publications – publishing

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.

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!

Odditerrarium and the week

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, fine art, mental health, Odditerrarium, printed books, publications - publishing, Sustainable creativity

The week started with a whoosh! Vintage Books asked for more copies of Dr Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit and asked me to sign them!!

Of course I did a drawing too because I’m  me and that’s what I do – in these copies I did a small self portrait. These can be ordered for shipping from Vintage Books to anywhere. Just tell them you want a signed one.

Since my wife and I were in the bookstore we had a good browse. My wife has her own book haul and here’s a photo of mine.

We got our covid booster shots and our flu shots at the same time. It was the appointment time available that fit (sortof) into our schedule. Felt tired and achy the first day but the next day, the day of my Odditerrarium art opening at Caplan Art Designs…

… I felt punk. The house was 74 degrees but I was very shivery cold. Mostly I read The Hobbit (it’s in my books to cheer up by list) and napped. It felt very difficult to do the social media necessary for my exhibit. But I did my best.

Thank goodness for Amy and Steve at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery!!! They’re both kind, understanding people and they’re very talented at what they do. I appreciate both of them a whole lot in ordinary times but this week I appreciated them even more.

If you’re just catching up here’s the photo of my entire Odditerrarium series on the Gallery’s wall before the lables were added like you see in the pic with Amy and Steve.

Wow! Caplan Art Designs sold 8 of my paintings from my Odditerrarium series!! They sold some of my Odditerrarium artist books too!!! Thank you all again!! ❤❤
Odditerrarium continues through October.
More details about my Odditerrarium project here: https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/odditerrarium/ But these paintings below went to new happy homes!

By Friday afternoon I felt almost 100% back to normal! Not a bit was done this week on any of the other projects I’ve mentioned in my last post. I didn’t even do any playing in my sketchbook. Even so it was a good thing I felt back to normal Friday because we had planned an after the exhibit opening get-away.

So this weekend we had a delightful day with Rusty on the Oregon coast! Our long awaited date day consisted of a long leisurely windy walk along the Pacific ocean – and beers and burgers by the outdoor fire pit at Pelican brewing – Rusty had water with his very own burger patty, which we cut into small bites for him. Rusty enjoyed meeting so many dogs and we had fun conversations with the dog people. Many of the dogs were not easily identified as one breed and all were as darling as darling can be!

Anyway, a much needed relaxing day was had by all!! Of course art studio supervisor Rusty, and his staff, want to plan more such outings! And now I’m fascinated by mixed breed mutt dogs. I love the puzzle of them, the gentle humor of the look of them…

I hope your week is pleasant and that, if you have them, your beers and burgers are just the way you like them. See you next Monday

My adopted Mom’s quilt and a searcher

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art prints, art supplies, art techniques, author illustrator, books, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fine art, household surrealism, illustration, mental health, Odditerrarium, publications - publishing, published art, reading, sketchbook, whimsical art, words and pictures

This week the Aurora Gallery finished framing my adopted Mom’s quilt that I told you about in a prior post. Doesn’t the frame look great? We went right home and hung it in a special place!

Elizabeth Steinbaugh at the Aurora Gallery
Mom Penny Hoke’s quilt on our wall at home

As you see in the photo above – included in the frame is a piece of handmade paper on which I hand wrote Mom’s name and a bit about the quilt.

I also remembered a story related to the quilt theme of “knowing what it is when you pick it up” (details in this post). The story I remembered goes like this: A man holding a lit candle went looking for fire with which to cook his rice. It was a long search. If he had known what fire was or asked some questions when he began searching he could have cooked his rice a lot sooner.

Below is one of my Odditerrarium series paintings for the upcoming exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. It’s titled “A Searcher”

This week we went for a browse at Vintage Books an independent bookstore a few miles from where we live. As I browsed I came across the local author shelves and was delighted to see a book I illustrated, “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit”, right there on the shelf where I was browsing! What a fun surprise! It’s available via the bookstore website too!

Below is the book haul we came home with!

