I'm working on a companion piece to my first snow tree, but it's really slow carving with all those tiny branches. I can work on it for a couple of hours in the morning when the light is best on my print table and I'm fresh. Then I do some other work later in the day. I won't be able to proof it for several more days yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I'm drawing out a spring tree print with leaves on all those branches, which won't be fast (I mean, what carving is?), but which should move at a much better pace than this current one.

You can also see my muse watching me hopefully and waiting for a trip to the dog park.

I had a crazy week last week, and it was good to get a day where I could carve in the morning, take a nap, and head to the forest for a late afternoon ramble and sketching trip. The wildflowers are almost gone, but there are still lovely ones popping up. I'm also thinking my way through a new tree series (starting with the snow tree print I just finished), and it's been fun to walk and look at trees and ponder new ideas. Henry is always up for a walk and a poke around the forest, so we both had a great time.

It felt really good to be back at church this week. I haven't gone nearly as much since the pandemic for a variety of reasons, but I had been missing it and made it an energy priority this week. (That's one of the big reasons right there, just having the energy to do all the things I'd like to.) I got there early both on Friday night and Easter morning, so I could sketch from my back of the balcony perch before things got going. I experience and process things through art, so it felt right to celebrate through sketching. I wanted to catch the difference in tone from Good Friday to the light and color of Easter. Both were laid out pretty quickly, especially the Easter one, so the tricky architecture is a little iffy, but I was aiming to capture mood more than detail. It was a satisfying back to back pair of studies and attend an affecting pair of services as well.

I had a fairly crazy week last week with a Saturday show and family in town, but I managed to sneak a few sketching opportunities in along the way. First was Thursday night dinner (steak special!) at Ecco with my fellow sketcher Christina. We both had fun drawing from the patio in the midst of the 1920's neighborhood. Predictably she focused on a building, and I focused on a tree, but we both had a ball.

Friday the weather remained perfect, so Henry and I walked to the pharmacy, and the clouds behind Crosstown were perfect as I rounded the corner. One thing about lingering fatigue is that walks are easier with breaks, which is a perfect opportunity for sketching. We sat for a while, picked up necessities, and headed back home.

Finally I sketched the interior at Muddy's Bake Shop while I was their featured artist at a Saturday pop up. I love the space (any place is happier with a disco ball!) and also the whole crew of kind people working there. Another fellow sketcher Jan came and hung out for a while to talk palettes and travel and other fun things. Unfortunately I had refilled my paints and forgot to tuck them back in, so I worked instead with fountain pen and three watercolor markers (gamboge, cobalt blue, and paynes grey). I tend to go all paint everywhere as my default setting, so it was a good exercise in restraint for me.

Memphis is leaning into monsoon season this year, with a generous side of tornadic activity. We're supposed to be getting about 12" of rain over four days this week, but after Wednesday's tornadoes and Thursdays downpours, Friday dawned sunny. I took the opportunity for a day out and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I went to Crosstown first to run through the drug store and also get a chocolate croissant from my favorite bakery, and then I headed to Dixon.

After sitting the garden for a while enjoying the tulips I headed inside to the Floyd Newsum exhibition. It's so much fun to sketch these huge blocks of color with patterns woven in. They feel architectural and show up well across the room. I had done one sketch early in the show and have been wanting to get back, but the fatigue has been real this last month. I was glad to feel good today and get the chance to sketch in the show again. I used Neocolor watercolor crayons and Derwent Inktense pencils since watercolors are forbidden in the gallery. My bench was also in a deep shadow, so the green got a little more intense than I meant it to (when I'm mixing paint I tend to take the edge off with some blending, but with preset colors you get what you get). Overall though I'm happy with the sketch and had so much fun doing it. Aside from the colors, I love Newsum's use of his own personal vocabulary of motifs. Ladders, spoons, chickens, dogs, and, beautifully, his grandmother, recur often. The show makes me want to think more clearly about the symbols that are personal to me.

I worked through my normal lunch time, and I wanted to check the new books at Novel, so I treated myself to crab cakes on the patio of their bistro. It was hopping indoors, but I had the patio to myself on a chancy weather day. I hadn't eaten there in ages and enjoyed the crab cakes, and I also had fun sketching out across the parking lot to the crepe myrtle trees. It started sprinkling and then raining with a little more intent as I was getting close to finished (you can see splatter marks in the blue ink) so I called it finished and packed up quickly.

I finished the day by printing the first batch of my snow tree print while listening to a day baseball game, and I played my banjo and caught up my journal in the evening. An exceptionally good day.