That Summer Feeling
Field notes from July
Firstly, if you recognized the subject line, high five. Jonathan Richman’s “That Summer Feeling” is always the song that’s looping in my head this time of year.
I can’t compute that it’s the last week of July. There’s so much more summer I want to squeeze into the weeks ahead. But there has been a trip to the beach to sketch, with a detour to Lark Coffee. And I’ve spent as much time outdoors as possible, reading, gardening, drawing and just being.
An assortment of things from this point in Summer:
Work is mostly picture book sketches right now, but when I have downtime, it’s been devoted to the piece at the top of this post. The paper size is 22 x 30 inches (roughly 55 x 76 cm), so I have ages to go. But I love slowly adding bits to this each day. I bring back wildflowers from walks and use those as reference, but there are some flights of fancy. That pink flower grows nowhere around here, but reality is overrated, so…
I’m taking Annie Atkins graphic prop making for movies class on Domestika. It’s absolutely fascinating — you can see a preview here.
Before the pandemic, I did vintage reenacting, but in the years since, have fallen out of the habit. I decided to dip my toe back into that world though, working on this Edwardian sewing pattern from Folkwear.
Squash! Gardening has a wonderful way of humbling you. You can use the perfect fertilizer, plant at just the right time and water religiously, all to still have things go sideways. For years I’ve grown peppers with stellar results. This year, the peppers are small and sullen. But the blueberry harvest has been terrific (so much so that I made these frozen treats) and my squash look like they’re going to produce nicely. Regardless of the output though, digging, hauling soil, weeding and watering always do wonders for my psyche. I suspect that when we get too far away from dirt we’re divorcing ourselves from something that our deepest selves need, the magic of green, growing things.
Addie Best’s newsletter is a new favorite. Full of printmaking, Maine, book recommendations and lots of living, it’s a delight.
