illustrated shorts

New color in 2023

A Creative Life, art supplies, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, fine art, functional art, illustrated shorts, miniature art, publications - publishing, published art, sketchbook, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

I hope your holiday season was refreshing. A friend asked me 2 questions: what’s the difference between your blog and your email newsletter? My blog is about my creative life generally. My newsletter (via Substack) is where I’m serially publishing my sketchbook content, both art and words, prior to the time and efforts of creating a printed book. There may be a printed book of the art and words someday just not right now. But rather that let my art and my stories sit unseen in my sketchbooks I’m going ahead and sharing them. It’s like publishing a novel, in short excerpts, serially in a magazine. It’s also like what I currently do for Storyberries – I’ll create one of my short artist books and let it become a short ebook on the Storyberries website. Then after I have enough of the “shorties” I’ll create a printed book collection of them. But the kids who visit the Storyberries website didn’t have to wait for my printed book before they had a new story from me!

Anyway, like I was saying, here on my blog I share my artistic inspirations and other  resources… like my recent collection of Jolabokaflod books that cover the 3 categories, poetry, short stories and essays, that Ray Bradbury mentions in his reading program. I’ll use many of these books in the new year as inspiration materials.

During the holidays I also got a new set of acrylic paints from the same art supplies company, Arteza, that made the advent calendar our friend gave us. I liked the quality of the Arteza paints and the way they’ll let you create a custom palette!! So many of the available art supply sets are primary colors only – and it gets expensive buying individual paint tubes to construct a custom color palette. So Arteza is a find!!

Here’s a series of color swatches I painted with the acrylic paints I chose for my personal palette. As you can see it’s not kindergarten primary colors but there is a sortof red, yellow and blue…

Two of the other color palettes I also got from Arteza are gouache paints. One set is a human portrait skin tone palette. The other set is a natural land based palette. These color sets join my “butterfly palette” – a color assortment based on the colors of butterfly wings – for use in the new year.

Here’s a closer look at the gouache colors squeezed out of the tube on the new, previously empty, palette box.

Immediately I did a project that allowed me to use every one of my new gouache palette colors, both the human skin tone and the landscape tones. Just like when I use my butterfly palette I enjoy using the color tones of diverse human skin and the myriad of landscape colors to give color to mundane objects like coffee or tea cups.

My project, my excuse to try all of my new paints, is a 2023 calendar. I’m going to scan these monthly pages with my original art on them and make a downloadable (and printable) calendar for the paid subscribers of my email newsletter. Starting at 7 dollars a paid subscriber gets a calendar and access to my other artist book ebooks including current sequences of my sketchbook. I’m publishing my entire sketchbook a sequence at a time – at least one sequence each month.

Here’s a closer look at my calendar in progress…

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in my creative life as we begin 2023 … please visit my newsletter to see and get downloadable versions of my 2023 calendar and other art projects that I talk about here. It’s easier for me to share the downloadable digital files over there…

Happy New Year!

A hearing book and the cookbook is out!

A Creative Life, art gallery, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, collage, creative thinking, drawing as thinking, handmade books, illustrated poem, illustrated recipe, illustrated shorts, illustration, Kim Cooks Sue Draws, mental health, poetry, publications - publishing, recipe illustration, sketchbook, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

Recently a friend asked if I had made a book about my hearing experiences. Yes! In 2003 I made a one-of-a-kind book titled “Book Of Days And Ears”. It measures 3 inches tall 6 inches wide and is one inch thick. When fully opened it is a smidge more than 12 inches wide. The leather covers and the pages are hand sewn together with a Coptic stitch. This book binding style allows for page expansion, letting me sew additional elements into the binding and do thick collage applications on the pages themselves while still enabling the book to close.

Book of Days and Ears begins July 31 2003 and ends Oct 10 2003. It is a diary or journal style book with the date stamped on each entry. The entire book took place when we lived in Oklahoma and the main content, the overall “plot”, of the book is dealing with my hearing aid issues over the span of 3 months, trying to contact the hearing aid company and fussing with the mean dragon lady who worked there. The other staff were nice (nicer than others I’d encountered in Oklahoma) but during visits I had to get past dragon lady first. Here are just some of those pages.

