Martha Kelly Art

About all that's going on over here right now is sketching in the forest on my morning walks and work on the forest ABC book from those sketches (and a bunch of old ones). I've also had a quieter weekend, visiting with my dad and a couple of friends from safe distances. I'm hoping to wind up the artwork for the book quite soon, and then I'll have to figure out all the digital stuff -- get the scans the right size, obtain an ISBN number, and all the less fun but still satisfying stuff.

Here's a shot of my back porch table (where I've been working except a handful of the hottest days, because the full summer heat makes me want to stop working and nap) with the line drawings for the book in the center surrounded by a host of older sketches I'm using for reference. I'm grateful for all the years of forest sketching I have in old books. It's proved more valuable than I dreamed.

And here's one more pair of recent morning sketches with my newish Sailor fude fountain pen that I'm still really enjoying. It's what I'm using for the book as well.

I had a funghi kind of morning on my walk today. I caught a brief glimpse of the owl hunting as I walked (I heard the ruckus of the smaller birds trying to drive her off) but the fungi held still and posed for me today. I’m testing out the 55 degree angle Sailor fude pen. I’ve been using the 40 degree one, and this one feels very different. Thicker lines overall, but I can get the thinner ones if I concentrate. I also found out today that the Noodler’s permanent ink, which is supposed to be water fast to use with paint on top of, has a longer drying time that my fast sketching allows for. I got a bit of bleed when I moved straight onto watercolor. It’s doing great for the book project where I’m leaving it to cure overnight, but less great for sketching in the field where I don’t want to sit around and wait for the mosquitoes to find me.

I was supposed to go teach a workshop for the art guild in Mountain View, Arkansas, this month. I went last year and had a great time with the marvelous folks there, and they had been kind enough to invite me back. Obviously that's not happening anytime soon, and I've been thinking about that group on my morning walks lately. I decided to put up a new page on my website about the pen I've discovered this spring, how I'm using it, and a couple of different sketching projects that have been saving my sanity. All of that is on the page Sketching Tools if anyone else would like to play along. Sketching is a great way to notice new things in familiar surroundings as well as find new delight in those same places, something we all need at the moment.

I lived the first 15 years in this house without a screened in porch, and mosquitoes in Memphis are pretty fierce. A decade ago I finally tacked one on to the back of the house, just off the kitchen. The space was pretty small, so it contains a table and two chairs plus a one person hammock chair, and that's really all it can manage. But it has a blue ceiling, a ceiling fan, and lots of birdsong.

With the stay at home spring and my new-found fascination with birds, I've been eating more and more meals out there through the temperate part of the year. Sometimes it feels like a lot of trouble to carry things out, but I never regret it. Now I've got this new illustration project going, and, unlike my printing, it's beautifully portable. I've carried stacks of sketchbooks, my ipad, and my paints outside, and I've been spending all day making art on my porch. It's a delight. Yesterday, after my brain had shut off for serious work, I decided I wanted to put this period in my Quarantine Journal. The sketch isn't my best, but it does show you the chaotic, colorful process of illustration. The stack of sketchbooks are to look back at on-site sketches from the forest, done over years, to refresh my memory and keep the book vivid. I'm having a ball working on this project.

I've really been enjoying carrying a sketchbook and my Sailor fude fountain pen on my morning walks in the park. I'm mostly sketching the forest, but the above right is the newly closed, much lamented Memphis College of Art, where I took a couple of classes on printmaking that changed the trajectory of my career.

Today I saw a bunny skipping across the path in front of me. He didn't stay around for me to sketch, but I got my book out immediately, drew him from that image in my mind, and drew the path in front of me as well. Later in the walk I followed the owl around the forest, though again in fleeting ways. I wrote down the experience so I'd have it in the place where I'm recording these forest impressions this spring.

Rather unintentionally, here are my two new main pursuits across one spread of the Quarantine Journal. I've always enjoyed birds but have never watched them as intently and intentionally as I have this spring. Likewise I have always enjoyed tomatoes, and I've had an herb bed in the past, but I'm not much of a gardener. I put in a new herb bed (the old one had been totally overgrown after several years of way too much travel), added tomatoes (which I've tried without success before, but we'll see), and added a few blueberry bushes and a fig tree. Also things I've tried before and killed. Although in my defense, the fig tree was doing fine until a large masonry wall fell on top of it, which I don't count as a mark against my gardening skills.

I've gotten decoyed off the journal in recent days as I have dived headlong into the forest ABC book. I tend to do immersion in new projects while the energy is flowing and the images in my head are fresh. But tonight I have my first few tomatoes ready to pick, so I thought I would celebrate. The outdoor tomato plants are behind the curve, but this one pot is sitting in the window in my laundry room. I thought I'd try one that the squirrels couldn't get to. So far that's been a success.

