I had an energy crash at the end of the week, but fortunately I found roses on sale a few days ago at Fresh Market, so I have them to brighten my sofa retreat. Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence always gave his young fiancee May lilies of the valley, but he sent "glowing yellow roses" to the intelligent, divorced, bohemian Ellen Olenska. Ellen showed me an alternate path to the stifling social milieu of high school, and I periodically buy myself yellow roses to celebrate my life choices. I got a one month pass on HBO Max to watch the Gilded Age, which I've been wanting to see, so they feel doubly appropriate.

I made it to church for the first time in a while last week. Advent is my very favorite liturgical season, even though my church seems to have largely abandoned the plainsong Advent carols I love best. It was good to be back, and I sketched the church with its wreaths. (Presbyterians are a little unreliable on the liturgical seasons, and we've always decked the church the weekend after Thanksgiving even though it's weeks early. It does still look nice though.)

I did this sketch back in January and have been wanting to make a print of it, so this is my current project. It's the grave of Rev. Washington just north of Earle, Arkansas, which is Carroll Cloar country for those of you who like Southern art. Rev. Washington was one of the first Black landowners who owned extensive cotton fields in that part of the world. His church is just up the road with its own lovely cemetery, but he constructed his own funeral mound out in the middle of one of his cotton fields, and the sight has stayed with me in my mind.

It's nice to have an intricate block to dive into -- once it's drawn to size and transferred to the block with carbon paper I can just dip in and out of it as time and energy serve. It's been a crazy year on a number of fronts, so time and energy are both in short supply just now, but I love having a project I can pick up and put down as needed. And something meaningful that I look forward to doing.

Here's the first proof, just in black to see how the carving is going.

After a bit more work I did the first color proof. I'm rolling several colors onto the block at once and blending with the rollers. This technique cuts down the number of blocks and number of printings that each finished piece requires. It works well if the colors are harmonious when blended instead of fighting with each other. I'll do some more combinations and gradations and see what I like best for the finished print, though each one will be a little different from the last due to the inexact nature of rolling multiple colors at once. I can generally keep them in the same ballpark though.

I've been in a walking in the afternoon rhythm lately, and then this week the sunset jumped backwards so it turns out that golden hour is now about 3:40pm. I am at least getting some good slanted light sketches. I've been mixing up materials, with a dip pen and watercolor, Inktense pencils and watercolor, my new Lamy fountain pen with brown ink, water soluble graphite (which I paint on with a brush from a tin), and back to the dip pen with that lovely warm Diamine golden brown ink that kind of melts into the paint. That last one is from earlier, but I inadvertantly saved it in the wrong folder, so it didn't make it onto the blog before now. I'm not sure if all the materials are keeping me loose or keeping me from developing a groove, but I'm having fun, so here we are for now. I'm just reaching for whatever feels right for the scene.

It had been a kind of crazy week, so I was looking forward to seeing friends and hanging out with the Memphis Urban Sketchers. The day did not disappoint. We had a good crew there at Dixon (two visits in a week!) painting the gardens. It was chilly but with sunshine, and I've broken out my favorite tweed jacket and knitted hand warmers, just in time for November. I was drawn to these enormous leaves and the bright red chairs in front of them. I started with Diamine leaf green ink and a dip pen, moved to watercolor, used a little bit of red watercolor marker along with paint on the chairs (and regretted using that bold marker for my label and date, but there you go), and finished with a little Derwent inktense pencil on the bottom pavement. That whole section got a little muddy on me and I needed to lighten it up a little. Overall I was pleased, even if the bottom bothers me a little. I always seem to see the choices I regret when I look at a piece, but I like a lot of this one.

And then, once in a great while, I do something I'm really happy with. That night I sketched Henry on the "banjo chair" (that he, of course, thinks of as "Henry's chair" instead). I started with a simple line outline in inktense charcoal pencil and added water soluble graphite with a brush after. It's a little bit sparkly in person even. I've been greatly enjoying rediscovering that small tin for evening sketches. I had meant to add watercolor to the chair around him, but I managed a little uncharacteristic restraint when I got this far and stopped. I ended up really loving the composition. There was one line under the window and above his ear that got too dark with water on top. I was sorry I'd gone there, and also uncharacteristically, I got out the super fine sandpaper I use to take out margin ink spots on my prints and took it out again. I don't usually bother in my sketchbook, but I was so pleased with this overall that I wanted it to be really right. I tend to cover the full page, full on in paint, and when I can stop myself before that point, I often really like the results. Life goals...

