Thumb Use – By Clancy –
Sissy had extra-large thumbs.
So she cleared the table of crumbs
saying “What else can you do,
in the absence of stew,
but make excellent use of your thumbs?”
gouache illustration by Clancy
I remember being told, as a young person, that the arts were “not practical”. Today I thought of 8 ways, both serious and silly, that the arts are useful on Thanksgiving day.
Autumn Leaves pattern design by Sue Clancy https://roostery.com/p/minorca-table-runner/6316427-autumn-leaves-by-sueclancy
Anyway if anyone ever tells you that the Arts are not practical – don’t believe them.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
I’ve been reading “Appointment With Death” by Agatha Christie. By page 7 I was rooting for the murderer to go ahead and kill. It’s the villain who deservedly gets killed in this story. While reading I realized that I so strongly disliked the villain and rooted for her demise because of her cumulative (negative) effect upon other (positive) characters more than any one thing the villain said or did.
I realized again that in visual fine art a viewer reacts to the subject of the artwork because of the cumulative effects of the objects, colors, and shapes that surround the subject as much as they react to the subject itself.
There’s an art technique called “positive and negative space in art” where you pay as much attention to the negative spaces, the blank “air” spaces, that surround a subject as you pay to the positive spaces of that subject.
In reading this particular book by Agatha Christie I realize at a deeper level why the writers technique of “show don’t tell” is also true in fine art – we best understand, or perceive, a subject, from the surrounding elements.
Here are a few of the artworks I’ve recently sent to Joseph Gierek Fine Art (www.gierek.com) for the upcoming Holiday Art Show. I’m sure you’ll notice my “still life” object practice work now combined with characters. Yes, I’m trying to make every element count toward the visual story. You know, like a writer tries to make every word count.
Been busy packing and shipping an art exhibit’s worth of my artwork to Joseph Gierek Fine Art (link here). I’m feeling like Santa and the elves in the North Pole workshop. I’ve made the artwork, I’ve carefully sandwiched each artwork between thick sheets of cardboard then delicately wrapped everything in bubble-wrap with love. Now to load it onto the sleigh…
And off you go my precious… may you bring cheer and laughter to all.
As you know I’d illustrated some of Chef Kim Mahan’s recipes. Well another chef – Chef Sebastian Carosi – saw the work I’d done for Chef Mahan and asked me to come to a photo shoot today. So I went and drew pictures of Chef Carosi’s Roasted Butternut Squash Soup – as it was being professionally photographed.
I took my favorite waterproof ink pen, my watercolors and some paper. I drew and painted – a lot – while dodging to keep out of the way of photographers, assistants and Chef Carosi, who was doing last minute soup garnishing just prior to placing a beautiful bowl of soup under the bright photographic lights.
Here’s a couple of pages of what I did – and a bit of the equipment I did it with:
I did many more drawings than what is shown in the photo. During a break the Chef and I talked about what I’d done… He liked my “soup as a sunset” visual story/metaphor. But he really likes my hand-written recipes and characters. So in my studio I’ll do a redesign and create a “character” out of one of the ingredients and hand-write the recipe data.
We finished up the photoshoot (and I did more drawings) and then we all ate soup.
Oh my!!!! Smooth, creamy, earthy… like a hug for tummy and soul. Now how to translate THAT into artwork???
Anyway here’s a link to Chef Sebastian Carosi – he likes to use locally sourced ingredients, some from his own garden, some foraged from the local PNW landscape and some purchased from local companies like Jacobsen Salt and Fairwinds. There was also a local cheese that we sampled. I meant to look at the wrapper or at least ask again for the name of the cheese maker. But in the fast-paced photoshoot food-illustration event I forgot.
Sigh.
Still it’s been a delightful day of drawing soup and soup ingredients and meeting new people! What fun!
Will draw more soup tomorrow…
Update: The cheese I referred to above was from Ferndale Farmstead
It’s been my experience that one’s reading is the fertile soil from which all other creativity grows. So I find books like this one, “1000 Books To Read Before You Die” by James Mustich, an essential art studio tool.
The Mustich title is especially useful as it’s more like a restaurant guide than most “read-this” books; the suggested titles are sorted alphabetically by author, there are readable book note details about the genre/subject, when it was written, and other notable works by the author are listed. A “further reading” section about the author’s life and work or on the book’s subject is included. There’s a “try this” section listing other books by other authors suggested for the reader if they enjoyed the featured book. Helpfully “adaptions” of the featured title are also noted: films, plays, musical compositions and audio books. Hints are given whether you could read the book “in a sitting” or not. There is also a section of Mustich’s book that lists books sorted by genre/section: my favorites (so far) are “Lol”, “Mysterious Matters”, “Soul Food” and “Animal World”.
I find all of this pre-sorted book sorting helpful by making it easier to find books related to my creative topic. For example I’ve been reading books about objects lately since I’ve been doing some still life paintings. So yes, that has meant reading Marcel Proust and John Ruskin among other authors.
As you know I’ve been doing both food themed fine-art paintings as well as several food-recipe illustrations – so reading mystery novels that have food in them has been a good way to keep the “creative fun” going in my head while I wait for paint to dry. BTW, I found an online source for culinary themed mystery novels; https://www.cozy-mystery.com/blog/cozy-mystery-authors-with-culinary-themes-part-1.html)
One of my favorite things to do is sit for an hour or so before bed and read with my beverage of choice handy. If you follow my Instagram page occasionally I post what I’m reading and what I’m drinking. While it looks (and often feels) like pure indulgence I’d say that my time spent reading is one of the most important things I do to develop and maintain my creativity.
Anyway, here’s a photo of the book by Mustich – alongside one of my favorite wines by Burnt Bridge Cellars. And, don’t worry, I was sharing the bottle of wine with my wife… 😉
1000 Books To Read Before You Die by James Mustich
BTW, a local newspaper had a wonderful interview with James Mustich about what books did and didn’t get included in his “1000….”. Oh, and here’s a link to a local bookstore for more info about the book itself.