I sketched my tea again this week. This is one of four art deco Bavarian china cups, each with a different pattern. I found them at the thrift store, and they're totally my new favorites. As a bonus, they look fantastic with my crazy fancy Paris brocante teapot, found at the Marche d'Aligre. They also harmonize nicely with Muddy's sweet potato pie. It was a fun morning, and I hope to do some more of these.

I also got back to a little forest sketching on a recent evening walk. I didn't linger since the mosquitoes were finding me, but I enjoyed pulling out my tiny sketchbook that I try to always have on me and do a quick line drawing. I'm still spending most of my time on illustration these days, but sketching feels great when I get to it and keeps me a little looser.

Facebook seems to think it's National Tea Day. I mean, who knows. But it's a day I can totally get behind. Before I saw it I had done this post breakfast sketch. I've been working on careful illustration work for days now, and it felt like time to get out a big brush and be really wet and messy. Mission accomplished. I started with Kaweko Paradise Blue ink, one of my favorites. The stoneware is hand-painted thistle from Scotland. My mom graduated from the University of Edinburgh, and she loved all things Scottish. These are the dishes of my childhood, and I found a cup/saucer/creamer set a few years ago in an antique store and was delighted.

The honey was a gift last week from a friend. I'm so grateful for my Memphis community of people who lift me up when I'm struggling and celebrate with me when I have something good happen. I love living in the place I've grown up and in the house my grandparents bought in 1941. I'd been having a tough day, and the honey was just the sweetness I needed. It's sitting on my counter giving me periodic treats and shining a little sunshine all around it. Fun to paint.

I've been quiet here partly because I'm working on two illustration projects for Memphis Magazine that I can't show yet and partly because I was having some serious internet problems and couldn't share my scans. So I don't have a lot of new material I can share, but here are a couple of recent(ish) sketches that didn't make the blog. The first was an art lunch with friends, which is one of my favorite things to do, and I clearly had tea.

The second was a really neat lecture at Dixon a couple of weeks ago. I got to a number of those and usually sketch, so I'm trying to figure out different media and styles to vary the sketches from lecture to lecture. This was local artist Carl E. Moore, whose work I admire a lot, talking about his practice and his art. Instead of diving into paint I kept it just fountain pen and brush pen. I also used a higher vanishing line than I usually do. Often I'm drawing what's on the wall behind the speaker, but here I left more space for audience and kept his figure central to the sketch. I was pleased with how it turned out, which is not something I say a ton about my sketches. I love doing them, but they don't usually measure up to the image I had in my head before starting. This one was different than I meant it to be, but I was pleased with the result.

We had a stormy Saturday so Memphis Urban Sketchers met inside Crosstown Concourse, a huge old Sears distribution center that's been converted into apartments, offices, a high school, a YMCA, two theaters, a brewery, and (crucially) my favorite bread bakery Lucy J's. (As opposed to my favorite cake and cookie bakery.) That morning I went in for a ham and cheese pocket or something like that, but the cinnamon rolls smelled SO good that I got one. I got a tea to go with it and settled in to wait for the rain and for friends to show up. It's fun to sketch a treat because I take more time and enjoy it more in the process. It was delicious.

Later while talking to friends I did a quick, smaller sketch of the classic red stairwell in the art gallery section of the building.

I finished the morning having a chat with a different friend while I sketched inside the Memphis Listening Lab with their stunning collection of vinyl that you can have played for you. They have a great soundtrack running, needless to say.

I haven't been sketching much lately, so it felt great to go out and do several, especially while seeing friends at the same time. Urban sketchers is a big part of my social calendar and my absolute favorite group.

I was flipping through older sketchbooks and realized that I haven't been sketching my tea things lately, and that's always such a short cut to happiness. So I'm going to try to get back on that bandwagon a bit more for 2026. Here's the first one. The cup/saucer/creamer are handpainted Scottish stoneware. This was our everyday dish set growing up since my mom graduated from the University of Edinburgh and loved all things Scotland. Two successive stepmothers liked this dishware less, and we didn't use it for ages. Now it's happily in use at the family farm, but I found these tea things at antique malls for my personal use and happiness. They're paired with a Shearwater pottery teapot from Ocean Springs for even more personal happiness. I sketched in a blue Inktense pencil and put watercolor on top.

