I spent a ton of time this year drawing individual letters, coloring them by hand, and scanning them in and then having to clean up the scanner noise. I had done one experiment years ago to put lettering over a background, and it occurred to me yesterday that I could paint strips of color and scan in black and white text and fill in with my prepared strips instead of doing each letter separately. So these images....

became these:

In order to make the image/logo image background transparent in Photoshop try the following:

1.Right click the image layer in Photosho or use the dropdown layer menu to select ‘Layer From Background’.

2.Select the Magic Wand Tool from the left panel and select the image area you want to be transparent using the Magic Wand Tool. Once selected, click ‘Delete’ on your keyboard. With that done you should see the transparent background (a checkerboard pattern) around the image.If some background areas remained non-transparent, repeat the magic wand for each of those areas.

3. Drag in the background image you want to use and size it behind your main image (or just use the paint bucket to drop a solid color there).

4. Use the paint bucket outside your image (in this case around the letters) to drop white or whatever background color you choose. If your color is digital, it will be one smooth transition. The variations and grainiess in the watercolor meant I had to use the paint bucket on numerous areas and then clean up small bits with the eraser tool, but it's worth it for the paint-on-paper look I want.

Finally I drug that whole block of text into the bookmark I've designed to hand out at the book party Burke's is giving me on Thursday, December 5th from 5-8pm. It's part of Cooper Young Night Out, so stores will be open late and Santa will be in the pavilion. I've never had a book party before, and I'm super excited, which is why I'm diving in with this extra bit of fun. Here's the back of my bookmark to go with my new book:

I got fired up about the possibilities for this last night, and I decided to make a digital font of these bubble letters that I can just type into Photoshop (once I download my font) and then fill with my paint samples. I got iFontmaker from the Apple store a couple of years ago and have been playing with making my own handwriting font. It's a super easy to use, draw with your finger on a phone or (recommended) a tablet kind of program. The web addresses on the bookmark are in a font I made called Memoir (which is a free download if anyone wants it just for fun). I've drawn out half of this new alphabet. I did all these letters for P is for Possum, for the cover of Memoir of a House and for Portal, and then all the letters in M is for Memphis. I think I'll use it enough for it to be worth the trouble. This is the fun kind of rabbit hole you can go down with your main show (Rowan Oak, up into January at least) up on the walls already and your book in hand for the holidays. I always enjoy some extra play after a big push.

It's been a busy week of family in town for big birthdays plus doing the Metal Museum holiday artist market on Saturday. One huge moment for me was one of my nephews taking time out from a busy and fun party to go through M is for Memphis slowly page by page and then come and hug me afterwards. No better feeling.

This week I'm trying to organize my studio and house better and gear up for doing Winter Arts for the first time, a month long beautifully curated artist market in a different area of town than my normal shows, so definitely exciting. I'll be printing more cards and getting prints ready to take out there.

I'm so excited that my new book is here! At least the first 300 copies are. After Novel asked for 100 copies to start, I ordered more immediately, and hopefully they'll be here by the end of November (fingers crossed!). Both local bookstores, Burke's and Novel, have been completely supportive. Burke's has me scheduled for a book party for Cooper Young Night Out on Thursday, December 5th from 5-8pm. I'm going to take the individual watercolors I have from the book to sell as well and really make it a party. Not all the images will be there, since some are from my sketchbook and a handful are from previous commissions that I scanned in before delivering them to the buyers. 

This book was so much fun to do. I couldn't even scratch the surface on all the cool places in Memphis, but I put in as many as I could fit. I hope everyone will enjoy it and use it as their jumping off place for exploring all their own favorites. 

I did one huge final push, and the book is now uploaded to the printer, and I'm waiting on a series of proofs (both eproofs and a hard copy) before I can order a batch. I'm doing a few tweaks in the meantime, but it is functionally done, which feels great. I was so far behind in early August that I didn't think I could manage it, but a combination of a good run of sketching along with a bunch of days working to lay it out right up till bedtime has me hoping I can get copies back in time for December sales. Printing slows way down in the fall, so no guarantees, but I strongly hope they'll manage it.

Here are a few pages. I did all the art in watercolor and pencil or ink. Some of them are sketches done on site and others I did on my lap on the sofa after gathering photos from around town. I laid out each page with those images in photoshop and then hand wrote the text around the images with an apple pencil on my ipad.

I'm still working slowly toward M is for Memphis. It's a mix of new sketches (the drummer at the I Am A Man mural, based on a photo Jude Dippold took when we were there a few years ago) and sketches from previous outings, like the sculpture and plaza I did with Memphis Urban Sketchers. It's fun to have a way to use some of my sketchbook images I'm proud of and also fun to be revisiting and sketching places around town. I've got a few days to work hard between a house guest and a visit to my sister, so I'm diving in. Obviously I is for I Am A Man, along with the IBC (International Blues Challenge) that's such a big deal for Memphis.

Memphis had eight solid days of snow and ice, so I treated myself to a staycation writers retreat. One of my two big goals for this year is to get a new alphabet sketchbook done. It's M is for Memphis, which my local bookstore has been nicely requesting. They sell a lot of P is for Possum and would love a broader Memphis book as well. I've been tinkering with the alphabet for over a year, but the last few weeks I've made a strong start on actually getting art together and putting it on pages. I'm doing a good bit of new work (A is for Arcade at the top)but also plundering my sketchbook to see if I've banked sketches over the years that would go well in the book. I sketched the Arcade's sweet potato pancakes several years ago and will add that sketch to the overall piece of the building itself. I go back through my sketchbooks fairly regularly for inspiration for prints or paintings, but it's fun to be able to pull out those done-on-the-spot images to use as they are.

This is going to take most of the year, but I'm hoping to be able to have it out for fall. Fingers crossed. Books always take longer than I think they well, but I'm pleased with how it's going so far.