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This was one of my favorite buildings in Paris. It's overdone and very Baroque, which is not usually my taste, but the form of it is lovely, with its aqua dome, and it's so delightfully playful that I liked it very much. I sat outside and painted it from across the street first. It's on a busy plaza, and I had trouble finding somewhere I could work. Then a bus stopped in front of me for a good ten minutes. I had done everything possible from memory and was just thinking I would need to move when it finally turned on its engine and took off. The trials of sidewalk painting.

my view of the bus:
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and the glamorous setting to work in:
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I hadn't been inside the Opera until my friend Caroline joined me, but I liked it so much that I went back to paint the day she took the train out to Versailles. I painted from the balcony down into the plaza below.
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And halfway through that one the sun got to me, so I took a break and painted the inside lobby before finishing from the balcony.
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I also ran across an outside performance walking home one day and stopped to paint that as well. I was amazed at how easily the street musicians move full pianos around the sidewalks of Paris.
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It was cloudy a lot while I was in Paris. There were days I'd planned to go to a museum, and if the sun came out suddenly, I would change gears and paint to take advantage of it. And there were certainly days when I walked out hoping to paint something particular and ended up in a museum instead for lack of light. Overall, I found a great balance of seeing art and making my own. I'm happy with the crew of paintings I brought home. There are only a couple I really wanted to do and never quite got the chance to.

One day it was cloudy, and I was planning to go to the Musee d'Orsay, but when I got downtown, it was MISTY instead. Delicate, transporting, mysterious. I spent the morning doing three quick watercolors. I never left the apartment that trip without my art gear, and on this day I was particularly grateful.
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I'm in the process of scanning in the watercolors from my French trip. The scans are much clearer and brighter than the snapshots I posted while I was traveling, so I'll repost the paintings as I get them scanned in.

I loved painting along the Seine. Walking up and down the river and across the bridges was one of my favorite parts of being in Paris. I enjoyed painting from the bridges and along the river. I wish I'd had time to do the fabulous old train station that now houses the Musee d'Orsay, but hopefully another trip will let me do that.

Below is the Grand Palais, which is a lovely birdcage of a building that rises up along the skyline.
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This last one was done on the bridge between Ile de la Cite and Ile St. Louis. I loved that spot, which often had musicians busking. This is a quick one, done in a hurry before dinner and trying out my new waterproof ink with the paints. I treated myself to a new Lamy fountain pen to remember the trip and to house a different kind of ink than I normally use while sketching.
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It's been nuts since I got home. I had a couple of nights back, and then I left again for a dance weekend with my sisters. I loved spending time with them after being gone for a month.

I hung out with awesome women (that's one of my sisters front and center):
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danced to my favorite band with friends (and sisters, though no one got a shot of that):
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and got dipped a few times:
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Now I'm back to work. I was supposed to be in Cape May this week painting for Cape Resorts Group again, but bad weather cancelled my flight. So I have a little time to do some commissions here, catch up on my sleep, and get up there in the next few weeks more rested and ready to go at full speed. Overall a very good thing.
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I've been quiet here lately as I frantically get ready for a month in France. One of my wonderful new sisters set me up to pet sit for three weeks with a friend of hers in Paris, and I'll spend one more week traveling the countryside somewhere. I leave this morning, and I've got copious sketch books packed, along with watercolor and pen and ink. I've never been to France at all, and I'm thrilled to have this chance to see the art there, see the churches and gardens, and make some of my own art as well.

In the meantime, here's a watercolor I did this week at Dixon Gardens with the Memphis Urban Sketchers.
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I did two house portraits on the same block this week. It's fun to be painting with the flowers out, and it's good to have sunlight to paint in again. I also enjoyed working for friends who know both me and each other. It felt neighborly.

Below is the first house portrait I've done that included people. My recent wedding sketches gave me the confidence to say yes when Rosemary asked. She and Sasha are leaving the house they love for a different school district, and it was special to be able to help them make a keepsake of a place they had been very happy.
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I sketched my second wedding on Saturday. It's a kind of frantic thing to do -- I worked during the preparations and the photo sessions, and everyone was moving around quite fast. I ended up doing 22 rapid watercolors in about two and a half hours.  The bride and groom posed a few minutes longer for me to finish the top one, which I was quite pleased with. All the others were even quicker and more calligraphic, but it was fun to catch the changing kaleidoscope of the day. It was also very special to be right at the heart of such a joyful, momentous day, and I appreciated the family inviting me into their midst.
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Above are the couple with the groom's children. His daughter again and her niece and nephew are below, along with the bride's mother fastening her into her dress and the groom waiting for his first view of his bride.
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My Cape May watercolors have been featured in the Concierge Magazine printed for the Cape Resorts group for use at all their hotels. It's fun to see them in print, and I'm especially pleased with the cover. That was such a fun Victorian house to paint. It's one of several cottages they rent out.

Seeing this makes me want to go back there again. I hope I get to soon.
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    Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.

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I'm not sure if "landscape illustration" is a proper art term, but it's how I describe lots of what I do lately. This term for me includes house portraits, commissions of people's homes, but also paintings of businesses, hotels, or restaurants for use on websites or in brochures. I have really enjoyed branching out into this category.

The best ones for me involve either beautifully enticing travel (like my work in Cape May, NJ) or merely require me to stroll around the block with my chair, as was the case with the top painting. This house backs up to my block, and I love walking past it. It was fun to get the opportunity to paint it.

Sometimes commissions surprise me as well, once I get to the address in question. The house below belonged to friends of mine some years ago, and I used to babysit their daughter in this house. When I drove up to find the address on my assignment, it was fun to find an old friend to paint.
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I did two tiny (3x4ish) watercolors this week for the Madison County Arts Council in North Carolina. It's run by my friend and banjo teacher Laura Boosinger, who is an amazingly talented musician. They have an after school music program (local mountain music and instruments) for the kids in town, concerts, art shows, and all kinds of neat things. I've painted right in their neighborhood, staying at the Country Workshops woodworking school, and I always go over to Marshall for a banjo lesson too. So, in spite of this mostly being a North Carolina artists' project, Laura was nice enough to include me too. The sales of the tiny paintings will benefit arts organizations across Western North Carolina, and the exhibit will travel around the region.

Above is the French Broad river, as seen in Hot Springs, NC, and below is one of my favorite trees at Country Workshops.
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Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.


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