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International Tiger Day

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“Tiger & Luna” Art by Grace K. Rajendran

July 29th is celebrated annually as International Tiger Day, to raise awareness about these gorgeous, majestic – and endangered – creatures! I love tigers and often celebrate them through my art. In this post, I’ll be sharing some of my tiger art with you, as well as some fun facts about tigers and notes on their conservation.

Fun Fact: Tigers have been around for over 2 million years

“Anxious Tiger” art by Grace K. Rajendran

Historical Background

International Tiger Day was started in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in Russia, when it was discovered that 97% of wild tigers had vanished since the beginning of the 20th century.

Several countries, including India, Russia, and China, pledged to protect tigers. Thirteen tiger range countries collaborated to form TX2 and committed to doubling the tiger population by 2022, which was the Chinese year of the tiger.

To read more about TX2, check out the World Wildlife Fund’s TX2 page HERE.

Fun Fact:  Their stripe patterns are all unique, just like human fingerprints!

“Yellow Tiger Garden” Art by Grace K.Rajendran

Fun Fact: Unlike most cats, tigers love to swim!

Some Conservation Highlights


In India, Project Tiger, which was started in the early 1970s, with 268 tigers now has over 3000! This great news also illustrates how tied together issues of ecology and conservation are because, with the growing number of tigers in the wild, one now has to address issues of habitat and prey loss and the potential for tigers to enter spaces with humans more and more. Some of the ways this is being addressed is to look at development through a lens of ecological preservation: for example, creating safe passages for tigers and other wildlife when highways are built and preserving large swaths of natural habitat.

“Tiger & Tulip” Art by Grace K. Rajendran

As we celebrate the good news, we also need to keep in mind that there is still a way to go. On average, two tigers are rescued from traffickers very week and there are still more tigers in captivity than in the wild.

To learn more about ways help tigers, check out legitimate nature organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund for more info and resources.

Fun Fact: India has the greatest number of wild tigers, and this makes up over half the tiger population of the world!

“Tiger Queen” Art by Grace K. Rajendran
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World Watercolor Month Art: Week 1

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“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

-Leonardo da Vinci

July is World Watercolor Month and over on Instagram, I’m creating a painting (almost) every day to celebrate! I’ll upload them once a week onto this website, but if you’re on Instagram, be sure to follow along my progress there in real time! And definitely check out the official World Watercolor Month account on Instagram as well.

Watercolor is my first love when it comes to art! It’s how I found my voice and confidence as an artist and what I used to create the first of my pieces that were accepted in a show. I am fond of creating in many different types of art media but to this day I still think of myself as a watercolorist first.

I love painting skies in watercolor and couldn’t resist creating the above homage to sunsets in the Caribbean, where I grew up. Every night, the skies and the ocean would shine like liquid gold. The ocean is what I miss most from my childhood. I live on the coast now too and it’s wonderful -I actually wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. However, somehow, the ocean is not quite the same.

It’s beautiful here where I live now, but in a colder, starker, greyer way – which I am also incredibly drawn to – but every now and then, you miss warm sand between your toes, soft like silk; and so much blue that your heart can’t help but be happy. The thing with the tropics is that everything has an intensity of 10 : colors, scents, tastes! The sea is turquoise, the flowers are heady, the fruits taste like the sun.

Speaking of tropical flowers….

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”

-Vincent Van Gogh

“…every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was talking about the stars, but I think the quote fits this painting strikingly well!

Stay tuned for Week 2 paintings … in a week!

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Diving Into The Ocean: An Art Challenge

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“Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.”
– H.P. Lovecraft

Throughout June, I participated in the FOR PLANET OCEAN art challenge on Instagram. Be sure to check out the @ForPlanetOcean account to learn more about this challenge and its organizers.

There were five prompts:

  • Coral Reefs
  • Blue Mind
  • Artivism: Protect What You Love
  • Deep Sea: Mysterious Depths
  • Seagrass: Planting A Future

Having grown up on an island, I love the ocean and feel most completely at peace when I am standing on the shore, looking out at the waves and the endless blue. I always welcome any opportunity to observe the ocean and its creatures and to try and capture some of their awe-inspiring beauty and mystery in my art.

Coral Reefs

“I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the most single revelatory three minutes was the first time I put on scuba gear and dived on a coral reef. It’s just the unbelievable fact that you can move in three dimensions.”

– David Attenborough


Coral reefs are stunning underwater ecosystems that rival rainforests in their biodiversity! Sadly, our coral reefs are threatened by pollution, climate change, and irresponsible fishing practices and some of them have already been completely destroyed. Not only are they incredibly beautiful to look at but they support the lives of many, many marine creatures – so we definitely need to step up and consider how our actions impact them.

Blue Mind

“Water quiets all the noise, all the distractions, and connects you to your own thoughts.”

-Wallace J. Nichols, from Blue Mind

Artivism: Protect What You Love

“The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.”

-Jacques Cousteau

Art can help raise awareness for causes and influence change. Nature Art can inspire people to learn more about the natural world around them and find ways to get involved with conservation.

In this piece I wanted to illustrate the beauty and biodiversity of the flora and fauna that can be found in our oceans. We still haven’t explored all of the mysteries that the waters hold but we are causing them a great deal of strain with over-fishing, pollution, and the effects of climate change to name a few.

