new art designs by Clancy for fabric

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, Art Licensing, pattern design, surface design

The grandmother I grew up with was a quilter. I spent many a childhood day going through Grandma’s carefully-organized-by-color fabric collection and re-sorting them into different color combos. (Not sure Grandma approved.) Later on my adopted mom was also a quilter.

In my fine art I’ve been designing the “fabric” my characters “wear” in my artwork (as well as the wall paper, the china tea cups, the clocks, chairs and whatever else is part of my visual story).

So it seems fitting that I begin doing art-designs for real-life fabric that can be available for quilters and seamstresses of all kinds. You can find my designs on Spoonflower here – https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/sueclancy

More designs will be coming online soon – and I’m making more… I’ll keep you posted.

I figure I owe it to my grandmother – and my adopted mom – for all the times I “messed about” in their fabric collections! And I want to give my currently-using-fabric quilter/fabric artist friends something new to create with…

Here is a photo of my first test swatches (8 x 8 inches) with my designs on fabric. What you see is exactly as the swatches came out of the envelope a few minutes ago – they’ve not been ironed or anything. The ruler is there to show scale.

These designs, after I officially “approve” them in about 5 minutes, will be available as fabric cut by the fat quarter or by the yard.  Also these and other fabric designs I create – will soon be available for application on home-furnishings like chairs or tea towels via another Spoonflower related company.  But more about that another day.

what café art became

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, Art Licensing, pattern design

I blogged earlier about my café inspired pattern design in the process of being created – https://sueclancy.com/2017/04/25/cafe-art-you-and-me/

The rest of that story is that I’ve turned the “café you and me” design into a scarf and a clutch bag for my signature art apparel collection on VIDA https://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

Now I need more coffee…

new Clancy pattern designs

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, Art Licensing, artistic inspirations

Here are images of my newly finished scarf and bag designs intended for the amusement of teachers (and students and people who enjoy language and numbers) – and both designs were inspired by teachers.  My most recent blog post on my website tells “how and why I made this” details.  https://sueclancy.com/2017/02/06/art-messes-math-mistakes-and-teachers/ 

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scarf design by Clancy – the original pattern is created by hand-drawing letters in ink. That pattern is custom printed on modal fabric https://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

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bag design by Clancy – the original pattern is created by hand-drawing numbers in ink. That pattern is custom printed https://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

You can see my full pattern design collection here: https://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

art messes math mistakes and teachers

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, Art Licensing, artistic inspirations, pattern design

I’ve had the cold/flu/crud for the last week. I’m feeling better now and wanted to “do something creative”. Trouble is I still suddenly sneeze and cough so using sharp xacto knives, loaded ink brushes and glue laden papers is more hazardous and messy than usual. What to do?

Then I thought – I know several teachers who have this cold/flu/crud too. What could I make that might amuse teachers? Perhaps make them feel a wee bit better? After some further thought I grabbed my felt-tip pens and have been creating pattern designs that will end up on a scarf and or a tote bag.

Here’s a photo of my pattern design work in progress.

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After I snapped the above photo I saw my math mistake. Do you see it?

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I did! And fixed it. Hugs and thanks to math teachers everywhere!

Now I’ll do need to do the digital hocus pocus needed to submit my designs to the apparel company I work with in San Francisco California.

But I’ll try to get some rest first.

You can see my full studio pattern design collection via this link: http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

feeding the beast

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, art commissions, art gallery, books, ebook, fine art, graphic narrative, Not-So-Sketchy-Food, sketchbook

A problem I’ve had as a professional artist who does fine art commissions – is that often the project is a secret. Which means even though my day (and mind) is filled with drawings, paper patterns and colors related to my commission I can’t talk about it online. No posting “in progress” photos because it’d spoil the surprise for somebody.

But still the Social Media Beast must be fed.

I’ve solved this problem – in hopefully an amusing way – by posting my short-narrative work (see my last post as an example), or something about one of my artist books…Here’s a page I particularly like today from my book Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit:

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page from “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/dr-bobs-emotional-repair-program-first-aid-kit

Or posting a page from my sketchbook – like this one – which also happens to be an ebook page from my Coffee Table Book – (by the way, it is also a very good recipe for lunch):

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page from “Coffee, Table, Book” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

Or posting something about one of my pattern designs: The art apparel with my pattern designs that I do for VIDA really do have my signature on them!  You can see my entire signature collection here: http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

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Sue Clancy’s “signature collection” of art apparel really does have a signature!  See the whole collection here: http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

And now that I’ve told you my secret – and fed the Beast a bit – I’ll get back to work on my art commission.

chic chicory pattern design

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, Art Licensing, art techniques, artistic inspirations, psychogeography, travel art and writing

Recently, end of September or early October my wife and I went on one of our wander-walks – I had my sketchbook in hand. On Officer’s Row in Vancouver WA I walked through a field full of blue-purple flowers… here are some of the sketches I did that day.

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Sue Clancy’s sketchbook page of the overall view of the field on Officers Row.

