Tisha B’Av is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. The Beit Hamikdash (holy Temple) was destroyed. In addition to fasting, one is supposed to limit activities to those that are mournful. I wrote more about Tisha B’Av in past years in particular about the story of the fox in ruins and another fox in ruins watercolor.
In this version I added an abridged version of the text from Makkot 24B. I added a volume of Makkot, one of the volumes of the Talmud, to the right.
They saw a fox emerge. “Why are you laughing, Rabbi Akiva?” The prophecy of Uriah was fulfilled. Akiva, you have comforted us. – Makkot 24B
This year I also worked on my calligraphy by copying sections of Eikha (Lamentations), the megillah (scroll) that we read on the night of Tisha B’Av.
My eyes are drained of tears
My innards churn
My liver spills to the ground
Because of the brokenness of the daughter of my nation
— Eikha 2:11
This sketch was created with ink and watercolor on Tisha B’Av 5785.
Streams of water flow from my eye over the brokenness of the daughter of the nation.
My eye flows and does not stop, refusing to cease.
(Eikha 3:47-48)
I love the feeling of painting water with watercolor.
Because of the deer and other critters in our neighborhood, I grow my cucumbers in a cage. Pictured are the cucumber vines and climbing nasturtium. Nasturtium have yellow and orange edible flowers (and edible round leaves) that you can use to dress up your salads.
Growing cucumbers is not as simple as stick a few seeds in the ground and watch them grow. One needs provide good soil with proper nutrients, enough water, and a way for the plant to climb up. In addition it is a good idea to plant cucumber companions in the general vicinity of your cucumber plants. In order to learn what to plant and what not to plant, I did this art illustration. I already had nasturtium and radish in my cage. This year I sprinkled several zinnia seeds and moved the marigolds into the cage. I also removed some mint that was growing directly outside the cage. Dill is one of my favorite herbs, so I made a special effort to keep the dill going strong by adding compost around the base of each dill plant every few weeks.
Marigolds are easy to grow. They are a good beginner plant. For some unknown reason, few of the marigold seeds that I saved from last year germinated. I was able to buy several marigold seedlings for a low price early in the spring at our local farmers market. Those are flourishing.
Painting flowers is harder than it looks. I first painted the marigold with watercolor. I didn’t think the orange was strong enough. I switched to gouache and applied thick, small strokes. I am happy with the result.
Radishes are easy to grow. You stick the seeds in the ground, and a week later you have round little leaves poking out of the ground. Make sure to plant in loose, rich soil, and in a month you will be pulling radishes. Sometimes I eat radishes raw. Sometimes I ferment them in a little jar with sea salt and filtered water. You can also steam the radishes if you like them sweet.
Radishes are easy to paint. Make sure you have a nice, thick red paint and a good brush. Paint a few layers, leaving one side a bit on the white side to show form.
A friend gave me these large black cloth bags for planting. I am experimenting with a little container garden. Pictured are marigold and cucumber seedlings. I put in some celery seeds. Hopefully, sometime this fall we will get some celery.
Zinnia come in a variety of colors. If you have full sun, a plot of land with decent, loose soil, and determination, you can sprinkle zinnia seeds in May or early June and receive the reward of flowers in the summer.
Have you ever eaten a nasturtium flower? What would you do with a radish? Have you eaten a cucumber that is not from a supermarket?
Someone asked me: why are you posting yarrow? Is it your favorite flower? No, I responded. My favorite flower, at least for this year, is cosmos.
So why am I posting about yarrow? I realized I am posting in order to learn yarrow’s health benefits. Here are a few:
Improve digestion
Accelerate wound healing
Alleviate colds or the flu with yarrow tea
Reduce inflammation
You can learn more about the healing properties of white yarrow (yarrow millefolium) elsewhere.
Yarrow comes in a variety of colors. In my backyard I have big yellow yarrow flowers that are currently in bloom in July. In the front of my house I have white yarrow. Yarrows are perennials. The Latin name is Achillea.
