Rasar State Park is one of my favorite spots in Washington. It has forest, beach, river, and meadow with mountain views. On an unusually sunny afternoon for late October in the PNW I headed there to walk and sketch and drink in a bit of sunshine. There's a perfectly positioned picnic table, lovely for perching and sketching, that I drew the overall mountain and cloud view from. I did a couple of trees on a smaller path.

The tree watercolor uses Diamine Ancient Copper ink to its best advantage. I forget occasionally and try to use it with buildings, and it bleeds all over beejeezus, but it's perfect for the organic nature of trees. The day had a ton of moisture in the air, and the paint took forever to dry, which meant it would often bleed into the color next door. That totally worked on the tree sketch, a little less so on the landscapes, but it was an interesting challenge. The odd one out is a walnut ink sketch with a dip pen of a nurse stump. The stumps of fallen trees will often "nurse" a new tree growing up and out of them, and the visual effect is dramatic. I also love the symbolism of new life, or new opportunities springing forth out of destruction, as has happened more than once in my life. 

​I walked three miles and did four sketches, and it was a total win of an afternoon. 

I took myself on a museum trip last week that I'd been trying to work in all spring and summer. I finally made it the last week of Kristine Potter's show Dark Waters. Good to have a deadline. I spent two days in Bentonville and two days on up the road in Kansas City, since I was that close already. The Momentary in Bentonville was the primary destination for this photography exhibition based on murder ballads. I had seen a single image in Oxford American last year and immediately ordered her book, but I wanted to see it on the walls, and I'm SO glad I made that effort. It was a remarkable installation. A cafe table set up with a video screen of an open mic ballad singing greeted you as you walked in, and the murder ballads themselves followed you through the exhibition. I'm usually not a fan of video installations in museums, but this was exactly right.

A luthier (guitar builder) was, perfectly, one of the museum guards for the show, and we had a great conversation the second day I was there sketching. He said a lot, really a lot, of people just didn't get the show at all. But I was raised on murder ballads and play clawhammer banjo, and it was a perfect fit. A glorious display of Southern Gothic but with an incredibly timely (sadly always true) commentary on the danger of being a woman in a world of men. With the Olympic runner just murdered by her boyfriend (set on fire) and the Avingnon woman raped by 80 men while her husband drugged her for their and his pleasure and invited them in to do violence, this show about the dangers of trusting men is all too current. One old time singer I heard do a concert said what she has learned from ballads is never to go down to the river with anyone named Willie.

There was deep and great beauty amid the menace though, as there is everywhere. Anyway, I loved the show and visited it two mornings in a row to sketch. After lunch both days I went to Crystal Bridges and toured their collection, and then I walked home. I loved being able to park my car for the two days and walk everywhere. Such pleasure. It felt a little like Paris again -- walking, looking at art, sketching, and walking some more. I think and digest art while I'm walking, and I see things I want to draw.

The first evening I celebrated all the art I saw by sketching the wonky old tree out the window at sunset. I had a lovely bank of windows with a small breakfast table that was perfect for perching and sketching and tea. What more could I want really?

Here are some images from Dark Waters, photos first, and then a short video to give you a sense of the ballads playing behind. I can't say enough how powerful the exhibition is, and I hope it gets another showing I can visit down the line.

It took me getting to Washington to get to a scanner and clean up my St. Louis sketches. I love to draw there and did some smaller, faster sketches as well as full watercolors. This first one is walnut ink with a dip pen of an Osage Orange tree. They always grow in such fascinating shapes.

I also got a fantastic blueberry/lemon curd crepe from a food truck creperie that flashed me back to Paris. I loved both the food and the fun little bus, so I did a sketch to remember.

There was also a great book signing at the graphic bookstore Betty’s Books. Beautifully they got in an art hero of mine Lucy Knisley. I found her first graphic memoir An Age of License some years ago, and it (plus my first Ben Hatke book found at the same time) made me want to include more storytelling in my work, which had been purely landscape up until that point. She had a huge influence on my work, and I trace a direct line back from her book to doing several of my own, even if they’re quite different in feel. It was fantastic to hear her talk, meet her in person, and see her delightful hand painted cat dress.

