MARTHA KELLY ART
  • HOME
  • PRINTS
  • BOOKS
  • SKETCHES
  • OILS
  • ILLUSTRATION
  • LITURGICAL
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • SHOP

A favorite place

6/27/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of my very favorite places out here is Rasar State Park. It's small, but it has a huge variety of landscapes, from forest to beach to stone beach to meadow. It's right along the Skagit river, and it was a natural place for me to go to try to jump start my sketching a bit. I cleaned and refilled several fountain pens, and these are both done with my favorite green ink, a bamboo color that is warmer and more natural than a lot of acid greens you find. The first is a wooded walk along the side of the river, looking down to this spreading tree that hangs over the water. The second piece was sitting out on the beach proper with a view down the Skagit and off into the distance. I've drawn and painted versions of this view (from a few different angles) over the last several years, and it continues to sing to me. 
Picture
0 Comments

Passenger seat sketches

6/22/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
The beauty here is real, but so is the driving. There's one pretty good small grocery in town (and one awesome pizza place and a neat small library), but for anything else you have to drive "downriver," which is at least 30 minutes, with most of the shopping and options being more like 45. I got myself a new, tiny watercolor set by Sennelier to play with as a vacation present, and I've been doing sketches from the passenger seat in these downriver trips. They're a great challenge to the memory and keep me very loose sketching. It's fun to try to capture something that catches my eye as it whizzes past. 
Picture
Picture
The Sennelier sap green is lush and gorgeous, a little cooler and more opaque than the Windsor and Newton sap green that I've been used to. In fact, all of the colors are more opaque. This set feels like a step towards gouache. I've had fun playing with it, and I've enjoyed having a Paynes grey, which is a color I keep hearing about but have never used. I'm having trouble getting the dark richness that I can with my W&N set, though, and the light green in this one is more acidic than the warm green gold I have in my regular set. It's always good to try new things, and after feeling under the weather for several weeks, I wanted a new toy to jump start my sketching practice. I had real trouble getting up the energy to draw much of anything for a while there. This will be a neat set for keeping in a purse and being ready for on-the-go. I may try to get a tube of the green I like to add to my regular set, but at this point, I'm still a total fan of the professional grade Windsor and Newton watercolors. 

I did finally get some depth in this last one, and I like how the colors bleed into each other. I also like that they dry faster than my W&N ones. I always thought that was more paper than paint, but these seem to dry more quickly instead of my having to carry an open book around for the next several minutes. But I'm still sticking with my main set for more formal work. 
Picture
0 Comments

Sauk Mountain

6/21/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
I've been doing some print work here, but it took me a while to get sketching again much because I was under the weather for a while. One of the early outings was a drive up most of the way on Sauk Mountain, stopping at a small avalanche fall and walking and sketching. I'd missed the trillium here down on the valley floor, but (unlike the flatlands of the Delta landscape) you can change seasons by driving a few miles straight up. So we drove back into trillium for me to enjoy them and have a gentle walk. It was glorious. 
Picture
The trillium are very different from the wake robin kind we have in west Tennessee. They're huge for one thing, but they change colors as they age. They progress from white when they're new blossoms into a pink a bit later, and in old age they go a dark orchid color. It's a spectacular transition to watch, and it makes for a fun range of drawing too. 

As always, I was also drawn to the trees and did this sketch of the alders hugging the edge of an embankment with their roots.
Picture
It felt grand to be sketching again, so I have more to scan and post in the coming days when I can manage a little computer time on a borrowed machine. 
0 Comments