Below is a sketchbook drawing I did of two books I’m currently enjoying reading! I’ve added both of these titles to my public books to cheer up by book list here.

I enjoyed seeing this photo of a happy person with their dog with my artwork in the background at Canal District Wines this week and thought you’d enjoy it too. I’m thinking I want to do more art like this … I like the boldness and simplicity.

https://www.canaldistrictwines.com/

This project in progress below is a 3d cube 8 inches square that I’m doing for a holiday exhibit at Caplan Art Designs! I’m aiming for the used wooden toy block look – but with a dog theme.

My drawing marathon for NIL-TECH will start on Monday and run for a number of weeks! If you’ve followed my blog you’ve seen me working towards this… and now here it is! Drum roll please! Actually please follow NIL-TECH on their Instagram or Facebook pages so you can see the end results of all the practice you watched me do here on my blog! And thank you for cheering me on! Here’s the link to the 54 piece watercolor pencil set I’ll be using in my marathon. Wish me luck!

I hope your week is pleasant. See you next Monday.

Sweet peppers, prose, poetry and pens

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art supplies, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, creative thinking, drawing as thinking, ebook, illustrated poem, Patch La Belle, poetry, publications - publishing, reading, sketchbook, Storyberries, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

My spouse’s sweet pepper plants are doing well in the heat! I stuffed the just picked peppers with cheese and roasted them with black beans, corn, zucchini and red onion. Tasted yummy!

The heat inspired me, as I’ve illustrated recently with a drawing demo, to stay in a cool place and finish reading a wonderful novel.

A Gentleman In Moscow by Towles was so good that when I finished reading I added it to my books-to-cheer-up-by shelf for rereading whenever I need a pick-me-up.

I got wonderful news from Storyberries this week – they’ve started a bookstore! (Here’s a direct link to some of my books https://www.bookstore.storyberries.com/product-tag/sue-clancy/  ) When I looked at the new store I discovered that of the 18 books by me on Storyberries 12 of my titles are spread between 3 categories: art books, poetry, ABC123!! What a fun surprise!!

When someone clicks on a bookstore link the viewer can sample the book, read about the book, click a button to read the book for free and now there’s an option to buy a print copy too! Below is a screenshot example of what it looks like, this is a screenshot and not operational, click this link if you want lights and action about my poetry book below.

Since we’re just having fun today here’s one of my illustrated poems from Patch La Belle so you can see how I’ve hand written all of the poem text for the book. I wrote with a felt tip pen. I went through lots of felt tip pens while working on this book. I already had a fountain pen so I was missing the ability to refill a pen but the fountain pen nib I had at the time of this project wasn’t bold enough. (This is how I knew what to request as a birthday gift! 😁 ) Anyway, here’s a poem.

This week the rest of my birthday present came in to our local pen and stationary store Oblation Papers and Press ! The extra fine nib fountain pen that I got the actual day of my birthday is now joined by a broad nib and a stub nib!

I love fountain pens for the ease of use that a good quality pen, like these TWSBI kind. They write and draw super smoothly have a built in converter which allows me to fill them with my preferred ink (Heart of Darkness by Noodlers Ink). Now there’s even fewer plastic bits of disposable felt tip pens to go into a land fill from my studio!

Right away I practiced writing an alphabet and drawing with each pen.

Here’s a single drawing I did with all 3 fountain pens. Yes, I totally see more handwritten illustrated poetry books in my future!

Over on my email newsletter A.M. Sketching I shared my favorite book about fountain pens and I’m sharing it here too just in case you’re curious.

To test how my new pens write over my gouache colors I wrote a poetic kind of phrase on a scrap of paper.

Then I painted an Earth in Space inspired by the “plaid” striations in my breakfast orange.

When the painting was dry I wrote my phrase as neatly as I could.

So you can see the page better…

…it worked fairly well! So, yes, I’ll definitely be doing more illustrated poetry!

The above mentioned novel by Towles is a hard act to follow but here’s what I’m reading and enjoying now. I’m thinking there may be some drawings of foxes and hedgehogs soon.

