Venice Watercolor and an Artful Promise

copyright © Sophia Khan

Original ~ Sold, Available as a Fine Art Print here

I hope that wherever within this beautiful and vast world that we share, you may be, that you are safe, well, happy, and hopeful at the start of this new year. I write this to you, as I often do, partly within my journal first, then on my computer, with a warm scented cup of tea in hand, thoughts turned towards the romance of things beautiful to the eyes, lyrical to the mind, and emotive to the senses, imbued by the nostalgia of distant travel memories.

Painting places I have traveled to is one way I find hope and inspiration because these sites reflect the grandeur of the human spirit. They reveal our collective capacity for thousands of years to celebrate our vision of how we want to live in this world, through how we build. But also because these places often tell us stories within themselves, of how they were conceived, and continue to stand and inspire us, having been built with this foundation of hope within their very stones.

Venice...I talk about and paint her often, as you may know. I read stories about her, I remember and I forget her, I weave words and brushstrokes around the enchantment of her piazza, her canals, her edifices, her stones, her carvings. But I am grateful that, despite having painted her for several years, I always find something new about her through this expressive medium of watercolor. A medium which inspires me to remain, to linger a bit longer, to listen, to see, to dream in color a place where I long to be. And then, for a moment in my studio, in some way, through the use of the very same element upon which she rests, water....I am there.

Venice isn’t the only place I am grateful to know through travel. There are many others, throughout Italy, and other countries that have inspired my journey to becoming an Artist. Along these lines, through the space that staying at home these past several months has created, a beautiful idea that I am excited about has come to me. I will very much look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks.

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Whether you reside in the US, or elsewhere, you are likely aware of the horrific events that transpired at our Capitol two weeks ago. The very same day that this attack occurred, in the midst of deep concern around my nation, I painted a watercolor of the Capitol, partly to give myself hope. I am now offering complimentary stationary, featuring this watercolor, titled “Promises to Our Nation.” The idea behind this piece is that it can be used to reflect on and write down a list of promises we make as individuals to our nation; a set of actions around how to never take our democracy for granted and what we can do to uphold that commitment. As a lovely family member suggested, it can also be worked on as a family exercise. If this is something that resonates, it is available as a complimentary PDF download, here.

If you use this stationary to reflect on your promises to your nation, I would love to see what you write. Please tag me on Instagram @sophiakhanstudio with hashtag #promisestoournation, if you are so inclined to share.

If you live in another country, I might suggest sharing with someone you know in the US, or perhaps even using this stationary to reflect on promises you make to your own country of residence.

I am very excited to share that this stationary will also be part of the resources available for Valarie Kaur’s upcoming People’s Inauguration. If you haven’t already, watch her deeply moving and inspiring TED talk, and join her People’s Inauguration, the day after our Presidential Inauguration, to be inspired and guided around birthing a new vision for our nation. I am very excited around the momentum she is building around the message of love, hope, unity, inclusion, compassion, and justice, and how to carry these towards birthing a renewed future.

I thank you for being here with me, both my new and long time subscribers, and I will look forward to sharing more of the colors, joys, and inspirations around my art and wanderlust with you in the coming weeks. As always, I love hearing from my subscribers, so if ever you’d like to be in touch, simply reply to this email. It may take just a few days, but I always write back :~)

Until next time, wishing you and your loved ones safety, hope, joy, serenity, and beauty at every step we take into our collective future ahead.

Paris Watercolor Art and What is Yet to Come

A Memory of Sainte-Chapelle, Paris © Sophia Khan

I hope this letter finds you safe and well, and being uplifted by the spirit of the holiday season and the promise of a new year to come. For me, personally, my art has been an escape for the past several months. This means that new subjects, new ways of painting in watercolor, and new color schemes have been emerging in my studio. I am so grateful. Being an Artist means being able to cultivate something of beauty, for ourselves and others. It’s a celebration of life and a knowing that beauty always adds value, meaning, poetry, healing, and inspiration to our lives. But perhaps most of all, beauty is a mirror to how we hope to see ourselves in our highest potential.

The above watercolor was one I have been painting on and off for a while, recently completed by adding the finishing touches of iridescent gold and deep blue ink. It is available in my online shop here, if these brushstrokes and the city of Paris calls to you. It is a painted memory of Sainte-Chapelle.

