art techniques

Colors, trees, art and books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art supplies, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, fine art, mundane and magical moments, reading, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking

I’m in the home stretch for my upcoming art exhibit at Caplan Art Designs which opens October 5th! There are 22 paintings, 2 sculptures by me that are ready now. Number 25 is in progress more on that in a sec…

Besides creating the artwork itself I photographed each piece for the Gallery’s promotional uses. This week I did more photos of one of my 3d sculptures (8 inch cube) that I’ve titled “Independent As A Hog On Ice”. These photos below show the colors better than the post I did about “Independent As…” when I first finished it.

I’m in this video working on piece number 25 for my exhibit. I’ll title this painting “Ducks In A Row” when I’m finished.

Clancy at work on “Ducks In A Row”

This week in my email newsletter I talked about my color palettes; why I select my own paint tube colors rather that buying manufactured color sets. Here’s the link that details that …  https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/colors-of-cats-and-trees

Here below are photos of things in nature where I live in the Pacific Northwest that inspired my new color palette mentioned in my newsletter.

I enjoyed looking at the grey-blue sky, the blue-lavender mountains in the distance, the grey-green-blue of the river… and the greens of the trees…

On a rainy day I enjoyed the grey sky, the deep green trees…

I love the grey-blue and pale grey-yellow colors of river rocks…the flower colors of orange-red and orange-yellow and blue-lavender…

With these real-life colors noted I looked in this resource book about colors so I could plan my palette.

Here’s what a page from this book looks like so you can see how it was helpful.

At my local art supply store I bought a new empty palette with a lid (and another water brush just because I love them).

I also got 2 new tubes of gouache paints: a Paynes Grey-blue and a Vermilion red. All of the other tubes seen in the photo below I already had on hand. This arrangement of color is what’s new.

As you can see by looking between the color chart on the front of the book and my paint palette (and my palette note sheet) these colors are more natural, classic even.

I’ve been rereading “The Overstory” by Richard Powers. In this mind boggling jigsaw puzzle of a fictional story there is a character who begins photographing one tree regularly over a span of time.

Since there are many beautiful trees in my neighborhood that I can see from my front windows …

…. one of the ways I decided to test my new palette is to paint a tree multiple times. The character in the book by Richard Powers uses a nondigital photographic camera to record their view of a tree over time. But me being me I’m going to try to paint and draw some trees by hand…

Which of course led to drawing that same tree in ink.

There’s a few other trees I can see from my windows that I want to draw and paint too… and I realized I have a lot to learn about drawing trees. So I went to my local library for books on the topic.

Here’s a view out my window. The tree I’ve already painted is to the right in these photos. Notice how different the trees are in different times of day due to the changing light? It’s amazingly magical!

I did a couple of efforts at drawing and painting the birch trees to the left in the above photos.

Yes, I’ve got a lot to learn about trees! It’s exciting to be starting a new project just as one project, my Figures Of Speech exhibit, is finished as far as the creative process goes. Figures Of Speech is just beginning it’s life at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery – and is in the early stages of being talked about in a more public sense.

Talking about completed art that’s in an exhibit is very different from creating the art itself. I prefer doing the creating part to doing the publicity part but I know talking about my art is part of it and I find, ironically, that being in the midst of creating art – even when it’s wildly different from the work currently on exhibit – helps me to be able to talk about the art I’ve already completed without too much shyness.

Anyhoo, there will be more about my upcoming exhibit and my new projects in progress in upcoming newsletters and blog posts.

I hope the trees grow well and beautifully in your neck of the woods too.

See you next Monday.

Outside of the box 4th edition

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, artistic inspirations, Emotional health, fine art, Interview, life of the mind, mental health, sculpture 3d, visual thinking

I continued work this week on my 3d box sculpture for upcoming exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery that I’d mentioned in my last post and finished it. Specifically, as I worked towards final touches, I looked at more cardboard and learned about the various symbols printed on boxes and what they mean.

Of all the possible cardboard box symbols- I chose the “this way up” symbol. In my art the “23” denotes the year I made it whereas in the real world on a cardboard box that type of number would indicate the edge crush test rating.

I did a bit more to the elephant character – but not too much.

After adding the box upright marks on the sides and adding highlights to the elephant… while all of the sides dried, I examined still more cardboard box bottoms for what kinds of marks are typically there.

