facing page in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 is ‘Xenacanthus, a freshwater spiny shark that lived in rivers and ponds during the Permian Period, 294-290 million years ago, preying on fishes, reptiles, amphibians and perhaps even large land carnivores that ventured close to the water.’ This Xenacanthus skull cast is on display with fossils of other aquatic creatures in the Hall of Fossils- Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 42.

Ripe Bitter-melon Pod with Red Seeds watercolor by Meera Rao 

Often, we miss picking vegetables from the plant because they are well hidden and we don’t see them till they are ripe and bright! That’s what happened with this bitter-melon (a delicacy!).  When we finally picked it off the plant, I placed it on a shiny stainless steel plate and decided to let it dry in the sun.  It soon burst open exposing the bright red seeds against bright yellow-orange fleshy insides. Of course, I had to sketch the beauty :) 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 42 October 11-17

Nature’s color selections are amazing. The bitter-melon looks like it’s competing with the Scarlet Macaws (Ara macaw)on the opposite page in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for week 42. According to the write up on the page, the digital photo of the Macaws was taken by Sean Mattson, in July 2016 at Coiba National Park, Panama Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. They are nearly extinct in the mainland but ‘lead a boisterous life on Panama’s Coiba Island, the largest landmass in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute runs a research station on the neighboring Coibita Island, providing scientists with access to fauna, flora, and coral reefs in this park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.’

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 41

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 41 October 4-10

The photo on the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for the week of October 4 is a colored planographic print of Le Tricolore balloon1874 at the National Air and Space Museum. “Claude Jules Duruof (1841-1899) became one of the aeronaut-heroes of the siege of Paris when at 8 am on September 20, 1870, he flew a balloon out of the city. This lithograph, signed by Duruof, shows his balloon Le Tricolore. In 1873 he and his wife ascended in it amidst threatening weather. When the crowd questioned their courage, he remarked, ‘Let us show then that we are not afraid to die.’ The pair disappeared into the mist and were forced down and presumed lost. Their rescue by an English Rescue boat was much celebrated.”

These balloon travels though pale in comparison to the Monarch Butterfly migration which is a unique and amazing phenomenon. They do a two way migration like birds do. Some fly as far as 3000 miles to overwinter in Mexico. The eastern population of N.America’s monarchs overwinter in 11-12 mountain areas in the States of Mexico and Michoacán from October to late March. Monarchs can fly 50-100 miles a day and take up to two months to complete the journey.  As I watched the butterfly emerge from the delicate chrysalis, it’s wings so dainty, I marveled at the nature’s miracle. Slowly as the sun rays warmed its wings the monarch butterfly stretched and took a couple of hours to get ready to fly off  and continue its adventure! 

Just Emerged Monarch Butterfly by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020: Week 40

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020: Week 40 September 27-October 3 

Sometimes things just present themselves - like what happened on this particular day. To better see the process,  I had moved the glass jar in which a latecomer monarch caterpillar was going into chrysalis stage. Looking from above I could see the design from the plate under jar. And what a match for what was on the page for that week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.  ‘Josephine Folies Bergére c.1926 in watercolor and gouache on paper is by an unknown artist and is at the National Portrait Gallery.  ‘Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was barely twenty years old when she first performed at the famous Parisian music hall the Foilies Bergére, wearing nothing but a skirt made of artificial bananas. Bakers combination of comedic flair and athleticism created a sensation and for many embodied the exhilarating modern style of Art Deco.’

Caterpillar to Chrysalis  watercolor and pen by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 39

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 39 September 20-26 

This was an eventful week - still mourning the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsberg,  on day 2 of early voting period, we masked up, drove to city office and did our civic duty.  We were very impressed with the arrangements,  professionalism and thoroughness with which early voting was made possible - the experience was the same as if we had voted on Election Day. This year of course there were extra precautions due to the pandemic- plexiglass barriers, social distancing to be maintained and sanitized pens.  

The other highlight of this week was waiting and watching the emergence of the Monarch Butterfly from its chrysalis. As the day came closer, I could see the colors deepening, the gold lines and dots shimmering brightly and orange/black patterned wing showing through the chrysalis shell.  Early Friday morning we watched in awe as the butterfly gently broke open the shell, crawled out of the cocoon, took its time warming up the wings and took to the open skies. I wondered, will we see it’s progeny come back to our garden next year ? 

