I have always loved old cemeteries. There is a marvelous Victorian one in Danville, Kentucky, where I went to college. My roommate and I would go walking there often, and my landscape painting class would have plein air outings there.

In Memphis, we have Elmwood, begun around the Civil War era and continuing through the yellow fever period, the Victorians, and on into the present history of the city. My mother-in-law was the staff historian for a while, which sounds like a marvelous job.

My travel prints got distracted from Memphis, what with my love of the St. Louis parks, but I decided I needed some more Memphis scenes and went sketching at Elmwood recently to get a good image for a print. I'm currently working on a print of the top left image.

Then this morning it was just lovely out, so I did a couple of watercolors before returning home to work on some more printmaking. I'd like to do a few more before my upcoming show. Cemeteries were early public spaces that influenced how we think about parks. One of Olmstead's early projects was a revolutionary design for one in California. Elmwood is a good fit for my public spaces theme of the upcoming show.

This is one of the first images I carved in my new series, but I didn't totally have my skills down yet. The drawings moved a bit as I was transferring them, and it wasn't printing well. I just recarved the blue block and did a color test to look at it. I was originally going to have green grass in the bottom section, but I think I like it just like this. It feels more like some of the old Japanese prints in this color scheme. (The cherry tree subject matter also contributes greatly.)

I'm going to try to have some of these printed and ready to go at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair this weekend. It originated in the Chickasaw Gardens neighborhood. Plus, I've been distracted by my many travels this year and done a bunch of non-Memphis prints. I need to do a few more for our area as well.

I got my first round of prints photographed yesterday. I haven't been able to do a very good job on them -- they're 14x22", and so way too big to fit on my scanner, as the watercolors do. These are all printed and ready to sell, thankfully in time for the upcoming Pink Palace Crafts Fair.

For the Tower Grove Park print, I couldn't decided whether I liked the brown or white paper, so I'm doing a smaller edition of each. They have such different feels, and I like them both for different reasons. These prints are $125 each.

Shelton Laurel, the name of the area where the woodworking school Country Workshops is, is also $125.

Overton Park was the first print I started in this series. It's the place closest to my home and my heart. I'm there every day I'm in Memphis, walking, drawing, or just sitting and watching the sky. I play my banjo near this tree a lot as well.

And finally the White River at Calico Rock in Arkansas. This series is a group of places that are dear to my heart, my own personal travelogue. The White River, and the Riverview Hotel right on it, is one of our favorite getaways. This print is $140 because it's three colors and requires three separate printings instead of just two.

I'm still working on prints for the Missouri Botanical Garden, Chickasaw Gardens, the French Broad River, and a second one for Tower Grove Park. Watch this space for more finished ones over the next couple of months. I'm trying to have them all finished for my November show at ANF architects.

I pulled finished copies of two different prints today and also did my second color proof for this one. I really feel like this series is coming together. There was quite a learning curve for me, getting used to the press and keeping multiple blocks lined up together, but I'm finally at a place where I can begin to print editions.

I think I maybe want a little bit lighter green for this one, since it's such an all-over color, and I need to clean up the edge of the dome a little, but otherwise this one is also ready to go. It's one of the first ones I started, and I had to put it aside a little while to figure out the multiple blocks thing. It's good to get it worked out. Now all I have to do is reclaim the cherry tree one I was having trouble with, and I'm cooking with gas.

I pulled this one again yesterday, trying my brightest paper. I've decided to do two different editions of this, one on the brown and one on the natural. I'm excited to have a print just about ready to pull finish copies. I carved just a little today, to clean up the overlap on the right side, and I'm going to start pulling finished prints (hopefully) tomorrow. I did the green layer for my Overton Park print today, and if they turn out, I'll have two prints completely finished and ready to go.

It's taken a lot longer than I'd thought, but this is all a new process for me. The nice thing is, I'm still completely excited about the series in spite of the setbacks. I'm even dreaming about them at night.

Not only is there a printmaker next door to us at Country Workshops, but there's a tool maker as well. John Kraus teaches toolmaking at John C. Campbell folk school, Country Workshops, and Penland. He's also a fiddle player, and we play music together when I visit. He always spends a bit of time helping me get my carving tools sharp as well. I've taken a page of notes every time he shows me how, and one of these years I'll master it (he says I'm getting better), but they're always best when John puts his magic touch on them.

This year he told me that the flat blade I was using to outline forms wasn't really the right tool for the job. I need an exacto knife instead, with its sharp edge on both sides. We stopped by to say goodbye on our way out of town, and John pulled out this beautiful tool, made just for me. He carved a handle for an exacto blade out of pearwood and made a copper neck and sheath for the blade. He said the handle would fit well in my hand for what I needed, and he was exactly right. It's a joy to use, and I am grateful for John's friendship and generosity.

The timing was perfect. A sharp blade helps me outline delicate sections so I don't (hopefully) inadvertently cut away bits I need. With trees and other amorphous shapes, I don't take the time to outline, but with fine detail and sharp lines, outlining helps a lot. I'm working on this Tower Grove print of a Victorian pavilion, and I've given the beautiful new tool a good work out this week.

I pulled the second block before dinner last night, and I'm mostly pleased with the results. I'm thinning out some of the darker marks a bit and cleaning up the letters, but this one is close to done. I'm also trying to decide about whether to cut bark pattern into the trunks or leave them solid. That's the last hard choice to make about this one.

I also tested it on two different colors of paper. You'll see that the lighter sheet is badly offset. I used the wrong form to align it on the press. In my defense, a dog we were babysitting for the afternoon had just peed all over the floor of my studio, and I was trying to just pull the block quickly while the ink was already rolled on the block so I could clean up after the dog. (They never mentioned issues like this in art school.)

Otherwise, I really like both papers, which each give the print a different feel, and I may do two smaller editions instead of one large edition.

I did this watercolor last month in Tower Grove Park, not really thinking about anything except the sketch itself. After I got home, though, I kept thinking about it and wanting to make a print from it. When I started looking at it, though, I decided I didn't have quite enough information in my sketch to do a full print from. On my next trip to St. Louis, I did a more detailed pencil sketch to supplement.

I started carving this one on my vacation in the mountains and proofed the first block when I got home.

I'm trying two different colored papers to see which I like better.

Yesterday I spent most of the day carving the key block, and I'm continuing to work on it today.

Hopefully by dinner time I'll be able to put the two together on paper and see where I am. Stay tuned....

Regular readers of this blog will know that there are various trees in various places that call my name, and I tend to go back and draw/paint/carve them again and again. One of those is this small tree at the Country Workshops woodworking school, where we're sometimes lucky enough to house-sit. I've done pencil sketches, multiple pastels, an oil painting, and a letterpress block of this one. Today I'm drawing out a bigger print block of it -- again taking advantage of the bigger proof press I now have to work with. Unlike the letterpress print at the bottom of the post, the new one will be three colors.

I've got a new print block going, and I've done two proofs so far. This is from a watercolor I did this spring of a row of cherry trees blooming in Chickasaw Gardens. I tried the first color proof on brown paper, but next time around I'm going to try it on the cream as well and see which one I like better. I'm still carving away on this one. The drawing moved on me some as I was transferring it to the different blocks, so I'm being more conservative in my carving than usual.