artistic inspirations
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Public art private art and pretending
I’ve been thinking lately of how important the ability to imagine is. What if “let’s pretend…” is one of the most useful skills to cultivate all of one’s life? Besides being lots of fun to do using your imagination is an essential mental health skill. I quote from this article “So when you choose to…
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Fine art, books and similarities between art and writing
More work this week towards an upcoming art exhibit I’m calling “Odditerrarium”. I’ll tell more about my creative process on this exhibit here and in subsequent posts. Odditerrarium will be an exhibit via Caplan Art Designs later this year. This week I finished a dog portrait I’ve titled “Secret Knowledge”. It’s 10 x 8 inches…
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Of poodles books beer and food for the heart
For weeks I’ve been working on two poodle portraits. The details of their hair and eyes has been such fun! It’s also been delightful to imagine what each dog is thinking about! My wife and I have had the honor of knowing these poodles’ humans for a very long time – so it’s been a…
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A scoop of book creation repair and love
My newest artist book “A Scoop Of Letter Soup” was just released on Storyberries.com and you can see it for free here! Yippee!!! A video look at the original book “A Scoop Of Letter Soup” is here on YouTube and I did manage to make an Instagram Reel of it too!! I wrote last post…
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On playing with books, art and being wholly bent
I painted an unauthorized portrait of a playful cat that I’ve met courtesy of a dear friend. This portrait is titled “Wholly Bent” and is 10 x 8 inches. This is me just playing and working towards future art exhibits. Here’s a closer view of “Wholly Bent” it is 10 x 8 inches, ink, gouache…
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Benefits of miniature art, celebrations and a love letter to librarians
Some of my sketchbook pages this week felt like personal milestone markers, like “Yeah! That’s exactly the point of it!” This what I enjoy about having a regular sketchbook habit, the aha moments. In the studio I’m working on a fine art reproductions project that I can’t talk about much yet. But I’ve discovered another…
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On using banned book lists as a buyer’s guide and other subversive activities
Book banning is a hot topic with me because I’ve been on the receiving end of bans. Those occurrences happened in Oklahoma over 10 years ago when I lived there. To name just one example, in 2008 I was to have a one person art exhibit at the Oklahoma State Capital. More than a few…
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How the cow went over the moon, a dragon and got books that were banned
In my last post I shared my methods of making the original artist books “How The Cow Went Over The Moon” and “Tiny Notes”. The handmade original one-of-a-kind books are the basis for a printed version, newly released, titled “How The Cow Went Over The Moon and Tiny Note To The Sun” (https://www.blurb.com/b/11033023-how-the-cow-went-over-the-moon-and-tiny-notes-to) Almost exclusively…
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Miniature art, books, dogs, a cow, a bird, a dragon and a rabbit review
This week I finished the dog painting you saw in my sketchbook and on my easel in my last post. The cow is still active in the field of my imagination as is a wee bird. More on that later in this post. Here’s the completed dog portrait titled “Being exquisite”. Like the dog portrait…
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Miniature art, dogs, cows and books
This week had a cow in it (more on that in this post) and a dog portrait. I selected one of my sketchbook drawings as an idea for what to paint using the new brush technique I learned from the book, Miniature Art by Joan Cornish Willies that I talked about in my last post.…
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