Sketching across the country, part 3

6/16/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture


​I had a great last couple of days coming across this time. Montana to Idaho is a shorter day, and I decided to hike in the morning at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park before taking off. It was gorgeous. I climbed high above the valley floor in a scrubby landscape with hills and quirky trees that reminded me of painting in Turkey. Then I got into a pine forest and felt like I'd walked into a series of William Rice block prints from California. I ended up overcooking the sketch of that first fantastic tree, but it was great to sit and look so long anyway. I did a third one too, so I spent all morning and had a later drive than I had meant to, but it was so worth it. It was refreshing to get out of the van and do something physical and make some art. 
Picture
Picture
I got the end campsite at Farragut State Park in Idaho, down in a nest of trees a little further away than usual from other campers. It's the same campground where I did the sketch for my "Explore" print of Alice (the camper van) under tall trees last year. It was gorgeous to sit out there, and again, I sketched the next morning before taking off. The light in the forest next to me really caught my eye. Of course, the sun went away as I started sketching and only came back out when I was done, but I'd seen enough to capture the feel of the place, if not the exact patterns. 
Picture
For a few beautiful moments, I had a visitor at my campsite as well. She came and looked at me and really spent some time before slowly taking off again. I didn't have my sketchbook, but I grabbed it just afterwards and did this sketch from memory before the memory faded. I think it will be my holiday card this year. I loved the simplicity of it and also the moment it recorded for me. I love being able to make these moments live on. When I open my sketchbook years later, I can fall backwards in time right to the place where I was drawing and remember so clearly, since I took the time to really drink it in and record it in the moment. Not always, but almost always. I do a written journal as well, but the sketchbooks are always the most vivid memories I have to keep. I'm grateful for the ability to record my life this way. 
Picture
1 Comment

Sketching across the country, part 2

6/7/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
It was a 2600 mile trip solo in 6 days, so I didn't take a lot of time off, but I did want to sketch every day to give myself a mental break and enjoy the places I was driving through. I sketched one morning at a scenic pullover in South Dakota and did the same the next day in Wyoming. These are my two favorite sketches of the trip, and it's no real surprise to me that they are the fresh, morning ones before I got tired. 
Picture
0 Comments

Sketching across the country, part 1

6/5/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
I'm late getting things scanned in, but I had a really wonderful time sketching on my cross country trip last month. I'm going to put them up on the blog in chronological order. My first night was in Long Branch State Park, Missouri. It's always my favorite stop, and I got the spot I like with the tiny lake beach, but it was cold and rainy, so I didn't linger as long at the lake as I normally do. I sat inside and sketched the peonies that I'd brought with me because they were too lovely to leave. You can just see the lake out the back door window in the distance. 

The next evening was Lake Vermillion in South Dakota. I played with my intense pencils again. I wasn't thrilled with the results, but I do now remember sitting and looking at the sunset across the blue lake and also seeing Alice's shadow (my camper van) with the sun behind us while I was having breakfast and tea the next morning. Even if sketches don't always turn out as hoped, looking at anything long enough to sketch it is an exercise in both memory and mindfulness, and almost always a pleasure. 
Picture
Picture
1 Comment

Exhibition print

6/4/2021

0 Comments

 


​I finally got a proof done of this after a lot of letter carving, which goes slowly. I’ll definitely be refining it more, but it’s always fun to see the first proof after a one time of planning. I cut away a bit more than I wish I had on the tree, but that’s par for the course on printmaking. I’m going to downsize the birds some as well. Overall I’m please with the feel of it, and when I get it where I want it, it will be in color, but black is easy for proofing. I’ll do a solid light colored background and darker colors for this block on top. I’ll likely try several different color options before picking my favorite. That’s the number one advantage of doing more than one block instead of printing light and then cutting away more as you go. It’s easier to keep more intricate prints lined up that way, and it’s a bit less work, but you can’t go back and try a different color or adjust a previous layer since it’s all cut away already. I’ve done a couple of reduction prints but mostly prefer to do multiple blocks for the flexibility.
Picture
0 Comments
    Picture

       online store


    Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.


    Get occasional studio email updates.
    Submit

    Categories

    All
    Artist In Residence
    Art Workshops
    Book
    Calendar
    Chalk Line Books
    Commissions
    Country Workshops
    Daily News
    Dixon
    Dogs
    Exhibition
    Faulkner's Trees
    Food Sketches
    Fountain Pen
    Gouache
    Graphic Essay
    Graphite
    Illustration
    Letterpress
    Liturgical
    Markers
    Memphis Theological Seminary
    Memphis Urban Sketchers
    Museum Sketching
    Musicians
    Oils
    Open House
    Overton Park
    Paris
    Pastels
    Pen And Wash
    Pink Palace Crafts Fair
    PNW
    Prints
    Publications
    Radio
    Self Portrait
    Still Life
    Tea
    Television
    Travel
    Trees
    Urban Sketching
    Video
    WAMA
    Watercolor
    Watercolor Crayons
    Wedding



    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    June 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010

  • HOME
  • PRINTS
  • BOOKS
  • SKETCHES
  • OILS
  • ILLUSTRATION
  • LITURGICAL
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • SHOP