Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 31

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 31 July26-Aug 1 

Do the caterpillars and the Lone star tick ever tell themselves ‘Let’s see what’s out there’  (Captain Picard) or ‘Change is essential for existence’ (Spock)  as they go foraging for food ? The black swallowtail caterpillars had eaten the dill plant bare and Spock’s declaration ‘Highly illogical.’ rang true.   They were there out in the open for the birds to pick out and feed the hungry chicks. The Lone star tick was boldly crawling up my leg as we ate lunch on the deck when I flicked it off - fortunately for me it had not bit me and not lodged its stinger in! As for the caterpillars, I brought 3-4 indoors and fed them store bought organic dill ( they refused parsley from the garden) till they cocooned and waited for them to emerge as butterflies. 

The jacket pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement 2020 for the week is from communications Officer Uhuru in the series of the original Star Trek - and reason for all the quotes from the show ;) Nichelle Nichols who played Uhuru ‘was one of the first women in a television series to play a prominent supporting role that was not a servant.’ The jacket is displayed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.

Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars and A Lone Star Tick  sketch in ink and color pencils by Meera Rao

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 30

Box turtle watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

We have at least a couple of resident turtles in our yard. We see them early morning or in the evening walking across the yard probably looking for food. I don’t know what they eat but the most surprising thing I discovered over the years is finding one turtle eating an egg ! They do not tolerate high temperatures and during mid day they will hide under bushes or leaf piles. I read that they lay eggs sometime in June/ July, so no wonder we see them around more often in those months! From my research I know that we have at least one male (red eyes) and female (dark eyes) and drab smaller juveniles in the yard. Our yard must be in their home range :)  Sheltering at home during during covid days, we often cross paths  in the yard !

The photograph in the Smithsonian Engagement for the week 30 is a bird wine container from c500-450 BCE Middle Eastern Zhou dynasty, State of Jin, Houma foundry, China from the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. “A hidden hinge allows for the beak to open as a spout. Inscribed in gold in the back of the head are the words ‘a gentleman’s esteemed bird’ suggesting this vessel was a treasured possession”  Well, the turtles in the yard are our treasured awe inspiring co-habitants!  

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 30 July19-25 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 29

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 29 :July 12-18 

The egg and Moon on this page have more in common than meets the eye ! I read in NASA website that even though from our planet’s vantage point the Moon appears perfectly round, it is actually egg shaped ! According to the study, “ The lopsided shape of the Moon is one result of its gravitational tug-of-war with Earth. The mutual pulling of the two bodies is powerful enough to stretch them both, so they wind up shaped a little like two eggs with their ends pointing toward one another. On Earth, the tension has an especially strong effect on the oceans, because water moves so freely, and is the driving force behind the tides. Earth’s distorting effect on the moon, called the lunar body tide, is more difficult to detect, because the Moon is solid except for its small core. Even so, there is enough force to raise a bulge about 20 inches (51 centimeters) high on the near side of the Moon and similar one on the far side. The position of the bulge actually shifts a few inches over time. Although the same side of the moon constantly faces Earth, because of the tilt and shape of the moon’s orbit, the side facing Earth appears to wobble. From the moon’s viewpoint, Earth doesn’t sit motionless but moves around within a small patch of sky. The bulge responds to Earth’s movements like a dance partner, following wherever the lead goes.” 

And once again my pairing for this page has connections I could not have imagined when I selected the nest and egg to sketch for the week. I had been wandering in our garden and came across a few eggs broken and scattered by our shed. Upon investigation I found a damaged nest hidden in barrel of leftover mulch.  It still had one intact speckled egg which I identified as belonging to Carolina wrens.  I never figured out who raided the nest. After checking it for a few days, it was clear the birds had abandoned the nest. I  made sure the birds were not coming back before bringing the egg indoors to add to my basket of curiosities to show my grandkids. (The egg is still intact a year later ! ) I am pleased how the watercolor with pen & ink sketch of the nest with egg turned out. 

A little more about the ‘High Noon On the Moon’ Wide angle camera mosaic by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in the Smithsonian Engagement 2020 : “The sunlight on the Moon at noon, minimizes shadows but enhances subtle differences in surface brightness. The dark material is volcanic rock that formed when lava erupted and flooded large impact basins early in the Moon’s history. The brightest features here are evidence of relatively recent impact craters.”

