Memphis Monday: Dino's Grill and Memphis Urban Sketchers

Earlier this month the Memphis Urban Sketchers visited the Cleveland Street Flea Market and enjoyed their hospitality while we sketched out the window and each other and all the things in the place. Afterwards, I had lunch with fellow urban sketcher Eric Coleman, who drove all the way over from Jonesboro, AR. We had a lovely meal at Dino's Grill and talked about fountain pens, mostly. See more here and here about our visit to the Flea Market.

Out & Random

Random sketches out and about. This one is from Lisa's Lunchbox.

Desk & Random

Random desk sketches. These are usually from the end of the day when my brain runs out of words.

Line's Back Here Buddy

Waiting for Central BBQ on Valentine's Day. There's always a line, but not everyone knows where it is.

Studio Night Last Night: Just Paint.

 
As I didn't have a class to teach last night and my cold is gone, I though I would actually spend Studio Night painting! I kept thinking about things that I tell my students to keep them going, like: "I like to start at the front and work my way back," and "Just paint! Just paint." That one works great.

Cars Are Cars and Painting Class is Painting Class

The ol' parking lot with my favorite 4-color pen, and a few notes from my first painting class.

Here are a couple of class prep sketches.

And here's the work that my awesome students made! Flicker Street Studio students are the best.

Memphis Monday: Sketching at The Arcade Restaurant

See more here.

Sunday Glorious Sunday

A few Sundays ago some girlfriends got together at Shannon's to watch the movie About Time, which was delightful. You might recognize the little guy on the right from these bookclub sketches.

It was such a lovely day, hanging out with these ladies and then going out for coffee. It was like a mini-vacation!

Happy Valentine's Day: I Forgot to Tell You About Christmas!

Toby and I like to do just whatever we please, so we drove to New Orleans for Christmas. It's such an easy drive from here, we should really go there more often.

The first thing we did was make sure we knew where all the food would be.

On Christmas night we wandered around until we came to one of my favorite spots, Maspero's, and discovered it was open! We sat at the bar and feasted on po boys.

We found a little treasure right across the street from our hotel, Cajun Mike's, a friendly little dive bar where Toby could smoke his cigars inside, and a nice man bought us a round of drinks .

We also visited Tiki Tolteca - a great tiki bar with GREAT Mexican food downstairs at Felipe's. We were enjoying the cool, laid-back vibe of the place until about 20 members of a co-ed bachelorette/bachelor party showed up, all in grass skirts, all woooo-ing. Woooo!

Oh look it's time to eat again! This was at Jäger Haus for a very late breakfast/on-time lunch. It was quite good. After that we wandered around the Quarter and bought hats.

We also ate at Lüke. Yes, we ate at two places with umlauts in the name. And we ate at Lüke twice, so that's three times the umlauts.

Bookclub!

This is from our January meeting, at which we discussed The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. It was really good!

We had a couple of extra guests at this meeting. I don't think they read the book.

People and Pattern

These sporty little girls are my niece Genevieve's basketball team, in blue, and the opposing team in red. When I saw their uniforms I thought - if I have my double-sided Mitsubishi vermillion/prussian blue pencil with me, then I will sketch them! It was meant to be.

G's team lost this one, as the other team's girls were all giants.

Supply Sunday: Not That Kind of Supply

These are two of my favorite kitchen supplies. First, the Rotato, which I inherited from my grandfather. Pop was an engineer. He liked gadgets, and he especially liked to fix them - to make them better. You will notice the Rotato bears none of Pop's duct tape, therefore it is the perfect kitchen tool. I sketched it after using it to peel a couple dozen apples.

My Mom gave me the Griddler Gourmet for Christmas one year after I asked for it specifically. It is AWESOME. I use it pretty regularly to make hot sandwiches, quesadillas, and whatever else I can think of.

Cups and Gifts and Doodads

Happy New Year TV Sketches

This is sort of a new year for my blog since I've barely posted in 2015. On New Year's Day we had a marathon of season 2 of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - such a delightful show! And all of those hats! I sat there all day with my sketchbook (and a mimosa) (okay, a series of mimosas), and sketched off of the TV. It's a good way to practice people.

Studio Night - Oh Yeah, My Blog!

Hello! Remember me? I sometimes barely do. I can't believe it's February already. January flew by in a flash. I spent a few weeks teaching oil painting at Flicker Street Studio.

Somehow, even though I've painted for 20 years, and even though I've taught for four, and even though it is only once a week for four weeks, teaching takes up my ENTIRE BRAIN. I can't figure it out, and I can't stop it from happening. So, that's where I've been.

I've been doing a few other things. You'll see those soon, too, now that I've remembered I have a blog. Hope you'll join me!

I spent most of Studio Night scanning a month's worth of sketches, and part of it making another one of these mini watercolor kits, this time with colors that I like better. The other colors were good - could've been used to mix a true orange and green and violet - except I never used it because I didn't care as much for using those colors straight. I think I'll use these. We'll see.