February arrived cold and crisp, but dry. Since the lovely drenching storms of December we haven’t seen a single drop so I’m back to hand-watering my trees and garden in the evenings. I enjoy this work of dragging the hose down the hill and positioning it just right.
When it’s finished and each section has been given a good soak, I let out a big sigh and rest my tuchus on the sturdy porch chair and survey my queendom. I don’t have a sprinkler system or a dishwasher. I probably never will. It gives me extra time outside or watching activity in the lane that my kitchen window faces.
I’m painting up a storm. By that I mean a tiny storm gathers most days over my art tables or kitchen counter and rain falls. The storms are small, but feel large and important. They arrive almost daily, but not always.
The Ecoqua sketchbook with its thin crinkly paper is a pleasure to stroke the loaded brush across and sounds very nice when flipping through each painted page.
I have my large handmade sketchbook with the 140# paper that is very sturdy for when I feel like working on heavier paper. Turning these heavy pages is also quite nice.
I’ve been a sketchbook keeper for a long time and I’ve released most of the self-judgement I used to have in the earlier days of my practice. I do what I can to keep neurotic mind out and encourage others to do the same. A sense of humor about it all is tremendously helpful. It takes courage to avoid neurosis and accept what is on the page. I am braver some days and less so on others, but like most of you, I just keep going.
My lifelong writing habit wants to put words on all the surfaces.
If you follow me on IG, you’ll have seen most of these sketchbook pages. But my acacia? No, certainly not this year, you haven’t!
Behold the splendor.
How good it is to come home to draw and paint. I never ever want to stop recording my world.
Just doing any old thing. Whatever I please.
la di da di da
For people without this urge, it’s difficult to understand this need to have your eyes be the camera and your hands, the developer. Making pictures with the bare minimum. Committing it to a paper like a photo album. I was here. This is what I saw.
One of our 8th grade middle schoolers made this post card on the right, had it printed and put in all the teacher’s boxes. Her parents are artists. Isn’t it gorgeous?
When I was a kid I had Lee press-on nails. Little Mary Ann gave Big Mary Ann a set the other day in my journal. Red ones! For Valentines!
I refilled my grubby gouache palette. The small pans are watercolor. I don’t use those as much, but everything gets dug into with the brush, made muddy, then clean again. I have a habit of mixing everything right in the pan.
I am still working my way through the tubes and tubs of old acrylic paint from the cabinet in my art room. I like the way they look, but I don’t enjoy using them as much as gouache. The ease and simplicity of water soluble gouache is the best, but I do like the acryla acrylic matte paint labeled as “gouache” also.
After school a couple of weeks ago I walked down the block to collect my lunar new year tigers and other things.
My friend, Sharron shared her treasure trove of Danish photo albums with me one recent Saturday visit to her ranch porch. We share many loves including books and old photos. I could and have poured over these for hours.
These Danish paintings of interiors are early 20th century, but I failed to note the artist. They are sublime.
On My Bookshelf
Both of my fiction books are outstanding. Matrix was GOOD. I enjoyed it tremendously. Extremely tremendously to be exact. I was ever so sorry to see it end. Can’t recommend it enough.
Lincoln Highway. Yes please, more please. Outstandingly enjoyable and overall extremely excellent.
In non-fiction, I am rowing on a calm sea with Pema as my guide. These are just some of her books I’ve read and listened to this year so far. I’m not sure where she’s been all my life, but I am grateful to have found her. If you throw a dart at any of the dozens upon dozens of her taped retreats on audio or books you can’t go wrong. Each one is a beautiful jewel.
I have landed in a pond of book bliss and I’m just going to be paddling here for a bit.
Inform me of your whereabouts, walkabouts, art playdates, cookouts, campfires, snowstorms, snowshoes, storm clouds. I want to know what’s happening in the lives of my dear gentle readers.
Mary Ann, I just want to thank you again for Sketchbookery. It started me down a path of paint dates, car sketching, “just keep going,” and “I just paint what I see” that has enlivened my life ever since. Spent the last week painting with Sharron in Carp and I can now go home and face the world, paintbrush and shuttle in hand.
love your loose and free style, portraits and landscapes are so lovely!
I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time, so I thought I’d delurk and say how much I love your sketchbooks! Your personality and passion shine through.
I read your email missives as soon as they arrive in my inbox. And they stay there. I go back and read again, and again. I imagine your cooler weather (I live in Florida), I imagine your kitchen window view and cars up and down the street. A distant dog bark. Those pages of color, oh, so delicious. ( I just got my watercolors out after months of languishing. I swatch. How very satisfying. I want crinkly paper too! (Is that Ecoqua sketchbook actually book called the Ecoqua notebook online?) Many thanks, as always for sharing your world. Angie
Singled out for particular praise, the note on the Feb 11th page: “… the scent of hyacinths and a barking dog.” I imagined smelling both. Gave me a great chuckle, but I had to let the hyacinths win.
Do you know Donna, that when I wrote that, I realized what I’d done. HA HA HA! and left it.
I’m stitching a book and filling a composition notebook with colors of the rainbow, all on my blog.
LOVE all the warm colored swatches and paintings in this post, it is simply delicious!
And yes to Pema too, she is SO cool – I haven’t read a lot but what I have I liked.
xo
That sounds very nice indeed Hanna. I will pop over for a visit.
