I know artists who always have a sketchbook with them, and I've never been that organized. Thanks to the influence of the Memphis Urban Sketchers, however, I'm working on being prepared and have a tiny one in my purse now (assuming I'm carrying that...).

Recently it's paid off, and here are two quick tree studies from (moderately) recent trips. One the left is yet another stunning tree in Tower Grove Park in St. Louis. On the right is a pine from the parking lot of the dance weekend I went to in Chattanooga, TN. I probably would have finished the top part a bit more, but it was raining lightly as I worked, and I finally called it a day.

After days of rain, it is sunny and 72 degrees today, so it is a joy to be able to get outside and sketch. I've had a couple of new prints in my head for a while now, and it was good to do the detailed pencil sketches for them. Above is the scene I walk past every day in Overton Park, and New Year's morning the trees caught my eye meaningfully and asked to be in a print. This one will get a little wider (more space between birdbath and bench, and bench and tree), and it will join my art deco series of color prints.

Below is a study for a black and white one, though it will have "Midtown" carved underneath it. Local realtor Joe Spake has been asking for a print that is quintessentially midtown to put on the coffee cups he hands out, and I have always loved this bungalow in my neighborhood.

Funnily enough, Elmore was biking past and saw me sitting on the sidewalk drawing and thought I was a sidewalk bum. He had to do a double-take and turn around up the block to come back and say hello. I'm lucky this neighborhood embraces its eccentrics. No one tends to bother me even when I do settle into the sidewalk for a spell.

I've got a couple of larger oil commissions this winter, which is a lovely time to do some studio work. Here are two possible sketches for one of them. Clients like the trees in one of my pastel studies but didn't like the airplane trails in the sky. They like my natural clouds better. So here are two quick studies with two different kinds of skies for them to see which they prefer before I start in on painting.

The other thing I did today was help hang the Memphis Urban Sketchers show at ANF. It took three of us two hours to hang artwork from about 16 of our regular artists. It's fun to see the group's work all up together, and I like spreading the word about the genre of urban sketching.

 I finally got my second batch of prints photographed by David Nestor, who takes photos of all my work that is too large to fit on my scanner. It's nice to have good images to put up on the website. I know I've shared these here in progress via bad snapshots I took myself, but here's the second set of color prints as they should be seen.

Each of these is on 14x22" paper, and they are all priced at $140 each (the three color price), except the Elmwood print, which as only one block to carve and one printing, is $115.

I've got two more prints in progress, so watch this space for more, but first I'm going to go dance in Epiphany at the Chattaboogie dance weekend. I'll be back on Monday to dig in seriously and get back to work. Y'all have a great rest of the week!

I did two different versions of this first color proof last night and this morning (three printings total). The top one has one solid green, but the clouds have both blue and black markings in them.

The second one has a lighter, yellow green rolled on top of the foreground trees, and only blue markings in the clouds. I took the photos in pretty bad light, so they're more yellow than they should be, but you can see the main elements.

I think I like the two different greens, but I can't decide yet which version of the clouds I like better.

I was trying to be economical with my good paper and did these proofs on newsprint, but I've learned that floppy, thin newsprint is more difficult to register (put in the press in the same place every for each printing), so unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to use the stiffer paper anyway and see how things line up before I do much refining. There's a bit of movement in both of these proofs, but I'm going to have to get more information before cutting away things I can't put back. Sigh. Live and learn.

All the work I've done for Cape Resorts Group in Cape May is being used by Stella Bean advertisers. They are building a new website for the group that incorporates my paintings, but Kevin Philip is also creating fun extras, like e-cards to send out for the holidays.

Below is the storyboard for the Congress Hall one, which uses three of my watercolors to make an animated card. You can flip through the document below to see the progression, and you can follow these two links to watch the full e-cards.

http://www.pebagraphics.com/cape/

http://www.pebagraphics.com/virginia/