 Mary K VanGieson, a fellow urban sketcher and longtime, hugely active participant in the Memphis art community (she gets out to ALL the shows I miss), gave a talk at Dixon today about eco prints and her current exhibition in the museum. She was funny, informative, wise, and inspiring. I love this free lecture series at Dixon, and I was thrilled to see a packed house show up to learn from her. I saw so many friends. It felt great to catch up with art friends, learn about a new printmaking technique, and see the trio of printmaking shows currently hanging at Dixon. What a happy day. I didn't take in my bigger sketchbook, but I used my tiny purse one to both sketch and take notes.  
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I'm a cover girl! Clearly not me, but my work. I spent several months working off and on illustrating the nooks and crannies of Burke's for the 150th anniversary. It's one of my truly special places, and I was thrilled that Memphis Magazine let me illustrate their feature. I was also thrilled it ended up being the cover story. These are still on the new stands through October, and you can also read the full story and see all my illustrations on their website.  I've slowed down on both sketching and posting this last month. I've been working on some print things and spending some family time, but here's a pair of at home sketches.  I continued my water soluble graphite streak with this one of Henry and my favorite lamp, plus some watercolor. I need to get back to this little series. I was having fun. And this week my dear friend Jill came to tea and brought me late flowers from her own garden. I put them in a Japanese vase of my mom's and sketched them one evening with a British mystery for company. They're currently sitting on my coffee table making me happy. I love sketching flowers friends bring my because then I get that joy again later when I open an old sketchbook and remember that kindness so vividly.   Memphis Urban Sketchers went back to Elmwood on Saturday, and I got fired up and have visited a couple of more times this week. I'm pondering a new graphic essay on Memphis history, and there's a TON of it here. It feels nice to be excited about a new project again. I did that top, broader landscape first, in my biggest sketchbook. It's fun to challenge myself on size sometimes, but I think I got sucked into overworking parts of it. Predictably the sketch I liked better was this one of the Falls monument in two different color inks with a dip pen and just a touch of watercolor on top. Fast and loose. I also just love that monument.  I went back the next day and did a little rainy day car sketching in my smallest sketchbook. I wanted to try to the Falls woman head on, and I did a super quick sketch of Mattie Stepfenson's monument too.   |
online store Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. Get occasional studio email updates. Categories
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