Category: Markers - Martha Kelly Art

More Rodin

8/27/2019

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.

I keep going in and out of art and stationery stores here. Paris is one big Levenger store. I found a Faber Castell watercolor marker, and I wanted to try it since I’ve liked their brush markers so much. So at the right is a gray colored pencil, a green marker, and watercolor on top. I’m really enjoying colored pencil with watercolor. It’s got a broader stroke and more texture than just the basic (but easy and never-needs-sharpening) mechanical pencil that’s been my go to for a while. I think I may be converted.

I also tried the watercolor marker with more water, so you can’t really see the lines anymore. This one was with my “fat pen,” a broad felt tip pen that doesn’t really move with the watercolor, unlike my fountain pen inks.

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.

A few Memphis sketches

8/3/2019

I've been home for almost three weeks except for the weekend in New York, but I've been running around getting things done. I've managed some sketches along the way, though in less quantity than when I'm traveling. Here are some of the last week or two, starting with two from Shelby Farms. The two trees are from the day I rode out from midtown on my new bike, a round trip of 24 miles. I was pretty proud of myself, as a newbie.

The next is a sketch from the Dog Days Open Studio Sale. I celebrated the end of that with a dinner at Huey's to hear a great band. Finally this morning was Memphis Urban Sketchers at the Peabody. (At right, with the flowers.) I'm heading out again tomorrow, so watch this space for more adventures. I'm so grateful to my house sitters who let me go travel and know that Mr. Darcy will be taken care of.

Painting and Drawing

5/23/2019

I’m back to fast moving work again. I’ve had several paintings going lately, including the one above. It’s a little smaller than most of mine plus quite simple, so it was really a two session affair. Again, after struggling with a print that won’t get there, it felt good to dive into something where I could see immediate results.

Pen and ink has also been a lot of fun lately. I started my food journal this week (for three days before the holiday, anyway, and then we’ll see), and that’s got me doing some fast sketching with a fat, felt tipped pen plus a little tone with a brush pen. I’ve carried that over into a new series of self portraits, just for fun. I joined a facebook group called Self Portrait Sundays, so that’s inspired me to do another batch.

I spent the evening at my work table last night with baseball on the radio and a commission to finish. When I was done I did another quick self portrait and also a sketch of my studio helper Mr. Darcy. I haven’t been drawing him much lately and have been missing that. Plus at the bottom is yesterday’s food journal page.

Ink Sketches

5/22/2019

I’ve started a series of quick, fat pen sketches this week. I’m back doing a food journal for a few days. It makes me think about whether I really want something enough to sit down and sketch it, which helps me keep from just wandering through the kitchen and grazing. I’m enjoying the fast pen work and have also been doing a couple of self portraits along the way as well. I’m using a fat felt tipped pen on these along with a Pentel brush pen filled with warm dark gray ink.

A lot of my recent work has been that print of the live oaks, but I've been really struggling with it. It feels good to jump to some quick sketching and get some immediate gratification as a break. I'm also back working on the waterscape series in oils. I'll have a new one of them to show here quite soon. In the meantime, I'm on tea break to post here, but back to it soon.

New Memphis Prints

12/30/2018

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.

Sketching Tea

10/8/2017

I love tea and really enjoy sketching tea things. Mostly I sketch my pottery ones, but I was out not too long ago and sketched my iced chai, and I just realized I forgot to post it anywhere. It's fun to take that small break out of your day and do a sketch for no more reason than that you want to.

The teapot is a new one by Melissa Bridgman. I adore her work. I didn't really need another teapot, but I also adore bunnies, so we ended up doing an informal trade not long ago. The cup is my longtime favorite one, also by Melissa, where she

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.

Crosstown

10/7/2017

Memphis Urban Sketchers met at the new/old Sears Crosstown building this morning. An amazing array of agencies came together to renovate this long vacant building into a vertical village. I can walk there from my house, and it is stunning. A ton of restaurants, a YMCA, the Church Health Center (a big deal here in Memphis), a high school to come, various businesses and non profits, all sharing one vast roof in a building with enormous windows. I've got a few friends now living in the apartments and had been before, but it was fun to meet the crew and hang out in the atrium and sketch.

I did a couple of sketches with fair concentration, and then as the meeting time was approaching, I did a couple of quick ones just to fill the time. In honor of "Inktober," I had bought a Pigma graphic 1 pen to try (see the top two sketches) which our founder Elizabeth Alley always calls her #fatpen. I think I mostly like my fountain pens better, but it's nice to have a fatter pen that doesn't melt with watercolor for times when I'd like that. It definitely has a more graphic feeling than using my usual water soluble ink. It's fun to try new things.

Small town 4th of July

7/4/2017

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.

Huckleberry Cheesecake...

5/30/2017

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.

Bunnies and Cupcakes

1/20/2017

Here are a few quick sketches from my week. My favorite is the installation of enormous, inflatable bunnies at the Brooks Museum of Art. It's an installation about invasives and the damage they do by Australian artist Amanda Parer, but she admits it's also winsome, and the child in me is utterly delighted. I was also excited to do such an interesting nocturne piece, and I'll have to go back and do more before they depart Memphis.

There was also cake in my immediate past (Muddy's Bake Shop, my favorite), and a trip to the Metal Museum. It's been a lovely week.