Confessions of a researchaholic

The Rodin sculptures in Stanford have been my favorite portrait-drawing subjects but they are less accessible during the current lock-down.
Today I realized that we all have some mini portrait sculptures around us: the head reliefs on the obverse sides of the coins.

PS: I obtained this coin from Hallenbad City in Zurich for the swimming pool locker room.

This is an exercise for me to see and draw the relevant visual cues (such as the signature tree rings) without being distracted by extra details (such as the complex bark patterns).

I drew a plate of grapes in different mediums: oil, watercolor, graphite, vector, to explore their varying visual effects.
The process took longer that I thought, so at the end of the night I was too sleepy to remember signing the paintings, which I did the next morning.

This lemon tree seemed to be dead for a few years, but this morning I found out that it just grew some leaves, greened some branches, and even sprouted a pink bud.

Yet another thing in my life which seemed to be dead and then came back to life.
(If you know how to determine if a plant is dead or alive biologically, ping me.)

Never waste a disaster!

I saw these every day during my morning stretch.

The neighborhood cats came around, probably looking for the recently emerging groundhogs.

I drew these two cats from two separate photos, and found the process a refreshing break from working at home.