Carolina wren nest with one egg watercolor, pen&ink by Meera Rao. 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 28

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 28 July5-11

Although not considered true lilies, Calla lilies are beautiful. We get to enjoy the yellow and pink blooms  only for a few days. Before long, the plants - leaves and blooms end up as tasty meals for the shiny Japanese beetles, caterpillars and other creatures! Seems like these bugs create their own art work of lacey design on the leaves and flowers as they raid and devour the plants. I was moaning over the tattered plants even as I took a photo of the hole ridden flower - seeing a different kind of beauty in its altered state.  Later, it occurred to me that the  bug eaten flower was the perfect subject for the week’s sketch :) 

The China white Porcelain with the cobalt under colorless glaze Ming dynasty vase pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 dates back to 1400. :  ‘Here the motifs of lotus and grain stalks form a visual pun : the Chinese words for lotus and grain are homophones for the words for peace and year, respectively. Thus the imagery on this bottle expresses a wish for “peace year after year” 

For the calla lillies though it’s ‘piece year after year’ :( 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 : Week 27

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 27 June 28-July 4

I was out with the Water Quality Testing team - of course,  masked, social distancing.  I missed the car pooling from site to site, exchanging news and laughs as now we drove separately in our own vehicles. We went down from testing seven sites to just four to accommodate quarantine regulations. But being out in the nature, by waterside was just the thing I needed during sheltering at home. When I saw this boat, I knew what I wanted to sketch for the week. It is serendipity when it paired so well with the photo in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020. Sonya Pencheva’s ‘Human-tower builders(castellers)’  was taken on the National Mall in 2018. 

Anchored by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 26

 

Beach : Best Escape Anyone Can Have by Meera Rao 

I don’t know who came up with this expansion for Beach: Best Escape Anyone Can Have but the week my grandkids came to visit  after carefully taking all the precautions was the best escape from the pandemic blues ! For me, that visit was more precious than the 1927 baseball signed by NY Yankees pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 26 June 21-27

'Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 25

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Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 25 June14-20

About 40 years ago, Osprey was considered an endangered species but is now on the rebound protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. I am grateful to be able to watch an Osprey nest from my backyard. The Osprey pair have been using that nest for many years now. I eagerly await their return in March/April every year.  Once they return, they waste no time in rebuilding/ reinforcing the nest. The male brings the sticks to the female who makes it just right. After that, nature takes over and once again we wait to see when the egg/eggs will hatch.  Hectic feeding activity ensues when the eggs hatch and then we hear the unmistakable insistent chick calls for food as the babies grow! Ospreys only feed on fish. They hover, dive and plunge into the water catch their prey.  It’s exciting to see the chicks on the dock poles or on the tree branches once they start to fly (about 55 days after hatching) and slowly learn to be independent while still under parental supervision.  Adults leave the area and migrate back south around end of July once fledglings can feed themselves. The juveniles fly later in August.  My binoculars get a lot of use as I try to catch the Ospreys in their nest. The past two years there is a Bald eagle family living close by and often they clash in the airspace, each defending their territory. 

The Orangutan pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 is a critically endangered species.   I hope just like Osprey and Bald Eagle these great apes too will be saved and thrive in their natural habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia - not just in zoos like the baby photographed at the National Zoo in DC. 

The Osprey In Nest with Chicks by Meera Rao 

 

Window to the world : Sketching the Pandemic 2020 week 23

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 23: May 31-June6

When my Dad turned 95 we held Zoom gatherings on 2 days to celebrate the occasion- to accommodate his kids, grandkids, siblings, nieces and nephews and more ( we counted over a hundred!) who are spread out all over the globe:) The sketch is a composite of few ‘windows’ I sketched as we chatted excitedly and in some cases met each other for the first  time :)  Because of the pandemic lockdown,  the Zoom meetings made it possible for many to be part of the celebration who otherwise would not have been able attend in person. My Dad was very happy to see, talk to all near and dear and celebrate his big day. 

The window featured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for week 23 tells a different story - an important piece of recent history.  It is the cover of the sheet music from 1916 composed by Alfred Bryan and Herman Paley from the collection of National Museum of American History. The write up on the page goes on to say : ‘the decades-long effort to secure women’s right to vote in the United States began at the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. It finally succeeded with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the constitution in August 1920, which granted American citizens the right vote regardless of Gender’ 

Zoom celebration By Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 20

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 20 May 10-16 

In Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Womanology 12 - the photograph for May 10-16 in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020, a woman is looking through a binoculars. During the sheltering at home days, I have spent countless hours everyday watching birds in the backyard with my Binoculars. Many different kinds of birds visit our backyard throughout the year, species varying with the season.  But then I also use my Binoculars to check on the blueberry bushes from my kitchen window especially when I happen upon few cardinals or other birds lingering near the patch. The birds don’t leave us many berries but I love watching them feast on fruits! There were even a few parasol mushrooms near the bushes that I was able to see clearly with my trusty binoculars.  