I think many people are seeing their surroundings more deeply and in new ways this year. I have always loved the forest and found inspiration there, but more and more I am seeing the fleeting birds as well as the steady trees. Jude recently sent me Sibley's big bird guide, and it has been a delight. Then yesterday, after I posted about the heron nests, a facebook friend named Leslie wrote me and said she was clearing out some family things and would I like a pair of binoculars. I was both touched and delighted. Her mom isn't well, and they've been downsizing. I remember finding happy homes for some of my family things after turning my dining room into a printing press room instead. It meant a lot to have people enjoy those things I wasn't using, instead of just dumping them at a charity. I told Leslie, kind enough to bring them that very day, that I would think of her and her mom Virginia as I used the binoculars.

They're perfect. So exactly what I needed. I went straight to the heron nests again and watched the babies. The mother wasn't around, but the babies were edging gingerly along the branches, preening, shaking out their wings, and generally putting on a show. I took a chair (always in my car now, for visiting friends outdoors without having to touch anyone else's things) and sat and watched and sketched in my lap. It was a delightful evening. This morning over breakfast I did a picture of the book and binoculars for the journal. They certainly deserve prominence at this time. And I also want to remember the kindness of a near stranger who follows my art reaching out and giving me another tool to make it.

It was a magical day today. I took my bike down to the farmers market, and I did an extra loop through a gorgeous old neighborhood in Memphis to look at the houses and get a little extra exercise. This week I hit 300 miles on my bike for the year so far. For some of my friends, that's small potatoes, but since I didn't learn to ride until last summer, it's been worth celebrating. So I need to do at least that again before the end of the year!

Not only did I see some lovely old houses, but I saw some lovely old friends as well. I had two very good chats with people I hadn't seen since all this craziness started. That was good enough, but then Kevin and Erin told me about two heron nests in the neighborhood -- that I'd been whizzing underneath on my bike without realizing for some weeks now, watching houses and traffic instead.

It was glorious. They're right out over the sidewalk, so anyone can stop to watch (and the neighbors out were really kind about it, even pointing out the second nest I hadn't spotted yet). The babies are huge, almost fledged. I'm so glad I got there in time to see them. And one of the mamas walked down a branch and took a bath/preened herself for a long time. I got a great look at different angles of her head and beak and gorgeous long plumage that wouldn't be out of place at Ascot.

My bike was mostly falling over, too heavy with all my produce for the week for the kickstand to hold, so I was juggling it, and then my fountain pen started leaking badly as I was drawing. I finally did totally lose control of the bike, and it went over onto the pavement. I had a couple of busted peaches as a snack when I finally got home. And you can see fingerprints and smudges all over the sketchbook page. But my sketches are better than the super small i-phone photos I got -- the herons are way high up. I did get one short video of the joyful cacophony in one of the nests, which I'm adding at the bottom for fun. I'm so grateful for this new focus on birds through the quiet, at home spring. It's been a gorgeous new facet of the world to learn about and pay attention to.

I spent a lot of the rest of the day (lunch and work) at the back porch table with birdsong and the fan (and, realistically, a couple of really loud leaf blowers nearby for a bit). I just started a second volume of the Quarantine Journal (top image, the neat one) -- I finished the first book I had started. I used my messy sketches and also my new Sibley bird book to double check colors some. I'm so grateful I'd thought to tuck in my sketchbook when I left this morning. I wanted this magical day in my big and colorful journal where I would remember it.

I'm continuing to carry my small book plus a black Sailor fude pen on my morning power/dog walk in the forest. Not my whole big kit, but I did pull out an ugly but functional (and not as hot as a day pack) butt pack I won years ago in a kayak race (LOTS of people won them -- I wasn't particularly high in the standings). It's handy for this, though I may have to use it for water for Mr. Darcy instead as the summer goes along. The water fountains are shut off because of Covid, and I wouldn't feel good about even him using one right now anyway. For now, though, I've got my book out with me daily. It was great today because Mr. Darcy spotted another turtle for me. They're pretty laid back, and this one let me draw him as well.

As I've been working towards my WAMA show as well, I've realized that Overton Park is my Horn Island. Much easier to reach than Anderson's main landscape muse, which works for me as a city girl, but it functions the same for inspiration. I'm there daily when I'm not traveling, and I have painted and sketched there for many years now, as well as basing a ton of prints and larger paintings off the work I do actually in the forest or around the park. I'm so grateful to have this consistent source of inspiration so close to me. It's always meant so much, and this year it means even more.