Monarch Chrysalis by Meera Rao 

Photograph of Scrarecrow  hat worn in the Wizard of Oz , 1919, now in the collection of National Museum of American History graces the page for the week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.  The scarecrow in the story desperately wanted a brain and as I was sketching I wondered what happens to the caterpillar brain during metamorphosis. Does the butterfly remember its caterpillar days?  I came across a study done at Georgetown University scientists D.Blackiston, E.Casey and M. Weiss, which examined if larval experience can persist through pupation to adulthood in Lepidoptera. The study showed that yes, they did remember and carry over a conditioned odor aversion into adulthood ! Please check the link to check out the details of the study. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 38

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 38 September 13-19

Real change, 

enduring change 

happens one step at a time 

~Ruth Bader Ginsburg~ 

September 18, 2020 was a tough day.  The world lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It came at difficult period in US history. In fact, her life and death have had a major impact. Fortunately her legacy as a legal pioneer in gender equality and many of the changes she engineered will last and shine a light to many around the globe. I was lucky to have met her in person and listen to the wise words she spoke to a small group of attorneys newly inducted to the Supreme Court Bar in 2015.  I was there as a proud parent - my son was one of the inductees.  I sketched the special occasion that day as no cameras are allowed inside. Later, I painted the scene for my son as a keepsake. Please check out that blog post here. 

Lin Manuel Miranda, photograph for the week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 needs no introduction.  I was glad to have the groundbreaking composer, playwright and actor featured on that page. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg pencil by Meera Rao

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 : Week 37

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 :Week 37 Sept 6-12 

Nature is just so awesome with a never ending supply of surprises ! Summer means there are so many insects in the yard singing away merrily- katydids, cicadas, crickets, grasshoppers …along with the chorus of chirping frogs. I have to often get  help at songsofinsects.com. with identifying the insect songs and I have spent many hours during the pandemic stay-at-home year doing just that - though I may now be more confused as well ;) 

This cicada - Neotibicen davisa davisa (identified by insect experts in INaturalist ) was by the pine tree (alive) in the yard by the pine tree. It stayed around just long enough for me to photograph. I had misidentified it when I first saw and sketched it - hence the wrong info below the cicada. The photograph of the Rhinoceros spearbearer (Copiphora rhinoceros)katydid in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 paired nicely for the week.  Unlike the cicada I found in the yard, these awesome conehead  katydids are found in the rainforests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. They have powerful jaws to feed on plants, other invertebrates and even small reptiles. Staying home during the pandemic though has helped me see  and document by either sketching or photographing so many different creatures in my own yard ! 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 36

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 36 Aug 30- Sept 5 

Along with the dragonflies, I discovered there are a few different kinds of cicadas in our yard.  I usually go to the iNaturalist App to identify whatever I am not familiar with after I have taken a photograph. This is a Northern Dusk Singing Cicada Megatibicen auletes- largest of the N. American Cicadas. As the name implies these cicadas sing at dusk and are quite loud! Their  peak appearance is in August but are found July- September. Mostly I don’t see the cicadas unless they have dropped to the ground ( dead or almost) but hear them loud and clear somewhere in the Oak tree.  BTW, There are more than 3000 species of cicadas and they are members of superfamily Cicadoidea.

How cool is that Nick Cave’s Soundsuit is the photograph of the week of Aug 30 in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020? “This is a wearable art inspired by Nick Cava’s background as both a fiber artist and a dancer. Brightly colored yarn, found object, and thread woven together in a variety of patterns and textures to creates vivid disguise, shielding and protecting the wearer’s identity from the audience.” 

Northern Dusk Singing Cicada 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 35

Dragonfly in sepia ink  by Meera Rao 

It’s very far away, 

It takes a about half a day to get there.

If we travel by my, uh, dragonfly 

~Jimi Hendrix~ 

The dragonflies were everywhere in the garden week of Aug 23 2020. I spent many hours quietly tracking and following the beautiful creatures with delicate lacy transparent wings, multifaceted eyes and iridescent body. I was hoping for one good photograph !! They are strong fliers - my research says hawker dragonflies have been recorded going 20 miles in an hour. They can hover, fly backwards and have high maneuverability.  Once again I found a perfect subject to sketch in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.  The photograph by Eric Long shows Grumman FM-1(F4F-4) Wildcat- World War II fighter aircraft. After Pearl Harbor, Wildcat pilots held the line and stopped the Imperial Japanese Air force when it seemed invincible.  