Part of how I dealt with the hearing issue saga was through various art projects which I recorded in my book: paper marbleling sessions of which I sewed samples into the binding, letterpress and block printing project samples were glued onto the pages, art exhibits were documented by collaging parts of the event announcement on a page or actually sewing the event flyer into the binding. Here are a few of the art project related pages.

Of course in and amongst the pages shared above there are visits with friends, the death of a mentor/friend (the book artist and author Shereen LaPlantz), visits to bookstores and restaurants. And board games like backgammon which are ways to interconnect with people that don’t rely solely on the spoken/heard word. Here are a very few examples of this kind of page entry.

Here’s a video flip through of Book of Days and Ears https://youtu.be/2It3Vjl_Eao and me talking about it. You can see some book pages not pictured above. Did I mention that I talk about the book in the video? No, I couldn’t hear myself talking. I showed the video to my wife for sound checking prior to putting it on YouTube. Brave and cheeky of me eh? 😆😁

Fast forward away from 2003 Oklahoma to present day 2022 in Washington state and as I wrote last post… my current hearing aids stopped working and I visited a local hearing aid center, Vancouver Hearing Aid Center. Things are vastly better now: there is a button and a window in the hearing testing area, there are zero dragon ladies to deal with (Wow! An absence of mean dragons!!!), my supportive spouse is allowed to be with me and clear time tables, contact information etc details are given in written form! It’s almost as if they recognize that their clients might not hear well! Imagine that?! Anyway, I am still profoundly deaf just as I was in 2003 and as I was at age 8 see the hearing test chart below.

Very loud drum roll please!! The cookbook I’ve been illustrating is now available! It is titled Kim Cooks Sue Draws and can be gotten in person at Chef Kim Mahan’s culinary Class Cooking which is part of the winery Burnt Bridge Cellars. It is also available for shipping or as a downloadable pdf file from this link https://www.blurb.com/b/11301105-kim-cooks-sue-draws

Progress has happened on my upcoming illustrated poetry book for Storyberries! Here are a few of those original pages.

I have finished the 3D block now and titled it “Dogs On The Block”. More photos will be taken, it will be varnished and delivery to the Caplan Art Designs gallery arranged. So more still to do.

This current hearing aid repair season (Ha!) we’re playing dominoes as well as reading books each evening. So I’ll leave you with the action packed photos below and see you next Monday!

Well well odds are it’s a gift

A Creative Life, animals in art, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, fabric design, fine art, Gifts, household surrealism, illustrated gifts, illustrated shorts, magic realism, pattern design, product design, sketchbook, visual story, whimsical art

While working on my new household surrealism art series I’ve been thinking of my art as souvenirs of special moments.

For example: a friends daughter and grandkids left a cup of daffodils for us on our porch. I photographed and sketched the flowers.

Here’s one of my sketchbook pages that seemed most promising for a painting idea.

Here I am starting to paint in acrylic on board…while carefully looking at a flower model.

And so my painting progressed by building up layers of color. I chose a mouse character, a shy mouse offering gifts, because I was thinking of the emotional risk a gift-giver bravely takes. Also I was thinking of the gifts of nature, like flowers, that are there if we’re able to notice the subtleties of colors, patterns and textures as they change with the seasons. I chose yellow croc shoes for my mouse character to wear because waterproof footwear is useful for puttering about outdoors where I live in the Pacific Northwest. So there are gifts of culture too. Gifts are to be found everywhere if you remember to look.

Below is the finished painting I’ve titled “Well, well…”. I looked through my falling apart copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for any words that would relate to gift giving or receiving. Finding the collage text is a lot like doing Blackout Poetry – I scan the Austen pages looking for words and phrases that fit my painting topic. For this painting I chose the phrase “Well, well…” because sometimes people say, when recieving a gift, “well, well, what have we here?”

“Well, well…” by Clancy – 18 x 8 inches – acrylic, pencil and collage on board

Painting the little wrapped gift in the lower corner of my artwork reminded me of how much I enjoy making designs for tea towels…and using the towel to wrap a gift.

Using a tea towel for wrapping a gift is really a thing! It’s called Furoshiki …. and here’s a link to the general wrapping technique. And here’s one of my favorites – a link on how to use a towel to wrap a book!

