My last day was more of an urban day than a park day. A bit of Christmas and bookstore shopping in Fairhaven and Bellingham, plus lunch in a tea shop. My tiered "afternoon tea" lunch, with finger sandwitches, fruit, and creme caramel, made me slightly ridiculously happy. The peach apricot tea was delightful as well.

There was a stunning sky color on the way in, and I had done one very quick sketch from the passenger seat of the car as we sped along. A good memory exercise. And a looseness one. I also sketched the tea cups before lunch arrived.

We came home by way of the coast road and stopped for me to sketch. I could definitely spend more time drawing this coast line. The simple shapes remind me a bit of the Mississippi river series of paintings I did some years ago. This trip made me want to paint water again, and I was glad for the practice doing that in watercolors. That's been hard for me.

Read more of Jude's poetry on his blog and see his photos here.

The next day in Washington was foggy, so instead of going for mountain views, we went for trees. Rockport State Park is a magical place, a forest of towering evergreens and maples covered with moss and ferns. It felt like I had walked into Tolkein. I was sure ents were lurking just out of sight. It was dripping rain, which made watercolor quite challenging, but I kept having to try. I am dreaming of going back with enough time and dry weather to at least attempt to do this place justice. All I have at the moment are the palest shadows of that beauty.

Because of the rain I was having to work very fast. I badly miscalculated below on the tree in the foreground, both its placement and its execution. But the ones in the background give you some idea of the layers of trees disappearing into the fog that day.

Christmas for several years now has marked the moment when I could draw a line between show and commission season and the beginning of having time to make art for myself again. That is deeply true this year, so I celebrated with a quick self portrait in my Christmas dress. I found this 1940's velvet dress (that was the decade when they most made clothes to suit my figure) in an antique shop in Washington during my recent trip. It fits like a glove, and I was delighted. I feel like I'm starting a new chapter at the moment, and a new dress is a lovely way to mark that. I'm also looking forward to doing some more self portraits now that I have time, perhaps for my spring show if things go well.

I hope all of you are having a marvelous holiday season. Thank you for reading along here and supporting my work. No independent artist could ever make it without a whole host of supporters, and I have a beautiful community around me. That is always such a gift, at Christmas and all through the year.

My full second day started in the tire store getting a tire fixed. They have nicer views there from the tire store than in Memphis. We went on to the coast from there. It was stunning. It looked like the California impressionist paintings I've seen with rocky outcroppings and pine trees seen from directly above.

It was cold out painting after a while, and I probably was worn out and should have stopped before that last little one, but I was so entranced by the scenery I couldn't stop myself.

We stopped for the sunset on the way back inland. Mount Baker, white with snow, turned pink in the evening light.

The Tennessee Shakespeare Company is putting on Much Ado About Nothing this week, which is one of my favorite plays, and it is being done by a stellar cast. I got excited and went out to sketch at a couple of the rehearsals (my dad is really involved in the company as his retirement project, so they made me nicely welcome). These are largely quick sketches because actors move around a lot more than the musicians I usually draw. But I had such fun doing it. And everyone was so kind about my being there. I started in pencil and switched over quickly to fountain pen.

During the Saturday night performance I mostly sat back and just drank it in, but I did do a couple of pages of sketches, just because it's what I tend to do. I hope anyone in Memphis will go see this. They did a brilliant job of making this play fresh and all their own. I loved it.

I'm doing a lot of getting-ready-for-shows work, but I managed to take a little time and work on my Will you?/Won't you? signpost self portrait. It's almost finished.

I also printed the invitations for the upcoming studio sale today on my treadle operated Chandler and Price. It's always great fun to run the big press.

Plus I had a deadline for the Memphis Daily News today for my monthly sketch feature, so I headed down to the Woodruff-Fontaine House to sketch it all decked out for Christmas. They're having an open house this Friday evening, so it seemed like a good moment to feature them.

I'm still scrambling around with my show a bit, since the opening is tomorrow night (Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, 5-6:30pm), but I did manage a bit of sketching. The weather is fixing to change, so I took yesterday afternoon to go hang out in the forest with my sketchbook and drink in the last of the gorgeous weather. It's good to have the flexibility to do that and reorder my priorities as bit as the weather calls to me. And it was fruitful. I might try an oil from this first one. We'll see.

Then tonight I went to Dixon to see Wayne Edge's new show and hear some of my favorite jazz guys play at the reception. I couldn't resist sketching them too.

publicly invited Mr. Darcy in a facebook post to come in for the interview as well. He's got three rescues of his own and knows that Mr. Darcy is my constant art companion. So we both went in this morning to the studio.

What I realized today (aside from what a southern accent I have, which hits me annually as I do this interview for my big show of the year) is that my brain really closes one book artistically and moves straight into something else. I came home from Paris and spent a good bit of time painting and making prints from the landscape watercolors that I did there, but in the two weeks since the show got on the walls, I've completely shifted over to this new series I'm doing, and that's what was in my brain to talk about. Fortunately the first one of the self portraits was in the show, so it was a legit topic of conversation. And talking about the trip and my art process gave me things to say that weren't "Hey, I did this specific piece that you can't see because it's radio!"

So here's the interview, about 15 minutes, for anyone who's curious.