Another page in my new tree manga features a poem by my sister, a talented wordsmith. It has become not only my favorite of her poems, but one of my very favorite poems period.

Here is the text in a more readable form:

A Good Life

Does a tree broken by lightning in its prime

bewail its fate?

Does it mourn that it had no chance

to grow taller, broaden its base,

and live out all its lichen-covered days?

No, it falls with majestic assurance

and solidity of intent,

gracefully inverting its upward career.

It rests peacefully,

branches lightly touching the earth,

saying softly to the ground from which it grew,

"Did you see the way I danced with the stars?"

Marian Kelly

I had an utterly gorgeous day today. It was 70 degrees here in Memphis. Cloudy and windy, but beautifully warm, so Mr. Darcy and I headed for the forest right after lunch and stayed till just after sunset. We sketched a good bit but also sat and watched birds and just drank in the beauty of the forest. I figured a day like that at the end of November was not to be wasted.

I've got a new project I'm really excited about.I even dreamed about it last night. I've been reading more graphic novels and travelogues, and it recently occurred to me that what I would most like to do a graphic book about is trees. People and plots are both hard for me. Trees would be perfect. And there are several lovely photography books on trees, but I don't know offhand of an illustrated one.

So I've started a dedicated sketch book just for trees, to see what happens on the page. Of course, my tree book may not be immediately discernible from my regular sketchbooks, but I'm being a little more intentional about it and playing with layouts across the page.

When I saw the Hokusai exhibit in Paris this fall, he had made a huge series of books that he called Manga. I had no idea the word was so old. In his time the word meant "diverse drawings," and he used these manga to show art students how to draw a myriad of things. There are collections of drawings of mountains from all distances and angles, of people in all forms of activities, of animals, and the list goes on. So I'm starting a tree manga.

I would really love to publish a graphic book someday. My graphic travelogues of North Carolina and then of Paris this fall were my first steps toward experimenting with the genre, and this is another. We'll see it goes.

I'd been looking through the window at the neighborhood cheese shop as I walked past, wanting to draw it. The other day was cloudy, and it didn't need a lot of sunlight to sketch, so I stood outside on the sidewalk and drew standing up. I'm still learning how to do that efficiently and well, but a jacket pocket of just the markers I needed helped.

It's a busy scene, and I'm not sure it worked great, but I had to try.

Then I headed for one of the indoor covered Victoria passages, hoping it would be warmer than outside. It wasn't, but I still had fun sketching in there.

Then on the way home I ran into a group called Jingle Django, playing Django Reinhardt style jazz. They also danced around while they played, which made them tricky to sketch, but I had to try. I also got their cd. Really good music and a nice end to the day.

I got behind again posting photos because of the time change. I kept getting home after dark and not being able to take a decent snapshot of my sketches. I'm also looking forward to the scanner at home, but this is as good as it gets on the road, and it's fun to post while it's all fresh.

I had a great Saturday. Rene Miller played with Dede Macchabee at the Marche d'Aligre. It's a neat old street market. Half food and half brocante, or flea market. I scored a table just behind them at the cafe and painted while drinking mint tea, made with real mint. One of the lovely treats here in Paris.

My cousin Jonathon Gilmer, currently at university in London and over for the weekend, came to the market to join me and listen. Afterwards we walked through the center, had falafel at one of the walk up stands in the Marais, and ended with hot chocolate from Angelina's, one of my favorite treats here.

Sunday I went to St. Sulpice. It's the church where Faure and Widor both played and composed for the marvelous organ. They usually have a half hour organ concert open to all between masses, but there was an extra long service going that morning, so I had to content myself with sketching the lions in the fountain outside instead.

Here's how the page looks together. I kind of like the effect, even though they're facing different directions. It's been fun to play with the sketchbook and see what works and what doesn't.

I did a sketch walking home in my neighborhood. This is Stabilo pens with water wash, markers on top, and watercolor in the sky. Probably my most mixed media attempt. I'm going to have to try more of these.

Two things I love about Paris are the art and the sense of full life and carnival right out on the sidewalk. In America, I'm a lonely pedestrian when I walk. Most of us are invariably sealed individually in our separate cars. In Europe, everyone walks, and life happens out in the street. Just this weekend, I've walked through markets, street markets, an art fair, multiple musical concerts, and past one steam punk performance art tricycle with whirligigs and dragons.

There was also a circus tent set up in Abbesses for a puppet show. The ticket was crazy expensive, or I'd have seen the show too, out of curiosity from my teenage puppeteer past, but I settled for painting the tent as a perfect metaphor for the street fair carnival.

I walked on up and over the hill of Montmartre with Sacred Coeur, and back home for an eclair.

Art being the other thing I really love here (I also should add food as a third in that triumvirate, after that eclair sketch), I was delighted that the timing worked for me to be here in time for the Hokusai retrospective at the Grand Palais. Having hit Matisse just right in London over the summer, I'm feeling remarkably lucky lately.

I fell in love with an exhibition of Japanese mid 20th Century prints at the Art Institue a couple of years ago. These prints are called Shin Hanga, and they are still my favorites, though they are much less well known than the 18th Century floating world era of Hiroshige and Hokusai. But the Hokusai show was breath taking. Lots of it was pen and ink as well as his well known prints of Mount Fuji. I loved seeing his work in hand drawn books, since I'm having such fun with a sketchbook this trip. It was nice to see books as a major art category.

I sketched in line outside waiting to get in, and then I did small sketches and took notes in the exhibition itself. The rooms were quite dark, to protect the delicate works on paper, and there was a huge crowd, so it was challenging to work. The notes are less legible than would be ideal, but these pages give you an idea of what I typically do in museums. I can't reproduce paintings, but looking at something long enough to draw it helps me remember it better and also deconstruct the composition or other elements I'm drawn to. It's a great learning tool.