My adopted mom, back in the early 1990’s, made fabric bags with a drawstring for use and reuse in gift giving. She was environmentally friendly before it was cool. So even though I don’t have Mom’s flair with a sewing machine I love designing fabric patterns and thinking of the fabric being used to wrap a gift!

Here’s a recent tea towel design I created on my Spoonflower shop … wouldn’t this be a fun gift wrapping?

Tacos Burritos Hot Sauce and Salsa- by Clancy- https://www.spoonflower.com/en/home-decor/dining/tea-towel/7816441-tacos-burritos-hot-sauce-salsa-by-sueclancy

Here’s a closer look at the art I did for the tea towel. These were drawn, over time, from real life.

Speaking of hot sauce: this week I got brave and baked hashbrowns! Yes, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns served with hot sauce! Turns out I really can imitate the not-quite-so-greasy-spoon diner at home! And keep the coffee coming! Here’s a link for the recipe I used for hashbrowns.

But back to the artwork. I have 4 more paintings that I hope to finish before mid May. I’m scheduled to have one-person fine art exhibits at Burnt Bridge Cellars and Caplan Art Designs later this year so I want to have at least 18 to 20 new works for the shows. Wish me luck?

I’m calling this new art series “Odditorium”… I chose this title because I intend the entire group of my works to be “odd” uncommon visual stories about common things. For my title I merged my thoughts of the word odd with the word auditorium. “Odd” means different from the usual. “Auditorium” means a building or space for an audience. I want to make a mental space for looking anew – or looking oddly – at mundane things.

As I work in my sketchbook I ponder things like: Perhaps those flowers, that towel, that coffee mug are really souvenirs of pleasant moments in life? What if dealing well with mundane life is itself a gift or even an art form?

In his book “Keep Going” Austin Kleon talks of making art as a gift. There’s also a wonderful book by Lewis Hyde titled “The Gift“. The message I get from both of these books is to remember the people. Both art making and gift giving are about emotionally connecting with people and sharing moments together.

Often when I’m creating I think of a person I know, or have known (even if they’ve died), and I make something they might like. Or I make something that reflects a feeling of connection. The person I have in mind is often never explicitly told that I thought of them. So, that thing you like … well, it just might be a gift for you.

So I make souvenirs of kind gentle moments in life by depicting common objects and animal characters in imaginative, surprising and whimsical ways that hopefully give a viewer pleasure. This, in my mind, is household surrealism.

I also see a visual pun in putting my artwork onto ordinary household objects like fabric or mugs. By making my objects available digitally and via mail (see my gifts here) I’m musing about objects that enable people to emotionally connect in a socially distanced pandemic safe way. My thought is that my work is not just about the stuff; the objects or books, it’s about our connections and our perceptions within our mundane lives. Can we find love, comfort and even art in the ordinary?

Anyway, lots of work still to be done to get ready for my exhibits! I hope you have a pleasant week full of the gift of kind moments with people you love! See you here next Monday?

Jolabokaflod and hot chocolate

A Creative Life, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, Books In Art, ebook, illustrated shorts, Narrative Art, reading in art, visual story, wordless story, writing and illustrating

Happy Jolabokaflod in advance! In my last post I hinted that I’d have a gift book for you. I have several! And some hot chocolate. Some assembly required… If you’re just joining this party – welcome! – and if you’re not familiar here’s another meme that tells what Jolabokaflod is.

So here’s one of your gift books that I’ve written and illustrated titled “B Mouse Reads A Book” – it’s a book-within-a-book book. I’ve created a wordless story about B Mouse who is reading and enjoying a book titled “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps”

Yes, I simply couldn’t resist a visual pun about books for Jolabokaflod – the holiday book flood!

Click here to be able to, for free, add “B Mouse Reads A Book” to your cart so you can download it and have it on your device. Below is one of the pages …

There’s also the option to download and read “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps” the very book B Mouse is reading too – you can go here to, for free, add it to your cart and download it too.

Both “B Mouse Reads A Book” and “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps” are my whimsical look at enjoying books, collections of things and publishing books.

Both of these books can also be seen on Storyberries.com – without downloading anything there – by clicking this link to see “B Mouse Reads A Book“. At the bottom of that story there’s some words “click here to read the story B Mouse is reading” and that takes you to “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps“

There are more free artist books that I wrote and illustrated available to download for free at the bottom of my shop page.

