I am working to get two shows ready to hang, one this week but also some key information to WAMA about after Christmas. So it’s a business kind of week instead of a creative one and will only get more busy from here. I’d been carrying this painting around in my head for several days after seeing this image on a morning walk (and taking a photo to lock some of it in). My treat to myself this morning was to take time away from the necessary stuff to paint just for myself a little. It felt great. This piece is 8x10”, so a very achievable size in a crazy week. I’m really enjoying this small series of morning walk images. Gideon and I go out early, before I bring in the paper, and go around a few blocks. The world is magical at that time of day (well, really always) and I’m enjoying his getting me out to remember and enjoy it instead of me just sitting at the counter in a daze reading the paper. That comes later.

Beautifully, I snapped a couple of photos and posted it on fb to celebrate, and before I could get my brushes washed, I had heard from a friend. This one grabbed him, and it was sold on the spot. It’s always such a great feeling when people want to take my art home and live with it, and I’ve enjoyed making this impulse purchase size of paintings. The brushstrokes can’t get too picky, it’s harder for me to over do them (though not impossible), and it just feels nice to finish something with a bunch of larger projects waiting for me.

I'm printing a lot lately, and I got this short video of my new(ish) press yesterday. For years my bed size was limited to 12x20". This is more like 30x40". I'm not sure offhand as I write this, but it can easily take the 18x24" blocks, even longways across, that I've been working on. I could get rolls of lino that are larger, but that's as big a sheet as I can get, and it's just right. Big enough to be eye catching and let me do a lot more detail, but not so big that it's ergonomically challenging to carve. I'm so enjoying expanding my horizons for my show at Walter Anderson Museum of Art. I always try to seriously up my game for a museum show, and this press, which I found second hand just before the world shut down last year, has seriously allowed me to do that.

I've been enjoying being back in my historic neighborhood of Evergreen lately. It's fun to have the mix of houses and buildings that an older neighborhood gets. I've also been taking more walks around blocks looking at houses since Gideon can't go as far, instead of just taking off for the forest and burying myself in it. I've been taking out my sketchbook occasionally to do some quick sketches on walks.

The other day I took my bike over to Victory for service (beautifully I can ride through the park to get there and not have to disassemble it to drive it somewhere in my tiny car). They were so fast that they were done before I even got my gear out and sorted to start sketching, but the day was so lovely I just stayed to sketch before riding home. That water tower is as iconic for Broad as the Sputnik sign at Joe's Wines is for Evergreen. We have such a funky mix of visual treats in Memphis.

These are the quicker, out-on-my-walk sketches with just a brush pen or two and my fat felt tip pen.

When I am feeling a little lost, I often buy new art supplies to play with. So I've done a lot of that this last year and a half. One of those has been a bottle of walnut ink from the Art Center in Memphis. I love having a really good, locally owned art store that will not only stock my specific needs for me (18x24" linoleum blocks instead of just 12x12" ones) but that also has a wide array of alluring things to browse and try and play with. If you are lucky enough to have such a store, please support it. Online ordering just isn't the same. 

So I came on this summer trip with a bottle of walnut ink and a very old dip pen that had been handed down to be and that has been sitting in a cup ever since, lonely and untried. I'm having a ball. The walnut ink nicely has a tight fitting top, and it rides around safely in the daypack with my art things, so I've been using it on site a lot lately. ​

My last post was about Feature Show Falls, which was indeed a stunning feature (even if the name vaulted me back in time to my Rocky Horror Picture Show days). Almost as stunning, though, were the trees on the trail to get there. Especially this one, growing over a rock. After lunch at the falls, I left the others to explore a little further and came back early to sketch this one. Along the way I did a few other, much quicker sketches, of other gorgeous trees. Sometimes it's fun to just do line gestures and leave the paints in the box. 

That original tree was so stunning, and my sketch of it so inadequate to convey its magnificence, that I'm adding a couple of photos from that day as well. The second one is for scale. It was just remarkable. 

I've been taking the new small set of Sennelier watercolors out to keep testing them. I miss some of my regular colors, but as I've said, I love the sap green that is a little cooler and darker than the Windsor and Newton one I generally use. The lighter green is fun, but it skews a little acid, and I try to tamp it down a bit instead of using it straight. I ended up loving those top two that I did, but the second time out for bigger pieces (instead of the tiny, quick passenger seat sketches I've been doing), I couldn't get the colors right, and everything felt overcooked. I'm pretty much at a loss to explain why I had such disappointing results the second time after feeling pretty good about the first outing, but there you are. I miss the transparency of my normal W&N set, and on the forest piece, I really missed the burnt Sienna that I depend on a good bit. I think the cobalt blue is also a little edgier than I'm used to, and that didn't come into play much until the tree trunk study. Overall, it's fun to switch things up sometimes, and I enjoy having this kit that's the right size for a purse or tiny project, but W&N still has my heart. 

One of my very favorite places out here is Rasar State Park. It's small, but it has a huge variety of landscapes, from forest to beach to stone beach to meadow. It's right along the Skagit river, and it was a natural place for me to go to try to jump start my sketching a bit. I cleaned and refilled several fountain pens, and these are both done with my favorite green ink, a bamboo color that is warmer and more natural than a lot of acid greens you find. The first is a wooded walk along the side of the river, looking down to this spreading tree that hangs over the water. The second piece was sitting out on the beach proper with a view down the Skagit and off into the distance. I've drawn and painted versions of this view (from a few different angles) over the last several years, and it continues to sing to me.