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week19

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 19  May3-9

We adapted to staying home and mostly making use of online grocery shopping with home delivery. One place we made periodic trips  to was  “Trader  Joe’s”.  Their adherence to health safety measures eased my anxiety a bit about going to the grocery store.  Almost two months into the initial lockdown, for the first time I stood in line socially distanced and masked, waiting for my turn to enter the store. The shadows caught my eye and I quickly sketched the scene not knowing how long this routine was to last ! 

And the sketch ended up in the same week as the photo of the poster by Larry Yangzhou  ‘Casina Jaiteca from the National  Chicano Dcreenprint Taller’ in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.  There is a clever word play in the title. : “while casino is Spanish for kitchen, ‘jaiteca’  a neologism pronounced as’high-tech-a’  playfully highlighting the decidedly non high tech kitchen in the picture.” 

Shoppers in Shadow ink and watercolor by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 17

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 April 19-24 week 17

Phragmipedium Petite Queillette  from Smithsonian gardens graces this page of the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020.  The write up about the orchid reads : “.. is a hybrid of two parent species. One parent ‘Phragmipedium besseae’ is found only in the forests of Ecuador and Columbia, growing on the rocks and steep banks along fast growing streams. This rare critically endangered orchid is just one of more than 7000 specimens included in the Smithsonian Gardens Orchid Collection.” 

We have just one orchid plant -  cultivated variety of Phalaenopsis species - a gift from a friend. She gave it me about five years ago and every year it has bloomed again and again. The blooms last for months and the plant graces my coffee table all that time.  Rest of the year it’s in our sunroom enjoying the balmy hot conditions - pretty close to the tropical weather of its natural habitat.  When I received the plant it was February and in full bloom - but since then the timing of blooms has been creeping up a bit later every year. After the very first one blossom appears,  others come in quick succession.  The timing was just right for this page.  Once it starts blooming I sketch or photograph often capturing it in different lights.  

Orchids are works of art by nature - beautiful and ingenious in their form and function. The flowers are shrouded  in symbolism in every part of the world.  I learned that the word Orchid comes from the Greek orkhis meaning ‘testicles’! The everyday flavoring Vanilla comes from an Orchid too. There are more than 28,000 naturally occurring species in the family Orchidaeceae in the world - in every continent except for Antarctica! And  there are thousands of hybrids !!! But many species are also lost or critically endangered due to climate change, loss of habitat and indiscriminate acquisition by orchids hunters and ‘collectors’. There is an intriguing article ‘Orchid Fever’ in the Newyorker magazine by Susan Orlean - which later came to be a book ‘The Orchid Thief’.   I read in an article the Indian Newspaper ‘The Hindu’  that : “...in the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda (1500-800BC) two orchids Rasma - Vanda tessallata and Sanjeevani - Flickingeria macrai have been mentioned as medicinally important. Subsequently, Sushruta Samhita /by Sushruta (Indian Hypocrates) and Charaka Samhita by Charaka listed about a dozen orchid plants used by Ayurveda.” The article continued with a list of orchids that are still used to treat many health issues in Ayurveda, and  traditional tribal Medicines world over. With thousands of species will we ever know all the marvels of Orchids ? 

Orchid dance  watercolor by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 16

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 16  April 12-18 

Every year the Osprey pair return like clockwork  sometime in late March from wintering elsewhere. As always,  in no time at all they renovate their nest built on the ‘no wake’ pole at the bend in the river. The male searches and finds the sticks and the female does the necessary work of making the nest just right. There is no time to waste -  the nest has to be ready for the eggs and then the chicks! The bare branch of the tree on the riverbank is the male’s favorite spot to sit. He brings the fish he catches to the branch to eat. Sometimes he is perched there grooming.  The female usually sat in the nest - especially once she laid the eggs. A pair of fish crow appear in the nearby branch as soon as the Osprey lands with the fish. Mostly the crow were content to swoop down to the ground below and devour the bits that fall off.  Once there are chicks in the nest for the crows to tend, they get aggressive but Ospreys with parental duties also don’t tolerate the crows anywhere close by!

