Zaru 2025 collection: Everyday life

In the heart of the Floating City of Zarutopia, where houses stacked like colorful blocks against the gentle sky, lived a girl named Zaru. Her days were a quiet rhythm of painting and watching the world from her bright red window. She saw her neighbors living their own small lives, a sequence of familiar, repeating actions: the old man meticulously watering his window box every morning at the same time, the couple on the rooftop speaking in hushed, predictable tones as they tended their small garden, and the young boy, always seated with a book, turning the same pages he had read countless times before. Their lives were a series of unchanging, muted colors.

But lately, a strange sadness had settled over Zarutopia. It was not a sudden event, but a slow, creeping grayness. The city’s sun-blossoms, which had always burst with vibrant color, now seemed to mirror the sky, which was a constant, listless white. The daily rituals continued, but they had lost their spark. The smiles were gone, replaced by a quiet, monotonous routine.

Zaru, with her painter's eye, noticed this more than anyone. The couple on the rooftop no longer smiled at their garden; their movements were mechanical. The grumpy cat seemed even more sullen, its tail a motionless line. The boy’s book remained closed, as if the words themselves had lost their meaning. She knew she had to do something to break this cycle.

She dipped her brush into a jar of liquid gold she had saved, a pigment made from the last of the city's sunlight. She painted a tiny, perfect sunflower seed, not just with color, but with a vibrant, uncontainable energy. With a whispered wish, she placed it in the beak of a small, white dove, a creature that had long forgotten the joy of flight.

The dove flew from window to window, dropping a single, radiant sunflower seed into each home. The seeds, imbued with Zaru’s art and hope, were a different kind of gift. They weren't just for growing; they were for seeing the world with new eyes.

The couple in the pink house found their seed. For the first time in weeks, they looked at each other and smiled, a genuine, spontaneous gesture. The grumpy cat saw his seed and a glint of mischief returned to its eyes. The boy in the yellow house opened his book, and the words on the page seemed to shimmer with a new, exciting story.

Zaru watched as the city slowly began to change. The sunflowers didn't grow, but the light did. The routine was still there, but now it was colored by small moments of joy, of spontaneity. A flicker here, a glow there, until the whole city was filled with a warm, golden radiance. And so, Zaru’s painting became a story, a Sunseed Delivery that reminded everyone that even in the deepest gray of routine, a single act of creativity and hope could bring the world to life again.

byzaru -2025

This is a digital painting, hand-drawn using Procreate. The drawing process and stages are available on my YouTube channel, @byzaruu,

at https://www.youtube.com/@byzaruu.