And on Storyberries.com there are 8 free books written and illustrated by me – just search the Storyberries site for my name, Sue Clancy

Now that you have some gifted books to read, here’s my hot chocolate recipe!

Enjoy yourself!! See you next Monday.

P. S. I’ve been off social media busy working on a new artist book… I hope to start sharing it here soon.

Childrens books and other comforts

A Creative Life, Alphapets, Alphapets Too, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, Authors, books, business of art, creative thinking, ebook, fine art, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, mental health, Numpurrs, Patch La Belle, poetry, printed books, small things, surface design, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

Well I didn’t expect that. My books sold out at the Aurora Gallery within 11 days. By request I’ve ordered more books to sign and deliver to the gallery asap.

I began doing this series of kids books as a gift for my friends and their kids and grandkids. When this pandemic began, for safety reasons, I started making my artist books on Blurb.com because they’ll print my books on demand and then mail those books from where they’re printed to any place in the world, including mailing books to my local friends.

Here’s a photo of all 5 of my children’s books. (Accessible on my shop page)

The worldwide aspect of Blurb has turned out to be a good thing also because all 5 of my children’s books are now on Storyberries.com as ebooks and audiobooks worldwide. Storyberries links to where a reader can get the printed books at the bottom of each ebook.

Even so I’ve gotten multiple direct questions about where to get printed versions of my children’s books so I’ve put them on my shop page as well as my portfolio pages.

Also on my portfolio pages are links to blog posts that show my working and thinking processes as I created the books.

What I hadn’t expected was the requests for signed books. I’ve been working on that: I’ve mailed signed labels for the book owner to affix in the book. And I’ve taken, in a pandemic safe way, a few signed books to the Aurora Gallery where they went quickly to new homes. I’ll have a few more signed books at the Aurora Gallery soon and the gallery is able to mail them on to a reader/collector.

Anyway, to be safest of all, I’m focused on working with places that can do the direct shipping of books and other items. I’m also enjoying making downloadable ebooks. (Look at the bottom of my shop page for ebooks I have there)

You see, I keep thinking “what if this pandemic is actually opportunity to slow down and really connect with people?”.

Books are ways to connect, in my opinion, and for that reason I make books. I may dedicate each book and have certain people in mind as I create my books but when I share on social media about my books (and other items) I share for anyone who needs a bit of comfort, a smile and a visual hug.

Here’s a look at the display at the Aurora Gallery before they sold out of my books.

At any rate I’m enjoying making my books available via Blurb and Storyberries and the Aurora Gallery and I’ve enjoyed hearing that my books have given people comfort and enjoyment during this time.

Most days I make an effort to catalog what I’m enjoying and finding comfort in these pandemic days. This is expanding my awareness of things, besides books, that help us connect with each other. But in my list making of comforting things I’ve found books and coffee so comforting so often that, for fun, I did a fabric pattern on the topic.

Coffee and Books fabric pattern – https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/9454365-coffee-books-by-sueclancy

A friend liked my coffee and books fabric pattern and requested a coffee mug with it. So I did that. It’s fun to think of mugs as gallery walls or as book pages or even as pieces of fabric. And I get comfort from thinking creatively about the ordinary stuff of life and the comforts found there. I’m very grateful that both Spoonflower and Zazzle can ship my designs directly to someone.

Coffee and Books mug – https://www.zazzle.com/coffee_and_books_mug-168903127961605425

I find it helpful to create things with specific people in mind. Sometimes the people know about my creation because they requested something or because I wrote a dedication in one of my books. Most often the person I had in mind while I was creating never knows about it.

As Kurt Vonnegut says “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

A side effect of thinking of my artistic creations as gifts for someone I have in mind is that I’ve discovered that my books, fabrics, mugs, puzzles and other items have been purchased as gifts by one person for another person.

And I love this thought that what I make as a gift, in my mind, for someone I know becomes a real-life gift from one person to another person.

It feels like I’m the author of gifts to be given, as if my artistic mediums, my paints so to speak, are love and kindness shared between people. With that in mind I’ve begun making more note cards… like this…

Hammy’s Comfy Pants card – https://www.zazzle.com/hammys_comfy_pants_card-256444659563201670

The text on the inside of the card says “wishing you calmness and peace or at least comfortable sweatpants”

Yes, comfortable pants made my list of enjoyed comforts this week. So did thick socks and warm sweaters but this is enough typing for right now.

