The weather has been utterly gorgeous this week, and I'm trying to get out and take advantage of it with sketching walks and patio meals. I'm low energy this week, but wandering around the park with a sketchbook is just right, and Henry and I have been over several different days. Such pleasure.

I had a lovely sunshine-y brunch with two good friends plus Henry on Sunday, and afterward we came back to my place for them to help me eat chocolate cake and for sketching. I've been working to get my house better lately, and it felt great to have friends in enjoying it with me and making art together. I have grocery store tulips on my coffee table at the moment, and I love their ongoing shape changes. We all sketched the tulips, and Christina and I both sketched Elizabeth as well. Such a perfect afternoon. 

I had a lovely farm day a while ago before the crazy cold rolled in, and I did a couple of sketches I forgot to scan in (it's been a busy month). I love the winter green cover of the fields against the bare trees. And later a cardinal posed for me in the tree near the bird feeder. I tested out a new blue watercolor marker from Windsor and Newton for the sky. I love the juiciness of the color.

With snow/ice in the forecast, I gave myself an outing before it hit. It's been a busy few weeks, and I hadn't been to Dixon lately. I've seen several lovely paintings by artists I follow of interiors at museums, and it made me want to go sketch in my own favorite museum. I couldn't have chosen a better day. Almost no one was there -- I think everyone must have been out buying bread and milk instead. So I settled in the floor and did an overall gallery sketch after I walked through the two new shows. There are two modern shows now, both of which are unusual and really fun. This retrospective of Floyd Newsom is wonderful for sketching -- huge, bright, colorful pieces. I love how he's chosen his own vocabulary of symbolic items to work with, much like Dine or Thiebaud or the Dutch still life painters, going back a bit. I'll enjoy going several times and looking at more details.

The other thing I loved was a piece from just last year done while he was in the hospital. Like several of his other works, it's a larger piece stitched together from individual sheets of paper. It was a manageable size to be working on in his last illness, and it reminded me of Manet's last flowers done in his sickbed or Matisse in his wheelchair cutting out collage shapes for others to place for him. I have always hoped to be making art right through till the end, and it's lovely to see another artist who managed that so beautifully. 

It was a great day out, to recenter myself in a space so dear to me. I'm hoping to get there more often this spring. A weekly pop in would be good for both my spirit and my creativity.

I was having a run around day a couple of weeks ago, and it was sunny and halfway warm for the end of January. I felt like stopping at my favorite deck and having a chai. I had just started a new sketchbook, back to my old favorite Handbook after trying something less satisfying, and I also had a new yellow watercolor marker. I did the sketch above with the watercolor and then did a second one of umbrellas and the sycamore across the street that I love. My fountain pens hadn't really worked on the paper in the previous book, so I'm enjoying getting back to them. And sketching a treat slows me down to both appreciate and remember it.

A couple of days ago I got my favorite Lucy J's bakery croissant at the farmers market and came home for second tea. I hadn't been sketching in a few days, so it was nice to take a slow Saturday morning and enjoy both the sketching and the croissant.

I took a day trip into Arkansas with two photographers this past week. I drove and Matt played tour guide, and one of the places he took us was to this burial monument just outside Earle. It's the grave of a former slave who became one of the biggest land owners in the county. His monument sits up on a burial mound surrounded by cotton fields, and it feels very appropriate and wild and beautiful. I sketched it quickly in black and white, trying not to keep the faster photographers waiting, and then I sketched quickly again at the graveyard outside the church where the same man, Rev. Washington, was pastor.

I couldn't stop thinking about the place, though, and apparently I'm in good company because Carroll Cloar, who grew up in Earle, also painted this angel. I went back with a much bigger sketchbook and my watercolors a few days later and did the sketch at the top.

Here's a quick sketch I did from a photo I took after I got home from the first trip. I'm pondering a print of it, and I wanted to do a little bit more zoomed out sketch while it was all still fresh in my mind. Watch this space for more versions...

Henry and I went out the other day to take advantage of a gorgeous, sunny afternoon at Elmwood Historic Cemetery, one of my favorite longtime sketching spots. I hadn't really registered this hobbit-looking grave before and was completely charmed by the hillside entrance and round door.

After a bit we walked on to one of the many stunning trees out there. I got a box of Windsor and Newton watercolor markers recently. I'd had a single blue one years ago that I loved for its broad tip and its lush color, so I took a chance on a box. I tried both greens on this piece. Greens are tricky, and these both felt a little too chemically, though my choice of Paradise Blue ink to start with in a fountain pen  probably pushed them even further toward the cool end. The tree has some gorgeous blue undertones I was trying to catch, and it is always fun to play with different colors. I'm happy with bits of this but not the overall color tone.

I went back to my regular black pen and watercolor for the third sketch. It's a closeup of a magnolia I'd spotted as we started out but wanted to walk for a bit before settling down to sketch. I love all the huge old trees out there.

Finally here's another tree sketch from a newish greenway down by the river the other day. This is grey ink with a dip pen and watercolor on top. It seems to thematically go with this entry, so I tucked it on in. I'm trying to branch out and explore some newer places this year, and I really enjoyed this quiet walk with the levee in the background (the yellow band behind the trees).