It was a wild weekend. Memphis had a storm with 70 mph winds and a downpour, and an hour later (why?) one of my older trees just broke and dropped a large limb on the house. Fortunately the biggest part was on the ground, but it's bad enough to be a headache for sure.

Oddly, and gratefully, I kept power while a third of the city was out, so the upside is that my family who lost power came over for breakfast the next morning. I had holes in my roof but power, and we ended up with an unhurried, impromptu family breakfast, which was a delight.

-As well as power, I found out that I also had bees. While I was staring at the roof, my brother in law noticed a swarm around the branch on the ground. A friend of mine used to keep bees, so I got her to alert the local beekeeper grapevine, and it worked fast! I'm still trying to get the limb off the roof so it can be tarped, but by golly, Jalen Prater with the Works Urban Farm showed up and got to work. He donned a beekeeping suit, got his smoker going, and managed to find the queen in all that mess. He carted off the chunk of tree with the biggest section of hive and took it to the non-profit urban farm to re-home them and give them a safe place to stay.

All of this took place just outside my work table window, so I got lunch and watched the show. Halfway through I pulled myself together enough to realize it was a golden sketching opportunity and did a sketch before he was finished and pulling away. It was impressive, and I am so glad the bees are safe. With any luck my roof will also be safe before the next rain gets here.

I've been walking more inside than outside this summer with the bad air quality from all the fires. Fortunately we have a huge, converted old Sears distribution center in my neighborhood that has plenty of scope for a walk (even if I'd rather be in the forest). One of the many cool tenants is the Memphis Listening Lab which has a host of records, and you can go in, choose one, and just sit and listen. It's a magic corner of Memphis in line with our heritage as a music town. I sat outside their hallway and did this tiny sketch with one fountain pen and my gamboge watercolor marker (that always looks a little more orange on the scanner) at the end of my walk. I'm doing so much illustration work right now that I can't really show, so I'm trying to remember to at least occasionally take the time to sketch for my own pleasure.

Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Crosstown a few months ago, and here's a bigger, longer sketch I did inside the listening lab then with the same marker for one pop of color and a fountain pen/brush pen combo.

I got invited to dinner by a pair of lovely friends on Saturday night. I haven't had dinner out at someone's house (that's not our family get-togethers) in way too long. I bought some flowers at the farmers market to take as a hostess present, but I decided it would be a win win if I sketched them first. I got out my biggest sketchbook and did a loose sketch in green ink with my fat dip pen. Then I used my biggest brush but still fell back into the more careful illustration style I've been using lately instead of staying as loose as the original drawing, but I both enjoyed the process and am happy with how the page turned out. Henry nicely posed for me for a minute down in the floor, lifting up his head as he heard some other dogs bark. It's always fun to include him.

While I had the sketchbook out I leafed back through it. I've been using a big one more than ever before this year, lately with the dip pen. I came on this sketch of poppies using Neo-color watercolor crayons plus some paint (more farmers market flowers from back in the spring). It has felt too careful and anemic every time I flip through this book, so while I was sitting there with the dip pen and case of colored inks, I pulled out the Diamine Ancient copper that I love but that can sometimes be too much. It was perfect for this job, since I already had the paint down, and it wouldn't be washing everywhere while I painted.

So here is the updated version, bolder and looser. It's not my best sketch, but I'm much happier flipping through the book now. This one doesn't jump out at me as super disappointing anymore at least.

Those of you who remember me 50 pounds heavier in my 20's know I've always had a slightly shaky relationship with food. Mostly sugar. My parents used to hide the treats from me. I said for years that I had a loop track going in my head saying, "Can we have a cookie? Is it time for a cookie now? What about now???" Incessantly. I spend a ton of my time thinking about what I'm going to put in my mouth next -- which is probably one reason art is such a joy to me, because it's the thing I'm most likely to lose myself in for a while and not think about food.

In my late 20's my dad was newly single and going on a ski trip/legal conference but didn't want to go alone. All of us in my family knew that I was never going to be a candidate for downhill, with its speed and athleticism, but Dad talked me into trying cross country. I knew I was going to be terrible at that, but I didn't want to also be embarrassed by my total lack of wind and stamina, so Dad and I started walking daily to get ready for the trip. As it turned out, I never could stay upright long enough for wind or stamina to be an issue. I did, however, find myself a happy winter occupation of going out snowshoeing with a sketchbook in my pocket.

