MARTHA KELLY ART
  • HOME
  • PRINTS
  • BOOKS
  • SKETCHES
  • OILS
  • ILLUSTRATION
  • LITURGICAL
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • SHOP

Small ancient places prints

7/1/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture
I got on a wild hare last week and started a whole series of small prints and interchangeable backgrounds. It all started with the small black and white print of Glastonbury Abbey that I did as an illustration for my dad's poetry book I've been putting together for him. I enjoyed doing a small, achievable project. It also was lovely to revisit a place from my past while I am stuck at home this spring and summer. I miss traveling, and it feels good to mentally revisit places I've loved in the past. I've long felt that I could extend a trip by making art from it on my return, keeping it present and lively in my mind, and I'm now tapping back into that energy by revisiting places from further ago. Glastonbury made me think of both the Tor nearby and also Stonehenge. I've been drawing out and carving simple backgrounds. I'm still working on a couple more, and I'm going to try some different colors with them (see the solid moon, versus the one with the grey spots, versus the one with orange added behind it, though I'll probably tone that color down a bit for the final version). I've only got single tests of the more recent backgrounds, but I printed a new batch of backgrounds today to start the process over again.

The first abbey I carved was intended as only a black and white piece, so it had a good bit of lacework carved out of the structure. I've carved a mirror image of it, more solid with see through windows, to test out as well. These are all just snapshots, not finished sketches since none of the prints are finished either, but I have enough to share the project taking shape. It's fun to see it beginning to make its way from a few color sketches into carved prints. Eventually I may add another place or two as well. The Acropolis means a lot to me after my summer in Athens, or perhaps the temple at Sounio.

I almost always start a small, experimental project in summertime. After doing all the very large Rowan Oak pieces last year, doing something small (and prints that don't have to line up exactly perfectly) feels light and easy. Just right for summer.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Quick small print

6/13/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture
I've gotten a little bogged down in my current three block print, so it was fun to do this small fast one over the last couple of days. I'm still working on laying out that book of my Dad's poems, and there was one lone poem near the middle, bracketed by two really good pairs before and after, and instead of disrupting one of the pairs, I decided to just do a small illustration. We're keeping the book of history poems in chronological order, so I couldn't just shuffle things around too much. This is Glastonbury Abbey, which I've visited twice over the years, and it will accompany a poem about the dissolution of the monasteries. I'm really happy with how it turned out, which feels especially nice as I struggle with the other print.
0 Comments

Letterpress ornaments

6/10/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture
I printed and scanned in a batch of my antique letterpress ornaments this week. I'm working on a book of my dad's British and Irish history poems. He started writing them in the 80's, and it's much easier to publish something like that now than it was then. I want to be able to put the book in his hands. I'm considering using a few of these to fill in some empty spaces.

I've always kept printing for real, tactile projects and done my illustration work in watercolor and sketching. It has more recently occurred to me that I could use scanned in type or ornaments in certain projects as well. That Celtic alphabet I have that has almost all the letters, but only one of each, is barely usable as is for anything printed, but it's much more flexible digitally. Mostly I like making my own art, but the style and antique qualities of these might suit the current project. We'll see. It's fun to play, anyway, and now I'll have them ready if anything comes up to use them. I printed them in a reddish purple (my black letterpress ink has dried up at the bottom of its antique can), so I converted them to black and white after also saving the reddish version. Options.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Slow carving

4/24/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
I'm working on a companion piece to my first snow tree, but it's really slow carving with all those tiny branches. I can work on it for a couple of hours in the morning when the light is best on my print table and I'm fresh. Then I do some other work later in the day. I won't be able to proof it for several more days yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I'm drawing out a spring tree print with leaves on all those branches, which won't be fast (I mean, what carving is?), but which should move at a much better pace than this current one.

You can also see my muse watching me hopefully and waiting for a trip to the dog park.
0 Comments

Snow tree

3/10/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture
I've been carving this one for weeks. With lots of interruptions, but it's still the most painstaking, intricate print I've worked on since the seagull murmuration for my show at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. Fortunately for me, this one is 9x12" instead of 18x24". I've enjoying having something to dive into for an hour at a time while I juggle a ton of other responsibilities this month, and I finally have gotten it to the place where I could pull a print and see what it looks like. I had to get the entire carving roughed in so I wouldn't lose the delicate drawing on the block into a big smear of ink. I'm cleaning up and thinning out very slowly so I don't overshoot, so there's not any dramatic difference to see the biggest clean up will show in the path, but I'm still working on that bit. 

