The Canadian smoke cleared (we've had terrible air for several days now), so Henry and I headed to the forest. My reward for getting out early was an up close and personal conversation with a barred owl. It had been a while since I'd seen one, between my fatigue and the bad air keeping me out of the forest. It always feels like a blessing, a visitation. She swooped in front of me to land quite close and unusually low on a nearby branch and sat there and let me sketch her until Henry got too close. Then she moved further off and higher, and I drew her again from the back.

It was a perfect start to the day. I followed up with second tea on the back porch reading the paper and then getting back into the graphic memoir, which I'd stalled out on for a few days. I'm at almost 50 pages, and I'm still so much enjoying that project. I've been doing much more of that than sketching from life lately, so it's nice to have something exciting to share here. I have some hope of getting the memoir published, so I haven't wanted to pt much

There's a 1900 Parisian cafe show at my local museum just now (Dixon). I love that time period and the whole slew of different styles they had going on, and Vuillard is one of my favorites. There is one stunning Vuillard on loan from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and I'm so grateful to be getting to spend some time with it here. Once again I'm having to make do with the artificial colors of pencils and crayons since it's only dry media in the local museum, and it's a little too candy colored. I also sat on a bench across the room, so it's just an impression from there instead of trying to get all the details in, but I loved sitting and drinking it in for a while. A perfect sort of Saturday.

I had such a welcome day yesterday. Events have overtaken me lately, and I've barely been getting through the necessaries with no time for the soul giving extras. I kept yesterday morning to finally see the new Parisian Cafe paintings exhibition (clustered around 1900) at Dixon yesterday. Like all large group shows it was a mixed bag, but the good stuff was really good. There was a stunning Vuillard, who is one of my favorites, and a lot of great prints (always happy for me) including a lifesized Steinlen cabaret poster that was beautifully designed and executed. I love that 1900 era, with so many different styles and subjects burgeoning. Clearly in a specific subject matter you don't get as many of the symbolists I love from that period, but they did have a Munch I'd never seen before, and there were a lot of recognizable artists as well as a bunch of new ones to me.

Beautifully, the museum cafe has designed a special menu just for this show. I treated myself to a salad Nicoise outside with the trimmed trees that also feel like Paris and the Rodin sculpture in the background. It was good to see art and take time to sketch again, and I did a big, loose piece in my biggest sketchbook with a dip pen, some green ink, and a bunch of watercolor on top.

That evening was a bonus urban sketchers outing to Shapeshifter Art School. They have two new shows up in their galleries, and it was such pleasure to just relax and sketch and talk with friends. I ended up sketching our founder Elizabeth Alley, who is also a founder of the school. She has been such a light to the art community here in Memphis.

 I play old time music every Monday night in someone's back room, just for fun. Actually my whole month has been knocked off kilter, so it was my first time in a few weeks, and I also haven't been sketching the last 10 days or so. When Mike's banjo string burst late in the jam, I handed him my banjo. He is definitely first chair banjo and the backbone of the group. I told him I haven't been sketching, so I got out my tiny (3.5x5") purse sketchbook and did a series of people with instruments for the last half hour. These are all basic black ink in a Lamy fountain pen plus a little bit of Payne's grey Windsor and Newton watercolor marker. I'm pretty bad at likenesses, but I love drawing the juxtaposition of bodies and instruments. It was a great way to finish out evening and get my sketching jump started again.

I'm still on a walnut ink kick. I got a new Speedball dip pen nib. I have a B-2 in my sketching kit that I've been using out in the forest. I decided to try the slightly larger B-1 and have it on my coffee table for evening sketching. I think the B-2 is the sweet spot for me. I had trouble keeping enough ink on the bigger surface to make the lines I wanted to. But it's always fun to try new things. I'm still working mostly on the memoir, so it feels good to do some looser things once in a while and also to have some not-for-publication work that I can show. The memoir so far is a personal project, no publishers involved, so I'm showing an occasional piece of it, but I don't want to flood the whole book out publicly in case I can find a publisher lately. So this blog is a little quieter than sometimes, which gives me a good nudge to sketch as well as do more careful projects.

I finally got my walnut ink back in my main sketch bag, and I've been enjoying it lately. I've got a big, blunt dip pen, and these forest sketches are both in my biggest sketchbook. It's been fun getting big and messy to offset the more careful illustration work I've been doing for the new book.

My favorite cafe has a summer special of peach chai. It is delicious. I got it the first time and sketched with walnut ink and a fat yellow marker plus a little paint. Then I kept thinking about it and went back and sketched with the walnut ink again and a little more paint. It's funny. I had one big sketchbook one summer, and I found myself a little reluctant to start a sketch feeling that it was a lot of real estate to cover. I loved the ones I did, but I didn't always sketch as much as I might have. This summer the big one is the one I'm reaching for the most. I decided just to have a large one going alongside my normal size and not try to box myself into one or the other. I think the dip pen is a game changer. It forces me big and loose, and I'm just enjoying playing with the space.

There was a tree that caught my eye from my favorite patio, and I settled in to sketch it, with my fun little Prius in front. I like drawing my small car in an age of hulking SUVs. I've been on a dip pen kick lately, and I used some walnut ink. I had thought to add paint afterwards, but I ended up liking the line and deciding not to overdo it. I didn't get nearly the full tree on the page, however -- I usually go bigger than I mean to. So I did a second version.

This time I started with the tree and got *almost* all of it in. I started with paint too and added very little line afterwards (in my current favorite Diamine Chopin ink). I like this one for different reasons, but as so often happens, neither one is even close to the vision I had in my head before I started. In my better moods I think of the paint or ink as a partner in the process that takes me in a different direction. In my worse, I wonder why on earth I can't manage to draw a tree the way I want to. Mostly I was pleased with the outcomes, so we'll go with that today.

Elizabeth Alley was sitting with her show on its final Saturday at Shapeshifter Art School and invited folks to drop by. I had wanted to sketch it a bit more, so I took my dip pen and biggest sketchbook and did a couple of loose, fun sketches. Drawing other people's work helps me really pay attention to it and remember it later. I love this show so much. I love how the arctic has just captured Elizabeth -- Levisham moor did that to me years ago. It's magic when a landscape takes you by the scruff of the neck and demands your attention. My favorite piece is her life sized silhouette of herself with the arctic in rectangle right at her heart. I love how she's busted out of her longtime traditional painter mindset (still something very real for me) and made these playful, large, casual installations, layering paper pieces , assembling a wall of glacier paintings, and crocheting "plushy glaciers" that hang from the ceiling. Her enormous ship (see a previous blog post) is also in line with this playfulness. It all works. When I try to switch to 3-d or installations, it looks like a 4th grade project, but I guess I should keep trying. Anyway, I wanted to just drink it in and hang out with some great art, and I ended up hanging out equally with some great friends. Cool people kept showing up and dropping in, and it was a delightful day. I'm grateful for this brand new art space in town.

I had so much fun getting the dip pen out at Shapeshifter that I got it out again at home to sketch Henry the other night. I'm doing so much of my work for publication right now that I'm trying to remember to do some sketching just for me. This is Diamine Chopin ink with a little bit of water and brush at the end. I love its grey purple hue.

I've also been cleaning and refilling pens. I got my Sailor fude out (with a bent nib and a variable line, from thick to thin). I put in Diamine Ancient Copper and ended up doing a post-breakfast sketch with all the tea cannisters on my counter and my new-to-me denim dress hanging up from the wash. I've gotten distracted again the last few days, but I'm going to try to focus back in on sketching around my daily life. It's such joy when I just remember how much I enjoy it and make the time in my day. Or take the energy.