I'm taking a second quick trip before the holiday sales start in earnest. Washington state is a little drizzly some days, but yesterday I caught a lovely sky walking across the boardwalk into Anacortes. It ended up being a perfect four mile walk that ended at Pelican Bay bookstore. I hit the Watermark bookstore too, for a New York Times, which I have to drive an hour for up here, so it was a pleasure to get the Sunday one for several days' worth of reading. I also hit an antique store on the way home and found a really beautiful set of bird china, cup and saucer, cream pitcher, and a sugar bowl with no lid, but it's perfect for setting the tea bags in after pulling them out of the pot, and I hated to strand it by itself. I've never seen china like this before, and it was just too lovely to leave. I did a celebratory sketch last night that got a little muddy (it's been good to get back to sketching after several turnaround days at home with lots of business to take care of), mostly because I chose a very bleed-y blue ink to start with, but it was still fun. 

It has been, as you may have gathered from previous posts, a scattered summer. The throughlines for me are always tea and sketching. There has been a lot of tea and not as much sketching as I would like, but here are a couple of recent-ish ones. The first is my travel teapot (unbreakable mid-century that I found at the late, lamented Cleveland Street Flea Market) along with two very recent finds from the Junior League thrift store. I had sealed up all my kitchen cabinets for the first flea treatment, not realizing how long the craziness would last. I treated myself to these two cups and saucers to make me feel more settled in out of the house and waiting for sanity to reassert itself at home.

The second sketch was the brief break I got to celebrate after uploading my first proofs of M is for Memphis. Henry and I went to Cafe Eclectic on a perfect day to have lunch on the patio and relax. Sadly this morning I'm struggling to upload the edited set of proofs. It worked great the first time and is hanging up today. The non art parts of my job are always the hardest, but worth it to do what I love. Maybe I'll earn another celebratory tea soon.

It's been lovely out this week, and I'm trying to get back into the habit of walking with my sketchbook. Henry and I stopped in the forest and did a couple of sketches this week on our walks, and I went out house sketching with Christina again yesterday. It's so good to sit and visit and sketch. This morning I gave myself a slow morning to use up the rest of the space on that page and sketch my tea things. I haven't done that in ages, and it felt great.

I included the tiny Bonne Maman jar from my current advent calendar jelly. In an inspired move, they offered a jam-a-day advent calendar, and I managed to luck into one before they all disappeared quickly. As a single woman I'm not eating even a tiny pot a day, so it will stretch into the darkness of January. Which is making me realize that instead of advent calendars with tiny daily treats (which, honestly, are not at all liturgically appropriate for a penitential season, even though they are delightful), what we REALLY need is midwinter calendars that run from, say, Epiphany to March 1. Those dark, post holiday days are when I find myself most in need of small boosts. So I'll be stretching out the Bonne Maman goodness in an effort not to stretch my waistline unduly and also to savor the small treats more mindfully.

I’ve done a little bit of evening sketching lately. I had so much fun drawing in this outdoor diner. You place your order at a window and eat out under the trees. I’m in love with their chicken pesto sandwich, which is generous with the basil and comes with a side salad. So good. They also had blackberry hard cider. I sketched with my new Diamine Ancient Copper ink. I’m really enjoying it. It’s highly saturated, and could easily be too much, but it really worked for this one. I love the rich warm lines peeking through the watercolor.

Then last night I sketched the new tea set I found. Small with violets, made my Spode. I’ve gotten rid of my own former wedding china and found a very happy recipient for my grandmother’s enormous set, but I kept the very incomplete set of my great grandmother’s that has violets and daisies and matching violet silver. But no teapot. This small one is just right for me to use for breakfast when I want to enjoy all the lovely things instead of just having them in my cabinet. I’m really happy. And then since I was having such fun with stripes, I kept on sketching during the (wildly unfortunate) baseball game. It’s been a tough year to be a Cardinals fan, but sketching makes it better. This ink is also Diamine, and it’s two different shades of purple. The darker shade, Eclipse, is my new favorite writing ink as well.

I wrote in my last post that I like the shape and impact of my bigger summer sketchbook, but I also find it deters me from picking it up sometimes, just because it feels like a big commitment to cover that larger real estate. So I started a new smaller 5.5" sketchbook too. It's by Handbook, and I really like the size, the landscape shape when it's opened out, and the pocket at the back for tickets and other ephemera.

A facebook memory came up of one of my tiny oils on this plate by Melissa Bridgman. It had a dark background and a different feel, but it made me think about cherries and her pottery and what a satisfying combination that is. So a good first sketch for a new sketchbook. Below is the oil that made me want to revisit the subject. Beautifully it now hangs in Melissa's kitchen.