I had a lovely, quiet morning at Rockport State Park. I’ve been doing a lot of online work and canine caretaking lately, and I haven’t been out to my favorite parks as much as I usually am when I’m out west. It was lovely to get a morning to take off with my sketchbook, do several favorite short trails, sit and watch the river a little a bit, and do a couple of sketches. It was my reward for doing ISBN and Library of Congress research after breakfast.

I’m learning all kinds of things about self publishing, which is good, since I’ll be doing it quite soon. My inner book nerd was happy when I found one source that said ISBN numbers were begun by British bookseller W.H.Smith (a favorite from my university days). They needed a cataloging system for their books and hired a former WWII code breaker to create one. It was later adopted widely.

Books need a different ISBN for each edition - hardcover, softcover, ebook, etc. You can buy them in bundles of 10 if you’re self publishing, or you can just get one. Once you have an ISBN number you can apply for free for a Library of Congress number, which is cool and also necessary if any libraries might want to carry your book. I’m going to get more serious about applications soon, but the hike first was very welcome.

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.

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.

I got here and slept about a week. I've been updating the blog, and I also have been working on three new prints that sprang out of the journey. So it took me a while to get back to sketching. It has felt marvelous to be doing my regular walk out here, though, and I decided to celebrate that with several sketches. I took the sailor fude pen along, as I had been in Memphis, and I sketched that lovely, small waterfall where I turn around. I also sketched the treasures I found along the trail after I got back. It's good to have the journal going again. 

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.