I turned in my second set of illustrations for Chalk Line Books at the new year. They're reprinting vintage crime fiction and have asked me to be their illustrator, assuming these become popular. The second book I did for them was Night Squad by David Goodis. It's fun to just be handed a text and allowed to choose the texts I want to draw from and create a whole vision of the book. And it was a perfect snuggle on the couch with my dog project as I was recovering from the bustle of the holidays.

I've taken a little time off after my crazy fall. From September to December I had three shows and two Cape May business trips plus various commissions and all the calendar sales. It's been nice to have a slow January, catch up with friends, do some individual projects, even throw in a little bit of waltzing and fox trotting along the way. I'm learning a new fiddle tune on my banjo and walking daily with Mr. Darcy in the forest. But I'm also back working on various things, so I'll be posting more regularly again.

Here's a second illustration from Night Squad.

You can preview (or buy) the first book I illustrated for Chalk Line here on the Amazon kindle store. If you click "look inside" and scroll down, you'll see my first illustration. I'm even mentioned in the Book Description; "The Chalk Line Books version of “Sharecropper Hell” also features the evocative illustrations of artist Martha Kelly."

Woohoo!

I recently re-watched "Much Ado About Nothing" with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh (directed by him as well). It's one of my all time favorite movies, and my favorite part may be the very beginning with a dark screen where Emma just speaks the words of this song. Breathtakingly beautiful. Being in a flux period of dating at the moment, the song also seemed good to have in my arsenal at the moment. I find it helps to have a few songs that see me through those occasional "Boys are stupid" moments in life, even though I generally enjoy the company of men just fine.

I'm also playing with inking on these posters. I've been mixing gently gradated colors and using several different rollers to gradually fade the colors from top to bottom. You can see the ink on the letters in the above right picture of the type set into the bed of the proof press. You can also see the jigsaw puzzle nature of typesetting. It's fun to fill in the holes and make everything snug.

My other experiment was interweaving the two different phrases in the poster on the left, seeing whether different sizes and colors would leave the phrases legible and discreet. I'd be happy to hear how it strikes those of you who aren't as familiar with the poem. It's hard for me to come at it with fresh eyes since I know what I was trying to accomplish.

I did an edition of 10 for the "Men were deceivers ever" and 20 for the "Hey Nonny Nonny" (I thought there might be a little more call for the happier one). The posters are $30 each or $50 for the pair, since I really made them to go together.

My fountain pen was out of ink, and I was rushed getting out of the house, so I ended up doing pencil sketches today and really enjoyed that. It was a family day -- lunch at the Brushmark, the restaurant inside the Brooks museum here in Memphis. I ended up being early after all, so I sketched this 1950 etching by Luigi Lucioni. Of course I was drawn to the one with the trees. They had a show up of his etchings, and they are gorgeous. Delicate and detailed, and many views of the same scenes, which always appeals to me. I like artists working in the same area over a period of time.

Later I ended up at Huey's, my semi-regular Sunday hangout. I've been going for many years now to hear music on periodic Sunday afternoons. If a band I like is playing, it's my favorite part of the week -- hearing great music, seeing friends, having a glass of wine, just relaxing in a happy place. Today was a new band to me, Le Tumulte Noir. It was only their second gig. But with familiar musicians like my friend Jim Spake of the Boyfriends and Lucero on sax and clarinet, and THREE (count 'em) gypsy guitars plus a fine bass player. Really great stuff.

I was mostly hanging with friends and then my brother, but I did do one quick music sketch.

Mr. Darcy and I have spent a lot of time like this this past week. I managed to sprain my ankle on Christmas Eve, so sitting up with it down on the floor at my work table is less comfortable than being on the couch just now. Mr. Darcy likes this new approach to working. He's been keeping me company very happily.

Above is a new letterpress block, and below are illustrations for the new e-book I'm working on called the Night Squad by David Goodis. This is my second project for the new publishing imprint called Chalk Line Press.

I had several fun commissions for Christmas this year. One old friend asked me to paint Grace St. Luke's church because her husband is a reader there. I love painting churches, and it was peaceful to sit in the quiet sanctuary and paint.