When the sides of my sculpture were dry I turned my sculpture over and signed my name in a parody of cardboard box standards 😁🤣

Below are some of the official photos that I’ve taken for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery of my newly finished 3d sculpture that I’m titling… oh, I’ll bet you can guess… “Thinking Outside The Box”

Next I will varnish this sculpture but I won’t do photos of, or blog about, that process…🤣

Also this week Kathryn Vercillo asked me lots of questions about my artwork and how it relates to mental health. This interview relates directly to why I create the artwork I do. Very candidly I told all… I mean really told it all. 👇

Art and Mental Health Interview with Sue Clancy

I hope your week is pleasant and that you notice when it is. See you next Monday.

Outside of the box 3rd edition

A Creative Life, art gallery, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, creative thinking, fabric design, fine art, life of the mind, mental health, reading, sketchbook, words and pictures

I continued working on my 3d box sculpture in progress in my last post. My sculpture will be in an exhibit at Caplan Art Designs in October this year. I worked on filling in the lettering of the elephants “mural” and more on the elephant herself.

Since as I work on this sculpture I’m thinking about thinking I also did two newsletters this week: one about my notebook/sketchbook process itself and another newsletter showing locations where I do my notebook/sketchbook process.

One of the ways I try to practice thinking outside the box, the box of our current snap-judgement era, is to stay off the hard binary extremes of reverence and rejection as best I can. [There’s a good article about the false dilemma thinking bias here.] I can remember that if I like something I don’t have to hold it so sacred that I get upset if someone questions that thing I like. Similarly if I don’t like something I don’t have to be upset if someone else doesn’t share my view. My feelings don’t have to be set in concrete around one of the two poles like/dislike. I can remember that there are often many degrees of nuance between them. I can reserve judgement. I can change my mind as I learn more I don’t have to express a strong opinion, I can even have no opinions at all. I can encourage the development of my own spirit of reasonableness and compassion. I can encounter the complex world without needing to immediately put things into simplistically labled boxes. In fact I find it useful to occassionally encounter things as if I’ve never seen them before. Kindof like this meme a friend shared with me.

Anyhoo here’s my sketchbook page…

This week on my newsletter I shared my illustrated thoughts about developing our mental lives by making available a downloadable  ebook version of one of my sketchbooks that is on the topic of reading books. There’s a printed version of it available here.

Speaking of books and thinking: I’m currently reading an anthology “Stories Of Books And Libraries” edited by Jane Holloway. I’m enjoying the pleasant pastoral survey over a large span of time of all things bibliophiles like me might relate to or appreciate. Of course I like some of the stories more or less than others… in many ways reading this book is similar to opening and indulging in a finely crafted box of assorted chocolates.

And yes, the napkin you see in the photo with the book is a small cocktail size napkin printed with one of my designs from my sketchbook.  I like the cocktail size napkins for use during breakfast. Here’s a look at my coffee and books sketch.

I hope your week is pleasant and full of nuances to choose amongst and enjoy.

See you next Monday.

Hog box progress and colors of mind

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art supplies, art techniques, artistic inspirations, business of art, creative thinking, fine art, mental health, sculpture 3d, sketchbook, words and pictures

I worked this week on an 8 inch box sculpture and finished it for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. I’ve titled it “Independent As A Hog On Ice”. It will join its friends in my Figures Of Speech series for another exhibit later this year at the Gallery.

Here’s a few stages of progress…

The finishing touches were to make the skate lines more subtle and to make the overall box a lighter blue ice cube color.

Now having finished “Independent As A Hog On Ice” I have the challenge of photographing it for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. Below is one of my attempts at getting a good photo. The color isn’t correct. I talked with the Gallery about it and they suggested using a white background …

… and that suggestion worked much better! This photo below is true to the color of my artwork!

Being willing to try, fail, accept instruction and fix mistakes is an essential skill. I even wrote on my email newsletter recently on the art of mucking about -making mistakes in sketchbook fountain pen drawings and fixing them – or as a friend says “there aren’t mistakes in art only novel ways to fix them” well here are a few of my novel ways…
https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/the-art-of-mucking-about

And yet in this social media age there are people – and trolls or bots -who are quick to tell you everything you’ve ever done is a mistake, that you should change your life and creativity to suit them, that you should let them do whatever benefits them at your expense. Such commentary isn’t helpful or constructive “criticism”. Often it’s not even “criticism” in the art school definition of “an analysis of the merits or faults of an artistic work”. Criticism in that art school sense arises by mutual consent, by mutual trust and respect, between the artist/creator and the person being asked for input. Often in social media the trolls make their unkind comments unasked, and I don’t know them. Similarly the overweening flattery some trolls dole out prior to asking me to give them carte blanc to [fill in the blank with something that would only benefit the troll]. I block and delete such comments without responding to them. I focus on the kind helpful real-life people instead. And I ask for art school style criticism only from people I know and trust in real life.

