My friend Christina and I went out sketching in the neighborhood again. I was super drawn to the tree and then struggled a bit with the house behind it (partly because I used a water soluble ink without thinking and had to add a bit of gouache to the trim later to keep it from being super muddy). I finished with a super fast line drawing of a different house that was a lot less intricate and more fun. Of course. And I rounded the page out with a Christmas present from my potter friend Melissa Bridgman. So lovely.

We had our family Christmas late, so I had a quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas with a few visits but walks, reading, and sketching. I did my teeny tiny Christmas tree with my favorite creche of Mom's underneath it. I overworked the window reflection part, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

Henry and I also treated ourselves to another trip to the farm, to sketch skies for me and for him to run himself out. I inadvisedly settled at the far end of the farm to do the second one, and you can see the storm clouds gathering, so we came home pretty dang wet, but I got the sketch in before it started raining. So overall a win.

Henry and I went out to the farm a couple of times this past week. I had thought maybe I'd missed my moment (of energy and will) to get a tree, but then I found a teeny tiny one that could be a table top one (out of Henry's reach). So we went back the next day with loppers, no saw needed. I sketched both days and enjoyed being out there in the winter landscape with a big open sky. I think we'll do this a bit more over the winter when there are neither crops in the fields nor ticks making their unpleasant presence felt.

I went to the Tennessee Shakespeare production of The Importance of Being Earnest on Sunday, and it was such a fun show to sketch. All the hats! I kept it super simple and used my newish Majohn fude nib pen with a waterproof DeAtramentis document black ink. Sometimes I try for color, but I really enjoyed just playing with line in the semi darkness. I haven't sketched figures and faces much lately, and it felt good to practice. There are a few audience sketches mixed in from intermission, and one final sketch of a tree at my family farm to round out the page, one I've drawn over a couple of decades now.

It's been lovely out this week, and I'm trying to get back into the habit of walking with my sketchbook. Henry and I stopped in the forest and did a couple of sketches this week on our walks, and I went out house sketching with Christina again yesterday. It's so good to sit and visit and sketch. This morning I gave myself a slow morning to use up the rest of the space on that page and sketch my tea things. I haven't done that in ages, and it felt great.

I included the tiny Bonne Maman jar from my current advent calendar jelly. In an inspired move, they offered a jam-a-day advent calendar, and I managed to luck into one before they all disappeared quickly. As a single woman I'm not eating even a tiny pot a day, so it will stretch into the darkness of January. Which is making me realize that instead of advent calendars with tiny daily treats (which, honestly, are not at all liturgically appropriate for a penitential season, even though they are delightful), what we REALLY need is midwinter calendars that run from, say, Epiphany to March 1. Those dark, post holiday days are when I find myself most in need of small boosts. So I'll be stretching out the Bonne Maman goodness in an effort not to stretch my waistline unduly and also to savor the small treats more mindfully.

I scanned in but hadn't posted the house portrait I did, the last of my "homework" outings with Christina for her architectural sketching class. I loved the impetus to just get out and sketch and watch the world go past. I've been doing some intensive and good print work lately, but I need to get back to this as well.

I haven’t been sketching this week, and I’m missing it, but I’ve been getting some good work done on a new print for my Rowan Oak show next year. This is an especially complex piece. I had a lot of colors I wanted to include, and I hate to carve and print more than three blocks per print. So laying it out got complex, and I’m mixing more than one color for each block, but I loved the sketch I did of this tree, and it’s worth the aggro. I’m doing a series of color proofs as I keep refining the carving as well. At top is the best one so far. The key block is usually all black for my prints, but that was too harsh in this case, so for the top layer I’ve added a brown tree trunk for the cedar and softened to more gray around the edges. You can see the all black version at the bottom of the three proofs together just below. On the middle one I went too grey away from the tree and lost definition on the building. this one I think is the closest to what I want, but I need to clean up some carving, especially in the tree and the building. I’ve also added a snapshot of the three blocks together. The orange green goes first, then the grey of the building, tree, and grass along with the green of the cedar. Finally the black of the tree, the cedar trunk, and the definition of the building go on top.

Here is the original sketch with the first layer of the print.