See you next Monday? Till then please make yourself comfortable and share a comfort with someone else.

Illustrated shorts and other comforts

A Creative Life, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, creative thinking, fine art, functional art, illustrated shorts, illustration, life of the mind, mental health, Numpurrs, printed books, product design, publications - publishing, published art, small things, story, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

It’s election time in the U.S. This year is particularly full of hopes and fears. So I’m focusing on comforts as a topic for my art projects. I’m thinking of the importance of the ability to provide self care, self comfort and to comfort others. To feel ones feelings and to continue on without getting stuck in the feelings.

Here’s a book I illustrated some time ago that I’ve continually found helpful in life – and in my creative life.

Dr Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit – illustrated and collected by Sue Clancy
https://store.bookbaby.com/bookshop/book/index.aspx?bookURL=Dr-Bobs-Emotional-Repair-Program-First-Aid-Kit1

In the Dr Bob book there’s discussion of a self-care technique that I find most relevant to my creative life: keeping a list of things that I enjoy thinking about and, when worrying, to deliberately switch my thoughts to one of the things I enjoy thinking about. I’ve found that it’s helpful if at least one of the enjoyed thought topics on my list has gear. Gear; stuff I can buy, look at, use or touch in the real world.

Anyway here’s some items from my personal list of things I enjoy thinking about (in no particular order): fine art, art techniques, art supplies, reading, books, writing techniques, pens, papers, cooking, cooking techniques, food of all kinds, plants, wild animals, house pets, coffee, tea, mugs, cups, coffee urns, tea pots, jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, fabrics, fabric designs, lap blankets….

There are many more items on my list but you get the idea and I got tired of typing.

This strange year, 2020, with its pandemic and, in the U.S., weird political scene, I’ve thought a lot about those topics. As a result I’ve been branching out creatively.

Creating original fine art and one-of-a-kind handmade books for galleries, libraries, public organizations and clients homes and offices has long been my main focus. Well, the pandemic has caused me to adapt my thinking and find ways to put my artwork and books out in the world in ways that people could get them via mail order (or downloads) while at home rather than having to leave home and go to a particular place to see my work.

I still happily work with all of my art galleries and they have adapted to the pandemic as well, delivering and shipping art to clients, doing virtual tours etc. My new work simply augments what work I’ve already been doing with them. For instance people have sought, from my galleries, the original artwork for my books.

Primarily, creating print on demand books and objects has been a way for me to practice my own self care.

Anyway, the result has been the creation of real-life books, fabrics and objects that have been comforting to me as I’ve made them. I’ve been told by other people that they have been comforted by my work too. I have even heard that my work has been given as gifts and the comforts have been spread! I can’t describe adequately how happy that’s made me!

So I’ve been increasingly focused on creating original fine art which leads to creating my artist books on Blurb and also to creating theme related objects on my Zazzle and Spoonflower shops. Then on my portfolio page on my website I’m grouping them together.

For example on my Numpurrs portfolio page you can see images of the original fine art (and the art gallery handling it), my artist book for children titled Numpurrs. Besides info about the printed book there’s a related poster, calendar, jigsaw puzzle and mug. Here below is the Numpurrs mug – wouldn’t it be fun to have Alphabet soup out of this mug?

Numpurrs mug by Sue Clancy
https://www.zazzle.com/numpurrs_mug-168791615464778032

I’ve also created a new page on my website called “illustrated shorts“. The page has short examples of my thinking of fabric, note cards and coffee mugs as gallery wall spaces, so to speak.

For example here are a few of my illustrated short thoughts about love:

This is a page in my sketchbook
This was a redo of my sketchbook page on “good paper”
This is an “odd mug” I created with my design
https://www.zazzle.com/i_love_you_mug-168999488696149637

It’s fun, and comforting, for me to think about self care and to create art, books and objects that could be accessible for other people to use for their own self care or to be given to others. So I’m likely to continue such thoughts during the coming weeks as we all prepare for “non-normal” holidays.

Check in again next Monday? In the meantime, please take care of yourself.

