Only the third day into January and I have cherry blossoms on my mind. It snowed here in Michigan for a few minutes today, otherwise it has been an unseasonably warm winter so far. My children balked that we had a white Halloween and a densely foggy Christmas. They found the switch up both amusing and disappointing, but thats Michigan for you.

When I lived in Washington DC for a semester in high school I was just amazed by the beauty of the cherry blossoms in spring. If you have never had the chance to see it in person I highly recommend making the trip. When I feel overwhelmed and need to imagine myself into a peaceful calm state, it is always me sitting in a paddleboat in the Potomac with cherry blossoms petals falling down like rain all around me.

Today was the last day of Christmas break for my kids and it was quite chaotic in my house. I took a moment for meditation and that inspired me to incorporate cherry blossoms into todays art practice. I had bought this pack of paper fans last halloween to use in my daughter’s costume and threw the rest in with my art supplies. The seemed an appropriate canvas for my cherry blossoms. Since the paper of these fans was quite cheap I didn’t want to use water color, so I pulled out my Aqua Pen Graphix set. I did tear through the thin paper in a couple spots, but for the most part the worked well.

I have some watercolor ground that I bought to make Christmas ornaments so maybe I’ll give that a try for my next attempt. My only concern is that it may be too thick for the fan to fold back up with the bulk of the watercolor ground, but then again I can just hang it open and not use it except as a display piece.

What is your go to mental image to help you find your calm on a chaotic day?