        Osprey Resting watercolor by Meera Rao

Sheltering at home meant that I was privy to all that drama. I had the time to notice how often they came to sit on that branch and recognize their calls. I made an effort to tell the difference between male and female Ospreys. I researched about their habits and life.  The binoculars were always on the table by the window and I was happy to spend hours watching the majestic birds flying, swooping to catch a fish, tearing into it with its sharp claws and beak to satisfy its hunger or feed the chicks. 

The photo of John Singer Sargent’s beautiful portrait of Betty Wertheimer in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020, like all his other paintings showcases his magnificent talent. There is only a small sketch - a study of dead birds attributed to him among hundreds of his works.  I am sure though, had he turned his attention to Ospreys, there would have been wonderful portraits of birds for us to admire. 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 15

Sketching the Pandemic Year in Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020

Week 15 April 5-11

The photograph on the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 for the week of April 5-11 was Nicario Jimenez Quispe’s The Hat Maker Workshop’.  Quispe used wood, boiled potato, natural pigments, plaster and lamb’s wool to make this piece.  He is a Peruvian American retalbo maker. The caption explains that  his traditional alter pieces are made as “small wooden boxes filled with figures, animals, and other other objects that tell a story. The hats shown here are representations of those used every day in the peasant communities of the Andes, where they are made of lamb’s wool and dyed with natural pigments and sold in markets and fairs.”  

By April 2020 making masks had taken over the country and I joined in the frenzy too! For days I watched YouTube videos checking out the various kinds of masks that I could sew.  And then I selected appropriate  fabric remnants from my stash, gathered the elastic, and got to work. When the old sewing machine broke I called it quits on making the masks. I  bought handmade masks from crafters to do my part in supporting them. A friend shared two masks she made. I parceled out a few in a bowl by the front door, extras in my purse in ziplock bags, a couple in the car, and more in my coat jackets along with tiny bottles of sanitizers!! I was not going to be caught without a mask ! And for how long would this go on - no one knew for sure. 

Mask making  watercolor and ink by Meera Rao 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 14

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 14 March 29-April 4 2020 

It would indeed be cool to drive a three wheeled sleek Pete Wozena Concept car 1961 pictured in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020f (week 14-  March 29-April 4). But if it’s a car that zips you around speeding by everything, it won’t do to go check out the cherry blossoms in full glory in spring! That calls for a leisurely drive ohh-ahhing the beautiful delicate pink blossoms that line the road on a particular part of town.  It also mandates a couple of back and forth cruising as there is no place to park along that road and walk under the trees.  The outing was a much needed respite while sheltering at home especially since by then we all were aware of the uncertainty looming ahead. 

Cherry Blossoms watercolor by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 13

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 13 March 22-28 

Sheltering at home gave us ample time to really observe nature by just looking out the window any time of the day or night !!! Every morning there were many pelicans and cormorants flying and swimming around to catch their meal. Pelicans glide low over the water or cruise high and then dive bomb into the water for fish. Cormorants ease their head into the water and dive to catch their pray and emerge elsewhere from the water. After a dive the cormorants sit on the dock or the poles in the water and spread their wings to dry in the sunlight. Often I see cormorants and Pelicans sharing the space on the dock sunning or resting peacefully.  This one time I saw these two birds among a dozen others standing next to each other - it looked to me like there were exchanging notes about where to find the best catch ! But during my research I discovered that they usually do co-exist peacefully most probably because they don’t fish at the same depths. 

Cormorants are an ancient species whose ancestors lived during the time as dinosaurs and the oldest Pelican fossils are from around 30million years ago. Once again my sketches go well with the photo for that week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 :’Tyrannosaurus rex - Hell Creek Formation, McCone county Montana’ at the National Museum of Natural History -.  And it was not a surprise that looking at  my  photos and sketches that week, this subject jumped out making it an easy decision. 

Pelican and Cormorant watercolor and ink by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 12

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 12 

The silver lining during the pandemic started very early :) I have spent hours playing, reading and just goofing around with my grandkids- keeping them occupied while their parents worked from home. I am eternally thankful to the inventors and technology for giving me this time with my grandchildren living miles and one even across an ocean/a continent /a few time zones away!!! 

