Martha Kelly Art

It's been so crazy this trip I hadn't gotten to my favorite spot once. I fixed that this week and took a sunny day to go with a picnic, my sketching things, and my book to a small stone beach at the confluence of two rivers. I sat in the shade and did two two-page spreads, I read a while, and then I just sat on a rock out in the river and drank in a little sunlight. It felt wonderful. I think I may get a print out of the vertical sketch too. I hadn't meant to do a second page, but when I looked up as I was packing away the sketching things, the clouds were amazing, so I kept going. 

I'm taking a ton of photos of Mr. Darcy right now. He is both my muse and my heart, and I enjoyed taking some more that day. Below is my recent favorite (I'm also pondering a print), plus some other photos of the day. We took a short forest hike on the way home, and I found an encouraging message on a trail post. I'm grateful for the pull together spirit I find a lot of places these days. 

I've done some sketching today, which felt really good. Mr. Darcy is doing well, and we went to the gorgeous forested state park nearby to walk before he starts his new round of chemo. I did the vertical spread as well as a tiny bit of truck (see bottom) to fill up the other day's bicycle page. 

Then when I got home, the clouds were absolutely gorgeous, so I settled in the lawn to paint. I hadn't meant to do Alice at first, looking mostly at the clouds, but then, there she was, and I've enjoyed drawing her along the way this trip. So here we are at the far point of our trip, the destination, before heading back toward home. 

I know I posted the barn yesterday, but I wanted to get the full page spread here as well. I had intended something more domestic, but this is what happened instead. Often it's just the next thing that catches my eye. 

I got on my bike seriously for the first time out here and did 13 miles on a gravel trail the other day. It felt good to get going again, and I took a break to paint this barn, which is one I always admire when I go past. I've painted it several times, never quite getting what I'd hoped. This one may be the closest I've managed. A horse came over to watch as I sketched. I keep meaning to finish that page and scan the whole thing, but other stuff keeps happening, so here it is for now. I’ll post the whole thing whenever I get it done.

It’s been a hard couple of weeks. My beloved muse Mr. Darcy has lymphoma. I’ve been working a bit on the prints but mostly doing vet visits and taking extra care of him. I think we’ve figured out a treatment that should give him another year or two, which (since he’s a big dog and 10 years old) is all I had realistically hoped to get with him anyway. It’s not nearly as hard on dogs as on people, and if he can stay happy and feeling good, I’d love the extra time. We’ve had to figure out different hip medicine for his arthritis, and that’s been hard too. But he looked frisky and much like himself last night, so I think we’re on the right path. I’ve been picking up lots of heart shaped stones as I walk that feel like talismans somehow. I know it’s magical thinking, but I still find myself holding them as I walk. So this page is a pretty good encapsulation of my last couple of weeks.

In other news, I’ve been thinking about the forest ABC book again after taking a break when I got here. It’s good work I can do downstairs with Mr. Darcy, and I wrote out an author’s page yesterday. Now I’ll have to erase the pencil work, scan it, and clean it up nicely. I still need a title page, but otherwise it’s going to be cleaning up and adjusting scans and putting the images on exactly the right size page with a small extra margin for the gutter. It’s getting close.

I’ve been doing a lot of slow print work lately with not so much to show yet, and I’ve been putting energy into that instead of sketching. Today I took my smaller sketchbook out on my walk with me, though, and it felt good to get reacquainted. I used two colors of ink (a dark gray brown and a green) plus watercolor.

Today I also got my “Explore” print fully drawn out and traced. Tomorrow I’ll transfer from the tracing paper to the two blocks, green and black. I’m slowly carving on the reflecting trees as well, and I should be ready to proof that one soon, though it’s quite large to be working just on a table top with a wooden spoon. I’ll have to see how far I get with that one away from my press.

Farragut State Park in Idaho was surprisingly large, and it was lovely. I had a site in the Snowberry campground, which was deep, rich forest. Alice is on the right nestled into our site. The spaces weren't that far apart, but it was glorious just to sit among the trees, and I scoped out a couple of end spots to ask for next time. I'm really happy with that sketch and am working on a print from it today. I've struggled to get my head into printmaking all spring, and this trip has been an unexpected gift. I've got three new prints going already from the trip across, one quite large one, and two for my WAMA show if they work out well. (Always the caveat.) 

Mr. Darcy and I took a walk when we got there. I'd like to try some of the more dedicated trails next time. I just walked out of the campsite on one of the connector trails, since I didn't want to move the camper again. It was ok, somewhat underwhelming as an overall walk, but it had this stunning view looking down to the lake from above. Then we sat in the forest while I sketched, and it was really good evening all the way around. 

Here are the original sketch with color notes and the first of two preparatory drawings I did to work it out. I did this one and then decided I wanted it a bit larger. I’m using the largest leftover scrap of linoleum I had left out here, saving my two new big pieces for something else. I’m also posting the watercolor color study I did, on top of that larger drawing, to try to work out the color layers. This will be a super simple second block. The only white will be the light and its trail. Everything else will be either a light blue or a darker blue purple.