MARTHA KELLY ART
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Painting and Drawing

5/23/2019

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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.
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National Civil Rights Museum

2/12/2019

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My friend Melanie was visiting from France, and a huge part of Memphis history is the civil rights movement. The National Civil Rights Museum is a powerful and beautifully designed trip through that period. Last time I went through it had been redone, and I just digested it. This time I found myself wanting to sketch and bear a little witness to the brave people it celebrates. I worked in fountain pen with a brush pen that had a very light gray wash in it.

I think I need to go back again. I was still pretty overwhelmed at the whole experience and didn’t manage to sketch in the old Lorraine Motel section, the last part of the museum. I’d like to go on a quiet day when I wouldn’t be in the way and focus on that sometime.
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Night on Beale

2/7/2019

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What do you do when you have music fans visiting Memphis? You take them to Beale Street. And when you're really lucky, you'll spot Blind Mississippi Morris wheeling his amp toward a club, holding onto the arm of his "manager," as he calls her in air quotes. It was a fantabulous night with legit, old school Delta blues and an out of this world bass player.
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Memphis Symphony Stravinsky and Robert Johnson mashup

1/20/2019

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The Memphis Symphony did an unusual concert last night. Our new conductor Robert Moody noticed striking parallels in the devil at the crossroads stories of Stravinsky and Robert Johnson and decided to do a mashup. He used a chamber group and brought in bluesman Vashti Jackson to both be narrator and to play Johnson's blues interspersed with the Stravinsky pieces. There was also dancing and and an actor and film bits shown as well. It sounded a bit bizarre, but it really worked. My companion noted that both musical forms have a strong percussiveness.

I had hoped to mix some ink that would be a lighter flesh tone in a brush pen (those are hard to mix in the dark of a theater), and I tested it at the top right before going. It was a sad failure and ended up both grainy and with the turkey basting quality of old TCM colorized films. I ended up just doing a series of line drawings in various pens, though I did add in the red suede shoes and matching tie of Mr. Jackson. It was a fun night.
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Inktober continued

10/15/2018

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I made it through the Pink Palace Crafts Fair week, which is always a crazy ride but a really fun time. I so appreciated everyone who came out in the rain to support all of us local and not-so-local artists. It was fun to catch up with a whole group of different friends, and I'm always touched when people come to see my art year after year, tell me what piece they have (and sometimes show me a photo of how they got it framed), and maybe even take home a new piece to keep the old one company. I missed a couple of days of Inktober sketching in the hooplah, but I managed most days, so here are a few that I did but hadn't scanned in yet.

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This last one served as a model for a demo linocut I started carving during the demonstrations at the crafts fair. I have more work to do once I pull a print and see what it looks like. I love coming home with a sketch I want to spend more time with and make more art from.
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Self Portraits

7/30/2018

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I know I’m in Paris and haven’t actually SKETCHED Paris yet. I’ll definitely get there. But the figure sessions recently have me thinking about drawing people (as do my recent figurative paintings), and it’s been market weekend, where I hang out with musicians and draw them. Today, with all that momentum going, I did a few self portraits. This is actually pretty common for me in Paris. I have lots of time here to walk and think about the world, and somehow self portraits always spring out of self examination for me. So, for whatever reason, I did three today. Two largish facial drawings (definitely new territory for me) after one mostly full body one with a face I was really unhappy with. So I decided to dive more deeply.

This evening, after visiting with a marvelous artist friend of mine, I walked over to Luxembourg gardens and drew yet more people. I’m really enjoying these brush pens filled with ink. But I’ll post those in the morning, in the hopes that these blog pages will load better if they’re not totally weighed down with multiple pictures. Also, it’s past 8:30, and I’m on (nominal) vacation, so I think I’ll go read a book.
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People at the Sunday Market

7/29/2018

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I got to Paris just in time for the weekend markets, which are about my favorite things here. My friends Rene and Dede were playing, and I hung out, listened to them, and drew people. Most of these are brush pens with Sumi ink in them (two different strengths), and a couple are fountain pen.

I had a blow walking over though. My spiritual home here was Dubois art supply store, which had been here since 1861. Apparently gelato chain stores draw big crowds, but multi-generational neighborhood shops can no longer afford the rent. I’m heartbroken. I’d been trying to decide which ink I wanted to buy from them this year. Many of my writer friends adore Shakespeare and Co. for its history and atmosphere. Dubois was that for me.
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Bill and the Belles

7/10/2018

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I got to go to a great house concert over the weekend. My banjo mentor had seen a group from Johnson City called Bill and the Belles and liked them enough that he arranged for them to play in Memphis when they were passing through on the road. They were marvelous. Old time swing, lots of songs from the teens and twenties, a good dose of Jimmie Rodgers, and a bunch of new songs that sound delightfully old. As usual, I sketched as well as listening. This group is used to artwork too. They're the only band I know that has an original linocut of the group for sale along with the usual cds and stickers. It was as old timey as they are, so of course I came home with it, along with my own sketches.
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Front Seat Sketching: Iowa and Minnesota

5/16/2018

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I was lucky enough to have a partner who wanted to drive more than ride, so I got a lot of time to both sketch and knit coming across the country. After all the shows and commissions, it was fun to sit and sketch whatever caught my eye, without any deadlines or agenda. 

I almost finished a scarf, and I played a good bit with my Sumi ink in the brush pens. I have a darker shade that is (shockingly, considering how dark it is) 50/50 with water and a lighter one that was just a small bit of ink and water for the rest. I'm enjoying using them together to get two toned gray drawings. 
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I also kept playing with my new green ink and the watercolor as well. 

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#oneweek100people

3/6/2018

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There's an Urban Sketchers challenge to draw 100 people in one week this week. In a stroke of good luck, it is also my week to sit for extended periods in waiting rooms twice this week. I'm delighted to have a challenge to make the time pass and feel productive. I've been wanting to practice people more for my illustration work anyway, so I went for it this morning. I managed to make it to 54 in one day. I asked Elizabeth Alley if that was cheating, and she said, no, it's winning! So yay.
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I did all of these with my latest favorite pen for sketching (except for my lovely Pelican I'm using for the Mr. Darcy book, which lives on my desk now) -- a Lamy safari pen with smokey gray ink inside. The darker, wider bits are a brush pen with some diluted Sumi ink inside.
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    Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.


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  • HOME
  • PRINTS
    • Landscapes
    • Small Landscape Prints
    • England
    • Paris
    • Figures
    • Odds and Ends
    • Letterpress
  • WATERCOLORS
    • Memphis
    • Paris
    • England
    • France
    • Greece and Turkey
    • St. Louis
    • House Portraits and Commissions
    • My Palette
  • OILS
  • BOOKS
  • SKETCHES
    • Quarantine Journal
    • Memphis
    • Overton Park
    • Mr. Darcy
    • Mr. Darcy's Odyssey
    • Musicians
    • Tea
    • Dutch travelogue
    • Shakertown travelogue
    • Sketch Journalism
    • Sketching tools
    • Pastel Studies
  • LITURGICAL
    • Special Bulletin Sets
    • Year A
    • Year B
    • Year C
    • "The Garden"
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