The Delmar Loop is an old street car section of St. Louis with funky shops, a craft alliance, and some wonderful old buildings. I sketched the first one that had been calling my ne this morning, and if the weather holds I will try another one or two this week.

I don't often do it this intentionally, but I have started a new sketchbook for the summer. I found a neat new size before Paris but did not end up using it there. With various travels coming up, I thought it might be fun to keep a visual journal.

The front piece is above, a sketch of my favorite tree. And here are two sketches of the tent at Circus Flora.

I am taking a bit of a vacation after working hard in Paris and some frantic printmaking last week. Last night I saw the free production of Twelfth Night in Forrest Park, St. Louis. I had fun sketching the set while waiting for the show to start.

Today I am taking my walk on the funky Delmar Loop, which includes the St. Louis hall if fame. If I feel motivated tomorrow I may sketch along here tomorrow.

It was a sketching sort of day. I met with one group of sketchers first thing (haven't gotten that one scanned in yet) to draw a lovely garden. Then I went straight on to the regular monthly Memphis Urban Sketchers group down at a funky indoor flea market in my neighborhood. It's fun to sit around and sketch with a group, and Judi Munn, a potter I admire and a friend who lives in Arkansas, was here with the potters guild show this weekend and managed to join us for an hour or so. It's fun to draw more people in to the idea of group sketching.

I often use the urban sketcher meetings to try things I don't normally in the course of my regular work. Today I kept playing with waterproof ink and watercolor, and in the second one, I left the foreground black and white, only adding color to the landscape out the window. That was the bit I was really drawn to.

This evening I sketched my third wedding, but I'm rushing to get out of town again (it looks like I'll be gone about every other week for a while), so I haven't scanned any of them in yet. It was neat to get to be a part of such a special occasion, and esp

I started yesterday to write about my process of making a print. It's going to be a little while before that particular one is ready to show the final process, so I decided to make pictures of the finished one I pulled some more prints of today. Above is the block on the press itself. The press is a Lin-o-scribe press, that used to be used often in department stores to make weekly sale posters. It will take wood or metal type, but I have a piece of wood cut laid down into it to make it high enough for my thinner pieces of linoleum. I can print a block up to about 12x19" on paper that's 14x24" or so.

The paper is clipped into the edge of it and pulled back over the side (on the far side of the top photo). Then I lay the block on the bed of the press, using an L-shaped piece of cardboard to get it in just the right spot.

Today I was printing the key block, the black one with all the pattern, on top of the green and blue that I had already printed. You have to let the paper dry overnight between each color, and there's a different block carved for each color.

Above I'm peeling the paper off the block after rolling the press (it has a rubber roller to apply pressure) over the print. You can see my notes to myself to put the TOP of the block facing the right direction. Yes, I've printed upside down by mistake before, and I hate wasting paper on a stupid error.

Below is the inking set up. I roll out ink on a sheet of glass and roll it onto the block before putting the block on the press to print. I buy ink I use a lot of in cans (black, white, yellow) and other colors in smaller tubes.

Below you can see the progress of color printing. I printed the blue first, then the green, and finally the black key block. The color blocks are much simpler, just solid areas of color, and therefore faster to carve. The pattern block takes by far the most time. This print was finished some time ago, but I don't print the whole edition at once because the hand rolling is time consuming. I tend to print six or eight at a time, as I need them, until I've hit 100 (or however many I've set for that edition -- they're all signed and numbered). So now I have some more to sell.

I've had a couple of questions lately about my process of making prints, and I always like the excuse to explain a little more about what I do. All of my prints start with a drawing or painting done on site from life. I'm currently working on an image of Shakertown in Kentucky, near my old alma mater Centre College. Above is the watercolor on a double page in my sketch pad that's sitting on my work table while I carve.

From the sketch I do a full sized drawing, which I then trace (above). I flip the tracing paper over (you can see "BACK" written on the drawing in large letters to remind me not to skip that step) and transfer it onto a sheet of linoleum with carbon paper.