One of the joys of traveling solo is that you can do whatever it is that makes your heart sing. Isn’t this one of the very reasons we travel, after all. I returned to this chapel twice in one day, to take in the breadth of its beauty and be graced by the stories illuminated within its stones and stained glass windows. Its history and story are one I return to every now and then, all the while always leaving something to my imagination, always retaining some sense of mystery. I don’t have to know everything about the places I visit, all in one visit, but I do have to feel like something of the place has moved me deeply enough for it to stay within my memory.

Every year, around this time, I typically write an “Annual Review” in which I highlight the year in terms of my personal, spiritual, and professional/creative life. This year I’ve been inspired to do something a bit differently.

I recently saw an interview with renowned Architect Renzo Piano and his son Carlo Piano, with the publisher Europa Editions, discussing their new book Atlantis: A Journey in Search of Beauty. I have been drawn to Renzo Piano’s work since my time studying Architecture, so I was very happy to learn of this new book. In the conversation, he said something I found very powerful, which has stayed with me. He said, to paraphrase, that it is not about what we have accomplished in life, but what we have yet to accomplish.

And so this year, for the annual review that I will write, I am not as interested in highlighting what has happened this year, but looking towards the next year whilst carrying the seeds of what I have planted this year, that supports this future. For me, this looks like composing a collection of dreams and ambitions I would love to work towards; with each supported by remembering all the ways from my past in which I have already begun planting their seeds. In this way, the focus is towards the future, while in the background there is the evidence and support from how I have been cultivating a path towards this future, from my past.

If the idea of writing an annual review, in this manner is appealing to you, I invite you to perhaps explore this for your own personal dreams and wishes.

However it may be that you usher in this new year, I hope it is beautiful, it is blessed, and points you towards more joy, tranquility, and hope in the new year to come. Anything new always feels like an invitation. I hope your invitation is one that graces you with how you most wish to be welcomed into this new beginning. Because if 2020 has taught me something, it is that whatever our dream, it matters and the time for it will never be more ripe than now.

Until next time, I wish you and your loved ones much serenity, beauty, wellness, and grace.

xx ~ Sophia

p.s. If your are near a Barnes and Noble, or any other book store, be sure to check the travel section for the recent edition of Lodestars Anthology, for which I was commissioned to provide artwork for their Puebla, Mexico story, pictured below.

Watercolor Beauty in Venice & in Our Selves

copyright © Sophia Khan

We can always turn to beauty. For me that means not only finding awe in great works of art, but also in the process of bringing forth my own version of beauty.

When looking at the sites and monuments I have visited throughout my travels, no matter what the space was built for, be it for worship and devotion, for burial, for gathering and celebrating, or mourning, there is most certainly always beauty. Because, as it has been said, “beauty never lies.” And that which is beautiful and engages our emotions, points to what is true within us.

Even when much time has passed, and a place no longer holds the same quality of meaning that it did when built, something of that spirit, that imagination and inspiration from which it was formed, remains within it.

That something, untouchable by the patina of time, is what I love to find in my travels and to paint, no matter where I may be. Because deep down inside, no matter the place, those inspirations and stirrings are always the same. Much like the shared experiences that move us all in life, no matter our background, values, or beliefs.

Venice, my most beloved muse, contains an endless palette of colors and moods in its beauty. For each traveler, the lure in this beauty offers a different meaning. That is true for many places. When we travel, we remember what a place evoked within us, what it inspired in us, how it moved us. In essence, it is a part of our selves we remember, when we remember our travels.

I initially began painting watercolors many years ago, to remember and find awe in the memories of my own travels. Over the years, the work has evolved from this seed, and I continue to hope that it can hold and evoke a certain celebration of place and self, for all of us who enjoy travel and architecture.

The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, is one of those places that is experienced very differently depending on where we view it from. Yet, what remains is that it has an element of something elusive. If you’re curious, I invite you to explore this in your next, or first, visit to Venice.

There are many reasons that I love to paint Venice, and they all have to do with the great blessing and gift of having traveled there. I would not be able to paint it with the expressiveness and emotive qualities that I seek to, had I not.

I don’t need to write much about how this year has been challenging for much of the world. We find that elsewhere. Here, I want to focus on the awe, inspiration, imagination, and beauty that carries us through all of life. And the joy.