Oceans regulate the Earth’s temperature and generate most of the oxygen that we breathe. Marine ecosystems, such as mangroves and seagrasses help store a lot of carbon emissions, and so are a vital part of the fight against climate change.

Deep sea habitats are incredibly biodiverse and have up to (and maybe more than) 10 million species! And the vast majority of the ocean has yet to be explored still! I don’t want to go into all of the ways in which the ocean’s flora and fauna benefit humans – because I don’t think that’s the point. Instead, we need to remember that our actions directly impact the lives of these precious creatures, so we need to do our best to care for them.

Deep Sea: Mysterious Depths

“Although we couldn’t have been more different — I, a terrestrial vertebrate constrained by joints and bound to air; she, a marine mollusk with not a single bone, who breathed water — she was clearly as curious about me as I was about her.”

-Sy Montgomery, The Soul of An Octopus

The fourth prompt of @ForPlanetOcean was Deep Sea: Mysterious Depths and I decided to do a surreal colored pencil drawing of an octopus – because they are beautiful, mysterious, intelligent (classified as the most intelligent invertebrate), recognize people they commonly see, playful, can use tools, open jars of food, and solve puzzles… so many cool facts!! 


Also, the giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) can be found off the coast of Washington State, where I live, so I want to give them some art-y love!

This is the largest octopus species, with a record of a 71-kilogram (157-pound) one weighed live.

While it can be found to ocean depths of about 4,920 feet (1500 m), it is mostly found in shallow waters to 16 feet (5 m) deep.

Seagrass: Planting A future

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

— Jacques Cousteau

I adore turtles so I had to include one in this painting!

Seagrasses are the only flowering plants that grow underwater in marine environments. They got the name because of the long, blade-like appearance of many of the different species in the group.

Seagrasses spread along long stretches to look like terrestrial grasslands and they contain an incredible range of biodiversity! For example, they provide a nursery for baby turtles of all species as well as food for all ages of green turtles… which is how Green Turtles also get their green color!!

Unfortunately a great number of seagrass species are also listed as Threatened or Near-Threatened due to a combination of factors such as storms, disease, pollution, and human activity along the coast, such as motorboats, fishing, and development.

This art challenge has been in support of Project Seagrass, an organization working towards the protection of seagrass meadows. Be sure to check them out for more information and ways to help.

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Five Questions with Grace: Steve Olson

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Steve Olson is a Washington-based nonfiction writer who has published articles and books on an array of fascinating topics. Subjects such as genetics, race, human origins, climate change, and even punk rock! His most recent book, ERUPTION: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MOUNT ST. HELENS, was named one of the best books of 2016 by Amazon, was nominated for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, and, most recently, has been named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.  His next book, to be released in 2020, is about the production of plutonium at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation during World War II and the Cold War.

You can check out more of Steve’s work at www.steveolson.com

1. If you could have been the author of any book that has ever been published, what would it be, and why?

I was a physics major in college, and I’ve always been enamored of the idea of mastering an idea at the forefronts of physics. For a while, my attention was focused on the book Gravitation by Charles Misner, Kip Thorne, and John Wheeler. I can’t say that I ever read the entire book or understood even a portion of it, but the general concept of mastering a particular area of knowledge is still the approach I take toward writing.
Oddly, I’ve been running across Wheeler again in my research on the history of the Hanford nuclear reservation. (I happen to be answering these questions from a hotel room in Richland after a day spent doing research.) He helped design the reactors at Hanford and solved a problem that threatened to shut them down when they first started up.

2. What do you need around you when you start working on a book?

I can write almost anywhere. But to work on a book, I need libraries, archives, and knowledgeable people. The problem with the way I write is that every single sentence is based on something I had to learn somewhere. Though I wish I could, I’ve never been able to write sentences that sound nice but don’t have much content.

3. You are forced to condense your book collection down to one small shelf. What six books would make the cut?

I’m going to interpret this as a “desert island” type of question, so six books that I’d choose if I could never again have any other books. They’re:

Don Quixote, since I’ve heard that it’s three different books if you read it once as a young person, once in middle age, and once in old age
A History of the World, the longest and most comprehensive volume I could find (though I guess multiple volumes would violate the rules)
The Bible, so I can reflect on the profound history the Bible has had on world history.
Ulysses, since I’ve been wanting to reread that book ever since college (preferably, right before a trip to Dublin)
Gravity’s Rainbow, both for its humor and complexity
The Collected Stories of Chekhov, to dwell on the reasons why people think and act the ways they do

Hmm, I guess all six of those books are kind of like Gravitation, now that I look at them.

4. What one piece of advice would you go back in time to give yourself when you first started your writing career?

I always tell aspiring writers the same thing: If you want to write full time, keep your financial needs as low as possible. Yet I’ve never followed that advice myself. And, sure enough, I spend most of my time on high-paying but routine writing projects that subsidize my lifestyle and occasional books.

5. I actually have a second ‘go-back-in-time’ question for you! As a science writer, if you had the chance to cover any scientific discovery or major natural event, and gather firsthand information, what would it be and why?

It would be the event I’m writing about now: the discovery of nuclear fission and the application of fission to produce nuclear weapons. Many journalists and scholars have listed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the top news story of the 20th century. It’s a great privilege for me to be writing about those events.

Thanks for the great answers, Steve! Next week, I’ll be chatting with David Berger, author of the recently released, RAZOR CLAMS: Buried Treasure of The Pacific Northwest

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