Martha Kelly Art

I printed in the morning, sketched in the afternoon, and ordered a hard copy proof of P is for Possum just before dinner, for a rare art trifecta today. I’d been waiting for the chance to order a proof since I uploaded my files on Saturday. I’m using Ingram Spark to self publish. Ingram is a wide reaching company that supplies books to libraries and book stores, and I wanted to support them instead of Amazon for self publishing. They also offer a hardback option, which Amazon doesn’t, but I’d heard nightmare stories about getting the formatting right for them. I did a bunch of research last week, and I was thrilled to get the email today that everything checked out. First try. It’s the small things.

Now that the book is turned in, I’ve been working on printing the blocks I carved this summer while I was away. Today’s theme was green (sounds like Sesame Street!), so I proofed two different blocks and also did layer two of the French Broad River print from several years ago. I’d printed the blue layer before my trip and then gotten sidetracked. Today, since I had green ink mixed and going, I picked the thread back up. Tomorrow I’ll get to proof on top of these gradated color layers with the much more intricately carved key blocks and see what things look like. Seeing it all together for the first time always feels like Christmas.

This afternoon I took my walk with the sketching backpack along and stopped in the Old Forest to sketch. I’ve been pondering more forest prints, and sketching helps me look deeply and think more clearly. We’ll see if anything comes of this, but it felt lovely to take the time to do it.

​

I've been running a little crazy since I got home, dealing with mail and other things that had been piling up, seeing people I've been missing, and trying hard to get the book published in time for the holidays. I had a whole plan that failed on me, and I'm regrouping. So I haven't sketched much, but I have done a couple. Above is the Shelby Farms dog park, at the east end of the park. I hadn't been there before (further into the park than I've ventured on my bike, and my dog isn't a dog park kind of guy). But it was just around the corner from the vet where I had to leave him several hours, so I took a walk with my sketchbook and did a bit of exploring. If I had a more social dog, it would be a wonderful resource to have available. I see why people drive out from midtown.

I'm also back at my local farmers market with joy. It was lively to have tomatoes, broccoli, fresh flowers, and bread (though that didn't make it in the sketch). I really like the rhythms of Saturday mornings at home, though there certainly things I'm missing about out west as well.

I wrote my last blog post feeling a little bad about how little sketching I'd done on the trip home, and then I realized I'd forgotten two more sketches. Both of these were the last night at Longbranch State Park in Missouri. I really love that place and would like to go there and spend a coupe of days painting sometime. I'm working on a print from a sketch I did there in July. So here are the two more.

I was more tired on the way home than heading across in July, but I still did a modest amount of sketching on the way home. I'd been looking at the night skies all summer and thinking of painting one, so I took the chance coming across before I got home to the city light pollution. As always, I sketched a good dessert to help me remember the joy of it. I'm also still really enjoying sketching Alice. The last day I was playing banjo in Missouri, and a deer came to watch. Apparently banjos aren't that common. I grabbed the sketchbook next to me and did a very quick gesture of it. The ears were adorable. It wasn't a lot of sketching, but it felt nice to do a few small, happy things in the middle of six days' worth of driving.

I had a bit of a mad scramble my last week in Washington, and I got behind scanning and posting photos. I did manage to walk around to this apple tree I'd been eyeing and wanting to paint for several weeks, and I had a good time doing a paint first, lines later sketch. I also did a couple of early Inktober sketches, though I certainly haven't managed anything approaching every day this year. I haven't been drawing people much, and I was pretty happy with the one of Jude reading under the tree. He went down with me for Mr. Darcy's last vet appointment before leaving, and there's always a bit of sitting around. I just tonight scanned in the sketches from the actual trip home, and I'll get those up next. I'm deep in printmaking at the moment, now that I'm home with my press, so it felt nice to spend time with sketches today, even if it was just scanning instead of drawing.

I’ve been balancing work, vet care, and vacation out here. With P is for Possum finally finished, scanned in, and at the printers for a proof, I’m leaning more towards vacation (and preparations to head home, which is a bit of an undertaking). So I celebrated a couple of lovely small things in my latest journal page — an enormous tomato gift from a friend plus a second breakfast. I did that a couple of times this past week, having berries and tea when I got up but then joining Jude in an egg a bit later. It’s nice to be cooked for sometimes.

My knitting group of four or five out here has been meeting outdoors, which has been a great joy. I love sitting with friends, even across a small distance. Last night we were at Sylvia's and Michelle's. They have an amazing garden (I'd been thinking about this bean trellis ever since we were there the first time) plus ducks, a horse, Angora goats, chickens, and dogs. I'd been wanting to sketch, and Michelle kindly invited any of us to show up early if we chose. I got an extra visit with her, did two full page spreads, and then settled down to the evening party. It was marvelous. 

I've been trapped indoors for a solid week now, and we're hoping for relief tomorrow. I took a quick walk with a mask on and snapped a photo of the orange sun, but it was too awful to stay outside and sketch. The bottom smokey view is from my indoor work table window, though, and the blueberries are from life, done sitting at the kitchen table. I really love the berry stands out here. Such joy. 

I've mostly been ignoring my smaller sketchbook lately and working in the "Quarantine Journal" sized one instead, but here are a couple of recent(ish) sketches from my daily walking path. I'm catching up on my scanning this week as I also finish the images for the book. 

In big news yesterday, I bought a batch of ISBN numbers and registered the first one for P is for Possum. When I was working on the Mr. Darcy book(s), I really wanted the legitimacy and reach of a professional publisher, but my writing chops weren't strong enough, and that's a hard world to break into. For this book, which is so very local in scope, very specific to Memphis's Old Forest, it made sense to me to do this like my calendar and have it printed to sell locally. I also have no shows at all this year (though some lovely folks have sent commissions my way), thanks to the pandemic, and I really wanted something ready for the holiday season.

The other upside is being able to control the printings as I need or want, instead of that decision being in the hands of someone else. It's a lot like the legitimacy of a gallery giving you extra exposure, but you also lose control and autonomy by buying into that system. I may try for both publishing and commercial galleries again at some point when they make sense for my career, but I have to say that registering my own book yesterday felt both exciting and powerful. It's fun to give birth to something you've created purely on your own terms. I'll be registering with the Library of Congress as well, which will allow it to be bought by libraries, and I'm considering other platforms after the print version comes out in November. There's a big learning curve, but it's also exciting for a lifelong book nerd like me to be a small part of all this.