Pictured is achillea millefolium (white yarrow), coreopsis, and lamb’s ear flowers. I painted the illustration with watercolor, gouache, and collage for the bright pink lamb’s ear flowers.
This was going to be a post about rudbeckia or black-eyed susan. However, a deer ate my beautiful yellow flower that miraculously blossomed in front of my house. So I looked for inspiration elsewhere.
Borage is growing in my plant cage. I had the cage built because the deer ate most of my edible plants. This year I am concentrating on growing cucumbers. A good companion to cucumber plants is borage. I originally put three borage seedlings that I bought at the Highland Park Farmers Market in my backyard. However, despite my deer fence in the backyard, something nibbled at the borage. So off it went into the cage.
Borage is grown as an annual in New Jersey. It is native to the Mediterranean. Some special notes about borage: you can eat the flowers and the leaves. I have seen the flowers described as cornflower blue or as smoky blue. To me the blue is slightly on the purple side.
I sketched several pages about borage in my sketchbook.
Borage is a quick growing annual with hairy leaves and cornflower-blue star-shaped flowers.
Days to Germination: 5 days at 70° F
Source: The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel
Are you looking for more energy? Want to serve a delicious and nutritious soup to your family? This magical elixir healing soup is easy to make, and you can freeze any leftovers.
This soup is my version of the meat stock for Stage One of the GAPS diet, a healing diet. Also on Stage 1 are ferments (the juice of the brine, not the vegetables) such as sauerkraut (just sea salt and cabbage).
Ingredients
2-3 lbs. chicken bones
3 beef marrow bones
Filtered water, enough to cover the chicken and beef bones
3 Tbsp. Redmond Real Salt or Celtic Salt
2 small onions
2 carrots, peeled and cut into coin shapes (optional)
2 stalks celery with leaves
1-2 garlic cloves (optional)
2 peppercorns (optional)
3 white turnips, peeled and cut (optional)
Recipe for the soup
Put chicken bones and beef bones in a large pot. Fill water to cover the bones. Add the salt. Cook on medium, then simmer when it comes to a boil. Add the vegetables about 1 hour before serving. Cook for 2-3 hours total.
For more on the GAPS diet, see the blue book called GAPS Diet by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. You can also learn by watching videos in which she is interviewed.
Note: whenever you can, use local produce. Get to know your local farmers.
A lot of people say they cannot draw. My response is: when you were in first grade, did you know algebra? Probably not.
The most important skill in drawing is learning to see. We think we can see, but often we think in symbols instead of actually seeing what is front of us and drawing only what we can see.
Get Started with Drawing
If you want to learn to draw, grab a pen and an old notebook. It doesn’t matter what pen, as long as it is not erasable. Any old notebook will do, even one that is almost filled. The less you care about anything that is already in the notebook, the better. Walk around your neighborhood. Draw whatever you see. Make sure not to show it to anyone. If you care about these first drawings, you probably won’t even get started.
Draw Blind: Learn to See Contours
Now that you have drawn something, it is time to do a little seeing. Set up a simple still life. It could be cups and boxes. It could be onions and apples. It doesn’t matter. Don’t look at your paper, and draw. Don’t cheat, especially the first time. For the next drawing, you can cheat a little and look. Try drawing in a continuous line. Do a third one. How do they look? Drawing without looking at the paper is called blind contours drawing. Drawing the contours of the objects in a scene without lifting your pen much from the paper is called a continuous line drawing.
On the left is an example of a continuous line drawing of an iron. On the right is a blind contours drawing of the same iron.
To learn more about contour drawings, you might read the classic The Natural Way to Draw. Here is an excerpt:
Sit close to the object which you intend to draw. Focus your eyes on some point along the contour of the model. (The contour approximates what is usually spoken of as the outline or edge.) Place the point of your pencil on the paper. Imagine that the point is touching the object instead of the paper. Without taking your eyes off the object, wait until your are convinced the pencil is touching that point on the object upon which your eyes are fastened.
Then move your eyes slowly along the contour of the model and move the pencil slowly along the paper… this means that you must draw without looking at the paper.
