Martha Kelly Art

Alongside the gouache studies, I’ve been doing some more standard (for me) journal sketches along the way. Here are some from the last several days. Two of them were bicycle trips to the bakery to have a treat. I’m a late bloomer on a number of fronts, and I got my first bike out here. I never learned to cycle as a kid, and Concrete is a perfect place to catch up. There is almost no traffic in town along with quite wide streets, and best of all, there’s a green line that runs through the center of town (to within a couple of blocks of anywhere I want to go) and also goes out of town and as far as I could care to go. I can pack up art gear and take off on my new bike, a second hand cruiser. The next image has my bike in the background and bakery tea in the foreground. I wanted to record this moment in my journal.

Here is the view a few miles out the trail from town. It’s been my regular walk here, but I can go a bit further on the bike and paint new places.

Plus another blueberry pancake sketch from Perks diner here. A totally awesome place. Flower at the grill collects heart shaped rocks like I do and has begun to make me heart shaped pancakes when I come in. <3

I went to my very favorite spot out here last week, had a picnic, sat on the small, shaded river beach, and did four watercolors. It’s an amazing place, and I never get quite enough time there, but this time the sky stormed over and rain started falling, so it was time to go. Gorgeous while it lasted, though.

I did the three pieces above in my bigger water book, but I wanted a record of the day in my small regular journal as well. You can see raindrop in the bottom right of this one as I packed up hurriedly when the rain started.

I’ve been running around out here and not doing the studio work I had thought I might get done. I’m giving myself permission to have a bit of vacation, but I decided it would be a good chance to do a daily walk sketch, as a base level of art, and I would enjoy that as a vacation project. Elizabeth Alley turned me on to a great hashtag on Instagram called #walktosee. It’s largely British artists posting sketches from their regular walks. In Memphis, often I’m just out quickly with a door key, getting my walk in and getting Mr. Darcy home before it gets too hot. I’m also often already thinking about my current painting or print and focused on getting home to start work on them. Here it’s nice to think I’ll linger a little and sketch, and the weather is more temperate and encouraging for sketching.

So here are a first batch of sketches I’ve been doing this week in Concrete, Washington, and its environs. Above is at Rasar State Park, my sketching Mecca out here. It’s got everything — river, beach, stone beach, forest, and a gorgeous meadow with mountain views.

The final reason to love visiting art friends is that (especially when they're generous to a fault), you end up taking a bit of beauty home with you. I totally fell for Judi's bunny (I've got a thing for bunnies anyway), which was in the room I stayed in. She caught his expression perfectly, and I loved the green background. He's now living just beside my bed where I see him every night and every morning, and he makes me smile. I also came home with a gorgeous, wood fired teacup of John's. The photo is too dark to show off its full beauty, but there are flashes of blue inside and out from the ash, and it fits my hand so well. I do love this photo of tea on their deck. They live up a forestry road, and it was the perfect getaway. I'm so grateful for this job where I get to do things I love surrounded by the best people.

I’m being able to revisit various special places this spring. I used to go to Mountain View and Calico Rock in the Arkansas Ozarks pretty frequently, but it’s been a good while since I got over there. My potter friend Judi Munn (she and her husband are the resident potters at the Ozark Folk Center) is also in an art guild there, and she invited me to teach a sketching workshop. I loaded up an array of materials, a stack of inspirational books, another stack of my own journals, and I spent the day with a crew of lovely and dedicated artists. We had a great time, and they were so welcoming of me. I love getting to go talk about doing what I love and all the different fun things you can use to sketch. Then Judi and I ended up going to City Rock Bluff outside Calico Rock to sketch. I used to paint here regularly, but it had been several years. It felt so good to step out onto that broad bluff and again and look down on a beautiful world. And it was the perfect, quiet end of the day. Below is Judi sketching the view.

I got to revisit Tower Grove Park last weekend for the first time in several years. It's always a muse for me, one of my deeply happy places, and I was delighted to have a full afternoon to wander with my sketchbook. I've painted the Chinese pavilion before, and this time I'm at least contemplating a print of it. The park has two gorgeous trees I love at two opposite ends. I checked on my my favorite sycamore in the bird sanctuary. She is old and has deep pockets, but she's a beautifully hospitable tree. The first one I ever fell in love with in a must-touch, spend-time-with-her kind of way.

At the other end of the park is a copper beech I've sketched and painted many times. More traditionally photogenic, with whorls and spirals all over the trunk. I did a larger watercolor of this one, fighting gnats, but so worth it.

It was good to revisit old haunts. I hit Ted Drewes frozen custard, of COURSE, and I saw a lot of friends dancing. A marvelous weekend.

After doing two in gouache, there wasn't much time, so I did one fast, small watercolor just to have the day in my journal as well. I was missing line and wanted to play with my green ink a little too. The two gouaches are on freestanding Kraft brown paper. It's always fun to sketch Elizabeth in her nifty sketching hat.

My friend and sketching inspiration Elizabeth Alley was giving a lecture on sketching at a conference and wanted to practice first on some friends. Naturally several of us sketched her as well as listening, and I took some notes too, since it was really interesting information. Plus I never pass up a chance to draw a Muddy's cupcake, which she kindly provided for the group.

I saw outside the Walter Anderson Museum of Art last Thursday before my opening and drew the tunnel of live oaks that reach across Washington Avenue. I love the fern covered lives oaks of the Deep South. They have a character no other tree has. So incredibly expressive. I took a few photos of my process as I was doing this one so you could see how I work.

After that I forgot and just dove into the paint. It’s hard for me to think about anything else when I’m painting.