In light of this and the upcoming holiday season, I would like to offer you, my reader here, a small gift. If you would like to collect a work of art, please enjoy complimentary shipping (on all purchases over $100).

Kindly enjoy the offer code: BEAUTY

I’ll also be sending a small but special artful treat that will be lovingly gifted with each purchase, regardless of your purchase amount. I will be offering this for a limited time, and it only happens once a year, so I hope you can enjoy it if it may be of interest.

And if you purchase one of my watercolors or prints, for yourself or a loved one for the holidays, I hope it can be a memento of the beauty and awe contained in these places built with imagination and the grandeur of the human spirit; something that is and will remain within each of us.

Venice Watercolours in my Studio

copyright © Sophia Khan

Still on the canvas of my mind….San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

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Exquisite Wings, Birds in Flight Watercolors

It's been a long time coming, but these wings of grace are finally ready to fly....

The details of our lives are what give it, its unique flavor of wholeness. A few years ago I took a most wonderful photo workshop - which was more like an art experience - with artist Catherine Just. It’s flavor still runs deep within. When I look at my life through the lens of a certain "framing" to isolate, capture, and revel in a detail within what is the entirety of experience, it allows me a certain reverence and newness in what I see. And lately I’ve taken on some new morning meditative practices in which I open myself to experiencing this reverence simply through breath and presence.....I will circle back to sharing more this practice.

Gyms have been closed, so instead of my evening workouts, I've been walking and jogging right outside my home. And looking upwards. A lot. And noticing the changing colors, the shifting moods, the lightness of all things above us. Being in nature, simply by stepping outside the front door, gives us the pleasure and the divine gift of a limitless universe before our very beings.

A message came through to me one morning, during my practice, and that was that everything is going to be alright. In these unpredictable times, we are reminded, life is always unpredictable, is it not? But the colors of a setting sun tinting the horizon of the sky, the horizon of our life, with gold, pinks, purples, shimmering orange, reminds me of being carried. It offers us that while we are here and have been given this gift of life, in one way or another, things will be okay....and this is echoed by the sun, the moon, and the stars of creation.

I don't want my art to be or look too thought out or contrived. Instead, I enjoy the mystery of seeing what comes through in the process of approaching a blank 'canvas'. And that is exactly what happened when one morning, when carrying somewhere within me the serenity of the sky above, I simply had to put everything aside and paint. In deciding not to paint any particular subject, one was decided for me. "Exquisite wings" I now call it. Birds in flight. One and many. Having both reached somewhere blissful, and still carrying the grace and elegance of continuing their flight. Isn't this how we experience our own journey of life.

And isn't life most beautiful when we feel a certain flow or synchronicity within our days. I will offer, from experience, that this is always available to us. We experience it simply by making ourselves more receptive to it. Creating space within, in whatever way we find we are most able to.

Other details of my day to day life that am I reveling in....through my senses these days are citrus, rose, and lavender. Both in my tea, and the essential oils blends that I am making. Yes, this is a growing interest of mine, and some of the sources that are helping me with it are Shiva Rose's book, "Whole Beauty," and the educational/instructional articles offered online by Mountain Rose Herbs. If you'd like to try your hand at making your own blend, I will share my latest blend which is absolutely heavenly...and quite simple. Bergamot oil and Rose otto oil, diluted in jojoba oil. If you do try it, I'd love to hear what you think. As for the tea, its Venetian Mosaic by Caffe Florian, in Venice. A delicious black tea with lavender, and orange peel, I stock up on every now and then. I also enjoy Tulsi Rose tea steeped with a cardamom pod. And......strawberry rose yoghurt, as well as lavender blueberry yoghurt. And yes, it's as good as it sounds.

If you have any details within your day to day life that you yourself are reveling in, and would like to share, I would love to hear, if you’d like to send a message.

I have also composed a gallery of my "Exquisite Wings" collection, which can be viewed at the link below. I hope you enjoy perusing, and if any of these watercolor wings speak to the dreams of flight within you, I would love to send to you.

