I'm working towards my fall show, Skyward, that is a collaboration with Melissa Bridgman, a potter and sketch artist. It's fun to be home to my easel and doing oils again. I've been doing watercolor sky sketches and collecting photos all year, but I haven't been home with my easel to really dive into the paintings. It felt good that reviewing my photos and sketches and thinking about this show as I walk or go to sleep has kept these images ready for me to dive fully into right away. I started painting one day after getting home from Paris, and they've been pouring out. For fun, I've taken some process photos for you to see the progression. The one above is a Memphis scene, but given my travel, there will be plenty of Paris and Washington skies as well.

It's that time again! Calendars are going to the printer this week. I'll have them in time for the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, as well as all my fall shows. They'll be at Burke's Books, of course, and likely other places through the fall. I'll keep you posted here.

The easiest way to get one, of course, is to order it off my website and have it come right to your mailbox. You can order one right now for $18 in my online store (operated by Square) at https://squareup.com/market/martha-kelly-art/

If you're in Memphis and can pick one up at one of my fall shows (Pink Palace, my Friday, November 3rd opening at Eclectic Eye, or my holiday open house Dec. 15-16th) or from me sometime in midtown, choose the pick up option to avoid shipping. Otherwise, I'll be so happy to send it right to you.

I had a couple of quiet days on my own at the end of my Paris trip. Some of that, of course, was packing madly, because I acquired too many art books plus a framed print plus a little bit of breakable tea crockery, so it was more challenging than usual.

I knew I would be coming home to working hard on my fall shows, so I gave myself permission to really have a little bit of vacation --- sleeping in and lingering over tea in the beautiful apartment I stay in and going to the Musee d'Orsay to sit with my favorite pieces. I also had tea a couple of afternoons in Le Lithographe, the cafe just across from my building there. I'd been wanting to paint inside (usually I would sit out on the sidewalk to watch Paris go by) where there was a lovely tiled Art Deco piece next to the bar. I painted it small the first day, and since I'm thinking about Art Deco ornamentation a good bit at the moment (thanks to one of the art books I bought), I went back and painted a second time with more detail.

I also did a couple of more sketches in the Orsay. They move their paintings around a lot and swap things out. One of my favorite Odilon Redon pieces was gone (one of my favorite pieces period there), but this double panel was new to me this year, so I sketched it. As was the Vuillard, who painted a woman sketching with that hallmark "sketch face," as a friend of mine calls it.

One other thing I did was got myself one last cup of Angelina's hot chocolate and carried it into the Tuileries to sit and drink and (apparently) sketch. It was a lovely send off from a city I love and hope to return to next year.

I've taken a little more vacation time than usual the last week or so. I'll have a big fall push for shows, so I'm relaxing and only drawing what I want to here. I couldn't resist this sweet couple on the bus, and I wanted to draw at my "local" down south. I love the name of Le Lithographe, as a printmaker, and it's just across the street from my building. I've enjoyed going there to hang out at the end of a day of walking around Paris.

Needless to say, I've also been drawing some music (as well as my fellow listeners). Rene played a solo gig at La Liberte, and then I caught him and Stephen at the Marche d'Aligre, my very favorite market since it combines street market with a brocante (second hand/flea market kind of space).

My friend Jill and I went to Giverny her last day here. I hadn't been before, and it was stunning. My dad has been telling me I needed to get there, and I'm glad I did. It's always powerful to stand in the spaces artists you admire have painted in, and seeing Monet's home so beautifully intact gave me a further feeling for the man. One tremendous surprise was his collection of Japanese prints hung all over the house. The Impressionists were the first group of painters who had access to the exquisite woodblock prints of Hiroshige and his contemporaries, and it made a huge impact on their art. Getting to see the specific prints Monet lived with and was inspired by was enormous for me.

We didn't have a huge amount of time, and it got flooded with people as the morning went on, but I did have to do just one sketch of the beautiful colors he used in his home. I now want a yellow kitchen. I'm adding in some of my photos too, just to show the beauty of the place.

I've been hanging out in museums the last couple of days sketching, which is always a lovely way to spend time. I sketched paintings at the Orsay, and even though I was with friends at the Rodin, I couldn't help doing some quick gesture sketches there of the Burghers of Calais. I have been unable to look at Rodin without sketching since high school. Something about his work makes my fingers itch to draw.

One of my favorite things to do in Paris is hang out with my friends Rene Miller and Stephen Harrison while they play. Rene is from Louisiana and plays masterful slide blues on an old metal resonator guitar, but he mixes in all kinds of other songs as well and always makes them his own. I so admire that about his performances. He's also been playing on the street here for 25 years or so and is an unflappable master of accepting all kinds of odd happenings and weaving them into the show. Stephen is a fabulous bass player (touring with various folks as well as playing with the orchestra here), and he joins Rene when he's in town. They're magic together.

This past weekend they were set up on the bridge by Hotel de Ville, and I spent chunks of both days sitting out on a park bench and listening and chatting with them and watching the people watch them. And sketching. Of course.

I was using a Pentel dark, smallish brush pen. I've been wanting to work on my people, since I'm enjoying the idea of more illustration, so I did a ton of gestures sitting out there through the Sunday midday.

I was also kind of fascinated by their shadows extending towards me and did a couple of quick watercolor sketches, one with the bridge railing in it and one without.