Editor’s note: To be included in the monthly Art Walk feature, please send information to cmcdaniel@ptleader.com no later than the 15th of each month. Include "Art Walk" in the subject line.

Carolyn Doe finds trees on Marrowstone Island to be a great subject for her art.

“I just love trees,” she said. “Basically, that is it. I spend a lot of time watching them. I just think they are beautiful, so I have been doing a lot of trees in my work.”

Doe works with batik on silk and oil on canvas.

“It is two totally unique processes,” she said. “I don’t use those mediums together. I just paint a lot of trees. They are nondescript in my work. They are not necessarily identifiable.”

Doe’s series, “A Conversation with Trees,” will be featured this month along with the works of ceramic artist Sarah Fitch at Gallery 9, 1012 Water St. in Port Townsend. The artists will be on hand during the Port Townsend Art Walk March 2 to discuss their art.

During Art Walk, which is held from 5 to 8 p.m. the first Saturday of each month, several venues will be open with various forms on display.

To create batik, Doe uses wax and dyes in tandem.

“It originated in Indonesia, and the concept is you use warm wax and a little tool that is heated, and you can create designs on the fabric with the wax,” she said. “Where the wax goes, the dye can’t go. Working in layers, I wax some, I dye some.”

Doe described herself as mostly self-taught.

“I play until I figure something out. My ongoing education in art takes place through my own passion and pleasure in the exploration of certain creative processes. I started working in batik on silk fabric over 27 years ago.

“Batik has become my voice,” she added. “When dye touches silk fabric, it spreads like crazy. The wax creates a boundary. It is this dance of control, no-control that captivates me for hours. Through this ethereal quality, I try to convey the essence of a place and of the creatures and plants that dwell there. I strive to portray my ongoing dialogue with nature.”

To paint, Doe said she prefers palette knives over brushes.

“I use oil paints on stretched canvas, but I don’t use brushes, I use palette knives, basically knives in different shapes to give different strokes and textures to the oil paints on the canvas,” she said. “I can do lines and blending. I am way more comfortable with them than a paintbrush.”

Fitch’s works include a papier-mache rendering of a former family dog.

“This medium allows me to create life-size animals,” she said. “My first subject is a life-size greyhound dog, honoring all hounds.”

Fitch said she is a self-taught artist who has been passionate about the creative process since she drew squiggly creations of animals during her childhood.

“I delight in sculpting animal forms and consider it a gift to be able to create from imagination,” she said. “Clay has been my primary medium in producing lively, uniquely mischievous, whimsical animal-themed stoneware ceramic tiles and sculptures. I will always create art for the feeling of life it gives me. What better way to feel the spirit of an animal then to re-create its form from a vision within?”

Gallery 9 is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. See gallery-9.com or call 360-379-8881 for more information. The following venues in Art Walk include:

Bishop Victorian Motel, 714 Washington St., will feature paintings by Jason Gunby and Marie Amerson. For more information, call 360-381-7048.

The Cotton Building, 607 Water St, Port Townsend, will feature paintings by Sean Yearian and weavings by Tininha Silva during Art Walk.

The Jefferson County Museum of History and Art, 540 Water St, Port Townsend, will feature the paintings of the late Jim Alden during Art Walk. Alden, who died in 2004, painted the people and scenes of Port Townsend starting in the 1970s and found his place among other artists, poets and entrepreneurs, with the Town Tavern as his hub, according to a news release.

This retrospective exhibition and accompanying catalogue written by curator Jenny Westdal and artist Stephen Yates give us an intimate perspective into an artist’s life lived on Water Street.

"We went outside to watch the ferry come in and smoke a joint or two," Alden said. "By the time we came back in the place was filling up and the band was tuning their instruments. In the corner of this otherwise dead little town, a heart started to beat. I could feel the veins of a community pump psychedelic blood and the room was breathing, in and out, with all the souls that were in it ... by midnight the place was so full the doors were flung open and folks were dancing in the street, right out in the intersection, with Port Townsend's finest standing around watching."

Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St., will host an opening reception for its sixth annual artist showcase.

The showcase will be a juried art exhibition for emerging and professional artists of all disciplines, according to a news release. Works, 24 2D and eight 3D, from selected artists will be exhibited in the newly remodeled Jeanette Best Gallery throughout the year.

Artists were selected by juror Bruce Cody of Scottsdale, Arizona.

The featured artist for March is Christine Knapp, an award-winning sculptor.

Knapp has been a professional artist since 1990 and is known for her bronze creations of animal and human subjects.

“Art is an intimate way of communicating a message, feeling or emotion to others,” Knapp said. “My goal is to spark a fond memory, inspire an idea or enlighten my viewers of the varied subjects I have chosen to portray. Of ultimate interest to me is that special bond that develops between people, animals and each other.”

The exhibition runs from Feb. 28 through March 31.

Northwind Arts Center is open from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays.

Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will feature the works of Sally Pfaff and Debbie Harding in March. Both artists will be at the center during Art Walk.

Harding is a pastel artist who said her paintings translate her experiences onto paper.

“I enjoy capturing the mood of what I experience in nature through an effective mix of painterly, impressionistic marks, and building drama with carefully placed details and highlights,” Harding said.

Harding said she is inspired by the natural beauty she finds on the north Olympic Peninsula.

Pfaff paints landscape stories using acrylic diluted to a watercolor consistency. The first layers may be random and spontaneous, allowing paint to drip or run.

Fast and furious paint strokes can become part of the whole later. In that way, layers of color build up in areas that will get painted into, on or around, depending on the need for form as the painting progresses.

While minding the composition, Pfaff said she uses her imagination and visual memory while she explores the use of color and shapes to guide the creative process.

The Port Townsend Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. For more information, call 360-379-8110.

Port Townsend School of the Arts Downtown, 236 Taylor St., will feature the exhibit, “Polar Explorations,” by faculty artist Maria Coryell-Martin this month. Coryell-Martin is an expeditionary artist who follows in the tradition of traveling artists as naturalists and educators.

In 2004, Coryell-Martin received a Thomas J. Watson fellowship to explore remote regions through art, according to a news release. Since then, she has worked with scientists and expeditions in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Canada, Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula, according to a news release.

At 7 p.m. March 7, Maria Coryell-Martin will at Northwind Arts Center. Admission is free, but donations are welcomed.

And at 3 p.m. March 12 at Jefferson Museum of Art and History, 540 Water St., kids of all ages will be able to take a multimedia expedition to the polar regions with Coryell-Martin.

During the program, participants will sketch and learn about the animals and the environment. A mini-journal and pencil will be provided.

On March 23, Coryell-Martin will demonstrate techniques and tools for field sketching in ink and watercolor. The event at PTSA Downtown is free and will run from 1 to 2 p.m.

Regular gallery hours are from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, or by appointment. For more information, call 360-344-4479.

Two Sisters Gallery, 210 Polk St., on the second floor of the Kuhn Building, will display original works by Lisa Allison Blohm.

Blohm will introduce a new painting, “Fertility Brings Hope,” which is dedicated to the three female southern resident orca calves who have or are about to give birth. All of Blohm’s orca series will be on display along with other recent works.

Blohm also will also fundraise for orca conservation.