Patch La Belle part 4

A Creative Life, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, illustration, Patch La Belle, poetry, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

(There’s a surprise inside this blog suitable for all ages) This week has been a flurry of finishing pages, and the cover art for Patch La Belle. I’ve also been doing the graphic design hocus pocus for both the printed books version and an ebook version for Storyberries.com

As per my last post I’m still thinking about the topics of enjoying and trying things:

There’s the trying that is an effort to make something – like a cake or a book.

Then there’s the trying things so as to learn what you prefer – like a type of food or a hat.

Trying things also gives us abstract information about how much food is too much and what time bedtime is.

It’s an important lifelong skill to cultivate the willingness to try things.

Here’s the finished pages (my last several blog posts tell more of my working process)

And here’s a photo of me working on the cover art and finishing a few pages.

Sue Clancy with original pages for her book Patch La Belle

I slipped all the artwork into archival sleeves so the pages could be sorted without risk of damages. Prior to being sprayed with a fixative and varnish the gouache colors could be easily smeared.

I asked my first editor, my wife Judy, what page order she thought was best – and I sticky-note flagged her page order and it was such a good order that I followed it! And if you’re looking at the picture above thinking “that looks like a lot more pages than have been shown on this blog” – you’re correct, I’ve impishly saved some for when the book is formally released.

My desire to hand make all of the words and images for this book has also resulted in a relaxed way of working – everything exists in the real world and can be laid out on a table.

In the past when I’ve done a hybrid of computer typewritten words and hand made illustrations the page sorting and design was more abstracted. But this time everything was made by hand. The “graphic design hocus pocus” that I refer to above is simply the photography of the finished art and laying out the photos in a software package for uploading to Blurb.com the place that will print and ship the books on demand. A different software package is used to make the digital file for the ebook on Storyberries.com [Btw: the art page photos above are just quick pics for sharing here on social media. I have another camera for photos of art to be reproduced]

Here’s the cover artwork as photographed for reproduction. I think I managed to keep the warm tone of the off-white paper I used to make the original artwork. (Yippee!)

Anyway, showing Patch La Belle to the folks at Storyberries.com generated some excitement there! They said “it’s going to be really engaging and the families will spend a long time reading it and looking over the pictures… it’s so beautiful!”

And just the thought of that feels so good!

Surprise! Dear loyal reader of my social media posts here is an early access link to the printed book Patch La Belle https://www.blurb.com/b/10351859-patch-la-belle

The “official” release of this book will be next week with the books release on Storyberries.com – more details here next Monday!

Patch La Belle part 2

A Creative Life, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, creative thinking, ebook, fine art, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, illustration, Patch La Belle, poetry, printed books, product design, publications - publishing, reading in art, story, Sustainable creativity, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures

This week I thought about the importance of trying things. So I’ve reread my poetry sketchbook for poems on that topic.

As I mentioned in my last post I’m working on a new children’s book for Storyberries.com titled Patch La Belle. As I work on this book I’m trying several new things but chiefly I’m trying to group many poems and illustrations together with a few themes as organizing factors. This is different from what I’ve done in the past where I did one poem with multiple illustrations as an entire book – as you can see on my portfolio page.

Anyway, here’s the pages I selected from my poetry sketchbook this week:

And below are the finished pages that I hand wrote and illustrated using ink and gouache. I use waterproof ink pens from jetpens.com on smooth hot press watercolor paper. I like the Holbein brand of gouache colors because they’re smooth and have strong pigments.

The watercolor paper I’m using is off-white and I hope that won’t be a problem when it comes to reproducing these pages. But I like the tender nostalgic feel of this paper and will endeavor to keep this soft tone in the final book. We’ll see how it goes. This is part of the risk of trying new things…

Part of Sue Clancy’s collection of poetry books

If I’ve posted the above video correctly you’ll be able to see part of my poetry book collection; books written by many other people, some famous, many not so familiar. My collection is in my dining room where I have breakfast and sketch. I find it soothing to read a short poem or story to start my day. I also have a collection of books containing short stories in the same room but this post is about poetry…so…

When it comes to writing my own poems I like to consult “The Book Of Forms” by Lewis Turco – pick a short poetry format, like limericks or couplets then think of a topic like “trying things” and play with related words and images. Some poems turn out okay, others don’t…the key thing, I think, is the willingness to write badly and trust that I’ll survive. So far that’s been true. And now after several years of regularly writing poems in my poetry sketchbook I’m able to reread it and find a few poems that are fun to illustrate and potential material for a new artist book.