One more lovely day in town was revisiting the St. Louis Art Museum, another favorite place. They had a Vuillard I don’t remember from before on view this time, which makes sense because it’s on cardboard and probably needs to rest for preservation purposes in between times out in the light. I love his patterned interiors and interlocking shapes and had fun doing a sketch while standing in front of it.

I’m doing some sketching in Tower Grove Park in St. Louis. My favorite park away from home, and it’s such a pleasure to walk and sketch here.

I will get it in a frame and have it ready to hang with the rest of the show on Monday. I've also carved and printed a small gallery card for folks coming through the museum to pick up and have my information available. This is one of the handful that print two tone when I add a second color once the first is established. I love the variegated effect. I usually get three or four of these before the inks blend to a solid color again, so most of the cards will be a little less wild, but I always love these the best.

I had SUCH a good time staying at this tiny cabin right by a small river. I sketched and read and sketched some more. It was perfect. Here's the second half of the sketches from my two night retreat.

I've given myself two small vacations/exhales in the past month instead of the longer trip I had hoped to be taking by now. I've mostly been nose to the grindstone on the Rowan Oak show that hangs this month, but I did take two smaller trips recently to relax and exhale. The first trip was to a cabin just outside Mountain View on the site of the Herpel P.O., right along a small bayou with large stones sitting right down by the water. I sat out there with my sketchbook, journal, and book. I had every meal sitting by the water and watching the birds. And I walked up the quiet road with my sketchbook to visit more wonderful trees. It was heaven. This is the first batch of those sketches. I was there two nights and part of a third day, and I sketched a lot after doing so much print work and missing my sketchbook.

My main work lately has been my upcoming Faulkner's Trees exhibition. I'm trying to get final prints of everything, get started on the framing, and finish carving the last two prints. I'm working slowly with my fatigue making an unwelcome return, but I'm chipping steadily away at it. We haven't set a hang date yet, and I'm grateful for Rowan Oak being flexible. It will go up some Monday in June so it's in time for the Faulkner scholarly conference that meets there in July. I'm so grateful to them for wanting my work for that.

So carving and printing every morning while I'm fresh. There has been lots of tea involved.

I've got the first couple in frames already. It's nice not to leave all of that till last, since it's my least favorite part of the process.

This is the last piece I'm working on. It's three colors, and  I'm carving on the last block now.

I've been trying to do at least slightly more restrained sketches lately, but I was ALL over the page with paint and pattern this weekend. But I had a good time with both, even as I watched them spin slightly out of control. Saturday was the East Buntyn Art Walk. I visited a few friends who were exhibiting, had lunch at the fantastic Flipside Asia food truck, and settled in to sketch with Christina. We sat on the curb with our feet in the gutter as per usual, both fascinated by the lovely little field stone church in the middle of Memphis. I had forgotten my black waterproof pen I've been using a lot, and I didn't have a brown one, so I dove in again with the Diamine Ancient Copper. I forgot that I'd intended to use it for natural scenes but NOT architecture because it bleeds so badly into the woodwork I'm trying to leave white. But there we are. I'd like to go back and try again sometime. It truly is a lovely church.

Today I did mostly printmaking, but I did take my sketchbook along for my walk in the forest. There were some great clouds out in the park, but it was also super windy, so I kept going on into the forest where there would be much more shelter. Again I covered the whole page, but it was nice to be outside in the sunshine doing some sketching. I've been working so hard on prints that I've barely sketched since the Eclipse. It felt good to get back to it.

We had a family day at the farm last weekend, and as everyone scattered for a few chores, Henry and I headed to the daffodil hill for a little sketching. The last, small, white, double narcissi are blooming, even though the carpet of yellow is long gone. Henry poked around, and I caught him quickly in mid-stride heading through my sketch. Below he's posing with the finished product.