Sombras Blancas

Art inspired by the wild & the whimsical by a nature-loving creature 🎨🦉🌿🧚🏻‍♀️✨

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This sketchbook is becoming a collection of places where I've put my backpack down and breathed easy

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After spending so much time with the pigeons in my balcony this spring, it was about time I painted some of my shimmering friends. This painting is a little homage to those quiet moments when we have stopped what we were doing and looked at each other for a while, wondering what that other creature could possibly be thinking, before continuing with our own businesses.

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There's something about mixing paint with your hands that no prompt will ever replicate. What's a ritual that makes you feel most human?

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I’m still here. I’m just buried in notes about prevalence rates, comorbidities, and etiological models. In between all that, I managed to find some time to draw this little balcony that’s keeping me sane. I’ll be back soon!

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Learning a handful of bird songs is a way to gift your future with countless familiar voices among the trees, a chance to feel the sudden warmth of recognition each time you walk beneath the sky. Jarod K. Anderson

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Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough!

Growing up watching your documentaries was the best invitation to fall in love with the natural world. Your voice has guided us through forests, oceans, and unseen worlds… Thank you for teaching us to look closer, care deeper, and to never stop being in awe of this planet we call home.

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This mushroom commission is moving to Australia on Monday!

“Fungi make worlds. They also unmake them. There are lots of ways to catch them in the act. When you cook mushroom soup, or just eat it. When you go out gathering mushrooms, or buy them. When you ferment alcohol, plant a plant, or just bury your hands in the soil; and whether you let a fungus into your mind, or marvel at the way that it might enter the mind of another. Whether you’re cured by a fungus, or watch it cure someone else; whether you build your home from fungi, or start growing mushrooms in your home, fungi will catch you in the act. If you’re alive, they already have.”

― Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life

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Magpies aren’t really thieves of shiny things. They’re explorers, drawn to the world with endless curiosity. In folklore, they carry mystery, being bridges between light and shadow. It's been a while since I last had a magpie on my wall, and I'm planning on not letting that happen again. This one is already available at https://sombrasblancas.net/shop/

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“No one owns an entire landscape, and yet nothing gives you a greater sense of possession of yourself than contemplating what is infinitely greater than you.” — Joaquín Araújo (Los árboles te enseñarán a ver el bosque)

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The first time you see how a bullfinch shines through the leaves, you will never forget. This little one is now available in the shop

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I started sketching this invocation way before the storms were over, so there's little doubt the art witchery worked as it should. You can see it in the video: she is all shiny and golden and full of bliss.

In the tarot tradition, The Sun (XIX) is the premier card of positivity, success, and vitality in the Major Arcana, representing joy, clarity, and radiant energy

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If your first hardcover book without illustrations on every page was The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, you’ll still be searching for that spark in every corner of life many years later

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I love this idea of restocking birds whenever I sell out a species. This blackbird in an orange tree was born this weekend, after I sold a fellow blackbird from 5 years ago this month. Looking at my wall, I see I'm low on goldfinches, blue tits, hoopoes, magpies and many others that haven't flown in before. By the way, this new outlined style is growing on me

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“Had I seen enough things? When I could no longer see them, would I remember them, and would just the memory be enough to fill me up and make me whole? Could anyone ever have enough memories?” ― Raynor Winn, The Salt Path

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This forest guardian lives with a very good friend now

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Sketches from a weekend in the mountains, seeing deer, wild boars, and vultures, tasting olive oil, listening to the river, and living slowly

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Studying autumn light