Another old friend is a co-owner of the Irish pub the Brass Door and wanted me to paint it for her husband. It was a chilly day, and I got lucky enough to be able to pull my truck up just opposite it and paint from inside the truck instead of sitting outside in the elements.

Then I had to find a proper parking spot, though, because Meg had arranged for me to be fed lunch when I went down to paint, and I had some marvelous Irish stew and house made soda bread.

I also did something a bit out of my ordinary. Christian Stanfield of the band the Side Street Steppers wanted a handmade, personal card for his wife Vera, also in the band. They have stuffed animals wtih instruments in their house, so I set up a still life of those animals but also took photos of her banjo (one Christian made himself for Vera) and his guitar to add those details to the sketch.

Vera posted a photo on facebook and seemed quite happy with the result. "Got choked up over this last gift from @tntomcat... He had our local artist Martha Kelly do a watercolor of our banjo puffin and guitar monkey ❤️❤️❤️#truelove #spiritanimals"

I really love being able to give joy with my work. And it's an honor to get to be a part of special occasions for my friends.

I did this sketch just before dinner on my last evening in Cape May. It seems a good Christmas Eve one to share. I hope everyone has a marvelous Winter Wonderland kind of holiday with loved ones, wherever you are.

Our Memphis npr station WKNO fm has a wonderful twice daily interview show called Checking on the Arts. I listen to npr wherever I travel, and some of the stations occasionally have live bands in the studio or something, but I have never encountered such a frequent and broadly arts supportive show as we have here. I'm so grateful to Darel Snodgrass and Kacky Walton for their dedication to it, the research they do, the kindness to all of us trying to make a living at the arts, and the great questions they invariably ask.

I love listening and hearing friends, artists, musicians, theater directors, and a whole host of other people each day talking about the things that make Memphis so wonderful to live in.

Darel kindly had Elizabeth Alley and me on the first of this week to talk about our show of travel paintings at Memphis Botanic Garden (up till January 2). I was in Cape May at the time (we had prerecorded it) and completely forgot it was airing, so Darel was also kind enough to share the file with me.

Making art is a solitary and non-verbal process much of the time, and I find that I really learn things about what I do and why I'm doing it every time I go in and sit with Darel and have to think about the probing questions he asks. I also just love the whole crew down at WKNO, so it's fun to have an excuse to drop in the office and hug everyone. Anyway, we had a blast, and here it is if you'd like to hear about our travel paintings and what that process is like for each of us.

Here's an old sketch of Justin Willingham, the afternoon WKNO host, in their studios.

I met professional photographer Jackie Kane while I was up in Cape May. Since I'm working up there on my own largely (though the staff there always make me very welcome), it's fun to get to meet and talk to fun and interesting people. I met a couple of artists this time (I'm talking about you, Doug!), and it's always neat to talk shop. An added bonus was Jackie turning her talents to take shots of me while I was working. (The full set of them is on her site here.)

She found me on the coldest day I actually did work outside (middle 30's), so I'm embarrassed about the hat situation. I need my broad floppy hat instead of my cuter winter hat to give me shade while I work, so I had a stocking wool hat on underneath it. Sigh. A fashion plate I am not.

But it's kind of fun to get to see my set up through someone else's eyes.

Here's my favorite one. It really embodies the act of creation to me.

You can see lots more of Jackie's work here. She's got a great eye and gets that beautiful light I never manage to achieve in my photographs. Her Ferris wheel at night series is super cool.

I've been crazy busy the last few days trying to paint all the temporary Christmas celebrations and decorations. I've painted the outdoor market, breakfast with Santa, gingerbread house making with Mrs. Claus, the train, the food huts, the carosel, and decorations in general.

It's fun playing with the lights and trying to capture the feel of the magic at dusk.

I had good light working today in the lobby of the Virginia Hotel and decided to document again the stages of a watercolor.

I started with the lights and the palest shades after I had the pencil drawing laid in.

I moved on to middle tones.

Then I started putting in the dark greens, hoping the contrast would make the lights pop.

I saved the rug for last. I try to do the bottom last because that's where I hold it while I work if I need to.

This one took a while with all the detail, but I was pleased overall.