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Mr. Darcy has been enjoying country visits lately (and definitely deserves some treats these days), and I’ve been enjoying sketching on the family farm. So with the sunshine yesterday, we took off after lunch and had a lovely walking, sketching (me), frolicking in the lake (him) outing. It feels good to mix up the slow printmaking with some immediate gratification sketching, and it felt extra good to sit by a lake and drink in a little sunshine before the next blast of winter.
I’m still really enjoying the Inktense pencils and having fun with the layers of texture they get. I’ve added a couple of greens to my set, but I’m still using half watercolor and half pencil for bigger sketches like the landscape. The muse sketch was more pencil, but I did add some yellow ochre and burnt sienna to the body, along with a bit of green at the base. You can see from the photo that Mr. Darcy didn’t stay sitting up for long, but I managed to catch the basic outline (had to wing it on the light). I loved him sitting alert and listening to the spring frogs (who are going to have a shock today with snow showers forecast for one day after a 60 degree high) and his ears moving in all directions.
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Here is the first proof (on wrinkled-y newsprint, just to see how it is) of my companion tree for the recent one under the dome of the night sky. I’ll put this tree on the same background, and I may think of different backgrounds for both of them. I’m working towards my show at Walter Anderson Museum of Art, and I had a quote from Anderson in my head as I carved this one: "I took a long walk yesterday afternoon to the east and drew trees -- I like the wandering ones, not the absolute freaks but not just the ordinary healthy ones either." I feel exactly the same way, with a bulbous, burled tree at Overton Park being my absolute favorite one.
Speaking of that tree (in my P is for Possum book as well as in several prints), a friend of mine delighted me by telling me that her young grandson recognized that tree in the book as the same in a print on her wall. She told him it’s my favorite tree, and he’s now pondering what tree is HIS favorite. That is exactly the sort of nature excitement I hoped so spread with the book.
This tree, too, is a long time favorite. My family calls it the Hawk Tree, because hawks roosted there for a number of years. I’ve painted it repeatedly for the last 20 years. It’s good to have images that call to you in different ways across the years. I’ll clean this up a bit and then try it on the nocturne background.
Speaking of that tree (in my P is for Possum book as well as in several prints), a friend of mine delighted me by telling me that her young grandson recognized that tree in the book as the same in a print on her wall. She told him it’s my favorite tree, and he’s now pondering what tree is HIS favorite. That is exactly the sort of nature excitement I hoped so spread with the book.
This tree, too, is a long time favorite. My family calls it the Hawk Tree, because hawks roosted there for a number of years. I’ve painted it repeatedly for the last 20 years. It’s good to have images that call to you in different ways across the years. I’ll clean this up a bit and then try it on the nocturne background.
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I gave Mr. Darcy another farm treat after his latest treatment. I’d been thinking about this tree and wanting to draw it again. It’s one of the ones I always return to, and just afterwards, I got a four year old memory (second photo) of drawing it from Facebook. I’ve done one small print of it, but I’ve been working on a tree under night sky print, and I’d like a companion to that tree. So I drew this one again, and I started carving it this week. As I type, I realize that I haven’t shared that first tree print here. I’ve been in a spurt of printmaking work ahead of a call with the curator at WAMA to check on the state of my show. She’s delighted with the trees as well as the water prints I’ve been doing, and I feel really good about the direction I’m going now. That’s always a boost before a big show. But I’d been working to get prints far enough along to show her. Here’s the first one. The arch still needs a little smoothing out, but I’m overall really happy with it. This second tree will be in the same scale and will fit the same background, and then I might dream up some alternate backgrounds for them as well.
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I've got a call with the curator at WAMA tomorrow to have a look at where I am for my 2022 show there, so I've been trying to finish or at least proof all the prints I've had sitting around in various stages of completion. I had printed all the backgrounds for this set back in the fall, and I had all the birds carved, but I hadn't finished the printing until today. It's fun to see them all together. I'm mostly doing landscapes for WAMA, so we'll see if these make the cut or not, but I really like them as a set. I'll try to get better photos of them with good light. I haven't been charging over to Kinko's to scan the bigger things in with the pandemic raging.
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This sketch got lost in the flood of Christmas commissions, and I wanted to scan it in and post it. I'd been doing a ton of forest sketches last fall, and on one gorgeous, sunny day I felt the pull of something different. I walked over to the park and sketched the Brooks Museum. I love these statues and the shadows on the white building plus the color blocks of the sign. It was fun to do something different and remember a time when I felt safe going to museums and standing in rooms full of art.
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On a sunny, windy day I took Mr. Darcy out to the country for a Christmas treat. I took my Inktense pencils that I'm still having a ball playing with. We had a great walk, and I found a few strategically sheltered spots to be able to sketch without my pages blowing backwards. I still love pen and watercolor best, but I really am having fun playing with the textures of the water soluble pencils. Unlike watercolor pencils, they have really rich and saturated colors. The greens are lacking, though, so I added green washes from my watercolor kit as I worked, as well as some smooth blue sky.
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New Year's Day I drove Mr. Darcy over to the park to walk in the forest. Until this year, we walked over, but his iffy disc and arthritic hip means we drive over and just walk on the softer paths in the forest. As I turned onto McLean, I saw an amazing sky ahead of me with a white needle of steeple reaching up into it. I stopped to sketch (right) before heading to the forest, but I got the steeply too large and lost the large, darkness of the image. When I got back, I did it again quickly in my larger journal sketchbook so I wouldn't lose it (the top image).
Next to it, I celebrated the new year with caramel cake. Kind neighbors of mine, artists and interesting people, have made an extra effort this year to invite me over to their porch over the various recent holidays, knowing I'm solo in the house through this crazy year. It means a lot, and they sent me home with extra cake the last time. I always enjoy sketching a treat to remember it later, and I also wanted to memorialize this kindness of Stuart and Paul. The hours on their porch have meant a lot this fall and winter.
Next to it, I celebrated the new year with caramel cake. Kind neighbors of mine, artists and interesting people, have made an extra effort this year to invite me over to their porch over the various recent holidays, knowing I'm solo in the house through this crazy year. It means a lot, and they sent me home with extra cake the last time. I always enjoy sketching a treat to remember it later, and I also wanted to memorialize this kindness of Stuart and Paul. The hours on their porch have meant a lot this fall and winter.
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I’m excited to be refocusing on my prints in January after the bustle of holiday commissions. My show at WAMA will hang one year from now, and I’m glad to have something happy and positive to work towards through this dark winter. I’m hoping there can be a party to celebrate by then, since it will be a huge moment in my career. This one is moving slowly. I’d set it aside back in the summer, unsure how I felt about it. I’ve been thinning it out and balancing it while working SLOWLY on the trees, and today I wanted to see where I was with it, even though there are still trees to go. I have sunshine on my east facing work table in the mornings to help me see the delicate edges and bits of cutting. In the afternoons (for winter warmth, anyway), I take a walk. I took a couple of days of pure vacation, then I started easing back into sorting through prints and getting my head back in this work, but I’m still giving myself some time off in the afternoon to recover from December. Afternoons are also good for printing, since I don’t need the super bright light. So this is what January will look like for me, and I could do a lot worse.