The glow in the painting ‘Evening glow at Mono Lake, n.d’ by Chiura Obata watercolor on paper  is not that different from the glow I feel after these long distance play sessions from my grandchildren:) 

FaceTime Playtime March 15-21 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 11

Sketching the Pandemic Year week 11 March 8-14

We had made it back home safe and healthy.  But the world over the magnitude of the health crisis was just starting to show.  Having dodged the virus while traveling, our instinct then was to  stay home just to be on the safe side. That meant observing nature in our back yard more closely and there is always something to watch, wonder and learn.  The finches, cardinals and sparrows were happily feasting on the crepe myrtle seed pods. We have a table and chairs under that tree where we often lunch or sip tea. I saw these seed pods that fell from the tree - may be dropped by the birds on to the table - with the long  dramatic shadows. Researching I found out that crepe myrtles are not native to USA but were introduced from Asia in 1700s. And it is an acquired taste for these birds :) 

The seed pods sketches were perfect against the coconut that is from the National Postal Museum- a coconut that was mailed from Hawaii by Raymond Boulder to his wife in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1944 during WWll ! He carved the address on the coconut shell and affixed the postage to a piece of cardboard that was attached to the coconut by a wire !! According to an article in Smithsonian June 2019, apparently there is such a thing as mailing a coconut - at the Hoolehua post office in Hawaii, ‘The coconuts are free, all customers have to do is payoff shipping and the USPS will mail their decorated coconuts to addresses around the world!’  Right now the question is when will we be able to check that out ? 

Crepe myrtle seed pods in the sun. Sepia Ink and watercolor by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020: Week 10

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 10 March  1-7

On one of our last days during the London trip, we stumbled upon Ben Wilson, the chewing gum man. He was sitting on the sidewalk and painting on discarded chewing gum  in Muswell Hill neighborhood.  I was excited to meet him as I had read about his ‘street art’  He says he is “taking thoughtless action and trying to transform them into something positive - it’s a form of recycling.’  People commission him to paint discarded gums and that morning he was painting gum in honor of Lola, Arielle, Hugo and Oliver :)  Coming home and studying the photos I had taken, I saw that one of his tiny paintings said “world within worlds /one world”  I laughed out loud at the serendipity of pairing for this week in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 - ‘Cassiopeia A digital photograph made by processing x-rays detected by Chandra X-ray Observatory’! The caption reads : “Cassiopeia A is the debris field of a exploded star known as supernova remnant, located about11,000 light years from Earth. This exquisitely detailed image from the space- based Chandra x-ray Observatory shows the location of different elements in the remnant including silicon (red), sulfur (yellow), calcium (green), and iron (purple) 

Check here for a short video on Ben Wilson and @benwisonchewinggumman on Instagram to see his works of gum art.

World within worlds - one world  March 1-7 2020 watercolor pen and ink by Meera Rao

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 week 9

Sketching the Pandemic year 2020  February 23-29 week 9

Something about the colorful cables running on the long red brick wall, the green door,  the train tracks and a warning on the platform to ‘mind the gap’ grabbed my attention at the Paddington station, London.  We were on our way back from a short trip to Bath. Little did we know then how lucky we were to not have encountered the virus !!! And that it was to be the last of a holiday trip for quite sometime to come! I have photos of old fashioned pharmacy shop windows in Bath with handwritten signs that said ‘Face masks hand gels/wipes Forehead thermometers in stock’. I puzzled over the signs as I captured them with my camera. Those words were not yet in our everyday vocabulary! There were even a few tourists wearing masks in Bath.  But we were oblivious/ignorant of the pandemic in the making! 

The Lamina wallpaper in the Smithsonian Engagement 2020 is designed and produced by Assemblage, Witter, Arkansas and is at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. It is made by hand applied marble dust, mica plaster,  gold leaf and waterborne resin. The museum website describes it as : “Lamina is dark and  dramatic with horizontal lines with bold metallic stripes, creating a nice contrast between the dark indigo and metal leaf. Sporadic bands of mica and resin add a subtle sheen.’  I feel the industrial looking wall is a work of art itself - a tribute to ingenuity of man and science and has paired well with the photo on the opposite page! 

Mind the Gap  February 23-29 watercolor and ink by Meera Rao 

 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 8

Sketching the Pandemic year 2020 Week 8

So what do the Apollo Lunar Module LM-2 and an Indian Autoriksha have in common ? They both are adept in dodging craters ;)  I just made that up for this post ! 

I sketched the autoriksha because of the hanging Lord Hanuman motif.  I saw them in many rickshas  and thought the drivers must feel the need for blessings of Lord Hanuman who could leap over mountains and oceans to help them navigate the pot holes and other road obstacles ! The night time caretaker for my Dad drives an autoriksha. I ran down one early morning before he left to check if he too had an Hanuman hanging in his vehicle and he did ! The sketch of humble autoriksha against photo of the technically advanced moon lander in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 is why now there is a joke about it ;). 

February 16-22, 2020 sketch by Meera Rao