Month: March 2023

Rhythms, a doodlebug and little piggies

A Creative Life, animals in art, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, fabric design, fine art, illustrated poem, kitchen art, mental health, poetry, reading, sketchbook, visual story, visual thinking, whimsical art

I recently read “Hare Brain Tortoise Mind” by Guy Claxton and was reminded of how rhythmic things like weeding a garden or doodling can be calming to the human mind. This physical neurological response to “uniformly random rhythms” is also part of the human reaction to rhythms in songs, poetry or prose – we respond neurologically to refrains and repeated patterns, with variations, in all of the arts.

I include cooking here – it too is one of the fine art forms that has comforting rhythms both for the person stirring the stew and for the person eating. I think of how soothing it is for a small child to be held and rocked – what if all of the human fine arts are basically rhythms that can hold “rock” and soothe our physical brains?

So I’ve been thinking more about rhythmic patterns in my own creative efforts. I’ve begun doing doodlebugs… and other projects that involve “uniformly random rhythms” of patterns. I’m also making some changes to my morning sketchbook sessions that involve making more patterns.

As you know things that encourage good mental health skills are important to me and if I can foster my own mental health via rhythmic pattern creativity – and by sharing my work perhaps help others too – that seems a worthy artistic goal.

Here’s a doodlebug I did in my sketchbook and a fabric pattern I made from it.

Here’s my orange doodlebug pattern on a throw pillow.

Orange Doodlebug by Clancy https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/14583100-orange-doodlebug-by-sueclancy

Recently someone sent me some photos of one of my wallpaper designs that they applied to their kitchen island. They were pleased and said it was “just the whimsy we were looking for”! I’m glad they were pleased!! I’ve learned in the process that grids are fun ways to make visual rhythms!

Here’s a painting I finished this week that I’ve titled “This Little Piggy”. It was inspired by the nursery rhyme: (please note the rhythms) “This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef. This little piggy had none. This little pig cried wee, wee, wee all the way home.” As you can see in my painting below I also repeated visual rhythms, like the rhyme, and did a few playful alterations.

This Little Piggy by Clancy

In the video below is a look inside my studio at “This Little Piggy” – I created using ink, gouache and color pencils many of the supplies you’ll see briefly in the video.
It will join my other paintings for exhibits later this year via Amy Biederman Caplan at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. www.caplanartdesigns.com

In my email newsletter this week I shared my “This Little Piggy” painting and I’ve been sharing my sketchbook pages. I’ve finished sketchbooks C and D and am working on E currently. The doodlebug image above is in book “D”.

This book is my current evening and weekend reading. It has a library in it that is dedicated to poetry… be still my heart!

And because I like to share particularly good things: here’s a link to a good recipe for LENTIL CHILI along with my additional notes and variations: Add a can of roasted chilies and use chicken or veg broth or water (whatever available/handy). Add cumin, dark cocoa, Mexican oregano, chili powder, salt, pepper – cook 30 or more mins on simmer, stir often and add more broth or water if needed.
Variation: add a chopped carrot, frozen corn and or chopped bell pepper

And look at the rhythmic visual pattern of the beans in my cookpot too!!

I hope your week forms a pleasant daily rhythm for you.

See you next Monday or so.

Love wins, kitchen leprechauns and Irish poetry

A Creative Life, Artist interviews and profiles, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, fine art, kitchen art, poetry, recipe illustration, sketchbook, small things, whimsical art

A local brewery was targeted because Drag Brunch is held there. Adults dressing as they like and eating a meal with other adults is offensive, it seems, to a hate group who busted windows and doors at the brewery claiming drag brunch to “justify” their violence. Here’s a recent newspaper article about this topic. https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/mar/11/heathen-brewing-feral-public-house-vandalized-saturday/ So in support of Heathen Brewing and our community my wife and I went with our Fairy Goddaughter to happy hour!

There was a line inside and almost every seat filled!! We had beer, nachos and sweet potato fries. We talked with people in line. We talked with people at the tables next to us. We petted dogs. We laughed! And we all had a grand time! Love is definitely winning!! The Go-fund-me page shows they’ve gotten more than 3000 dollars ABOVE their goal! Yea! Love wins again!!!

The current outpourings of love in response to hate reminds me of the late 1980’s gay rights activism in Oklahoma where I participated. We did what we called “Love Ins”. Wherever hate had happened or was happening many of us, LGBTQ and allies, would fill the floor space with our bodies. We would sit and spread out on the floor playing cards, coloring in color books, building things with toy blocks and we would sing or read poetry outloud. Sometimes a drag queen would read a story aloud. We had printed signs addressing the specific issue at hand. (The basic human right to access healthcare, the right to equal employment, the right to fairness in housing, the right to marry the person we love… to name only a few issues.) We also had general signs saying things like “We’re here, we’re queer get used to it”. But we did NOT verbally shout back at the people shouting hateful things at us. We played our games on the floor and ignored the haters. People had to step over and around us. Whenever a hater purposefully kicked one of us – the person who had been kicked said to another person on the floor “Ouch! Did you see that?” to which many of the floor sitters would loudly respond “I saw that! Are you okay? We love you!” and various other phrases in support of the person who’d been hurt. The perp, the kicker, was deliberately, overtly, ignored because we were focused on creating the loving world we wanted to inhabit. Often the shouting and kicking from the anti-gay side stopped in the absence of reciprocal violent exchanges – or if not completely stopping the violence failed to escalate – it seemed hard, for most, to keep yelling and kicking at people who were just playing cards and loving everyone even if some of the card players were wearing sequins.

