I just hung Celestial Paris, my show at Playhouse on the Square through the end of the year. It's a whole passel of my on site watercolors I did in Paris, plus oils on paper and a handful of carved prints based on them. Whitney Jo always gives me the huge wall because she knows I'll get obsessive and fill it up. Six weeks' worth of beautiful weather in Paris certainly helped that. I hung in groupings of different areas around the city, and sky studies were an ongoing theme of the summer.

Here are the block prints I did. I meant to do more but got distracted by the oils instead, for the first time in a long time. Skies are just fun in oil, though.

And here is my set of sky studies with Montparnasse. I was playing with the idea of 25 Views of Montparnasse, loosely following Hokusai's Mt. Fiji project, showing the tower from different angles and distances. There are also plenty from my apartment window with the solid form acting as a nice foil for all the different stunning skies I saw.

There is a small set of Amsterdam watercolors I haven't gotten on the wall yet (with the reception still a couple of weeks away and no play going on at the moment, I've allowed myself a "soft opening" at the end of a very busy month), but those will also be up in the next few days. The reception will be Friday, November 18, 5-6:30 pm.

I did several oil paintings for my exhibition at Dixon last year (at their urging, since the space was large and needed a few big paintings), but I went straight back to prints afterwards. They have been what I'm really excited about the last eight years or so. This past summer, though, I decided that I really missed the way I used to paint skies. I have struggled to do clouds to my satisfaction in watercolor, so around about June, I declared it my summer of skies. By happenstance, I ended up staying in that magnificent apartment in Paris with a two story window and a huge sky view (unlike my house in Memphis, which is surrounded by trees that have great beauty but also largely block my view of the sky). So I ended up watching the sky a tremendous amount over the summer and painting from windows both front (above) and back (below). Somewhere in that process, I felt an internal pull toward oil paint again, and I did several studies toward the end of the trip specifically thinking of a painting to follow.

For several years as I was starting out, my watercolors were much more line drawings with a splash of color. They didn't have the depth or richness to give me enough information to use them as sources for oil paintings, and I mentally wrote off that use for them. But I have been painting with more layers and richer pigment the last couple of years. I am delighted to have suddenly realized that both my full watercolors and many of my sketch book sketches are now strong enough to let me do paintings from them. Sometimes I write something off in my mind, and then it takes me a while to question that closed door and reassess the situation. Armed with that new perspective, I've been going back through a couple of other Paris journals to see if there are other sketches I might want to paint from. It's been a bit of a balance for me to spend more time in recent years with a sketchbook instead of making "exhibitionable" work. The sketches have pushed me into doing prints I wouldn't otherwise have thought of doing, but if I can also do oils from some of the sketches, that doubles the appeal and helps me feel less self indulgent spending time with my sketch journal instead of doing stand alone watercolors.

Here is a quick oil I started late in the afternoon. I didn't really have time, but I was on a roll and excited, so I ended up diving in. This was a sketch I did at bedtime one night in Paris. I was ready for bed and closing my curtains when I glanced out and saw this view. I had to run downstairs for my paints and sketch it before I went to bed. That place was just magic for me. You can see the sketchbook below sitting on the easel in the background, along with my self portrait watercolor I've also been painting from. I took photos along the way with this one so you could see my progress.

I just about finished the self portrait one yesterday as well. It's a different kind of piece for me, and I really enjoyed branching out into something a little more narrative.

I've been having a really, really lovely art weekend. Sometimes things just click and flow, and it's life passages like those that make me really happy to be an artist. Often you get bogged down in book keeping, packaging, arranging shows, promoting shows, creating calendars (big on my list lately), or even just work that is fine but having to be ground through a little bit. These moments where everything seems to be coming together are magic.

I'm continuing to proof the fountain block (my previous blog post), and it's almost done, and I'm really pleased with it, after a decent bit of anxiety during the carving stage. Then I spent some time beginning this oil on paper from a watercolor self portrait I did of myself in the Paris apartment this summer. That place was magical, and I spent so much time there sitting in this window, painting and watching the sky. I cemented old friendships and created new friendships in this space. I tried experiments and branched out in my art (this self portrait being one of those experiments). It was a transforming trip for me, though I am continuing to wait and see which of those blossoms continues to bring fruit for me. But yesterday I dove into one of those promising places and started this oil. I haven't painted figures in oil since college, and it felt good and right. I'm enjoying the possibility of further narrative in my work, and this feels like a powerful expression of my summer sojourn where I sat with the sky and listened to my heart. I'll keep working on this (there are stars to come), but it felt like a really good day's work yesterday, and I am so grateful to have this means of expression and way of making sense of my world.

