Martha Kelly Art

It's Inktober on social media for artists, and I've been covered up in Pink Palace Crafts Fair preparations lately, but I'm also trying to do an ink sketch or two every day. I took advantage of the gorgeous weather lately and rode my bike out to Shelby Farms park on the Green Line the other day. It was glorious. One of these times I need to sketch the buffalo, but that day I just did the Clark Tower off across the fields. I love my milk crate that carries sketching equipment (and snacks) as I get to new places I couldn't easily get to under my own power before. I'm new to biking, being a seriously late bloomer, but I'm having a ball.

Today I rode out to Dixon. It's one of my favorite destinations, so I'd been wanting to find a route I feel good about taking. It was fun to get there on my bike, see the current exhibitions, do a few sketches, and ride home by way of Burke's bookstore. A happy day.

I had such a good time being back at the Rodin Museum the other day that I returned today. It’s my last couple of days here, and I’m spending them in my favorite museums. I started off at the Orsay and then went over to the Rodin for tea in the garden with my lunch and more sketching. This place always fires me up. I did the top one in my big watercolor sketchbook. I felt like getting out a real brush and really playing. The rest are in my small 5.5” book with the water brush. I sketched my tea because I liked the cute little teapot.

Last was the gray pencil again with watercolor. It’s a fun place to try a bunch of new things, and I really love drawing Rodin’s statues.

I’ve been wanting to do some smaller prints that my treadle press can handle. The big ones I have to ink by hand, line up by hand, carry to the Line-o-scribe press, and print individually. The treadle press is harder to set up (getting the print where ink is hitting it all evenly), but once it’s going, I can do many more just by dropping paper in and letting the press do everything else. It’s harder to line them up just so, but if I plan prints where there’s a little wiggle room, they’re greatly fun to print. So I’ve got two new Memphis prints drawn out and underway. I got the holiday flu for a few days and am still feeling slow, but nicely, carving is a good sit down activity. So no proofs yet, but it’s fun to be working on something fresh after all the holiday shows. Each print will be two blocks and two different colors. The colors you see are watercolor and marker sketches just to make sure I’m doing what I want before I start carving.

sketched her own bees and also a honeycomb design. One of the things I love about Melissa is that she doesn't do the same patterns or shapes over and over again. Everything is fresh. So this teacup is unique, and I love its old fashioned delicacy as well as the generous saucer I can use for my tea spoon or perhaps a cookie. I'm old fashioned in always wanting a saucer, since I use milk (that creamer is the tiny one I found in Paris this summer with a bird on it, and it's gorgeous) and want to stir in the milk and have somewhere to put my spoon. Tea is a ritual with me, a small bit of daily pause and happiness in the midst of my usual busy. I love everything about sitting and having a small pot of tea in the day somewhere.

I'm also trying to make the most of Inktober this year, which I'm usually too busy to really celebrate. I cleaned out a fountain pen I've had and put new grey ink in it that I've been wanting to try, and I also broke out a blue marker for the top sketch. I used markers a bunch several years ago and have gotten completely away from them in favor of watercolor, but they have their own fun, graphic feel, so I'm going to work on reclaiming a bit of marker work this month as well.

I've always lived in Memphis except for college in a smallish Kentucky town that was still considerably bigger than Concrete, WA, where I've been spending several months. I love the small town events more than anything. Today was the 4th of July parade, that lasted maybe five minutes. Highlights were the mayor dressed as Uncle Sam plus the 4-H club with a number of dogs and one goat. I had a ball sketching. There was also a fun acoustic band at the picnic afterwards to give me something to listen to.

Or "Things We Don't Have Down South."

I've got several truly intricate blocks to carve for the book project, which have been taking all my attention lately. But I've been missing sketching, and I decided to do a quick lunchtime sketch to remember this delicious thing that I have certainly never run into back home.