With colors inspired by the sky above. Raspberry and gold dipped wings, sunset and sunrise, together with the time in between. Here soft as feather, there veins of gold. Explore the new collection here.

p.s. Speaking of my love for tea, I was recently featured as a "Teafluencer" with one of my favorite tea companies, Harney and Sons Tea, where I shared my love for tea, travel, and painting watercolors on tea stained paper. It's a wonderfully delicious interview, and can be read here.

San Giorgio Maggiore Venice Watercolor

copyright © Sophia Khan

Even when we're there, it exists for us somewhere between dreams and memories. San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

Available as an original watercolor from my online gallery here.

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Instagram

Heartbeat of Venice Watercolour

A place that celebrates both the city and our presence within it. A place both opulent, and warm and inviting. Piazza San Marco, the heartbeat of Venice.

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If you’d like to see more of my Venice watercolors on Instagram, you can follow along here @sophiakhanstudio

Serene Watercolor Escapes

Escape. What does it mean to escape somewhere? At a time when many of us are not able to travel to faraway places, this question comes to mind, and visits my studio.

Over the course of many years of travel, for which I am so grateful, I’ve come to realize that travel is not only about escaping to a place, but about a certain return to something within. For me, it feels like a turning towards that part of myself that responds with a certain visceral lens and an open heart to the world around me.

When we think of our dream destinations and escapes, and search in magazines or online for images of where we might like to go, it’s usually not guided by thoughts or logic, but by what we feel intuitively.....what stirs us the most, and feels most beautiful.

But what about now, when so many of us are not able to travel far away? Where do we go to escape? I think one place we can always escape to is our dreams and memories. Dreams and memories......these ‘places’ are ones I myself visit often, being an artist who works primarily with travel memories and inspiration. Yet despite this, it’s been strange because I don’t necessarily have a place that I’m looking forward to traveling to, at least not immediately. But I do have my memories and I have the joy and serenity that they bring.

Memories of places like Venice, Paris, Rome, Morocco, Spain, and Tuscany that re awaken me to the feelings of joy, enchantment, serenity, adventure, and a romance with history and the past, all of which I experienced while there.

Places don’t leave us. Even if we leave them.

What part of us is it then, that these places remain in? And how do we nurture and honor what remains?

This looks different for each of us. And I thinks it is why some of us paint, some of us write, and some of us share photographs and memories with loved ones, describing our travels with such joy, as if they were only yesterday. It’s also why the curiosity towards a certain place we’ve traveled to remains with us when we return home. We search in books and articles to put into words, and give meaning, history, and context to something we connect with in a way that needs no words or reason.

For me, I am grateful to have an art which explores this something that exists somewhere beyond words, and look forward to continuing to explore this in new ways, in new brushstrokes. It’s a never ending journey that life asked of me and I joyfully said yes to.

Some time ago, a thought came to my mind. Am I planting the seeds, or mourning the drought. I think of how I might apply this positive approach to life in regards to being an artist. Much of my watercolor painting started during a time when I was not actually traveling, but reminiscing past travels....It’s the nature of the ebb and flow of life for there to be periods of droughts, but.....planting the seeds. It all comes back to that for me these days. And gratitude for past abundance as well as all the places it can be cultivated in the now. And this what I bring to my ‘canvas.’ I do believe.....miracles pour in where gratitude expands to receive them. My studio is one place, for this place of gratitude. And small watercolor miracles, if I can call them that...yes, I think they are that, because they bring me such joy.

Gratitude itself is a blessing, I feel. And one thing I can always plant....is possibility.

I’ve gathering some of my favorite watercolor memories that celebrate the serenity and joy of these travels that continue to plant this seed in my life, both in my studio, and in my dreams and memories. These are small and medium sizes watercolors, with pricing beginning at $100. If you may want to peruse this gallery, I hope it brings back memories of your own favorite travels. And if there is one that especially delights you, I am so happy to lovingly send it to your doorstep, and hope it will bring a sprinkle of travel lust, possibility, serenity, and dreams to your home, or the home of a loved one.

Piazza San Marco Venice Watercolour

How much does one need to say, to say Venice.

If you’d like to see more of my Venice inspired watercolours, you can follow along on my Instagram.

Light in Venice Watercolour

Capturing how light and water illuminate the stones and soul of Venice, in memory and on ‘canvas.’

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If you would delight in following my art & travels, I invite you to join my Instagram and sign up to receive “Letters from my Art Studio.”