Source: The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides, p. 9
Practice, Practice, Practice
Keep up with the drawing. Tuck a small sketchbook into your purse or back pack. Leave one in your kitchen or the drawer of your office. Pick a favorite ink pen. I like Uniball pens, but a cheap ballpoint pen can work as well. Draw your keys. Draw a book on the table. Draw the car parked down the street. If the weather is nice, go to the park and draw a tree. Start your drawing anywhere on the page. Spend more time looking at your subject than your paper. Do not erase.
Learn from the Masters
A great way to learn to draw is to copy a painting or illustration of one of the masters. For example, get a book with drawing by Rembrandt. Pick one, and copy it. Then try a totally different artist, maybe Van Gogh. Copy his drawing or painting. This is a great way to learn.
Favorite Drawing Books
Want instruction from some experts? These are some of my favorite drawing books. You can might be able to take them out of your library. You might then decide you want to own one or more of these books. Everyday Sketching & Drawing by Steven B. Reddy The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides Drawing on the Right Side Brain by Betty Edwards Draw Your World by Samantha Dion Baker Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson
Reds, yellows, and oranges appear in Highland Park in early fall. My paintings get a colorful glow. Pictured is the train bridge that runs from New Brunswick to Highland Park over the Raritan River.
I painted two illustrations of the scene with watercolor and gouache in September.
Then I returned to the scene in November with my uniball pen and later colored the ink drawing with watercolor.
Apples are ripe and delicious in early autumn. My favorites are macintosh, macoun, and winesap. I buy them at the Highland Park Farmers Market.
By November it gets too cold for most of us to sit outside and leisurely draw. If you are a beginner at drawing, man-made objects like an iron are easier subjects than drawing outside in nature. With the help of friends, I am working on lessons geared at teaching drawing by really seeing. Right before I drew the iron, I did a “no peeking” exercise: one is not allowed to look at the paper while drawing. It helps a person see the object.
I added this peach painting from the summer as a warm and cozy ending to this autumn blog post.
In June 2024 we visited the Galil (Galilee in English), the region in the north western part of Israel, west of the Golan Heights. Some of the places we visited were Beit Keshet, Tsefat, Tiberias, Yodfat, and Maalot. Pictured above is the illustration of the view from my friend’s house in Maalot.
In Maalot my friend and I went on an Maalot sketch crawl. Maalot is hilly. The name Maalot means “steps.” We walked down her block and stopped at some long steps, a common scene in Maalot. The jacaranda tree was in bloom, so I was attracted to that spot. I drew first with my black uniball pen. Next I added some color.
This is another scene of Maalot. The hills around were peaceful and calm.
Yodfat is a small community on top of a hill. Historically, it is famous for a Roman siege of Yodfat that took place many years ago. We stayed in a house with many amenities, especially in the kitchen. When I woke up in the morning, I went for a walk all around the village. After a while, it started to get hot, so I came into the air-conditioned kitchen, took out my paints, and began to draw. I drew a corner counter with some windows. I added the ballpoint pen marks later.
Pots and pans are a lot of fun to draw and paint.
I spent the early morning in Beit Keshet with my paints and the Galil scenery.
The Beit Keshet cottage had a lovely back porch with an amazing view. I loved the little table in the corner.
This past spring I had the pleasure of traveling to Nice, France. We also visited Antibes, a neighboring city, also with a medieval section. One day we traveled north on a train to a medieval village called La Brigue. It was quite an adventure. I did some watercolor illustrations of some of the places that we visited.
Someone asked: so why did you pick Nice? I answered: kosher food. There is kosher food in Nice. Not much in Dublin. And off to Nice we went. But the best food was really in Antibes. It’s a short train ride from Nice, so get used to taking trains! You can see a lot that way. Buy a day pass for the train, so you can get off and get back on again all day long.
A wonderful part of the Nice is the market in the old city. A large section is devoted to flowers. Vegetables and fruit are available in abundance. I bought strawberries (fresh and in season), pomegranate, grapefruit, an apple, a red onion, and a lemon. I didn’t get a chance to paint the market. However, since it is advertised that it opened at 6 am, but the vendors are still setting up at that time, I sketched the Opera House nearby in ink. Later I added watercolor.
