Henry and I went out the other day to take advantage of a gorgeous, sunny afternoon at Elmwood Historic Cemetery, one of my favorite longtime sketching spots. I hadn't really registered this hobbit-looking grave before and was completely charmed by the hillside entrance and round door.

After a bit we walked on to one of the many stunning trees out there. I got a box of Windsor and Newton watercolor markers recently. I'd had a single blue one years ago that I loved for its broad tip and its lush color, so I took a chance on a box. I tried both greens on this piece. Greens are tricky, and these both felt a little too chemically, though my choice of Paradise Blue ink to start with in a fountain pen  probably pushed them even further toward the cool end. The tree has some gorgeous blue undertones I was trying to catch, and it is always fun to play with different colors. I'm happy with bits of this but not the overall color tone.

I went back to my regular black pen and watercolor for the third sketch. It's a closeup of a magnolia I'd spotted as we started out but wanted to walk for a bit before settling down to sketch. I love all the huge old trees out there.

Finally here's another tree sketch from a newish greenway down by the river the other day. This is grey ink with a dip pen and watercolor on top. It seems to thematically go with this entry, so I tucked it on in. I'm trying to branch out and explore some newer places this year, and I really enjoyed this quiet walk with the levee in the background (the yellow band behind the trees).

After crazy cold weather and a sprained ankle it was really good to meet my friend Christina for lunch and sketching. We had a catch up and a burger and then moved out into the sunshine on the plaza outside Crosstown to draw. It was chilly and a bit windy, but the sun helped, and it felt good after being cooped up so long. I did the pretty complex top scene, sitting and chatting and going back in to fiddle a little more. It's in my favorite Diamine golden brown ink. I'm finally back in a sketchbook that takes my fountain pens again and really enjoying that. This one is water soluble, so you can see that it melted into the paint a bit. I put some of the lines back after painting, but I also like the looseness of that melt.

I also did this super not flattering sketch of Christina. I'm trying to get back into drawing people more again, especially since I'm really enjoying illustration these days. But I tried to catch her smiling and instead did something truly awful with her mouth. So I'm going to post a second older one with it, a fast line sketch, that I think does capture more of her beauty.

I went down to pick up Henry afterwards and was a little early, so I ran through a fun little grocery by the river and then just sat in my car and did this sketch of a couple of trees that caught my eye (of course). A really good sketching day.

I really enjoyed my quick trip to Atlanta. It helped that I drove in Monday evening, parked the car, and didn't move it again until I left Thursday morning. I could walk to the High Museum (my main reason for the trip), but I was also just across from Piedmont Park, an enormous urban park that had some lovely old trees and also some views out to the high rises that reminded me of the views from Central Park. I walked there all three days, and the last day I left the museum early and headed over with my sketchbook. I did a view my friend Sri had shown me, across the lake and off to the Midtown buildings, and I sketched one of a dozen fantastic trees I saw. I had forgotten my dip pen, and I was just finishing up (hallelujah!) a sketchbook that didn't accept my regular fountain pens. Even the brush pens had trouble getting purchase on that paper, which is why I've done so very many Inktense pencil sketches lately (like the skyline above). I've enjoyed stretching myself to use other materials, but I'm thrilled to be going back to my regular Handbook. I miss the smoother paper that also dries more quickly, I miss the pocket in the back, and the ease with which it fits on my regular scanner instead of my oversized one.

This one is a Hahnemühle, and I liked the slimmer book and the slightly wider format (also the reason it didn't quite fit on my scanner), but the paper bled through badly, and I've really been missing my pens. It's good to try new things, but I was happy to use one more museum trip, using dry materials anyway (Inktense plus neocolor crayons) to finish it off.

Here is one more non-museum sketch. I walked out on the tiny balcony my first morning there (I love a balcony) and spotted the moon setting through the trees. I grabbed a chair and my sketchbook and drew it quickly before breakfast. Traveling always gets me sketching at a higher frequency. At home I can think, well, I'll see that again, but on the road, you've got one shot at it. I was so glad I did before settling in for breakfast. It was a lovely way to start the day. And then I got to the O'Keefe show and saw probably 10 paintings of hers with the moon and felt very in synch with a painter I greatly admire.

The High Museum in Atlanta has an exhibition of Georgia O’Keefe’s New York era paintings, a broad selection of her work, but clearly (above) I was drawn to the skyscrapers. I highly recommend the show to anyone who can get there. I had a whirlwind trip. I’d pondered going before the snow, and clearly that was a bad idea. Then I thought about going next week, but the forecast when I checked looked ominous again, so Monday morning over breakfast I decided that that was the day. I had scouted out a garage apartment in walking distance of the High that was only available until Thursday, so I made the reservation at 7:30, threw some things in the car, and was out by 9:00.

I’ve been feeling for a while that I was stuck in a long covid rut, partly from fatigue, partly because of a fear of reinfection, and partly because it became very easy and comfortable to stay home. Having learned covid strongly disagrees with my particular biology, I’m still masking in public and miss the dancing I used to do. But I chose Explore as my word of the year and set myself a task to go somewhere new each month, even if it’s close to home. Museums are great because they’re not too crowded, and there isn’t that focus on food and drink, plus they feed my soul. I loved my Crystal Bridges/Nelson Atkinson trip last fall, and I’d like to do some more museum visits. I been once to the High around college age, but it’s been so long that I counted it as a new place. Piedmont Park certainly was. As with my fall trip, I brought along food, stayed within walking distance of the museum, and never moved the car (more key in Atlanta than some places). I went to the museum both mornings but walked in the park afterwards (and even the first night I got in). That rhythm of walking and looking at art and sketching really feeds my creativity. I also saw two old friends I hadn’t seen since before covid, which feeds my soul.

