I'm trying to figure out how to help my dad with taxes for the first time ever, and it's a LOT. So I'm also trying to sketch a little along the way for happiness. I did this one the other night, and it's my favorite sketch lately. I really piled on some layers to get the watercolor that dark, though I also used a black brush pen on Henry's darker parts. He's a good model and even better companion, and I'm grateful.

I've been trying to remember to stash my sketching bag in easy reach of the couch. Henry is expressive in sleep and fun to draw. I had a low energy day yesterday, but I've been missing drawing, so I did a quick one of Henry on the sofa with his paw across my leg. I had planned to try to get my favorite lamp in too, but I sketched Henry big and only managed the base of it. The top sketch is from a couple of weeks ago. His ears make me happy.

I've been really busy with family business lately and not getting much art time, but I am taking breaks to get out in the sunshine and enjoy spring. It refills the cup. Henry and I took a lovely afternoon hiding deep in the old forest so I could sketch and enjoy the wildflowers, and I decided to put him in the foreground of this first one. I did a number of sketches of Mr. Darcy leaning against my knees or sleeping on my feet, and the intimacy of those sketches makes me happy. Here I had looped Henry's leash over my boot while I made a mess of sketching some trillium. I did this second sketch after, which I was really pleased with. It much better captured the full joy of that afternoon.

The next day my sister Erin suggested an impromptu visit to the family farm to pick the daffodils that have naturalized over the 19th century home site out there (the house was gone before I was born). She and her boys met me out there. They all moved crazy fast, and I got Wesley (the smaller one bending over) too big, but it was fun to catch that moment on the fly. I stayed after and finished the background. Always draw the bits that are going to wander off first.

Yesterday I went back to the park after spending most of my day doing business-y things instead of making art. It felt lovely to walk and sketch. This tree has been calling my name for several weeks now, and I enjoyed settling in to sketch it.

I've been carving this one for weeks. With lots of interruptions, but it's still the most painstaking, intricate print I've worked on since the seagull murmuration for my show at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. Fortunately for me, this one is 9x12" instead of 18x24". I've enjoying having something to dive into for an hour at a time while I juggle a ton of other responsibilities this month, and I finally have gotten it to the place where I could pull a print and see what it looks like. I had to get the entire carving roughed in so I wouldn't lose the delicate drawing on the block into a big smear of ink. I'm cleaning up and thinning out very slowly so I don't overshoot, so there's not any dramatic difference to see the biggest clean up will show in the path, but I'm still working on that bit. 

This is from a photo I took during Memphis's unusual, actual snow this past winter. Usually we're right on the ice line, but for once we got a fluffy, photogenic kind of snow. This must be the fourth print I've done of my favorite tree over the years, alongside who knows how many sketches, and I just couldn't resist her beauty all dressed up for winter. I should be done in a few more proofs with smaller and smaller changes as I go along. Soon...

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...