Life Is In The Balance

On September 9th, I had the wonderful opportunity speak with an enthusiastic group of Narrows Botanical Gardens visitors about the Life Is In the Balance series of drawings. I briefly discussed my academic background and related work from my fifty year career as a professional artist. There were questions about the materials used in the original drawings and how they were reproduced to be weather resistant. I talked about each one of the drawings in the order they were created and identified the plants and where they can/could be found in the gardens, when seasonally appropriate.     Photo:Luz Diaz The most informative for the visitors, and the most fun for me was to go around the gardens and visit a few of the locations where they could see the plants that inspired me.  As luck would have it, the milkweed seed pods were "ripe" and full of seeds. We reminisced about our intrigue as children with the floating seeds. We all had forgotten how soft they are. Photo: Luz D...

At the opening event for Life Is In the Balance, I had the delightful opportunity to have conversations with about 25-30 park visitors about the artwork. It was so gratifying to hear how much the work was appreciated and how it added to their experience in the park. Narrows Botanical Gardens are truly a valuable resource for the community. I am so happy to make this contribution for the two months the artwork will be on display. Don't miss out. July 15 - September 15   Kristin in front of newly installed artwork: Narrows Botanical Gardens, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn I got an interesting array of questions, most frequently what were the materials used to make them. Seeing drawing reproduced on vinyl is not something that happens everyday and many thought they were paintings on canvas. I informed them that the originals were mixed media on paper, which of course could not be displayed outside. I explained that the work was inspired by the gardens and all of the plants/fauna exist in the par...

  Life is in the Balance_Drawing 5: Apple Blossoms I have been delinquent in keeping the blog updated....not in drawing. (It's too much fun to stop for very long)  Apple Blossoms with dandelion flowers and bees is a tribute to spring. I have been gaga just drifting from one flower or flowering tree to another.  A current obsession is writing haiku. These two are appropriate to express my mood and how it is visualized in this drawing. Still under the spell  from one flower to the next It's finally spring   Gift of renewal Energized the whole world The glory of spring   This drawing is just about finished. Thanks for your interest in my work. Learn more about my artwork to inspire careful observation of the natural world on my website, KristinHarrisDesign.com .  

I needed the break I took the last few weeks. I jumped into this series full steam ahead and needed a rest!  Very happy to have acted on my strategizing of the last few weeks and put pencil to paper today. This spring there have been an abundance of flowering trees in my neighborhood. They inspired me to indulge in a favorite pass time, writing haiku.                Cherry trees in spring                The flowers like falling stars                Bringing me such joy  Narrows Botanical Gardens has a number of blooming apple trees which did not disappoint. There are many flowering plants at the Gardens now but the apple blossoms really captured my attention. They are especially beautiful but maybe it's also in my father's memory I celebrate them now. He was a great fan of apples and apple trees. He nurtured many an apple tree in his days as a ...