But it isn’t always easy to be a creative person on social media. It’s a necessary evil nowadays for the self employed artist and yet social media is only a single cog in the creative process – but this one cog causes a regular need to do timeline mental health preservation, negative troll jujitsu and efforts to simultaneously maintain one’s spirit and creativity in the face of abuse.

Very recently another new social media has been rolled out, there’s pressure to “join” it now too… 🤦‍♀️ … so I thumbtacked a new handwritten card to my studio wall. It’s the one in the photo below that says “was your dream as a kid to provide free content for a billionaires social media company?” I’m willing to use social media but I’m not willing to be used – or abused – by it. Thus my thumbtacked reminder.

It helps me remember that I’m focusing more nowadays on my email newsletter and this blog – both of which are not so heavily based in an algorithm. I have more control over my newsletter and this blog and can interact more reliably with real people. I still use Instagram and Facebook just much less than I did before.

I added the new thumbtacked card about social media under the card I’d made some years ago when I was giving so many lectures and teaching workshops so often that I didn’t have time for creating my own artwork. It’s the card saying “was your dream as a kid to talk about art/writing or to do it?”. It helps me maintain more harmony between the doing of art and the talking about it.

Here’s me beginning a “use every fountain pen” exercise just for the no need to talk about it because of the self-explanitory fun of it. I’ll probably share the finished drawing on my email newsletter because I’m like that.

Speaking of using all of my pens… Here’s another thumbtacked note to myself “use the art supplies yourself -and now- or they’ll get sold for 10 cents at a garage sale after your funeral i.e. don’t hoard or be precious about art supplies no matter how nice they are! Just use them!”

Now and then I look around my studio and think “what have I not used lately?”

I have a big fat 40 inch tall roll of Kozuke paper that I haven’t used in a few years. Back then I used acrylic paints to dye this paper, make patterns on it and then I cut up the colored papers to make my large scale collage paintings. After the pandemic began I started working in a smaller size and primarily painting instead of doing collage. So that thickest roll of paper you see below in this photo has languished.

So I cut off a strip of the paper and tested my various fountain pens, inks and watercolors and gouache paints on it. On my test strip I misspelled the name of the paper which should be “Kozuke” but I’ll know what I mean whenever I refer to this test strip. All of my art materials tested well! Now I’m thinking of using this paper to make artist books!

Along with revisiting my art supplies inventory I like to occasionally reexamine my color palettes. For a number of years now I’ve used a more muted, subtle palette based in the natural world- specifically the colors of butterflies and bugs like beetles. So I purposefully took time this week to notice what colors in the real world caught my eye pleasantly and felt soothing to my mind. Then I looked for those same or very similar colors in several of my color reference books. I found the bulk of those colors in this book pictured below … and the colors I liked in the real world are in the butterfly and bug section again!

Details about this wonderful book here https://www.powells.com/book/natures-palette-a-color-reference-system-from-the-natural-world-9780691217048

Here’s test swatches of my butterfly bug palette that I create my imaginary worlds with – like “Independent As A Hog On Ice”. I’ll bet you can find the colors I used in my Hog sculpture in the swatches below.

We create the world together… we can pick the colors and the co-creators of the world that we want to inhabit.

Thank you for sharing the world with me. See you next Monday.

Alphapets, a pig, a giraffe and books

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, books, children's book, fine art, sculpture 3d, sketchbook, Storyberries, whimsical art

Both my wife and I are fully recovered from our recent bouts with covid. Just a smidge less energy than my normal but that’s getting better too. So this week besides sharing my sketchbook pages in today’s newsletter I shared a wee smidge about how I approach the blank page… even when I don’t feel well. https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/sketchbooks

Another day, since covid was still on my mind I told the backstory of how I came to doing children’s books on Storyberries. Hint: I began when covid did in early 2020 and the first book I did was Alphapets. Details here https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/why-i-make-kids-books

From the sketchbook pages I’ve done lately (see links above) I kept thinking about this pig….

So now that I’m feeling better I’m starting one of my 3d boxes for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery…

I’m also thinking about this giraffe… but I’m going slow and easy.

Here’s a book I’ve been relishing one poem a day!

This mystery is just a treat! I love a detective who is a decent and kind person!

