Five down, three to go. Here's this week's psalm. I think I may do an edition of the block alone, without the text, as well as a small edition of the psalm.

Below are the block halfway carved and the very first proof. I pull a couple of proofs, hone a few things I don't like, and print in color only when I've got it the way I want it.

Once the image is printed, I move on to the text. I took a little wider area picture this week. You can see the metal chase (frame) that I set the type in. I build around it to the edges, like working a jigsaw or piecing a quilt. The final stage is the lock down. The metal strips at the right and bottom with round holes in them are "quoins." There's a "key", a metal tool, that fits into that hole and turns, and as it turns, the quoins expand a bit to make everything snug so that I can pick up the chase and put it in the press without the type falling everywhere. This is after I've printed. I've cleaned up the type, but you can see the roller with the dark red ink on it.

I'm finding it quite a challenge to have one of these finished every week, so this week I took a moderately easy route and went with a very simple to carve design. Now I'm trying to work ahead a bit before I'm out of town a good bit of next week. Thank heavens for a marvelous house mate.

As a follow up to the post about Saturday, I ran into Matt Matthews, my photographer and theologian friend, at the Farmers Market. He was down taking pictures while I was painting, and he snapped one of me, just for fun. He also shot the "Eat More Veggies" Whitton Farms truck that I was painting at the time. You can see that photo and his Flickr stream here.

And, just for fun, I pulled up this 2003 photo of me for Throwback Thursday on Facebook. I'm painting in Athens on the Areopagus, looking over to the edge of the Acropolis. It was darn cold and windy up there. I'm grateful that watercolor, unlike the pastel I did for so long, does not require me to haul an easel everywhere. Lap work is also lower profile in high winds. You'll notice I have my backpack hanging from the back of the easel to try to keep it anchored. I think it blew over at least once in the course of this piece. I remember my boyfriend of the time, who was over working in Athens, very kindly blocking the wind so I could finish my drawing. A good man.

I started Saturday out at the downtown Memphis Farmers Market, as I always do when I'm in town. Two weeks ago there had been enormous tubs of red tulips that made me yearn for my watercolors, but I hadn't had them with me. This time I took a cooler for purchases and went to sketch as well. And talk to friends. I always see good people down there.

From the market, I walked two blocks to the Tennessee Brewery. A group of local business guys and committed, involved Memphians have opened up this glorious old building for a month's worth of beer garden, food trucks, and live music. I wanted to go sketch, since I wrote my term paper in 11th grade on the architecture and history of this marvelous place.

I happened to catch Taylor Berger and Doug Carpenter, two of the visionaries behind this pop up party, as they were standing at a table. Andy Cates, the third musketeer, showed up just a bit later and seemed ok to have missed being sketched.

I also took advantage of the chance to take some photos there.

They've got food trucks in the courtyard every day (they're open Thursday to Sunday through June 1st, starting at 11am each day). Tacos were on offer on Saturday, and I tried a Crawfish and chorizo one along with a Mexican grapefruit soda. Opera Memphis showed up to do some pop up opera for us while I had lunch. Perfect. And one of my favorite local bands, Den of Strings, is playing Friday evening. AND the whole place is dog friendly. I'm totally taking Mr. Darcy down there next time!

Mr. Darcy did walk over to Overton Square with me after I got home. Sew Memphis was hosting a pop up craft market, and I brought home this gorgeous tea set from Bridgman Pottery. Melissa Bridgman put the show together from her Creative Collective group of small businesses owned by women, and Mary Allison Cates hosted it in her courtyard. She's married to Andy, who is one of the partners in the Brewery Untapped. I feel lucky to know so many creative and committed Memphians.

I finished the day seeing Harvey, which was delightful, at Theater Memphis with my family. My escorts, who shared their back seat with me, were two 10 year old boys. We had a blast. And I did this sketch of the audience before the play started.  A perfect day.

I'm taking a break from the instruments this week. I really love in the Psalms how all of creation takes part in praising or lamenting. We humans get to thinking that everything is about us and forget that we didn't even get our own day in Creation --- we shared it with all of the beasts of the earth.

