- Published on
I went to see Sarah Ruhl's modern reworking of Eurydice by the New Moon Theater in Memphis. New Moon specializes in difficult plays or plays that don't get put on very often. They did King Lear a few years ago that was one of my all time best theater experiences ever (and I tend to go to a decent amount of theater). I knew the myth -- it was my sister's favorite one growing up, so we heard it a lot, but I didn't know the original play (which now I want to read). The production was visually stunning: a sparse set and exquisite costumes, and these hanging cranes, folded from letters the cast members had written to loved ones they have lost. The letters and cranes moved me even before I heard that back story, and I sat sketching before the production started.
I've continued to think about this play during the week since. The father/daughter interplay wasn't something I remembered from the original myth, and it truly moved me. The father even quotes a Lear and Cordelia scene, which is oddly dear to my father and me. I may have the only dad who thinks reading Lear out loud is ideal father/daughter bonding, but I have totally bought in.
I was also struck by how Eurydice kept asking Orpheus early on, during the courtship scene, what he was thinking about. The answer, to her dismay, was always music. That rang very true. My brain is so very often thinking about art. It's so critical to who I am that I have to work hard to make relationship time. My partner must often feel like that when I am woolgathering and planning a new print or children's book in my head. My intention for this year is to savor all the places I am in and the things I am doing in any given moment. The writing podcast I listen to (#amwriting, which I can't recommend highly enough) was talking about choosing a word for the year. Mine is "savor," even though I haven't done anything like this before. I'm at least still thinking about that, now that we're in March, and I hope I will get better with practice.
I've continued to think about this play during the week since. The father/daughter interplay wasn't something I remembered from the original myth, and it truly moved me. The father even quotes a Lear and Cordelia scene, which is oddly dear to my father and me. I may have the only dad who thinks reading Lear out loud is ideal father/daughter bonding, but I have totally bought in.
I was also struck by how Eurydice kept asking Orpheus early on, during the courtship scene, what he was thinking about. The answer, to her dismay, was always music. That rang very true. My brain is so very often thinking about art. It's so critical to who I am that I have to work hard to make relationship time. My partner must often feel like that when I am woolgathering and planning a new print or children's book in my head. My intention for this year is to savor all the places I am in and the things I am doing in any given moment. The writing podcast I listen to (#amwriting, which I can't recommend highly enough) was talking about choosing a word for the year. Mine is "savor," even though I haven't done anything like this before. I'm at least still thinking about that, now that we're in March, and I hope I will get better with practice.
- Published on
Every once in a while I'm lucky enough to go out for a sketching dinner with some like-minded girlfriends. We catch up on our lives, eat good food, talk about art, and draw while we're doing all of it. Last night we went to Next Door in Crosstown. I had the meatballs, and they were utterly delicious. I've traveled a lot over the last year, and it's good to have relaxed, sit down, face time with friends I value.
I'm also still working on drawing people more, so I did a bit of that too.
I'm also still working on drawing people more, so I did a bit of that too.
- Published on
I’ve been working for two days on stuff to be published (a cover for my Mr. Darcy book plus an album cover, my first ever), so I don’t have a lot to post. But I did do one double page in my sketchbook over the last few days. It just kind of happened that way, but cupcakes and my favorite tree together make up one exceedingly happy journal page.
I also realized that I hadn’t posted a couple of sketches from my last trip to Concrete. The feather and penny were both found on one of my walks, and I ended up really liking that sketch. The other is my Coronation teacup. I had seen it over the summer, but it was pricey. Then when I was there after Christmas, the antique mall was closing down and having a major sale. I went in to see if it was, by any chance, still there. I was so delighted that it was. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Crown, and it’s fun to have a teacup from the actual celebration.