Mary K VanGieson, a fellow urban sketcher and longtime, hugely active participant in the Memphis art community (she gets out to ALL the shows I miss), gave a talk at Dixon today about eco prints and her current exhibition in the museum. She was funny, informative, wise, and inspiring. I love this free lecture series at Dixon, and I was thrilled to see a packed house show up to learn from her. I saw so many friends. It felt great to catch up with art friends, learn about a new printmaking technique, and see the trio of printmaking shows currently hanging at Dixon. What a happy day. I didn't take in my bigger sketchbook, but I used my tiny purse one to both sketch and take notes.

I've slowed down on both sketching and posting this last month. I've been working on some print things and spending some family time, but here's a pair of at home sketches.

I continued my water soluble graphite streak with this one of Henry and my favorite lamp, plus some watercolor. I need to get back to this little series. I was having fun.

And this week my dear friend Jill came to tea and brought me late flowers from her own garden. I put them in a Japanese vase of my mom's and sketched them one evening with a British mystery for company. They're currently sitting on my coffee table making me happy. I love sketching flowers friends bring my because then I get that joy again later when I open an old sketchbook and remember that kindness so vividly.

Memphis Urban Sketchers went back to Elmwood on Saturday, and I got fired up and have visited a couple of more times this week. I'm pondering a new graphic essay on Memphis history, and there's a TON of it here. It feels nice to be excited about a new project again.

I did that top, broader landscape first, in my biggest sketchbook. It's fun to challenge myself on size sometimes, but I think I got sucked into overworking parts of it. Predictably the sketch I liked better was this one of the Falls monument in two different color inks with a dip pen and just a touch of watercolor on top. Fast and loose. I also just love that monument.

I went back the next day and did a little rainy day car sketching in my smallest sketchbook. I wanted to try to the Falls woman head on, and I did a super quick sketch of Mattie Stepfenson's monument too.

I'm trying to get myself back to sketching more, and I had a good time with it on Sunday. I watched the last baseball game of the year (for my Cardinals at least, sadly), went and took down my bit of info and some prints I'd put up at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, and decided to take myself out for fish tacos on a perfect patio night. Henry and I hung out, shared some tacos, read a bit of a good book, and finished with a sketch of the moon. It's Diamine Aurora Borealis ink in my new Lamy fountain pen with watercolor on top. The Baseball one is waterproof black ink with a small patch of watercolor (different Lamy foutain pen).

I'll be participating in the Artist Conversation series at Elmwood Cemetery this Friday, Sept. 19th, at noon with the always fantastic Willy Bearden. I'm excited to get to talk about cemeteries I've sketched in, why I'm drawn to them, and my creative life more broadly. I'll be passing around sketchbooks for people to see, and I'll have a slide show of sketches from my travels. The event supports a place I love and the place that gave me my first public art commission. Those relief carvings will be just outside the chapel we're speaking in. Come if you can and see this historic part of Memphis.

I took a quick trip this week to Nashville for an appointment at the long covid clinic there, and I found lodging at the Skarritt Bennett center. It was a college campus until it closed in 1988 and is now a conference center with lodging in the old dorms. The rooms were large and comfortable, if clearly former dorm rooms, and it was crazy reasonable, and the campus is absolutely gorgeous. And so quiet, right next to Vanderbilt. It's the furthest I've been able to drive since January, and I didn't do much at all except hang out on the campus. I took my own food (which I often do when I travel), so I spent all my extra time sketching.

I love this neo-gothic style of architecture. My lifelong church Idlewild Pres is in this same vein and shares a quarry with Rhodes. This place apparently shared an architect with Rhodes and had slightly blonder stone, but it felt like a mini-me of a familiar place. The arches and slate roofs and the glow of the stone all called me. In spite of my familiarity, it took me a few sketches to get my sea legs with this place. The first two were in Inktense pencils, which I've been enjoying lately. I think there just wasn't enough definition in that first one, with the wide view of so many different elements. The pencils felt better in the more limited sketch of a pair of arches.

The next day I used Diamine golden brown ink, which melts into the paint, and it fuzzed up some of the lighter elements of the drawing, but the color and overall feel did great. But I'd forgotten to refill this pen before I left, so I switched to a waterproof brown ink after.

I've been enjoying that ink a lot lately, but somehow the next one felt a little more stiff.I think it worked better on the last sketch, a fast one at twilight of a magnificent cherry tree. I really enjoyed my stay and hope to go back again soonish and visit the museums I didn't have the time to get to this trip.