And the LGBTQ community did, slowly, gain basic human rights – including the right to marry – even in Oklahoma. Love totally wins!

While thinking about all of this I created a sketchbook page and shared it on my email newsletter… it’s another description of why I do the kind of artwork I do.

Yes, it was so good to see love winning again more recently at the local brewery! Life, love and good things are for ALL of us! That’s what the ideals of equality and democracy are reaching for, however imperfectly, and it’s a worthy goal. It’s a goal for all of us by all of us!

What if our innovations, our future advancements, rely on how well we’re able to care for and about ourselves, people and plants? What if life, the future and everything is really all about love and how well we can do that loving of ourselves, each other and the natural world? (Rebecca Solnit writes a wonderful essay here about the real potential of this!)

Anyway, as I forcasted in my last blog post Amie McGraham at Cook &Tell interviewed me about my kitchen sketchbook and what was on my St Patrick’s Day menu! There are photos and sketchbook pages and recipes – https://amiemcg.substack.com/p/shot-in-the-kitchen-sue-clancy

Here’s a leprechaun, aka me, in the kitchen. 👇

Below is a quick look at my St Patrick’s recipes and what they looked like when served… more details on Cook & Tell.

Here’s one of the Irish poems I enjoyed with my Irish Coffee. It’s by Andrew Cherry. I find it both fun and encouraging.

This is the book the poem came from. 👇

Here’s some green plants in a recent painting I did titled “White Elephant” which I had also mentioned in my email newsletter.

Ah the hardiness of plants like those mentioned in the poem by Cherry! Love and luck to thrive anywhere and everywhere like clover! 🤔😊 Such an inspiration for humans don’t you think?

We’re in this life together. See you next Mondayish.

Touristing, a happy hippo, and a pink elephant

A Creative Life, animals in art, art prints, artistic inspirations, books, ebook, fine art, humor in art, kitchen art, mental health, poetry, sketchbook, travel art and writing, travelog, travelogue, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

We went touristing and drove 20 minutes from our house to Camas WA independent bookstore called Its Bookish. It’s a delightful store focused on children’s books up to young adult with some adult books too. Here’s some views of what we saw on our way to Its Bookish. Not pictured, because I wasn’t able to get pics due to intermittent clouds and terrain, were fleeting views of distant snow covered mountains.

The door to Its Bookish was warmly welcoming and was a delight to see!

Naturally I made a beeline for the poetry section and then had a more general browse. Both my wife and I found books/authors that we’re always looking for that are sometimes hard to find. The store was quite crowded with lots of kids of all ages and their grownups but during a brief quiet moment in the young adult section I snapped this selfie with my wife in the background. It was a pleasant experience. No bookstore cats though which was understandable given the high level of children’s activities.

After we finished at Its Bookish we walked around downtown to a locally owned pub Grains Of Wrath. On our walk we passed by sculptures and many more locally owned businesses with welcoming to everyone signs in their windows or doors!

At Grains of Wrath we had really good beer and the best mac and cheese ever! Here in the Pacific Northwest every pub has their own version of mac and cheese and it’s fun to discover how much variety mac and cheese can have! My spouse and I split the dishes so we each got enough but not too much. We felt quite indulgent!

Back home I photographed our book haul from Its Bookish.

On my email newsletter I shared my sketchbook page of a dancing hippo … and as you can see by the above tourist play I followed the hippo’s advice

By request I made an art print of my sketchbook page… https://society6.com/product/dancing-hippo-reminder_print

Dancing Hippo Reminder – by Clancy – https://society6.com/product/dancing-hippo-reminder_print

Here’s the gouache painting I finished last week titled “Pink Elephant”. More details and the sketchbook page leading up to the painting are on my email newsletter here.

Also last week I released my entire 38 page year 2016 sketchbook as an ebook download. It’s part of my “book of the month club” paid ($7) subscription series on my Substack. My 2016 “Glad to be alive” sketchbook contains drawings from walks in nature and visits to various Vancouver WA and Portland OR area restaurants libraries and other places. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/my-glad-to-be-alive-sketchbook

My friend Bernadette Laganella shared my Magic Beans on her New Classic Recipes blog ! Thank you Bernadette! Besides my beans recipe I shared how I learned during college women-supporting-women supperclub how to survive and thrive as an artist by knowing beans https://wp.me/pcAug8-kR

I’ve really enjoyed sharing both my art images and my stories via my email newsletter and also as a guest on blogs and other people’s email newsletters! I want to create more artist books and learn more about merging words and pictures together… and do more sharing of both my words and images… 🤔

This week, Mar 14th, Amie McGraham from Cook and Tell interviews me and includes my sketchbook pages for St. Patrick’s Day!! You’ll be able to see it here.

I hope your week contains happy hippos. See you next Mondayish.