Tower Grove Park is one of those places that immediately grabbed me as a landscape painter the minute I set foot in it. Very occasionally a place will reach out and say, "You belong to me." This happened to me as a college student on the North Yorkshire moors, it happened around that same time in Pleasant Hill Shaker Village in Kentucky, and it happened more recently in Bergama, Turkey and Tower Grove Park. It's been some months since I've had a chance to paint in Tower Grove, and it was lovely to be back after the winter. I passed through on my way to and from Chicago and did four watercolors last week.

I started with the griffin I've always admired. There's a pair of them at the Grand Avenue gates.

I often find myself painting the same tree or structure repeatedly. The Old Playground Pavilion (below) and the bandstand (top picture) are both favorites of mine that I keep revisiting.

There are several groves of red buds I love, and they were in full bloom this time. I took advantage of the perfect timing to paint this one.

Tower Grove Park is having a one day art show on June 1st that I will take part in. It's fun to get to do a little more painting ahead of that anniversary event. I'm delighted to get to show my work in a park I love so much.

I've been doing lots of watercolors lately. Spring in Memphis has been at its gorgeous peak, and a number of people have kindly been taking advantage of that to have me paint their houses. It's fun to be out and about with commissions again, and I love trying to capture the dogwoods and azaleas that make the city pop right now.

One day was so gorgeous that even after a good day of painting, I couldn't resist a second trip to Overton Park to go paint my

Favorite tree, just because I wanted to.

This is one of my favorite places to sit. I also just take my banjo over some days and hangout with Mr. Darcy. I'm lucky to live only three blocks away from such a lovely park. It's nice to be able to just nip over for a little bit on a beautiful day.

Here is week two of the Easter Psalm series. I just looked at the liturgical calendar and realized I have six more of these to do. Possibly an ill advised series when I'm traveling so much, but I really like celebrating Easter for more than a day, especially in a year and a spring that are so personally joyful to me.

I've been doing watercolor commissions and liturgical prints all week, taking my walk late in the day and lingering a bit in the Old Forest to enjoy the wildflowers blooming there now. I've especially loved this glade full of phlox this past week.

On this Saturday morning, I decided to give myself a break on work for others and go paint the phlox while they're still blooming. Mr. Darcy and I walked over with my backpack and painting gear.

 I think of myself as a landscape painter and not a flower painter, so I kept it pretty wide angle, but it was fun to try a different subject. There's a lot more surface movement than in most of my pieces, and I was trying to keep it from just looking blotchy, but I'm fairly pleased with the outcome.

Mike texted that it reminded him of the Van Gogh we saw last month in the Cincinnati Art Museum. A happier Van Gogh, he said. No greater compliment. I did love that painting, and apparently I do have it on the brain without quite realizing how much.

Below are some of the wildflowers Mr. Darcy and I have been enjoying in the forest lately. Just because they're beautiful...

In previous years, I've done a series of prints to mark the season of Lent, but last year I read a quote from N.T. Wright talking about how we observe Lent for 40 days but only celebrate Easter for one. This year I decided to do a series for the season of Easter instead.

I carved the trumpet for the first print on my recent road trip, and, knowing I had a pretty quick turnaround after coming home, I also took my travel printing kit to be able to proof it and really have it ready to print when I got back. I found a train style make up case at the second hand mecca of Unclaimed Baggage in Alabama a few years ago, and it's the perfect size for my basic printing equipment.

When I got home I was ready to print the final image on the good paper in colored ink.

Then I set the wood type, using a metal frame called a chase. This means I can pick it up and move it around instead of having be stuck in my proof press, making me unable to print anything else until I disassemble the type. For smaller projects I can use a chase. For the bigger ones, I put larger type right in the bed of the press. This project is about 10x11", using my smallest wood type, so a chase is just right.

Finally I printed the type on top of the trumpet image.

And here's a sneak peek at week two of Easter. I couldn't resist a banjo, of course.