I also made some progress this week on a new painting for an upcoming fine art exhibit, there’s my current art exhibit to promote, there progress I could share on a new ABC123 category book (I have a category! Wahoo!! 🙌❤) but it’s early days in these projects and I’m tired of typing now.

I hope your week is sweetly filled with peppers, prose, poetry and pens just as you like them. See you next Monday.

Ant Hology, the anthology, the sketchbook three and the exhibit ABC

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, books, children's book, creative thinking, ebook, mental health, publications - publishing, sketchbook, Storyberries, whimsical art, words and pictures

I’ve made a new handmade alphabet book for Storyberries – called “Ant Hology” – it is now a free ebook childrens book on www.storyberries.com

https://www.storyberries.com/anthology-experimental-art-books-counting-alphabet-books-for-kids/

This video link looks at the original handmade artist book which is only 2 inches square. Ant Hology on YouTube https://youtube.com/shorts/qt57rCZPhrs?feature=share

“Ant Hology” is also included in a newly printed anthology (pun fully intended) containing reproductions of 3 of Clancy’s handmade books titled “Juggling Numbers and Letters”
https://www.blurb.com/b/11198251-juggling-numbers-and-letters

Here’s a look at printed book alongside the 3 original artist books so you can see the scale difference. The printed book is 7 inches square

Speaking of threes – on A.M. Sketching this week I wrote about the three sources of inspiration for my sketchbook work: my life, my self generated photo references and my imagination. Details on A.M. Sketching but here is the gist.

As you know this use of the “3 sources” is true of my fine art and artist books too. For example Ant Hology was inspired, as I wrote in this post, by an ant mound along the edge of our patio.

In August I’m having an exhibit at the Aurora Gallery. I’ve titled it: “For you by Sue the ABC’s: Art, Books. Cards”. All of this exhibit too was inspired by my life, my self-generated references and my imagination.

Here’s the artist statement I wrote for the exhibit:

“I see creativity as a very practical thing. Art adorns our walls. Books bemuse us. Cards connect us. For this exhibit I include all three of these essential elements of life because it’s been stressful lately and I am me. So I made these things for you.”

The above photo and this video link below shows a small selection of over 30 related art gift objects created by me that are available. https://youtu.be/iPL6g_2cICw

I plan to do more photos and videos of the various art objects and put them on my portfolio page – you can see what I’ve done so far here.

This week will be very busy but each morning I will sketch and each evening I will read books a while and generate more self-generated reference material so it can percolate on the back burner of my mind while I do necessary stuff for my upcoming exhibit.

I hope your week has at least 3 nice things in it. See you next Monday.

Mom, Odditerrarium, A.M. Sketching and rulings IRL

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, fine art, Odditerrarium, publications - publishing, sketchbook, writing and illustrating

My adopted Mom has passed and is no longer in pain. I wrote in a prior post about her illness. For more than 20 years and before JL and I moved to Washington 12 years ago, Mom and I met for lunch at least once a month sometimes more. Lunch was either at a restaurant or at her house. After Dad and then JL retired they joined us for our lunches. During every lunch I ever had with Mom she had Pinot Grigio. Mom liked flowers and often had carefully curated displays of them in a vase somewhere in her house. She commented on them in the restaurants. Dad had what Mom called “flower blindness” he just didn’t notice the flowers. Lay a book somewhere and he saw it immediately – but new flower arrangements flew above his radar. So I did my best to notice and say something about Mom’s flowers. What I learned and the love I got from Mom would fill a galaxy and could start a new one.

Before getting the news about Mom I had begun working on this blog as follows below. Because my head isn’t here right now I’m leaving this blog unedited as it was in draft form typos, raw text, unended sentences, no links and all… I’ll be back again next week. If ever anyone taught good coping skills it was my Mom. Anyway here’s what I’d planned to share…

I delivered 3 new works to Burnt Bridge Cellars and Kim put them up after Amy from Caplan Art Designs took the sold ones down to be sent to their new homes.

