The sneezing starts slowly for me each year, and this week it is starting to ramp up. There is always a nice period before the sneezing begins however when I can enjoy the sudden colourful bloom of Spring in relative peace, thinking “you know what, this year I’m just not going to sneeze, everything’s going to be fine.” By the darling buds of May though I’ve turned into Rentaghost’s Nadia Popov. Also, the “are you taking anything for it?” conversation is even more boring than saying “bless you” after every sneeze and then laughing after the fourth, so when people ask me what I’m taking I say “sneezing powder”. I  have seen a lot of floral sketching recently in my Urban Sketching Community’s online feeds, inspiring me to draw more flowers myself; my sudden upsurge in walking everywhere and seeing so many colourful gardens, parks and pathways made me really see this year that Spring is actually quite visually beautiful. So, out comes the sketchbook. Now I wish I knew the names of all the plants, and thankfully the Arboretum does label most of them, but I’m a little bit plant-clueless. All the more reason to sit and really look at them, see how they work.

The walk to Northstar Park in the north part of Davis has a lot of beautiful flowers.

And here in the Arboretum, I took a stroll through the Acacia Grove, drawing in pencil this time.

Finally, a tree stump. It was too interesting to leave out. Happy bloomin’ Spring to you!