I am deep in the midst of carving linoleum block prints to illustrate the upcoming edition of the Book of Common Worship for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. There will be 15 prints about 5.5x8" plus another 13 or so tiny 1.5" ones. Plus 19 ink gesture drawings. It's definitely my biggest commission ever. Work is due in early July, so I'm nose to the grindstone until then. I can't share the full images, but my editor said it would be fine for me to show some process shots and details of the blocks as I'm working. Despite the modest size, I'm including as much detail as I can. The carving has been a lot of fun.

I have been enthusiastically collecting river stones since I got to Washington, as well as for years before. I remember the pebble beach on Hydra that my sister Marian and I went nuts poring over, picking up, putting down, ultimately bringing a few multi-colored stones home to remember that place. There's a small shelf over the sink in my bathroom with stones from a number of special places and trips. My friend, show-partner, and fellow stone nut Melissa Bridgman more recently turned me on to both heart shaped and striped stones. She gave me one of each in a hard place last year, and they have been talismans for me since. She says stones with an unbroken stripe around them bring good luck. Both are in profusion here in Washington. I have never seen so many heart shaped stones in my life.

Yesterday Jude took me to a national forest with a gorgeous boat ramp/pebble beach at the confluence of two small rivers. I was charmed and brought home a handful of stones, and he later wrote a poem about it. You can read the full poem on his tumblr site. Melissa has sketched lovely river stones in her journal and made pottery in their image, but the poem gave me a new twist to use instead of just copying her idea. I've had a full day of printmaking but wanted to do something fun for myself, as well as celebrate this beautiful poem.

My friend John Reed is a poet in Memphis, and there is a documentary being made about him and his work. For part of the project, artists have been invited to create works based on his poems. I have been enjoying painting from other poetry and jumped at the chance to be included in this project. I've always loved John's poetry. Plus the Mr. Darcy blog has me enjoying mixing text and images again and working in foutain pen and watercolor together.

I knew exactly which poem I wanted to paint from, and I made a trip down to the coast on a sunny day to visit an overlook where I could see the coastline laid out beneath me. I did two journal sketches (below) on site and then came back and used them to create the triptych. Each panel is 6x8", since I work in modest sizes in watercolor, but the three together hold a nice space.

Here's what it looked like laid out on my work table.

And here is John's award winning poem, which he was kind enough to say I could share here.

​The Cartographer's Proposal
I've set their names on maps, but never found
the things themselves. Vainly, I sought escape
in Mystic, Concord, Providence, New Hope--
a gazetteer of irresistible lands
each marking a potential journey's end.
Always a stranger, I never learned the ropes
and wasted time exploring tourist traps,
missing what I'd come so far to find.
But look: a place explorers have passed over
and mentioned only in this arcane chart,
pristine and fraught with possibility.
No human plan's imposed on plain or river,
but mail addressed to Mercy, Healing Heart,
will reach us there, if you will come with me.


John Richard Reed
River Styx 97

I have news! The Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., is redoing its Book of Common Worship, which they do every 25 or 30 years, and they have asked me to illustrate it. I am beyond delighted. I've done some illustration work for a couple of different publications for them in the past, but it was always journals or a year long study guide (for the Book of Revelation -- my first ever illustration job, and I dived into the deep end). Nothing that would be in print for a long time. I've been hoping recently to get to do more illustrations, and I am so excited to be offered this opportunity to work with Westminster John Knox Press. I'll be creating about 15 two color block prints, a cover plus a frontpiece for each main section of the book. The work will be due in June, so along with my March show I'll be having a busy spring, but I love having meaningful work to do, so that will be just marvelous.

(The print at the top is an older one of a church in Athens, but it seemed appropriate for this post.)

I got to go do an illustration of the Redbirds game for the Memphis News, which won't be published till next week, so I can't show it. My editor gave me the press pass, though, and said I could also go up to the press level and sketch from there. So after I did my main illustration, I decided to enjoy myself by doing a little sketchbook work from the press box. So exciting to be up there watching the announcer work. Plus they had cookies. And a great view.

I'm starting a new adventure with this new year, and I'm really excited about it. There are several urban sketchers around the country who have regular sketch features in their local papers. They go out and draw interesting things happening in their communities, and it's like a column or other regular feature in the paper. I pitched this to Eric Barnes, who owns the weekly business paper The Daily News here in Memphis, and he was kindly receptive. With the holidays over, I met with the editorial team yesterday.

They already have a weekly spot for community happenings that is usually anchored by a photograph. They're going to use my work in that space once a month and also commission me to do occasional covers for the paper, which I am utterly thrilled about.

I have loved my landscape illustration work for Cape May (and occasionally Memphis Magazine) and have been wondering how to expand that piece of my career, so I am delighted to be starting the new year with a new opportunity.

I did a little scouting of locations downtown after the meeting and treated myself to sweet potato pancakes at Memphis's iconic diner The Arcade as a celebration. I sketched, of course.

I sat outside today and painted the Red Cottage, my favorite of the Victorian cottages owned by Cape Resorts. It's got a lovely tower you can't see in my close up. Over three years of painting here, I've become much faster at painting architectural gingerbread.

Here's my set up. At 39 degrees, I figured none of the guests would be fighting me for a porch chair...

All the architectural gingerbread made me crave the real thing, so I warmed up afterwards with tea and a cookie.

I got an email from Cape Resorts in Cape May yesterday. They've got summer juice specials and a tomato summer sandwich menu and needed some illustrations. I love doing still lifes, and more and more I love the illustration piece of my job, so this was a welcome assignment. I hit the produce section of the grocery yesterday and took the day today to just focus in and do a series of quick watercolors, rotating the produce in and out of the various compositions.

Here's what my work table looked like.

I wasn't really planning to do them all today, but I've been working pretty obsessively ever since getting home from England last week (despite the utter absence of proof of that here....). I've been working on prints from my watercolors, and it made sense to just take a day to do this project, get it out of the way (since it was rolling along nicely) and be able to get back to the prints tomorrow with minimal interruption. If the work wasn't flowing I would have taken more time over it.

I hit streaks where I work and think about work at all hours, and then I take some time between streaks to recharge. That's the beauty of being self employed. Ideally the productive streaks line up with projects and shows. Having a fallow period with deadlines looming is pretty nerve wracking, but I've gotten better at focusing in and staying on track with projects over the last few years.

I ended up doing six small (6x8") still lifes today. Here are the rest. Tomorrow I'll get back to England, artistically anyway.

The segment about me that was filmed by the PBS show Tennessee Crossroads is out and up on You Tube. You can watch the six minute segment at:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSrzY5QPrs&feature=youtu.be

I'm always a little stunned at how Southern I sound outside my own head, and occasionally I feel like there's a reason I'm a visual artist instead of a verbal one, but they did a really nice job of putting together an overview of my life, work, and creative philosophy.

And they showed off Mr. Darcy....