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Sue Clancy’s sketchbook page – details of flowers seen on Officers Row

The field was full of flowers; a patch here was full of blue ones, a patch there was white, another one there was magenta….it reminded me of curling up under/on a color-block quilt having a hot chocolate and reading a good book with a comforting lap cat/dog.

Then my work and life in general went on at a very busy pace and all the while in the back of my mind I was remembering that cozy quilt-like pattern of flowers seen on our walk…and thinking of how best to re-create that comfy feeling within pattern design and how that could be used in my fine art, or as a scarf or…???

Probably after the last chicory flower had faded from the real-life field I finally found time to create a pattern. In my studio I played around, designing several patterns using the chicory flower as a motif. As I worked I thought of several of our friends who garden, who like to go for walks/hikes and the upcoming winter season so I decided to make my pattern design into a scarf. I’m thinking it might be cozy to be able wear “end of summer” flowers during winter.

I used some paper I’d previously dyed and cut out the flower shape with an Xacto knife and glued it together. Then I cut up that just-created flower and re-glued it together in such a way that my finished design will digitally replicate as an overall pattern on fabric.  The last step is to do a bit of detail here and there on the flower petals with my color pencils. Here are photos of two of my multi-step process of pattern design creation:

Here’s what the finished scarf design looks like -and it is available via this link http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy :

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Scarf pattern design “Chic Chicory” by Sue Clancy http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

The pattern seems a bit lighter on the fabric – but that is because it is on a white/sheer type of fabric and the fabric type affects the “look” of the design. I do my best to keep in mind that this will happen when I’m creating my pattern design.

My Chic Chicory pattern turned out nicely … what do you think?

 

 

drawing on grandmas pillow

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, pattern design

As a kid I remember drawing on almost anything I could. In self defense my Grandmother kept a stack of paper, pencils and a few crayons in her kitchen and encouraged me to stick to those surfaces. Oh, and there was a small blackboard with some color chalk.

I loved those materials but now and then I strayed; I drew in chalk on the wall, the porch and the sidewalk, I drew with sticks in the mud, I drew on paper napkins, I drew with berries in the kitchen sink, I drew with a blue crayon on a pillow case.

I think the blue crayon on the white pillow case upset Grandma the most.

So let’s just say that after the “pillow case incident” I got the message about staying on paper or chalkboards.

Mostly.

Until now.

Recently (as an adult professional artist I might add) I’ve had the opportunity to do some pattern designs for pillows! White luscious pillows covered with my art! Childhood dreams do come true! Or perhaps people now-a-days are simple more okay with me drawing on the pillows?  http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

You can see a video of me making the blue star pattern on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cAx88mwARqo

seeing art in autumn leaves

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, art exhibit, art gallery, artistic inspirations, fine art, pattern design, psychogeography, sketchbook, travel art and writing, travelog, travelogue

I’ve 2 different one-woman art exhibits already scheduled for 2017 – and already there’s discussion of another exhibit for 2018. So I’ve been taking walks to gather inspiration.  Which means lots of sketchbook work, doodling and experimenting with pattern designs. Here’s a sketch I did along the River-walk in Vancouver…

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Sue Clancy’s sketchbook page; ink and watercolor done on location as she walked.

Also in my sketchbook I did some ink and watercolor drawings of some of the fallen leaves during that same walk. You can see that sketch along with a pattern-design tile I was working on in this photo here:

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Sue Clancy’s sketchbook page and a pattern design “tile” she was creating using cut handmade paper.

And here are photos of a pocket square, a scarf and a tote bag I created using my “Autumn Leaves” pattern design as part of my art apparel collection: http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

Now I’m thinking and re-thinking this overall-leaf motif and how it may relate to my paper-making techniques. I’m also plotting how to use this design – or variations on it – in future fine artworks.

Between now and the actual paper creation there will be more walks and more sketches of leaves (and probably other things).  I saw some beautiful ginkgo tree’s downtown the other day…

Yes, this is a long-term project.  But, don’t worry, there will be breaks for lunch.

 

Sue’s art speech text

A Creative Life, animals in art, Art Apparel, art commissions, art exhibit, art gallery, collage, fine art, psychogeography, visual story, words and pictures

On Oct 1st I gave a short talk during my fine art opening at the Daily In The Pearl arranged by Caplan Art Designs.  Since I’d recently written a blog post titled “on writing and giving speeches” I thought it only fair to share with you the text of my speech along with photos. This is a rough approximation of what I said as I can’t re-create the ad-libs and audience participation – it was a fun lively evening! Anyway here goes:

Speech given Oct 1st 2016 by Sue Clancy

Thank you for coming!

I create mixed media handmade paper collage.  I start off with white handmade paper and I give that paper color and pattern using a variety of art techniques; I dye the paper, I stencil it, I print on it, I marble it and use a variety of other methods. This is the “mixed media” aspect of my work.

Here are a few scraps of papers I’ve done so you can handle them, along with a postcard containing photos of me in action.

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Paper samples Sue Clancy handed out during her speech; the paper on the far left is an example of the white paper she starts out with – the other 3 are examples of color/pattern she’s given the white paper

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Postcard Sue made, and handed out during her speech, that shows photos of her giving paper color and pattern.