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 35 Aug 23-29 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 34

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 34 Aug 16-22

Carmen Herrera’s  Rondo  graces the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar2020  for the week of Aug 16-22.   Cuban American artist Herrera sold her first painting when she was 89 and at 100 had her first show. In mid 20th century, she experienced blatant discrimination when a gallery owner told her: “ You know, Carmen, you can paint rings around men artists I have, but I am not going to give you a show because you are a woman”.  I did not know all this when we visited Washington DC on Aug 22 2020 and went to see the ‘Black Lives Matter’ painted on 16th street leading to the Whitehouse on June 5 in honor of  protesters who had assembled there peacefully earlier that week. The street with the sign and all the related protest signs around the ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza’  gave me goose bumps. I always look up information about the artist and art for the week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar. But this particular week I was especially astonished to see the connections. Please scroll down to see photos from that day.  Read about Carmen Herrera and interview with her at age 101 here. 

Black Lives Matter in front of White House sketch in ink and watercolor by Meera Rao 

Washington DC 16th street Aug 22 2020

Washington DC August 22 2020

Washington DC August 22 2020 

Washington DC August 22 2020

Washington DC August 22 2020

Washington DC August 22 2020 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year week 33

Sketching the Pandemic Year Week 33 Aug 9-14 

Four O’Clock ( Mirabilis Jalapa) flowers true to their name bloom in the evening and spread a fragrance in the yard. As summer progresses, the plant is full of blooms. They come in different colors and even as ‘kaleidoscope wheels’ variety.  We planted these in the garden because they reminded me of my childhood  home in India.  But I have since learned that they are native to Peru and  have been naturalized in most tropical countries, Europe and Asia - it is a perennial in the tropics but grows as annuals in temperate zones. 

I vaguely remembered from basic genetics class in college that they had some peculiarities regarding passing of traits. Wikipedia helped out: “Around 1900 Carl Correns used Mirabilis as a model organism for his studies on cytoplasmic inheritance. He used the plant’s variegated leaves to prove that certain factors outside the nucleus affected phenotype in a way not explained by Mendel’s theories. Correns proposed that leaf color in Mirabilis was passed on via a uni-parental mode of inheritance. Also when plants with dark-pink flowers are crossed with white-flowered plants, light-pink-flowered offspring are produced. This is seen as an exception to Mendel’s Law of Dominance because in this case, the dark-pink and white genes seem to be of equal strength, so neither completely dominates the other. The phenomenon is known as ‘incomplete dominance.’

FourO’Clock watercolor and ink by Meera Rao 

More wonderful oddities about this flower from Wikipedia: “ Usually the flowers are yellow, pink and white, but a different combination of flowers growing on the same four o’clock plant can be found. Another interesting point is a color change phenomenon. For example, in the yellow variety, as the plant matures, it can display flowers that gradually change to a dark pink color. Similarly, white flowers can change to light violet. Despite their appearance, the flowers are not formed from petals - rather they are a pigmented modification of the calyx. Similarly, the calyx is an involucre of bracts. The flowers are funnel-shaped and pentalobed, they have no cup (replaced by bracteal leaves) but are made of Corolla…. The flowers are pollinated by long-tongued moths of the family Sphingidae, such as the Sphinx moths or hawk moths and other nocturnal pollinators attracted by the fragrance.”

The glass and ink ‘Our River’s Ancestors’ by Marvin Oliver is the featured photograph for the week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar2020. I had concentrated mainly on the colors when deciding what to sketch for the week. But I found a different connection while reading the explanation of the piece in the calendar: “In ‘Our River’s Ancestors’ , Marvin Oliver uses glass to evoke the rivers and salmon that have intertwined Quinault lives for millennia. The etched image is from a photograph of Native fishermen at Celilio Falls on the Columbia River.  This piece is a part of ‘Ancestral Connections’ an ongoing exhibition at National Museum of American Indian in New York which explores how contemporary artists draw on aspects of their heritage to create new and compelling works of  art” 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 32

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 32 Aug 2-8

Grey Hairstreak Butterflies Strymen melinus were all over the garden. I was trying to photograph at least one. It was a very windy day and nothing stayed still long enough for me to photograph. I was really surprised when I slipped my hand to steady a leaf hoping for a shot and the butterfly did not fly off :) It was thrilling when seconds later the butterfly crawled on to my hand. I stayed still - I did not want to scare off the butterfly by trying to take a photo! 

It was pure serendipity when weeks later I discovered that the photographfor that week in the Smithsonian Engagement 2020 was of Herpetologist Doris Mable Cochran holding a live frog, c1930s.  “Cochran (1898-1968) started as an aide at the National Museum of Natural History in 1919 and had advanced to become curator of reptiles and amphibians by the time of her retirement in 1968. She was known for her expeditions throughout Latin America as well as her artist contributions as a scientific illustrator and textile weaver.”