By the time the trip had rolled around, I was already losing weight (slowly) and feeling physically better, so I kept up the walking and didn't actually diet (I hate going hungry), but I made some substitutions in my eating habits that felt sustainable long term. I lost the 50 pounds over a year and a half or so and managed to keep them off, finding a balance between eating what I enjoy and moving enough to offset it.

Then menopause hit, followed by long covid, which has meant an interruption to the daily 3 mile walks I did for decades, and it's been more of a struggle. I work at home right next to the kitchen and I'm a stress eater, so periodically I fall into putting more things into my mouth than I'm physically hungry for. When that happens, I do a day or two at a time of a food journal. The rule is that before I eat something, I have to draw it, so it makes me more mindful. It's also positive and satisfying activity, rather than a punitive measure.

A lot of these pages are done with a pair of ink brush pens, one dark and one lighter in tone, but I also use these pages to play with different media than I normally use. I keep them pretty quick so meals don't get cold. Another upside is more mindfully enjoying my mixed pottery collection that I use for my daily meals. Above are a teapot from Sauk Mountain pottery in WA (and the memory of sharing it with a good friend), a bowl and teacup with a Julian of Norwich quote by Melissa Bridgman here at home.

I like the idea of markers, but usually I reach for watercolor instead when I'm out sketching, so a food journal page can be a good reset.

One time I was away from home (and away from my regular big sketchbook for this) and tried watercolor instead, but it was too much of an effort to keep up. The food journal can't be too big a mental barrier or I won't do it at all. But watercolor was fun for a day.

I have been kind of fascinated by the advent of GLP-1s and read a lot about them. I'm mostly holding steady where I want to be and don't like adding medicine I don't need, but it is HARD to lose weight the old way, and I'm so glad for my friends who have found the relief they need. It's also been such a comfort to me to read the experience of others and hear the term "food noise." I come from a family of people who legit forget to eat lunch (never have I ever), and I thought I was a freak outlier with my internal cookie loop track. It turns out there are a lot of people wired the way I am, and that has been such a joy to know. Which is probably one reason I'm stepping in here and writing a much more personal blog post than I usually do. Another reason is that I'm still working on the memoir and getting more used to the idea of sharing  personal details. When I do take that leap, I find the sharing  makes bridges and helps other people, the way that reading about food noise helped me.

I don't hold myself strictly to these food journal days. It's meant to be mindful rather than punitive. Sometimes unexpected things happen during the day, and I fizzle.

Sometimes I fizzle super fast.

The flip side of all these food journal pages is a quantity of pages in my regular sketchbook celebrating treats. Yesterday was one of those days. I walked inside Crosstown (bad air lately with the smoke pollution) and felt called by the nearby cinnamon rolls at Lucy J's bakery afterwards. I've always loved Wayne Thiebaud's paintings of cakes and pies and all the good things. So often when I'm having something delicious, I like to enjoy the look of it by sketching it before eating it. I did a whole show one year, buying eclairs, Napoleons, and macarons in Paris and painting them before eating them. It spreads out and slows down the enjoyment for me. So here is a celebration of yesterday's deliciousness. I'm grateful to have found a moderation I can live with that has room for delight still built in.

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

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 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.

Shapeshifter Art School invited the Memphis Urban Sketchers to visit again while the exhibition by our founder Elizabeth Alley is still hanging. I love this new art space for Memphis and am so glad they want us to be involved. Everywhere you look is surprising and creative. I settled in to sketch this gorgeous utility sink (how often do you hear those words together?) and have a catch up. I managed not to overwork the brick, but often when I go out to sketch I get sucked into a more complicated, all over sketch right off the bat and then end up doing a looser, "warm up" sketch afterwards. ("warmed up?") It would probably be a good discipline for me to do thumbnails or a warm up sketch first, but I never think about it -- I just get excited and dive right in. Often I like my second sketch better, which was the case yesterday.

I'd brought my biggest sketchbook, thinking it would be good for me to loosen up from my smaller, tighter illustration pieces I'm doing at the moment. I also threw in my bottled ink at the last minute and used a broad, blunt dip pen and some Diamine Chopin ink to do a quick sketch of Elizabeth's enormous ship installation hanging from the ceiling. Which is delightful. I used a little orange and a little grey paint to pick out details, but mostly I let the lines do the heavy lifting except for that orange pop. I'm going to try to get out the dip pen more often. This was so much fun.

My friend Libby Elder got a photo of me (at the far end) spread out on a convenient box just going for it. I love the friends in this group and the reminder on my calendar to get out and just draw for the pleasure of it instead of working on a specific project.