It’s my birthday this week so I’ll kick up my heels a little. I hope you’ll have some fun this week too!

See you next Monday.

Seeds, hope keepers and family

A Creative Life, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, food for thought, graphic design, hopepunk, life of the mind, mental health, reading, sketchbook, travel art and writing, travelog, travelogue

Over a long weekend we had a family gathering to celebrate a graduation! Before traveling to spend several days together with everyone, my wife and I spent time in the Portland Japanese Garden. Here’s one of  the photos my wife took of me in the act of drawing some of the 300 year old bonsai trees that had been cared for by multiple generations. I shared the finished sketches here. We’ll visit this garden again soon. It was satisfying to see so much caring there!

Then the next day we drove 2 hours to Olympia Washington to be in town for our great nephew’s graduation from Evergreen State College. Since we were a day early we found a bookstore… Turtleman Used Books!

It is a tiny bookstore with a carefully curated selection by a wizard named Murlin! He was fun to talk to. And the store size was perfect as we were tired from driving and found the store refreshing. Here we are with Murlin.

When I was in the nonfiction art book section I met a young actress aged 9. The actress said hello to me first and said she liked the arts, was currently acting in a play at school and wanted to learn more about coloring with color pencils. There were several books on the topic on the shelf a bit too high for her to reach. I got the books down, handed them to her and we discussed the merits of each book. One book on colored pencil techniques was one that I have a copy of at home. I told her that and details about what I liked about the book. She decided to buy that title. I asked about what play she’s in and she replied “Pippi Longstocking”. She asked what I did in the arts. I said that I liked to draw and paint and that I currently have a one-person art exhibit on display. She tilted her head, looked puzzled, and said “Oh. Well, I’d better go pay for this. Bye”. I said goodbye and nice talking to you. Later I drew her portrait in my sketchbook.

These are the books that we got at Turtleman Used Books. 👇

The next morning at the hotel I drew in my sketchbook again…

Here’s us later in the day with our graduate! We’re so very proud of him!!!

We were a family of 20 people taking up two whole rows in the audience! (Our 21st family member was in the grad class of 2023!) Our niece, the graduate’s mom, said we were one of the largest families there!!

The headline speaker at commencement was the comedian Josh Blue who was hysterically funny, witty, kind, encouraging and delightful!! Another speaker spoke about how there have always been groups that abuse the climate, abuse people, abuse truth, etc. so we focus on how we respond, how we repair and how we keep hope alive. The speaker talked of how constantly, in every era, we need hope keepers, artists, writers, all kinds of people with the imagination and vision to see us through the hard times. We are all seeds…. This quote was referred to by all speakers. 👇

Heres a look at the neatly designed (I majored in graphic design when I was in college) 2023 commencement program with our graduates name in it. The font was easy to read and all the ceremony details were direct and straightforward. The college campus was beautiful, too, and it was also easy to navigate with walkways and lots of towering evergreen trees. The ceremony itself was warmhearted, encouraging and best of all there was closed captioning and a sign language interpreter! In every way the college showed that they really did want to include everyone! Anyhoo, here’s the program…

….and they had the most awesome “fight song” ever!! The song is printed on the back of the program! When it was time to sing they all sang loud and proud!!! 👇

In case you don’t know what a geoduck is…

After the commencement was finished we went to a local restaurant Basilico Ristorante where the 21 of us had a 7 course Italian meal together!! The food and wine were incredible!! Family members stood and made toasts and speeches and shared stories! The graduate stood and gave a great speech in response! All evening long there was conversation and so much laughter!

Here’s the toast I wrote and illustrated on the spot.

It’s wonderful to be with caring family and to remember that indeed we are seeds and all of us can keep hope alive and growing in ourselves and each other! We’re in this life together.

See you next Monday.

Of dogs, doodlebugs and damn good books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, cat portrait, creative thinking, fine art, humor in art, life of the mind, poetry, sketchbook, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

This week we took care of 2 dogs belonging to our extended family thus bringing our inhouse pet count up to 2 dachshunds 1 chihuahua Jack Russell mix and 1 cat. Everyone got along peacefully at “Camp Rusty” playing and sleeping together.

Well, the cat did his own thing but wasn’t upset by the extra dogs. In fact I think the cat enjoyed watching them from a window. And one of the dogs enjoyed watching the cat watch the dogs. It was all very meta as they used to say in literature class.

Given all the doggy focus this week I read doggy related poems.

Here’s one I particularly enjoyed.