I've got a new print going. Truthfully, I've been carving on it for a couple of weeks, and I've been kind of dreading dealing with the figures and not quite sure how it would go, so I've been doing a bunch of oils as well. I had proofed the underneath aqua block a couple of days ago, and yesterday I finally took a deep breath and carved the women fully and proofed the whole thing. There are definitely some things to fix, and I'm pondering a few white highlights on the statues (very thin) and a bit of light coming into the hedge (cutting down to the aqua block below in bits, especially up high). Since once you cut, you can't go back, I think I'll paint both options first on top of a proof and see if I really want that. But I'm feeling very relieved and happy about the way this one is going, and I'm so grateful about that.

Here's the original watercolor, done on site, sitting in gravel on site, and the underneath aqua block with it. I had to try to keep careful track of where the water spray bits were going so they would line up between the two blocks and show through to the white of the paper. There's a bit of room for movement in that kind of thing, but most of it worked nicely, which made me happy.

And here's a close up of the darker block as I was carving it last night. I've got a little way to go on this, but it's nice to be close.

are based on either freestanding watercolors or journal sketches from the summer.

This middle piece was a process photo I took partway through today's session. I'll do a bit more work on the top one tomorrow. The bottom one is now finished.

I'm also enjoying the oil on paper experience. It's smaller and more intimate (at least on the scale I'm working -- Frieda Hamm does them enormous), and I can keep the transparent aspects of watercolor (the sun and cloud trail below are simply the paper showing through) while build up with the lusher colors in the places where I want to do that. It feels like the best of both worlds at the moment. Plus these are much faster than the really intricate print I'm laboring away at, so it's nice to have something that's a little more immediate gratification to balance that project.

I will have two calendars this year, and they're being set up by the printer right now. I'll have some at my fall shows (Paris watercolors at Playhouse on the Square in November/December, at the Pink Palace Crafts fair, and at my open studio show with Melissa Bridgman Dec. 10-11), but I don't order too many extras. If you know for sure you'd like one, your best option is to pre-order online through my Square store so yours gets included in the order to my printer. They're 8.5x11" and $18, just like last year. You can order for shipping or to pick up, but please only use the pick up option if you're planning to come get one at one of my shows or in midtown Memphis. Orders are open right now and will affect how many I order to be printed.

Here is the full set of images (all new and all done on site ) from this year's My Memphis Calendar:

And here are all the Paris images, again all done this year sitting on the sidewalk, or, when I was very lucky, at a cafe table with a little tea.

At the top is my batch of color proofs from today. I always hang them up on the door of my print shop to stare at and get some distance from. The middle photo is the first proof I pulled yesterday, and at bottom you can  see the bottom layer plus the second block and the journal sketch I was working from.

I tend to say hello to places by sketching them. This is the door where Vincent van Gogh lived with his brother Theo near my "regular" neighborhood in Montmartre. I buy my meusli across the street and always say hello. I went by while I was up in the area and felt the need to sketch it again. This time a sweet older man came out of the door just as I was finishing up. There are always tour groups stopping outside, and the residents must be unbelievably sick of it, but he came to see my sketch and asked if he could take a photo. Then he asked if I'd ever been inside and if I would want to. He so kindly backtracked, opened that magic blue door, and ushered me into the courtyard beyond. It leads to a small alley between two walled gardens, and there are several more buildings that back up together in there. It's this lovely, quiet, secret spot.

We turned around to see the back of the house, and he pointed out Vincent's third floor window with the closed shutters. I wanted to sketch in there too but didn't feel I could ask. It was so kind of him to offer this to one more tourist camped outside his door. I was really touched.

I've been continuing the self portraits here, in a range of ways. Above are my feet as I sit and play banjo, feet propped on the balcony and watching the world below.

That one made me want to paint my banjo spot too, just for happiness.

Hands down the best quote of the trip has been the startled guy at the bus stop after I materialized next to him in my completely silent boots. He blurted out, "You could be BATMAN!" I had to do a sketch to commemorate that moment. Who doesn't want to be batman?