I also realized that I hadn’t posted a couple of sketches from my last trip to Concrete. The feather and penny were both found on one of my walks, and I ended up really liking that sketch. The other is my Coronation teacup. I had seen it over the summer, but it was pricey. Then when I was there after Christmas, the antique mall was closing down and having a major sale. I went in to see if it was, by any chance, still there. I was so delighted that it was. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Crown, and it’s fun to have a teacup from the actual celebration.
- Published on
I've been doing some random sketches scattered into the main work of book manuscript and painting. Here are a batch of them, including two different trips to Muddy's bake shop. Cupcakes were called for.
I've also been working more intentionally on people practice lately. I have to get myself out of the house and away from my easel to do this, though.
I've also been working more intentionally on people practice lately. I have to get myself out of the house and away from my easel to do this, though.
Plus I always enjoy sketching my tea things.
One last one. Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Cleveland Street Flea Market (a recent victim of gentrification) on its last weekend. I've bought many clothes there, including cowboy boots and my current favorite sweater, plus my dvd player and vacuum cleaner. It was a great community of folks every weekend and an irreplaceable personal resource. I am so very sad to lose it.
One last one. Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Cleveland Street Flea Market (a recent victim of gentrification) on its last weekend. I've bought many clothes there, including cowboy boots and my current favorite sweater, plus my dvd player and vacuum cleaner. It was a great community of folks every weekend and an irreplaceable personal resource. I am so very sad to lose it.
- Published on
I woke up the other day with trees calling me. I think it was a holdover from the Wyeth exhibition. His visual vocabulary was so rooted in the places he loved, and for me, aside from Memphis and its environs, it has always been about the trees. It was a drippy day, as you can see on a couple of the sketches, but not truly raining, so I headed to Rockport State Park and did the longer trail with my sketchbook easily reachable in my rain jacket pocket. I've been doing a lot of indoor painting lately as I finish up the Mr. Darcy book, and it felt marvelous to get out and draw from life again.
- Published on
As well as sketching in the Wyeth exhibition last week, I did several train sketches on the way down to warm up. I’ve been neglecting my sketchbook recently since I’ve been working full tilt on the Mr. Darcy book instead. It felt great to just sketch again.
I love train travel. It’s one of my favorite things about Europe, and between the train and the Pike Street Market, it felt like a very European kind of day. I’ve been driving through Seattle to and from the airport, but I hadn’t spent any time in the city itself. The train was a great way to get in without fighting rainy day traffic, and the station (at right) is not only beautiful and well kept, but it’s an easy walk from all the downtown stuff we wanted to do.
The market was great fun to roam through, the book shops a hoot (though the ones out in the smaller towns near us are better than the small market area ones), and there was a crumpet shop that looked totally enticing, but I was too stuffed from a great seafood lunch in a market café overlooking the waterfront (see bottom sketch) to even consider a crumpet. Something to save for next time….
I love train travel. It’s one of my favorite things about Europe, and between the train and the Pike Street Market, it felt like a very European kind of day. I’ve been driving through Seattle to and from the airport, but I hadn’t spent any time in the city itself. The train was a great way to get in without fighting rainy day traffic, and the station (at right) is not only beautiful and well kept, but it’s an easy walk from all the downtown stuff we wanted to do.
The market was great fun to roam through, the book shops a hoot (though the ones out in the smaller towns near us are better than the small market area ones), and there was a crumpet shop that looked totally enticing, but I was too stuffed from a great seafood lunch in a market café overlooking the waterfront (see bottom sketch) to even consider a crumpet. Something to save for next time….
- Published on
I had a marvelous Christmas after the rush up to it, including commissions and home sale. Afterwards, which is my favorite part of the end of the year, I was able to start doing the work that’s been calling my name through all the business craziness. I’m deeply grateful for all the business craziness, but I’m also grateful for the place where I can quietly get up each morning and do actual art that I’ve been dreaming of. This year that is the Mr. Darcy book. I am really ready to get this finished and see if and where the world takes it. To that end, I packed it all up (see above) and brought it out to Washington State with me. I’ve got a couple of weeks to really buckle down on it every morning and see if I can shepherd it along to a finished state. I can’t show the individual pages here, since I’m hoping to get it published (which sounds very familiar from my summer work), so I’ve been quiet here about my work lately.