I did three museum sketches, two park sketches, and one early morning full moon sketch off my tiny balcony. There was a lovely large table and good light in the apartment too, and I did a bunch of Henry in the snow sketches while I was there too. Trips often get my sketching into overdrive. I’m working on a new graphic essay, maybe even a book, from my photos of him in the snow. It was an excellent three night getaway, and I’m so grateful I could just go.

I've been having fun sketching Christmas this year. One scene I had spotted on the way to the farm and been dying to do is Bartlett Wines & Spirits, above, with Santa and his reindeer on the roof. I was hoping I hadn't missed it with my stomach bug, so I raced out on Boxing Day and sketched from my car (cold but partly sunny). I had a ball. It's mostly Inktense pencils with watercolor on top.

A couple of days later I met friends at Dixon to see the exhibitions and do a little sketching. More Inktense, which I'm kind of on a roll with, plus neocolor crayons since you can't use paint in the museum.

We moved into the cafe for a while, and I switched back to ink and paint. I love this Kaweko Paradise Blue I found this summer, but I was frustrated with the overall sketch. Overworking it wasn't going to help, though, so I switched to a few fast people studies. I had fun doing tiny family sketches for my dad's present, and I think I might like to do some more illustrated memoir projects this year, so practice live is always good.

Before the stomach bug took me out of action for a few days, I had a great Saturday. I went to the farmers market early and snagged a parking space with a great view of the Flipside Asia food truck, my favorite one in town. Their yellow curry is my favorite, and I buy several at a time for the freezer. I've been jonesing to sketch more food trucks, and theirs, with that gorgeous big green dot, is one I had definitely wanted to capture. Sadly I closed my book too soon on a cold morning, which retards the drying, and the side got a little muddy. I'll probably take another run at it sometime. Frustrating when I was so happy just as I finished it, but there you go. Art out in the world has a life of its own.

Then later that day I met my sketching buddy Christina at Crosstown. They hang lights in the main atrium at the holidays, and it is gorgeous. I'd been eyeing the disco ball and wanting to try my hand. We got lunch from Global Cafe and carried it up several levels to a quiet table where we could drink in some sunshine and have a good catch up. Such pleasure. I ended up doing two sketches of the lights from different vantage points. I managed to leave my taller book in the car so I contented myself with the more horizontal format. It's good to mix things up sometimes, and it especially worked on the bottom sketch.

I've been doing so much show stuff lately that it was lovely yesterday to take a whole day for sketching and friends and art. Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Dixon yesterday, one of my very favorite places. It's been crazy cold this past week, but it was warmer today and very sunny. I found if I sat in the sun, it felt great to sketch and drink in the outdoors a while. I did the top sketch, a little labored but fun, chatting with one friend. Then I went inside to warm up as the sun shifted and had a great conversation on illustration with another friend in the cafe. I drew two more friends, and the paradise blue ink ran unflatteringly into their faces (which I should have left white given the ink I was using), but I loved the half done bookshelves behind the scene.

I had about fifteen minutes left to draw in one of the galleries, so it's wonkier than I would like (and I can't get the lovely muted teal color in pencil), and I added the left bit outside after we were breaking up but still chatting.

After THAT a few of us went back to midtown and ate takeout Golden India outside on the patio in the sunshine (I'm still reveling in all that time outdoors after some indoor days), and finally I sketched Henry on his favorite chair just before bed. I was totally going yesterday, and it felt great to just flat out draw. None of them are fantastic, but it all felt so good just to do.

After years of using a square format sketchbook that opens up to a strong horizontal, I fell in love last year with a more upright version, slightly larger than my small square sketchbook but smaller than the larger watercolor version I had been using. It didn't feel as time consuming to open and just do something in, so it became my easy go-to for almost all situations. The smaller square book (5.5x5.5"), though, fits beautifully in my small purse, though, and I enjoy switching up formats sometimes. I'm trying to remember to reach for it and use it as well. Here are a few recent(ish) sketches in that book.

I've slowed down on the sketching as we've hit both some rain and some busy days, but I did get in this across-the-fields view of a farm down in the Skagit River delta. I love that area. The walk-in scale of the farms and the rows of poplars with large mountains and even bigger skies rising up as background. There aren't a ton of good places to pull over and park, and I rarely get a chance to sketch down that way, but this was from the nursery that we'd visited the previous week. We made a second stop to revisit their gift shop and let me do this sketch of a view I'd been thinking about ever since I was there. The linework is in Kaweko Paradise Blue ink that was my find of the summer. I like the way it melts a bit with the paint I put on top. 

We also went on into Anacortes and got the last Sunday New York Times paper from the bookstore there, which is the only place in the region I've found that carries them. I'm happily reading on it this week, spreading it out till I get home to my regular subscription. I do love a real newspaper with breakfast.

We've been making the rounds in Washington, visiting favorite restaurants and bookstores while I'm here. We took the girls to lunch at Slough Foods, a charming spot on a slough with outdoor seating and fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches. A few days later we visited the LaConner Brewing Co., which has a great rotating selection of hard ciders, and I tried their pizza for the first time, which was excellent. I've eaten more cheese in the last week than I have in the last month, but that's what vacation is for, I guess. 

We also stopped at a fun nursery with extensive grounds, an antique schoolhouse building, and a decidedly UK feeling gift shop. I'm still thinking about the Aran sweaters there, but I confined myself to sketching. Yesterday was two rainy soccer games, cheering on the girls, and hanging out with family. It was lovely. I'm feeling rested and ready to dive back into shows when I get home.