Once again, looooove your post, your paintings seem to revive me and keep me alive! The pandemic has made my job oh so much worse, short staffed and miserable, and I am half dead by the time I get home. I have started a a gouache painting finally but can’t seem to find the energy to finish this little project, hopefully this weekend. A year and a half till retirement, but someone told me, don’t wish for it..that creeped me out! 🙂 Thank you for you sunny and joyful posts!
I think I understand what they might have meant. I tell myself the same thing at times: ‘Don’t want to be anywhere but HERE’
It is hard to stay put in the middle of a storm, but I suppose we’ll have to won’t we? And besides we know the storms don’t last. Nothing does.
But having said that, YES. I too dream of it and long for it.
Mary Ann…I am delighted to receive your colorful posts. It’s just wonderful to view your neat art and comfy home. Also enjoy learning about the artistic overseas adventures and viewing those beautiful sketchbooks. It’s all so inspirational.
You do lots of good things for your students, as well. Bravo!
I taught art to young students for a while when districts needed more classrooms. No more art rooms resulted in traveling through cavernous hallways with an overflowing cart of supplies. Never needed to attend exercise classes.
It is beyond cold here in New England. Stoke the fire & make a pot of stew weather.
XO
Oh Tina living your New England life with fires and stews. How very lovely and foreign it all sounds. mmmmmmm…..xo
Always a pleasure to hear what you are reading. I’m reading Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy. and am enjoying it. For non-fiction, I’m reading Underland by Robert Macfalane and it one of the most beautiful and interesting books I’ve read. I borrowed it from the library and think I may need to purchase it so I can read it again and again.
Thanks for the Underland tip I will look into it. Sounds good!
Hey Mart Ann! I love your posts! You’re so lucky you have flowers. Still winter in Colorado and I am so ready for Spring! Doesn’t seem to make it come any quicker though.
Oh Mary Ann – Your watercolors capture your life so vibrantly – love it – love you! Glad you found Pema Chodron 🙂 She’s a total fav of mine. Used to listen to her podcasts while walking on the ranch by the sea in Cambria. Now I sometimes burn her evocative sayings into gourds – like:
“SOFTEN WHAT IS RIGID IN MY HEART – AND OPEN WHAT IS CLOSED IN MY MIND”. Carry on with your wonderful life, dear friend.
Oh Dorothy, I would like to go for a walk with you on the ranch as we did once upon a time time in long ago land. Sending you piles of love and soft hugs.
” I was here. This is what I saw.” Ten thousands times “Yes”! You express what’s in my heart, why I have to make marks on paper. Thank you for writing.
Hello Mary!
I said to myself “Yeehaw. There’s a Dispatch in my email! ” I always enjoy your book recommendations. Pema is one of my all time favorites. Next to Pema, I love Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed away this year. I’m still deep in yarn. I’ve lost count of all my WIPs. 😂 Currently reading everything I can get my hands on by naturalist, Sy Montgomery….
Sharon I don’t know about Sy Montgomery, but now I will thanks to YOU. Yes. dear Thich Nhat Hanh. A great one gone. xoxoxo
Book bliss and a storm of sketchery… an excellent beginning to this Tiger Year! xoxox
It’s been warm here in southern California, as you will know. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s predicted rain. I adopted my first dog, Honey-Boy (a lifetime of fur and dander allergies, now under enough control to allow this). A neighbor found him, wandering the streets–he didn’t understanding the need to stay out of the street. He’s pretty much become the focus of our lives. He and I take a long walk every morning, so good for my health, especially after a pandemic year-and-a-half of mainly sitting in front of a computer. As long as we drive there in the car, he allows me to choose the walking route–often I simply drive to the bottom of our street. The rest of the day, he will only go where he wants to go and if I need to get the mail, I must carry him to the mailbox–fortunately, he will walk back. His preferred destination is to check out his favorite lizard and gopher haunts in our large yard. My husband is the clear favorite, as gopher hunting is their shared activity, with Honey-Boy digging large holes; and they hang out together, in the yard, and in front of the TV.
I just finished reading Unsettled Ground, which was a recommendation from you–wow–Claire Fuller is a fabulous storyteller! Before that, another great read, Fresh Water for Flowers, also your recommendation. Now I’ve started The Jane Austen Society, probably someone else’s recommendation–not quite at the same quality level as the last two books, but still entertaining. I’ve recorded your fiction recommendations from today, as future library requests.
Thank you!
Kristi
Come closer so I can pin your great big gold star badge on your sweater. That was a great big newsy comment and boy did I love reading it. I’m glad you liked UG and FWFF. so good. Matrix is different and so so good. I especially enjoyed as my sister was a nun for over 30 years and lived in a wonderful community of good women, much like the women in Matrix. Only 700 years or so later. Honey Boy sounds like a sweetheart. xoxo We all need those don’t we?
I just started reading “Mercy Street” by Jennifer Haigh today. I love her work. Finished “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig, as well as Ann Patchett’s “These Precious Days,” which is simply wonderful. It’s been very cold, on and off, mostly on (like, under freezing). We have managed to avoid any major nor’easters, though. Looking forward to spring. There should be crocuses very soon. A big wind blew down my neighbor’s butterfly bush and I cried. Happy to hear from you, as always! XOXO
Drat to the downed butterfly bush. You’ll have a new one to admire in the spring. I wonder what color it will be…?
Always so happy to see a Dispatch in my inbox. Still winter here in the Midwest, patchy snow on the ground, cold cold cold. It lifts my heart to see sunny California! Thank you, MAM!
My pleasure to share and be seen from afar, Beverleee. Greetings to you in the heartland.