artistic inspirations
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The Arabian Nights, miniature art and studio equipment
This week was … there. Reading Marcus Aurelius helped. So did the oranges, the coffee, the leaves in the yard, the books and art. Talking with my spouse helped too. I kept returning to this quote from Marcus Aurelius so I did this gouache and ink painting. Then I added it to my “for encouragement”…
A Creative Life, art prints, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, Creativity Chats, fine art, household surrealism, mental health, miniature art, publications – publishing, published art, sketchbook, small things, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures, Writing And Illustrating -

The last Professional dogs and The Arabian Nights
Drum roll please… here are the last pages from The Professional Dog. I finished the social media postings of this series on the very last day of 2021. How’s that for timing? Lol!! So you can see a closer view… and read the accompanying text 👇 Thank you for following my entire process as I…
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The Professional Dog and our Jolabokaflod festivities
Here below are 3 dogs from The Professional Dog and details about our Jolabokaflod holiday! The text from the book is below each dog portrait. In my last post I shared some of the books we’d ordered that came early for Jolabokaflod. Our house “rule” is that any adulting ceases and we open the book…
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Professional Dog, Gallery exhibits in a pandemic and being Santa’s elf
There are 3 major art gallery exhibits in my life but more on that in a bit. First here are this weeks 3 dogs from The Professional Dog. Here’s a larger image of each dog portrait with the book text beneath. In times past I went in person to local exhibits especially when my work…
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The Professional Dog book on Storyberries, Thanksgiving and holiday box details
Lots to share: The Professional Dog is out in print and as an ebook on Storyberries! In a bit I’m sharing my creative process for my holiday box project. But first, because people tell me they’re enjoying it, I am continuing to feature 3 dogs from The Professional Dog per week so here’s this weeks……
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Professional dogs, artist books, unmentionables and hamburger
My new childrens book, The Professional Dog, is progressing nicely. I’ve been thinking of this as a fine art dog portrait album inspired by the idea of the 19th century parlor game The Minister’s Cat. My book concept is an excuse to talk to my friends about their dogs and see if I can do…
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Professional dogs, clutch pencils, fountain pens, writing and drawing
More progress this week on The Professional Dog, my latest childrens book project. Here are three together and like I mentioned in my last post perhaps you can see how the colors transition from one piece to the next? Here are closer looks so you can see the details. I’m creating each portrait using ink…
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Professional Dogs, puzzles, holiday box and figure ground relationships
I got my Covid19 booster shot and thought of the relationship between individuals and community. That brought jigsaw puzzles to mind. Quite a number of people were getting vaccinated the same time I was and it got me to thinking of how each one of us fit into the local community in some interlocking way.…
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Professional dog, the box project, encouragement, a chat and gnocchi
My childrens book “The Professional Dog” has moved into color! Over the last week I’ve inked more than 12 of the illustrations just so I could see where I was going. Now I’m doing the same testing with colors. I’m using my butterfly palette (a post about that here) – it’s a fun challenge to…
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Professional dogs, box project, cards, books, the first chat and some biscuits with gravy
The Professional Dog text for my in-progress childrens book is solid enough that this week I focused on the illustrations. I’ve done about 12 of them in ink and have established a pattern for the artwork that relates to the text. I’m working on bringing the illustrations up to the same semi solid level of…
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