Here’s a mantra I have thumbtacked to my art studio wall

Thumbtacked to Clancy’s studio wall

So I plan to keep working on Patch La Belle this week too. Will I see you here next Monday? Hope so. And I hope you enjoy whatever creative projects you’re working on this week too.

Patch La Belle begins

A Creative Life, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, creative thinking, ebook, fine art, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, illustration, Patch La Belle, poetry, publications - publishing, published art, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures

I’ve started a new illustrated poetry children’s book for Storyberries.com This time I’m writing and illustrating a bunch of poems. Up till now each book, Alphapets, Alphapets Too and Numpurrs were a single poem long. Lots of illustrations tied together with one poetic story.

So this new project feels dangerously different and daring. I find it helpful in a creative life to scare yourself now and then.

In my last post I showed my 3.5 x 5 x 1 inch poetry sketchbook, that I’ve worked in over the last several years, and told of reading through and sticky note flagging potential poems to be illustrated. Here it is bristling with sticky notes.

Here’s a close look at 3 of my poetry sketchbook pages that I chose to illustrate this week.

And here’s the weeks finished pages:

I’ve decided to hand write and hand draw everything in this book. Since Storyberries.com is a website of ebooks for kids my thinking is that it’d be fun, whimsical, amusing – harmlessly mischievous even – to fill a digital medium, the ebook, with hand-made marks.

As a working title – and probably the final title – I’m using “Patch La Belle: playful paintings and poetry”. The definition of the word “patch” and the definition of the French “la belle” play into my thoughts as this project feels like a patchwork of many lovely things. A stitching together of meditations on a theme of pleasant day dreams.

Anyway, more here next Monday and thanks for reading!

Alphapets Too: M, N, O and P

A Creative Life, Abecedarian, Alphapets, Alphapets Too, Ambassador for Small Frames, animals in art, art gallery, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, ebook, fine art, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, miniature art, pet portraits, poetry, story, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

Here’s the latest work on Alphapets Too my sequel to Alphapets by Clancy at the request of my fans and Storyberries – the publisher/distribution house I’ve been working with! (See my last post for details)

The Alphapets Too pet portrait project this week is brought to you by the letters M, N, O and P. Here’s my abecedarian poem to go with these letters and artwork :

Major makes do with a rock

Nala nibbles the clock

Opie oogles the big blue sky

Paco pokes the large pink tie

Here’s the artwork (somewhere on each piece is an alphabetical letter):

I did portraits of a green lizard (basilicus plumifrons), a pygmy goat, a squirrel monkey and a parrot.

The thing about this green lizard that makes me smile is its ability to run on water for short distances which has given it the “jesus lizard” nickname. This lizard lives in trees, around water and will, as I depict Major doing, bask on a sunny rock.

Pygmy goats are just cute. But like all goats they’d eat almost anything. This week my time dissapeared all too quickly. So I imagined my clock-time was eaten by a pygmy goat named Nala.

As I thought about what character to portray for the letter O, I remembered climbing trees a lot when I was a kid. Grandma even called me her “monkey”. I loved to climb to the top of the pear tree in Grandma’s yard and look at the sky. Squirrel monkeys eat fruit…so, here’s Opie!

Memories of my childhood reminded me that I strongly disliked the color pink and would “pick at” such clothing especially when it had bow ties or itchy lace. Why that memory merged with a large parrot named Paco I’m not sure – but it’s fun – so here it is.

Like my first series “Alphapets” this artwork, too, was created with ink, gouache and color pencil. I do these portraits on board, size 3.5 x 2.5 inches. The original art will be framed…eventually … and be a miniature art exhibit at the Aurora Gallery.

I will also be making an artist book titled Alphapets Too – in a format like “Alphapets by Clancy”. You can see print and ebook versions of “Alphapets” by clicking here.

And when I get it all done “Alphapets Too” will be available on Storyberries.com (Btw: there are two different stories by me currently on Storyberries.com- search the site by my name)

You can follow my progress during the week on my Instagram pages and see the full details of my creative process here in my Monday blog posts.

Thanks again for your support and encouragement as I work on this project!