Friday, 3-9-18. Sitting on the ground. 61 degrees, partly cloudy. 3:33 pm to 4:17 pm. Watercolor pencils.
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3-6-18 sketch at Tulip Grove
10:45 to 11:10 am, Tuesday morning before work. 59 degrees, sunny. I sat in my car and sketched while drinking coffee and eating cookies bought at the little café at the Hermitage.
Watercolor pencil.
Weekly sketch 3-2-18, Cheekwood
Cheekwood Botanical Garden, Friday 3-2-18, 1-2:30 pm. 56 degrees and sunny.
A brave day, I drove here by myself. I didn’t let the monsters in my head win. This is part of why I bought a membership here – to encourage me to go sketch.
This is the “Ruins” section – there are fragments of the original columns from the Tennessee Capital building, which was finished in 1854. The limestone columns didn’t endure the weather and started to decay. They were salvaged and brought here, to create a sort of small amphitheater.
(My scanner make the colors unusually bright and vivid)
scan 
And an unusual view of the Japanese section –
Photo of sketch-
scanned
Birthday sketching at Cheekwood
In the Japanese Garden at Cheekwood. 62 degrees, cloudy, around 3 pm. A Thursday, so almost no visitors. 11/30/17
The entrance gate.
In progress –
This wasn’t enough. I wanted to sketch the stone lantern. There is a memorial bench nearby. Generally, in a Japanese Garden, a bench is placed to remind you to stop here. There is a view that you need to see.
This is a Kasuga-style lantern. Stone lanterns, “ishidoro”, before use in the tea gardens, were used along the approaches to or within the grounds of temples and shrines.
A scan of this, with a leaf of a Japanese maple taken from brunch at First Watch earlier. The same colors were in this garden. The scan has made this much darker.
Here it is with more color and water added. I’ve adjusted the settings to look more realistic.
This is the main focus of the garden. There is a large covered area to view it from. The rails cut into the view.
and to the left
In progress –
There were very few people in the garden today. It was a Thursday and very overcast. However, this is perfect for taking photographs or sketching. Another lady came by and sat in the covered area – also to sketch. We acknowledged each other’s presence but stayed respectfully silent. Even when my husband came to sit next to me, we whispered. It is a sacred place.
To my eyes, there appeared to be a cherry tree in bloom to the far left. That normally happens in April. Magic.
A scan of this –
Later – with more color and water added.
Because the garden was so “busy” with color and plantings, I decided to sketch it quickly with just dark grey. I like how it looks like Japanese calligraphy – that words are pictures, and pictures are words.
The bottom of the sketch is a quick view inside the tatami room at the Japanese restaurant where we went for supper. Normally for a large group – you can get it if there is just a couple of you if you ask and nobody else has reserved it.
Later, with water added to the lower sketch –
Here are quick sketches of our food and a corner of the room with one of the legless chairs. These are dry – no water added.
Later, with water –
The colors are better in real life – but so is everything, after all.
SAAD angel sketch
Not far from the grave of Oliver Bland is the SAAD angel. Arabic? Calvary is a Catholic cemetery. The writing on the gravestone might be Arabic – I don’t know. It is beautiful.
Calvary cemetery 11/17/17 Friday, 1:05 pm, 59 degrees, sunny. Around sections 15 and 16.
My view on site.
Other views of the angel.
Views of the grave.
From my research, this is probably the grave of Marie Saad, buried 5-24-1927, age 30 years. This is section 15, lot 38, space 11 at Calvary cemetery, Nashville. There are several Saad family members nearby.
Sketch from the grave of Oliver A. Bland
Calvary Cemetery, 12:45 pm, 58 degrees, sunny, Friday 11/17/17.
Original sketch on site. The quote is from a different grave – a classic message to the visitor.
More color added, water added. This is a scan, so the colors are brighter than they really are.
Sketch was done while sitting on the edge of the ledger of Oliver A. Bland – 1854 + 1940. All that space on the marker and there is just his name and birth/death years. There is room for plenty more information. But, to be honest, in 50 years it will have worn away or gotten covered in lichen.
More views from that area.
Info from Find A Grave website –
“Oliver Arthur Bland was born on October 18, 1854 in Davidson County, Tennessee, the son of Joseph Bland (ca 1832- ) and his wife Henrietta (Hughes) Bland (ca 1837- ).
He was married 1st on September 21, 1879 in Sumner County to Minerva L Hutchins (c Sep 1862- ). He was married 2nd to the much younger Sydney Crawford, who was born about 1905. Oliver had no known children.
A retired banker and lumberman living at 1903 Cedar Lane, Nashville, he was 86 years old and married when he died at home of cancer of the tongue on October 27, 1940. Burial was the next day in Calvary Cemetery, Nashville.
Most of the above is from his Death Certificate, with Sydney Crawford Bland of 1903 Cedar Lane as the informant.”
Weekly sketch #6
Stone Hall park, two views.
3-3:40, sunset at 4:26. 48 degrees and sunny. Standing.
Weekly sketch #5 Stone Hall from the front steps
Three to 4 pm, overcast, 75 degrees. Friday, 11/3/17. Sitting on the front porch of Stone Hall, pretending this is my normal view out of my house. Grateful this is a public park that I can go to, and that very few others know about.
My view
Sketch as completed on site
Sketch after adding more color at home and adding water.
Stone Hall sketch 10-27-17
Back to Stone Hall this Friday. I’d thought about going to the great Catholic cemetery on Hermitage Avenue but the trees weren’t at their Autumnal peak yet. Plus, by the time I got back the traffic would be bad. That is something for a day when I get out of the house early. Leaving the house to have lunch at 2 puts a kink in sketching, especially when the sun sets by 5:45.
I walked around looking for a place to sketch and decided to do the front view as I’d considered the first time. I had to use a little bit of the panorama feature to get in all that I saw.
With sketching, you can get in more than a photo can see.
You also don’t have to treat it like a photo – you can highlight what you want, and leave out what you don’t.
Watercolor pencils on Strathmore mixed-media mini-journal. Around 3:30 to 4:30, 69 degrees.
Sketching at a cemetery
I went to the Hermitage Memorial Gardens on 10-20-17 and sketched. It is normal for me to go visit a cemetery in October. My family members who have died were cremated – not buried, so I don’t have a place to visit when I feel the need to visit. So I go to a random cemetery and think about them.
Note that I call it a “cemetery” and not a “memorial garden”. You don’t plant memories. We have to stop being euphemistic about death. Pretending it doesn’t happen makes it harder when it does.
But I’ve also committed to sketching once a week, so here we go!
The tree (I didn’t sketch from this angle, but you get the idea)
The sketch, first dry (watercolor pencils) and then after I added water.
I stood up while I sketched, balancing the case of 10 pencils on the left side of the journal. I sketched in the shade of a tree. This was maybe 20 minutes.
betsybeadhead 
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