This is from a photo I took during Memphis's unusual, actual snow this past winter. Usually we're right on the ice line, but for once we got a fluffy, photogenic kind of snow. This must be the fourth print I've done of my favorite tree over the years, alongside who knows how many sketches, and I just couldn't resist her beauty all dressed up for winter. I should be done in a few more proofs with smaller and smaller changes as I go along. Soon...
0 Comments

Short hurricane party

9/27/2024

0 Comments

 
We had a very short lived morning at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair today. About 10 people showed up to tour it. I hadn’t finished my tea before they wisely called in for the day. But it won’t be raining tomorrow, so we’ll be there Saturday/Sunday. Memphis, dig out your favorite Music Fest mud boots and come see us!
Picture
0 Comments

Tree finder map for Rowan Oak

7/15/2024

0 Comments

 
Picture
I have always loved those golden age British mysteries with a map at the front. Probably because my dad collects maps and often hand drew ones for us to follow along with from the back seat on family vacations. Since all the trees in the exhibition at Rowan Oak are actually on the grounds of Faulkner’s home, I thought it would be fun to give people the opportunity for a self guided scavenger hunt to compare the prints with the originals.

There are no prizes, but if there were, there would definitely be extra credit for Portrait III, which is by far the trickiest to spot.
Picture
0 Comments

Last minute show prep

6/21/2024

0 Comments

 
Picture
Every show I do I get a last minute wild hare to do some extra project to go with it. For WAMA it was doing an entire show catalog called Hints of Gladness. This time, with the show hanging on Monday, it was a much more manageable project. I had kept the artist statement quite brief, and I decided to typeset it and print a small edition of handmade ones. Most of the fonts I have are limited in the numbers of letters, but this Parsons 30 point set had JUST enough letters and was a lovely size to show up in a frame and hold its own space. It has the added delight of the fancy, super high ascenders (the "ls" and "hs" that reach up well above normal height), so I used them for the first line before going back to the normal set for the rest of the paragraph. It was a satisfying one day project, and this morning
Picture
I will get it in a frame and have it ready to hang with the rest of the show on Monday. I've also carved and printed a small gallery card for folks coming through the museum to pick up and have my information available. This is one of the handful that print two tone when I add a second color once the first is established. I love the variegated effect. I usually get three or four of these before the inks blend to a solid color again, so most of the cards will be a little less wild, but I always love these the best.
0 Comments

Faulkner Prints

5/16/2024

0 Comments

 
Picture
My main work lately has been my upcoming Faulkner's Trees exhibition. I'm trying to get final prints of everything, get started on the framing, and finish carving the last two prints. I'm working slowly with my fatigue making an unwelcome return, but I'm chipping steadily away at it. We haven't set a hang date yet, and I'm grateful for Rowan Oak being flexible. It will go up some Monday in June so it's in time for the Faulkner scholarly conference that meets there in July. I'm so grateful to them for wanting my work for that.

So carving and printing every morning while I'm fresh. There has been lots of tea involved.
Picture
I've got the first couple in frames already. It's nice not to leave all of that till last, since it's my least favorite part of the process.
Picture
This is the last piece I'm working on. It's three colors, and  I'm carving on the last block now.
Picture


0 Comments

New Rowan Oak print

12/11/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
I haven’t been sketching this week, and I’m missing it, but I’ve been getting some good work done on a new print for my Rowan Oak show next year. This is an especially complex piece. I had a lot of colors I wanted to include, and I hate to carve and print more than three blocks per print. So laying it out got complex, and I’m mixing more than one color for each block, but I loved the sketch I did of this tree, and it’s worth the aggro. I’m doing a series of color proofs as I keep refining the carving as well. At top is the best one so far. The key block is usually all black for my prints, but that was too harsh in this case, so for the top layer I’ve added a brown tree trunk for the cedar and softened to more gray around the edges. You can see the all black version at the bottom of the three proofs together just below. On the middle one I went too grey away from the tree and lost definition on the building. this one I think is the closest to what I want, but I need to clean up some carving, especially in the tree and the building. I’ve also added a snapshot of the three blocks together. The orange green goes first, then the grey of the building, tree, and grass along with the green of the cedar. Finally the black of the tree, the cedar trunk, and the definition of the building go on top.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Here is the original sketch with the first layer of the print.
0 Comments
<<Previous
    Picture

       online store


    Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.


    Get occasional studio email updates.
    Submit

    Categories

    All
    Artist In Residence
    Art Workshops
    Book
    Calendar
    Chalk Line Books
    Commissions
    Country Workshops
    Daily News
    Dixon
    Dogs
    Exhibition
    Faulkner's Trees
    Food Sketches
    Fountain Pen
    Gouache
    Graphic Essay
    Graphite
    Illustration
    Letterpress
    Liturgical
    Markers
    Memphis Theological Seminary
    Memphis Urban Sketchers
    Museum Sketching
    Musicians
    Oils
    Open House
    Overton Park
    Paris
    Pastels
    Pen And Wash
    Pink Palace Crafts Fair
    PNW
    Prints
    Publications
    Radio
    Self Portrait
    Still Life
    Tea
    Television
    Travel
    Trees
    Urban Sketching
    Video
    WAMA
    Watercolor
    Watercolor Crayons
    Wedding



    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    June 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010

  • HOME
  • PRINTS
  • BOOKS
  • SKETCHES
  • OILS
  • ILLUSTRATION
  • LITURGICAL
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • SHOP