I got extra canine support this week when I shared my sketchbook on my email newsletter.

My fine art projects for upcoming exhibitions were adjusted so I could more easily work in short bursts around what the dogs needed. As you can see in this video all I have to do is put the cap back on my fountain pen.

Here’s the finished painting. I’ve titled it “Genus: Doodlebug Species: Yellow Short Line Beetle”

“Genus: Doodlebug Species: Yellow Short Line Beetle” by Clancy – 7 x 5 inches- ink and gouache on board

All that time I spent in the biological zoological illustration trenches came in handy when drawing the beetle! 🤣

We sat outside on our patio a lot so the dogs could play in the yard during a rare week of Pacific Northwest sunshine. Besides my portable lap sized art projects mentioned above I read books! Besides the book of dog poems here’s two of the titles I’m reading alongside a cold beer and a pitcher of water.

I’m continually amazed at how similar visual pattern construction is to writing poetry – including the rhythm design scheme “a b a b” and so forth. I’m also still enthralled by how fine art exhibit plotting is so similar to story construction.

And I’m sure you noticed that all 3 of the above books fit into my ongoing Ray Bradbury Reading Program in which I’m reading one poem, one short story and one essay per day. This reading program is easy to adjust around doggy needs too.

The novel I’m reading before bed is one I’ve read before and is a favorite! I picked it because this week had enough challenges without adding a challenging new novel to the mix. So I picked a novel for the spirit lift (pun fully intended) in it.

In the above novel there is a party in which several people take turns singing a “port a beul”. So I looked online for examples to listen to while I read. This was a favorite! 👇

Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day so I did this drawing in honor of my local independent bookstores which have provided so many damn good books for me to read!!

Did you notice that my cat book buyer drawing is in a 4-beat “a, b, a, b” form?

Anyhoo, I hope your week is filled with many good things too.

See you next Monday.

The elephant in the room and we run outside

A Creative Life, animals in art, art book review, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, fine art, mental health, mundane and magical moments, poetry, publications - publishing, reading, sketchbook, small things, Sustainable creativity, travel art and writing, visual story, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

I asked my friends recently for ugly wallpaper suggestions that I could use for a painting I was working on. My friends are awesome and helped so much! The 1970’s avocado, orange and yellow combination was mentioned. So were weird rooster and chicken patterns and prickly cactus patterns. One friend talked about her pet peeve of framed pictures hanging askew.

Here’s me working on the painting and incorporating the suggestions of my friends.

… here’s a look at the painting on my easel in my studio.

Here’s a closer look at it in progress on my easel.

Here it is finished! I titled it “The Elephant In The Room”.

The Elephant In The Room – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink and gouache on board

Now for “Running Around Loose” aka Montessori time for grownups! The playtime method is fully described here on my email newsletter https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/running-around-loose
But here on this blog I’ll tell what we actually did intermittently over 3 days. Mostly I left my phone off and shoved deep in a pocket with a few exceptions:

First we went outside to walk 5 miles or so on the 7 acre Vancouver waterfront…

… and when it rained we sat under awnings and marveled at how it can be sunny and rainy simultaneously!

Coffee shops abound… and I couldn’t resist drawing my coffee and the pastry we shared.

On the second day we spent time at Bob’s Red Mill in Milwaukee Oregon. Or as we call it “the petting zoo for people who like to cook”. They have in one building; a restaurant, a grocery store (with many flours, gluten free, specialty ingredients and all sorts of foods to cook with) as well as dishes, kitchen utensils and equipment! We ate lunch here…

.. and while we were there we noticed these cute little one person sized casserole dishes! Yes, we got two of them!!

…and look at these adorable tea pots!! A jade green one came home with us!

On the third day we went for a 5 mile hike in Mt Tabor Park a 176 acre park in Portland Oregon.

On our hike I noticed these ivory-green flowers and liked the color. I want to try to mix paints to match it at the studio later.

It started raining slightly while we were still on our hike. By the time we got home it was raining harder! So it was nice to be home and reading “What To Read In The Rain” an anthology of short stories created as part of a writing workshop between kids (age 6 and up) and adult professional writers in the Seattle WA area. The non-profit that organizes these writing workshops is now called “The Bureau Of Fearless Ideas” and they work with teachers, students and the community to encourage writing and storytelling of all sorts. It’s a fun anthology to read on a rainy day!

Thinking later of things I’d noticed while we were outdoors I wrote a haiku poem and illustrated it in my sketchbook.

I hope you are able to go outside and play some too! See you next Monday.