the smell of summer in the house full of dog

We are house sitting, with dog and garden. It is quite something getting used to always having a dog on your side. He has the habit of sticking his nose at you or brushing against you when he walks past, just to show you his extra love.
He is also quite showy, so I was trying to sketch him, but not a good model he moves a lot, and makes you extra quick or else.

The garden also gives plenty of motives, burned out from the sun yellow leaved cactuses, and cast iron ornamental garden chairs. From the windows upstairs I get beautiful views of typical Californian suburban scene and palms swinging in the wind and more cactuses in neighbor’s front yards. The streets are lined with magnolia trees and we have bowls and bowls of magnolias in all sorts of stages, fresh white butts that are ready to open, yellow pedals that did not open well, and wide open bright white huge flowers. The smell penetrates through the dog smell and fills the house with summer. I can’t get enough of them.

I am reading “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg, and love how she finds parallels between writing and meditation and turns our creativity into a spiritual quest while at the same time opening up to the world and taking our lives in fully with our senses, in order to be able to put it on paper, raw and without our ego censoring it. Finding that moment where it flows, paintbrush and hand and the object I am painting is one. It makes me want to look deeper and paint deeper, listen touch things, and write more. I am usually a bit awkward writing, not just because it is my second language but because I am very much a private person, but I feel it gives some clarity to my art, and I get down to the “bones” of it.