Through this period I have also been missing my sketchbook, though, and here is a sketch I just did this morning. It’s the more distant view (across housetops) from my work table here in Washington, and the mist was too beguiling to pass up. I took a break and did this quick sketch. Now back to work...
Through this period I have also been missing my sketchbook, though, and here is a sketch I just did this morning. It’s the more distant view (across housetops) from my work table here in Washington, and the mist was too beguiling to pass up. I took a break and did this quick sketch. Now back to work...
- Published on
My nephew was born today, the son of one of my marvelous sisters. I remembered to take a free standing watercolor pad to the hospital so I could do sketches for them, and then I did a few in my journal so I would have a record of it as well.
- Published on
I didn't manage a sketch every day, with the Crafts Fair, a month long visitor, and a show to hang, but I did seriously enjoy Inktober, where artists draw and post ink sketches all month. I have a tendency, even in my sketchbook, to go full on, full page watercolor on every page. It's hard for me to be restrained sometimes. Inktober, even though I used watercolor in a good number of the sketches, was a good reminder to get back to my pens and highlight the ink as well as the paint. I'm trying to practice that as I move into November as well. And it's fun to have more sketch and also more narrative in my work, like yesterday morning's finishing-my-tea sketch.
I've also been thinking about leaving more to the imagination because of Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters, a memoir in graphic/sketching form. I treated myself to two books at the end of "Hang Day," when I got my Eclectic Eye show up on the walls, and this was one of them. The other was Stephen King's On Writing. I'm thinking a lot about book publishing and the process that goes into
I've also been thinking about leaving more to the imagination because of Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters, a memoir in graphic/sketching form. I treated myself to two books at the end of "Hang Day," when I got my Eclectic Eye show up on the walls, and this was one of them. The other was Stephen King's On Writing. I'm thinking a lot about book publishing and the process that goes into
writing and publishing a book but also how you order your creative life when that's the work that you do. Both books have given me a lot to think about this week. There's a picture of my basket of tools plus books below to celebrate the end of Hang Day.
Speaking of Inktober, I didn't get all of the sketches posted since it was such a busy month. Here's a roundup of some of the ones that slipped through the cracks.
Speaking of Inktober, I didn't get all of the sketches posted since it was such a busy month. Here's a roundup of some of the ones that slipped through the cracks.
A couple with Mr. Darcy, of course, including one in the style of his summer adventures, for anyone missing those.
- Published on
It's been a busy show week here. My show got on the walls at Eclectic Eye and will be there until January 3rd, and we had a lovely opening thrown for us by the EE folks. I haven't had anyone throw me an opening where I didn't have to lug my own wine and snacks over in ages, with the one notable exception of Dixon a couple of years ago (which was such another category of exhibition that it almost doesn't count, but in an amazing sort of way). So it was a great evening. But with the framing and hanging and publicizing and tag making and all the other stuff you do around a show, I made very little art this past week. So it was marvelous to get out Saturday morning with the Memphis Urban Sketchers and just draw and see people.
I tend to get carried away and do a WHOLE WATERCOLOR PAGE most of the time in my sketchbook. I was feeling (maybe leftover from inktober) the urge to be a little more minimal and a little more line oriented this time, so I tried hard to restrain myself.
I tend to get carried away and do a WHOLE WATERCOLOR PAGE most of the time in my sketchbook. I was feeling (maybe leftover from inktober) the urge to be a little more minimal and a little more line oriented this time, so I tried hard to restrain myself.
It was a misty, drizzly morning, and it felt a lot like sketching in Paris or Washington State. I spent a lot of it under my umbrella, balancing that as I sketched, and you can see how the rain drops caught me anyway in the last sketch. I was so impressed that we had a good group of folks coming out on such a morning.
