Martha Kelly Art

My friend Andy Cohen was recently in town for a week or so in the midst of his nine months of annual touring. It was great to have him back home. When he's here, he comes and plays with our regular old time jam, and he always adds extra zing to the proceedings.

I went out to hear him play a set at a benefit and did some sketches of him while he played. I'm still having fun experimenting with the watercolor graphite I got in Paris.

I got excited about my sketchbook on my trip and have been sketching as I'm out and about at home, even though I'm doing pretty intensive print work in the house. Above is the set for The Country House at Circuit Playhouse this past weekend. I love going to live theater, and we have a great one in Memphis.

I've also recently been at St. Mary's Episcopal (where I went so many weekends with my grandparents growing up) and given a talk at the Artists' Link group on Monday night. It was fun to get to talk about my work with a bunch of artists, and since it was Monday, I took my banjo along to go on to my jam afterwards.

Andy is one of my longtime friends and is a truly marvelous musician. I am lucky enough to get to play with him at my jam group when he's off the road. Recently he took a week's break from his nine month touring schedule, and I got to visit with him and his wife Larkin, also a wonderful musician. 

Andy played a gig while he was home, and I showed up to listen and did some sketches as well. I'm still playing around with the new watercolor graphite I got in Paris and having fun with it.

I did the self portrait because it was good to be back in that space again and also because I was still testing out my new watercolor graphite. Below are a couple of more I did at Zuivre on lunch breaks from more serious painting or museum going.

Since I had been drawing the eclairs and fondant in Paris, I figured I should pay tribute to a lovely dense Dutch cake as well.

I'm back home finally and beginning to scan in sketches from the later part of the trip that I haven't yet posted here. I met my parents in Amsterdam, so I had less solo time for keeping up the blog the last few days of the trip.

I got to hear Rene Miller and Dede Macchabee (I have no idea how to do accent marks on my American keyboard - sorry, y'all) several times while I was in Paris. They sound great together, with Rene's marvelous blues picking and Dede's 1930's kind of sound. They also look great and are fun to sketch, so I did them several times. Above is my favorite one, in a new watercolor graphite I found in my "local" art supply store that I walk past daily in Paris. I had a great time playing with it. I saw it several days earlier, but the Dutch landscape drawing exhibition (previous blog entry) decided me on going back to try it. Their subtle graphite and wash work was completely alluring.

It's a lot of fun. The only thing I don't like is that, since it's graphite, it will press down and rub against the opposite page once you flip over and are drawing on the back of a graphite page. In spite of that, it's quite lovely.

As a minor sidetrack to the blog, here's the sketchbook page where I tested it out the first time. I was quite pleased with the cat sketch on the left.

Back to Rene and Dede.

Here's one in fountain pen and ink wash. A bit cleaner than the graphite but also without the subtler shading.

One more in fountain pen and watercolor. Dede wears the most stylish shoes.