Jerusalem Footpath

Celebrating Easter in Israel is an odd experience for someone like me. Holiday preparations here are of course focused around the Jewish holidays, not the holidays of other faiths. The stores are not full of baskets, eggs, and the Easter Bunny. Not all Israeli Christians celebrated Easter today either. The Orthodox groups will not have Easter until May 1, following the end of Passover. And we are not in the midst of a long spring break tied to the Easter holiday, which for an American who lived by the rhythm of the school calendar, is very sad indeed. Finally, the Israeli workweek begins on Sunday and Easter Sunday is no exception, so there was the hustle of work going on all day. Fortunately, chocolate knows no cultural boundaries!

But Jerusalem is full of footpaths bursting with flowers, especially so now that it is spring. I used three recent photos as reference and composed this pen and watercolor sketch on multimedia paper.