Once the papers are dry I take an X-acto knife and cut shapes out of them. Then I take the cut-paper-shapes and glue them together to make my art images. There are layers of paper glued on top of other papers. Yes, tweezers are involved.

In “The Read Hat” I cut the chihuahua’s head, 4 paws and tail out of a medium brown paper – then other smaller shapes of darker/lighter brown papers were cut to make his face. The clothes the dog wears was cut out of a green dotted paper, the books out of yellow papers – and so forth – until the image was finished.

That’s my construction method.

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“The Read Hat” By Sue Clancy 14 x 11 x 2 inches Hand dyed paper, handmade paper, hand stenciled paper, found paper and acrylic on cradled board

My ideas and the pattern designs within them come from my life. Take “The Read Hat” as an example again; 5 different life experiences went into this concept.

  • I saw some wet, weathered flyers stapled on some telephone poles during a walk on Hawthorne Street in Portland Or. the pattern of letters overlaying each other transparently made me think about the clarity and legibility of information. (This inspired the background of this artwork.)
  • I met a Chihuahua who has the habit of collecting most things found at floor level onto his dog bed. Yet he still showed a preference for some things over others.  So I began thinking about how I have to select which information in the world to spend time trying to understand since it is impossible to “collect all” the available information.(This inspired my choice of a Chihuahua character)
  • On a trip to the Oregon Coast I drove through Oregon wine country. The hills rise and fall so in several places I had an almost aerial view of the Oregon vineyards. (That inspired the green dotted pattern the Chihuahua is wearing.)
  • The “aerial view” of an Oregon vineyard reminded me of my favorite self-indulgence; I like to put on my pj’s early of an evening, have a glass of wine and read a book for an hour or so before bed. (This is why the character is wearing pj’s and not some other sort of outfit)
  • When I indulge myself this way I often take off my hearing-aids so as to completely relax and focus on what I’m reading. My deafness made me think of how important language is as a framework for understanding the world. Language is a container, a hat, that holds knowledge.

This is generally how I work: pattern designs become symbols in a visual story. When I do special commissions I use this visual story method too – only instead of my life experiences inspiring the pattern designs and story symbols it’s your life experiences that do that.

The titles I give my artworks, the “blurbs” and statements I write about them – or about my  exhibits – are clues to my personal thoughts.  But my use of pattern design symbolically and my use of the Animals in Art genre (it’s a classic genre of fine art like ‘still life’ or ‘landscape painting’) takes my work beyond the personal and into the mythological story or fable.

So this summer when a San Francisco company contacted me about licensing my designs for use as scarves, bags and other apparel I saw a chance to extend my ‘pattern designs as symbols’ concept into the real world. You can see my full apparel collection here: http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

Using the same pattern design in multiple symbolic ways – in different fine artworks, in art apparel and in artist books – is my way of thinking about aspects of nature, culture and other things in contemporary life. Thank you!

Here’s a photo of me giving the above speech.

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Sue Clancy giving a short speech about her artwork

 

more star stuff

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, art exhibit, art gallery, Art Licensing, art techniques, artist book, fine art, psychogeography

I alluded in my last blog post  about my newest fine art piece “If It’s Any Constellation” that when I start with one pattern design I tend to do several creative things with it. It’s my way of examining my thinking. You know, like any good philosopher is supposed to do; think about ones own thinking.

That star pattern paper I made in this YouTube video https://youtu.be/cAx88mwARqo became 3 different creative things: a fine art piece (see my last blog post for the image and details), a scarf, and an artist book page.

Here’s the scarf which I titled “Starry Summer Sky”. As I was creating it I was thinking “we wrap ourselves in stars…” and cozy romantic evenings, wrapping oneself up as the summer evenings begin to become chilly autumn nights. You can get a custom made scarf with this design via this link http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy 

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Pattern design titled “Starry Summer Sky” by Sue Clancy for VIDA http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

And here is the artist book page:

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“City And Sky” by Sue Clancy – 8 x 8 inches – handmade paper, hand stenciled paper, found paper and acrylic on paper

In “City and Sky” I was thinking of how the same starry summer sky shelters all of us….

Anyway, my artist book page is currently on its way to Constellation Studio Gallery in Nebraska. It will be on exhibit there for a few months and then become part of a collaborative artist book – and eventually end up in a library/museum – the entire project is titled “Invisible Cities”.

The overall thought I was pondering with my star pattern design was “What ways do we/can we all live with a vast starry universe at the end of summer?”

Maybe that’s too simple a sentence but do you see what I’m talking about? How a single pattern design – with variations –  can be used as a metaphor, a theme, in different ways. How a pattern can be used as a visual story element – or a way of exploring the questions of life from different angles?

This, besides working aortic valves, is what gets my blood pumping! Pattern designs as a way of thinking…thinking in patterns…. patterns of thinking….designs of patterns…patterns of design! OMG!! Wow!!!!!!!!

Okay, okay, I’ll go take a few deep breaths and calm down.