We took a wonderful walking tour of the old city of Nice. You end up on the hill overlooking the city … breathtaking. The walking tours are free. Sign up online in advance. It is recommended to pay the tour guide an amount at the end. Our tour guide, Dinara Mukh, was fabulous. Here’s her website for women on imbalanced hormones: https://www.dinaramukh.com/
Eating kosher in Nice is not hard. Le Kineret and La Makolet are two delightful finds on Avenue Georges Clémenceau. Le Kineret is a bakery (boulangerie) and restaurant with wonderful breakfast food (we didn’t get a chance to eat other meals there). If you need food for Shabbat, you can place an order at Le Kineret on a Thursday. Pick up is Friday morning. Delicious! La Makolet had wine, cheese, and other kosher treats. We went to a lovely Asian Fusion restaurant called Bozen.
If you are planning to be in Nice on a Friday night, you can reserve online in advance to eat at Chabad. The food is traditional chicken with many salad dishes. I recommend giving a nice donation to Chabad if you choose to eat there.
food at Berbeche restaurant, Antibes, France
Restaurants in Antibes: I recommend Berbeche. It is a few buildings down from the beach in Juan-Le-Pins. When I asked the waiter if I should get the salad or the vegetables, he replied in accented English: “salad is for rabbits.” I got the vegetables. My daughter liked them. I found them a bit too saucy. But I absolutely loved my lamp chops. My daughter loved her steak with truffles. We both give the restaurant a high rating. There was some delicious looking salami inside the restaurant. I was tempted to order some, but in addition to having to carry it back, I was not sure what 36 euro meant. Does that mean per pound? per liter? per something else? A confused tourist, I went without. This time. There is another kosher restaurant on the beach called DiamanThe’K. I ordered delicious lamb chops, and before the main course was served, we got some nice salads. The salad with the meal was not quite as good.
We took a trip one day via train to the mountains north of Nice. We stopped in a lovely medieval village called La Brigue. Just so you know, there is only one track in La Brigue. You wait at the same spot that you got off for the train back to Nice.
I did not fly directly to Nice. From the U.S. it costs thousands of dollars to fly into Nice. So I flew to London Heathrow first. On the way I visited Highgate. As I was drawing the compelling architecture of Highgate, an elder resident asked me if I was part of the group that was redesigning the square where I sat. She wanted more trees in particular. I thought she should ask for more seating. In any case, I am including my illustration of Highgate in my Nice, France post.
I find I often paint in themes. On Fridays, I am often inspired to paint a shabbat table scene or my candles. However, I rarely have time on Fridays.
Those who do not keep the Sabbath might ask: how do you tolerate a day without being able to paint or draw? My response: as long as I have time during the week for painting or drawing, the Sabbath is a welcome day for reflecting. I do not record every minute of my life what transpires. Having time just to sit and think helps one when life is rushed during the week.
In the Torah the Sabbath is mentioned many times. One example is in the parsha of Kedoshim 19:3 where it says: “you shall observe My Sabbaths.”
Late Friday afternoon one hour before sunset I light the candles for Shabbat. It is a time of reflection and meditation. No more rushing about. The food is cooked. One says the prayer and takes time to move one to whatever is next.
I really like painting green wine bottles. It has reflection and a deep green color. It reminds me of family members who enjoy visiting vineyards and tasting good wine. As a painter who likes to capture the light, the bottle is elegant and slender and says: “use me as your prop.”
This is one of my favorite wine bottle paintings. I like the paisley fabric upon which it rests. A good combination for a still-life.
This Shabbat table setting, painted in gouache, reflects some of our busy meals. I make a variety of foods, put on several colored tiles like the one that appears in the corner, and use my good china. I like how the salt shaker, an important item as it gets sprinkled on the challah after the blessing, peaks out from behind the tall wine bottle.
If you want to purchase a print of any of these Shabbat scenes, visit my store for more information.
