Martha Kelly Art

I've been mostly carving a new print block the last couple of days, but I did take time to do a commission this morning. I'm enjoying doing house portraits for folks, and this is a special one -- the people moving away commissioned it, but when I got there, it turned out that it's the same house my former English teacher and current friend and theater buddy is buying in my neighborhood. I'm so excited she's moving closer, and I can't wait to go sit on that porch. It's a great house. But it felt a little funny to paint it for someone else.

Otherwise, I've been working on a new print block of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Below is a snapshot of the block (12x17") at the end of work today. That's about 10 hours worth of carving so far, and I'm more than halfway through, but that total doesn't include the time doing the basic drawing and transferring the drawing to the block. Printmaking is MUCH more involved, which is why it's fun to go out and just do a watercolor sometimes. There will be a second and possibly third block for this print as well, depending on how many colors I want, but this first one is the most involved one to carve, since it has all the surface pattern of the drawing. The others will be much simpler blocks of color. I'll keep you posted as it progresses.