At this time when everything about Israel seems so harsh, it's good to look around and see the good things we are blessed with.
Amazing people, for one.
I was just at the train station in Tel Aviv and there was music playing, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was so good I thought it was a recording over the PA, but as I walked around the station I discovered a soldier playing it on the public piano there.
He had long hair and a sweet face, not very young, so probably a "miluimnik", a reservist.
When he got up to catch his train I called to him - come back with all your fingers! - and he gave me a bright smile.
It's important to hold on to the good things.
I started doing calligraphy and lettering a month or so into the war.
It's a meditative and calming practice, methodical.
It was a life line for me when I couldn't bring myself to paint. My mind was a grey screen but this was just simply putting marks on the paper, moving my hands, a world with clear and simple rules to follow.
Here is my first real effort at doing an illuminated text, The Seven Species of the Holy Land.
I styled the letters to resemble plants and leaves, trying to stylize the English letters to resemble the Hebrew font.
The lettering and illustrations are done by hand with India ink and watercolor on a Canson watercolor paper.
I offer it to you as a digital download to print your own, at the ceremonial price of 18 shekels, "chai", the letters of life. (Just under 5$).
This small donation will help me continue my work, and I pay it forward volunteering where I can.
I'm grateful for your help, and I never take it for granted.
If this speaks to you, this is the link to the poster:
Hoping for better times, when cute guys playing the piano at the train station are just going to work or school or something like that.
Peace
P.S.
I've started painting a series of oil paintings of the Seven Species, but they're very different then this classical illustration style here.
They reveal how I feel inside, I think. Paintings always tell the truth.
I'll post them in following blog posts, have done three so far, vine, olive and wheat.
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