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've been working hard on the show the last few weeks, but I have taken the time to meet some friends for sketching several times recently. It's good to get back to the immediacy of watercolor after prolonged time doing prints. These sketches are from Crosstown (above) and the shady back deck of Memphis Pizza Cafe.

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.

I am late with everything right now, so here are the sketches I finally got scanned in from Hamlet a few weeks ago. It was utterly remarkable. Eliza Pagelle played Hamlet, and she was not only the finest Hamlet I've seen, but she also went to Juillard and played sections of Chopin at the grand piano on the stage throughout, which perfectly fitted Hamlet's self examination. Stephanie Shine directed with such warmth and humanity, bringing Ophelia in silently early on to establish the relationship before we see it distentegrate. The Ophelia/Laertes/Polonius family was deeper than I've ever seen, as was the Hamlet and Horatio bond. The early 20th Century costumes by Austin Blake Conlee were remarkable. I loved Nic Picou paired as Claudius and the Ghost, back and forth between his self important military outfit and a ghostly gas-masked Great War apparition, and his wonderful queen could have stepped out of a Fred and Ginger movie. Truly the whole cast was marvelous. I can't say enough about what this wonderful company is doing in Memphis.

I've been a lot at home lately working slowly on the last couple of Rowan Oak prints and fighting a bit more long Covid fatigue. But this week I got out a couple of lovely times and hopefully am on the upswing again. Sunday Christina and I went sketching in the neighborhood, an old Masonic temple building that now houses a restaurant. The weather has been perfect, so that night I took myself out for a patio dinner of fish tacos and sweet potato fries with Henry and my book and sketchbook. My friend Chrissie says to always get the pink drink -- just have a celebration. So I did.

Then today after doing some errands with my Dad I still had energy to go see the new shows at Dixon. They're great. As I was heading to leave it started raining, and then it just poured. It was gorgeous, and there was a handy bench on the covered porch, so I settled in to draw and wait it out. I'm grateful to my friend Elizabeth, who started the Memphis Urban Sketchers, for training me to carry a sketchbook. I sometimes get caught without one, but I'm almost always glad when I have it along.

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.

I looked back at my Eclipse sketches this week while I was working on a print from them, and this page looked a little bare. I also wanted to keep a souvenir of the cool Eclipse glasses we all got, so I ended up doing a small scrapbook page to go with the sketch. I love the idea of collage, but I’m terrible at it. My attempts always look like a 4th grade art project gone wrong. But sometimes I want to preserve a special bit or piece from a day out or a trip.

Since I was in that mode, I also added my “number being served” ticket to my County Clerk’s office sketch. The number I pulled at 8:03 when the office had opened at 8….

I’m a bit more prone to do this kind of thing when I travel and pick up ticket stubs or other cool souvenirs. did a couple at my WAMA show to celebrate both a gorgeous bunch of tulips from a friend and also some King cake.

This last one is my favorite, but that might be mostly because of the King cake, which was delicious.

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.

My family and I (and an awful lot of Memphis) drove over into Arkansas for the Eclipse yesterday. I was traveling in 2017 and out of range, so it was the first time I'd seen one in person. We went early, took a smaller but good highway into Bald Knob, and drove down into the Wilderness Refuge. There was no one around except a farmer on his tractor, and we sat in the shade and picnicked and waited for it to start. I love the wide open Arkansas landscape and did a couple of sketches waiting for things to start. I also liked the stances of people looking up through their glasses, so I did a few quick sketches of my companions as well.

The Eclipse itself was 2 1/2 minutes, so FAST. The top photo is my real time sketching of it. The first was the partial view through the eclipse glasses, and during the partial I also sketched the shadows on the ground. The total was truly lovely. You could look straight at it and see the ring of light around the moon. My background, that I'd been using through the eclipse glasses, ended up too dark for what I actually saw, but it was fun to draw the sun as well as Jupiter below it in real time. I always seem to process things through art. I didn't take a photo at all but did sketch. The light was eerie and beautiful through the whole transition too, but I didn't feel I could capture it well and didn't take the time to try.

Afterwards we went to that classic Bald Knob diner the Bulldog. The employees had awesome Eclipse day shirts of a bulldog wearing the glasses. I hadn't had a shake from them in several years, and it was fresh strawberry shake season, so I was delighted. I'll have to try to get over for peach season this year. It's been too long. My family really enjoyed the Bulldog too, and I'm so glad I could offer a fun day out for them.

This morning I woke up realizing I hadn't really caught what I saw, and I had another run at it with my breakfast tea, getting more of the lighter blue sky and the different lengths of rays around the sphere. Still not what I have in my mind, but close, and it felt nice to honor that vision before it fades. Even years later, the process of sketching can help me keep the details fresh in spite of not getting them exactly right on paper. I'm grateful for this way of experiencing the world and processing it for myself.