The weather has been utterly gorgeous this week, and I'm trying to get out and take advantage of it with sketching walks and patio meals. I'm low energy this week, but wandering around the park with a sketchbook is just right, and Henry and I have been over several different days. Such pleasure.

I had a lovely sunshine-y brunch with two good friends plus Henry on Sunday, and afterward we came back to my place for them to help me eat chocolate cake and for sketching. I've been working to get my house better lately, and it felt great to have friends in enjoying it with me and making art together. I have grocery store tulips on my coffee table at the moment, and I love their ongoing shape changes. We all sketched the tulips, and Christina and I both sketched Elizabeth as well. Such a perfect afternoon. 

I had a lovely farm day a while ago before the crazy cold rolled in, and I did a couple of sketches I forgot to scan in (it's been a busy month). I love the winter green cover of the fields against the bare trees. And later a cardinal posed for me in the tree near the bird feeder. I tested out a new blue watercolor marker from Windsor and Newton for the sky. I love the juiciness of the color.

With snow/ice in the forecast, I gave myself an outing before it hit. It's been a busy few weeks, and I hadn't been to Dixon lately. I've seen several lovely paintings by artists I follow of interiors at museums, and it made me want to go sketch in my own favorite museum. I couldn't have chosen a better day. Almost no one was there -- I think everyone must have been out buying bread and milk instead. So I settled in the floor and did an overall gallery sketch after I walked through the two new shows. There are two modern shows now, both of which are unusual and really fun. This retrospective of Floyd Newsom is wonderful for sketching -- huge, bright, colorful pieces. I love how he's chosen his own vocabulary of symbolic items to work with, much like Dine or Thiebaud or the Dutch still life painters, going back a bit. I'll enjoy going several times and looking at more details.

The other thing I loved was a piece from just last year done while he was in the hospital. Like several of his other works, it's a larger piece stitched together from individual sheets of paper. It was a manageable size to be working on in his last illness, and it reminded me of Manet's last flowers done in his sickbed or Matisse in his wheelchair cutting out collage shapes for others to place for him. I have always hoped to be making art right through till the end, and it's lovely to see another artist who managed that so beautifully. 

It was a great day out, to recenter myself in a space so dear to me. I'm hoping to get there more often this spring. A weekly pop in would be good for both my spirit and my creativity.

I was having a run around day a couple of weeks ago, and it was sunny and halfway warm for the end of January. I felt like stopping at my favorite deck and having a chai. I had just started a new sketchbook, back to my old favorite Handbook after trying something less satisfying, and I also had a new yellow watercolor marker. I did the sketch above with the watercolor and then did a second one of umbrellas and the sycamore across the street that I love. My fountain pens hadn't really worked on the paper in the previous book, so I'm enjoying getting back to them. And sketching a treat slows me down to both appreciate and remember it.

A couple of days ago I got my favorite Lucy J's bakery croissant at the farmers market and came home for second tea. I hadn't been sketching in a few days, so it was nice to take a slow Saturday morning and enjoy both the sketching and the croissant.

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.

Y'all, what a great week. Memphis Magazine published a truly glowing article about my book that meant so much. Jesse Davis saw what I was trying to do with my art and put it into words better than I ever could have. I'm so grateful. You can read it on their site here. My only regret is that I wasn't smart enough to think of the name Memphabetical for the book itself.

And I mean... "And what beautiful pages they are — Kelly’s paintbrush seems to capture Memphis on those rare and perfect spring days. The Southern sun shines off the glass storefront of A. Schwab on Beale Street and the stained-glass windows in the historic Clayborn Temple. Deep-green shadows pool beneath magnolias at Elmwood Cemetery, seeming to suggest quiet contemplation. Kelly’s artwork is dazzling, and she has trained her eye to look beyond the first thing she notices. In her hands, Memphis is seen lovingly and honestly."

Also this, so exactly what I hoped people to feel, but again, in better words: "The book does not set out to tell some imagined definitive “true story” of Memphis; rather it reads like a series of postcards sent to a close friend. It’s Kelly’s attempt to show the reader Memphis as she sees it, to show what she loves about this multifaceted city by the mighty Mississippi."

So many thanks to Willy Bearden for taking the photo at the top JUST before Memphis Magazine asked for one to use. I didn't have a current one I was happy with and was thrilled to get this one. It's from the Burke's Books signing party back in December. They even did the chalk board specially for me! Here are a couple of less high quality snaps, including one of me and my dad, but I'm in good memories mode this week with the article coming out.

Also this week Channel 5 news saw my book at Dabbles (shout out to Debbie for my best hair cuts, dog love, and her unstinting support of my work) and asked for a feature interview. I met Taylor Tucker at Crosstown and had a lovely chat, which she boiled down into this feature on last night's news:

I'm continuing to give myself a slower January after the show craziness of Winter Arts. I'm cleaning my house some to get it pleasant again and doing a bit of print shop reorganzation, but I'm also trying to keep my sketching game going. I did another cold weather sketch on my dog walk yesterday, again just using pencils and crayons without getting out all the paint things. I'm kind of hoping this cold weather training will get me used to being out so I can sketch in the snow tomorrow. I never really want snow -- I like to walk out in the world without worrying about slipping -- but it is quite lovely visually. We'll see if I have the intestinal fortitude to sketch outside tomorrow. Watch this space...

I delivered books to the Shelby Farms gift shop yesterday and took the opportunity to walk in a different park. There is a pair of small lakes I love from previous bike trips out there, so I headed that way. It was super cold but also a little sheltered back off the main area, and I took my sketching pack just in case. I'm trying to sketch more this month. I ended up doing two quick ones. I didn't take time to get paint out, just used the Inktense pencils with water brushed over the top (which is why that purple in the background is so vivid -- I would have mixed it down a bit in paint). But fun to try to catch the essence of a spare scene quickly. My second sketch was a tunnel of privet. I really love a tree tunnel, and though I generally dislike privet as an invader that causes a lot of trouble in natural places, I was charmed by the tunnel anyway. I remembered the crayons this time to get a little more blocky color in still without getting out paints.