I like linoleum instead of wood because it takes curves better instead of tearing, the way wood grain does, and I really like carving curves and spirals. It also prints a smooth, velvety, solid surface. I love some artists' woodblocks which really show the grain and use that pattern as an integral part of the finished piece. Edvard Munch was a master of that. My first series was done in wood, but I really prefer not having to fight the way the wood tears as I go around a corner with my gouges. And I like that I can slice linoleum to whatever size I need it just with a box cutter instead of having to get someone with a table saw to do it for me.

I use a series of gouges to carve the linoleum. They're Japanese tools, mostly u-gouges, along with one v-shaped ones for very fine lines. McClain's printmaking supplies sells some lovely sets, and I got the student grade one, which I've been very happy with. My least favorite part is keeping them sharp, but one kind friend of mine in North Carolina gives me occasional lessons and tunes them up for me, and I'm getting better at it. Slowly.

You can also see in the photo above that reading glasses are a necessary tool for me now that I'm over 40. And a rubber grip mat to hold the block steady while I carve is the other must-have equipment.

Here is my progress so far on the "key" block, the one that will be darkest (usually black in my work) and which holds all the surface pattern. This print will have much simpler red and green blocks that are carved separately and just have large solid sections of color. They print first, with the key block on top of everything else. I'll photograph them as I go along. I carve the pattern one first and make sure I like the direction I'm going in before I move on to the color parts. Stay tuned as I keep working on this one. It takes a few weeks for me to get one fully right (usually with other work interspersed).

This was one of my favorite buildings in Paris. It's overdone and very Baroque, which is not usually my taste, but the form of it is lovely, with its aqua dome, and it's so delightfully playful that I liked it very much. I sat outside and painted it from across the street first. It's on a busy plaza, and I had trouble finding somewhere I could work. Then a bus stopped in front of me for a good ten minutes. I had done everything possible from memory and was just thinking I would need to move when it finally turned on its engine and took off. The trials of sidewalk painting.

I hadn't been inside the Opera until my friend Caroline joined me, but I liked it so much that I went back to paint the day she took the train out to Versailles. I painted from the balcony down into the plaza below.

And halfway through that one the sun got to me, so I took a break and painted the inside lobby before finishing from the balcony.

I also ran across an outside performance walking home one day and stopped to paint that as well. I was amazed at how easily the street musicians move full pianos around the sidewalks of Paris.

It was cloudy a lot while I was in Paris. There were days I'd planned to go to a museum, and if the sun came out suddenly, I would change gears and paint to take advantage of it. And there were certainly days when I walked out hoping to paint something particular and ended up in a museum instead for lack of light. Overall, I found a great balance of seeing art and making my own. I'm happy with the crew of paintings I brought home. There are only a couple I really wanted to do and never quite got the chance to.

One day it was cloudy, and I was planning to go to the Musee d'Orsay, but when I got downtown, it was MISTY instead. Delicate, transporting, mysterious. I spent the morning doing three quick watercolors. I never left the apartment that trip without my art gear, and on this day I was particularly grateful.

I'm in the process of scanning in the watercolors from my French trip. The scans are much clearer and brighter than the snapshots I posted while I was traveling, so I'll repost the paintings as I get them scanned in.

I loved painting along the Seine. Walking up and down the river and across the bridges was one of my favorite parts of being in Paris. I enjoyed painting from the bridges and along the river. I wish I'd had time to do the fabulous old train station that now houses the Musee d'Orsay, but hopefully another trip will let me do that.

Below is the Grand Palais, which is a lovely birdcage of a building that rises up along the skyline.

This last one was done on the bridge between Ile de la Cite and Ile St. Louis. I loved that spot, which often had musicians busking. This is a quick one, done in a hurry before dinner and trying out my new waterproof ink with the paints. I treated myself to a new Lamy fountain pen to remember the trip and to house a different kind of ink than I normally use while sketching.

It's been nuts since I got home. I had a couple of nights back, and then I left again for a dance weekend with my sisters. I loved spending time with them after being gone for a month.

I hung out with awesome women (that's one of my sisters front and center):

danced to my favorite band with friends (and sisters, though no one got a shot of that):

and got dipped a few times:

Now I'm back to work. I was supposed to be in Cape May this week painting for Cape Resorts Group again, but bad weather cancelled my flight. So I have a little time to do some commissions here, catch up on my sleep, and get up there in the next few weeks more rested and ready to go at full speed. Overall a very good thing.