BLAHBLAH about the visit

Close ups of the newest ones, titles etc

After the delivery I worked on the digital files of Ant Hology for Storyberries and sent those in. Photos and such will come later.

I also changed the name of my email newsletter from Clancy’s Coffee with the Green Dragon to “A.M. Sketching”. It’s less of a mouthful and more directly to the point. https://sueclancy.substack.com/

Below is one of the sketchbok pages I shared via A.M. Sketching- I really leaned this week on my alphabetical list of things I enjoy and am still working on the list. So more on this later.

The bulk of the week was busy and stressful so the only work I got done towards the newest childrensbook is some sketchbook drawings of bears bicycling.

I found the Supreme Court decisions stressful. If anyone thinks the ruling about Roe v Wade and the probable striking birthcontrol only affects young women – in 2018 my middle aged lady parts went haywire and an IUD basically saved my life. All of the artwork I’ve created since then is thanks to the availability of women’s healthcare. So after the ruling today I keep thinking about what might have happened to me if the current Supreme Court ruling had been in place and I had lived in a red state in 2018.
I might not have lived. I might not have been here to be photographed working in my artstudio on a hedgehog

The next morning I drew this in my sketchbook and we donated to several orgs including After Roe: Help protect choice everywhere — Donate via ActBlue
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/after-roe

I’ve been happily having coffee with my sweetie every morning for 26 plus years and I plan to continue no matter what. We’ve both fought for womensrights and for gay rights and we will keep doing that too.
Damnit I’m sad, upset and angry about the current Supreme Court rulings and the likelihood of the anti birth control and anti gay rulings to come. I go into action when upset … BTW I consider all forms of creativity practical actions. Maintaining our humanity is direct action. Hang on to your heart, your mind and love wins.

Below are our favorite morning mugs. I had a time in my creative life when I did ceramics.

Here’s a post I saw that resonated

Anyway, becaus we can’t really live in rage let us now go to our happy places … the bookshelves in our living room are one of my favorite places s. Sometimes I like to just look at the shelves and what’s on them.

Please hang on to your heart and be gentle with yourself and each other this week as we all gear up for a fight for basic human rights.

See you next Monday.

Using much eloquence while juggling numbers

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, business of art, children's book, handmade books, household surrealism, mental health, miniature art, Odditerrarium, publications - publishing, sketchbook, Storyberries, wordless story, writing and illustrating

A new painting in my Odditerrarium series for upcoming exhibits via Caplan Art Designs is titled “Using Much Eloquence”. Like the others in this series this one is 10 x 8 inches and made with ink, gouache and collage on board.

Here’s a closer view so you can see what this dog is thinking.

Now that I’ve made sufficient progress on my Odditerrarium series – I have 15 of the paintings finished  – it’s time to write the art exhibit statement that will be used both for the Odditerrarium artist book and for the exhibit. I have written before in this blog (here) about writing art exhibit statements or “blurbs” as I call them. Exhibit statements are a short, around 150 words, first person description of what an exhibit is about. I think of it as like the description on the back of a book. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

I also think of a shorter sentence that can be used like a log-line is used in book publishing. For Odditerrarium I’ve written “I wonder what our dogs and cats think about the objects, people and places in their lives so in my Odditerrarium fine art series of portraits I imagine the contents of their thoughts as a terrarium hat.”

Whenever I begin a new series I keep a logbook where I make notes of my thoughts towards the series while I work. I write what I’m excited about, the questions I’m asking, what I learn etc and those notes are what I pull from to write an exhibit statement and logline. Making “notes” includes my sketchbook pages like this one.

Whenever I have finished more than 10 paintings from what I think is a series I’ll spread the finished artwork out where I can see it all, reread my logbook and see which bits fit with the finished artworks and which of the artworks do look like a coherent series. Of course I add these thoughts to my logbook.

My statement writing process is a whole lot like the project narrative writing for grant applications directions (link here) except I don’t apply for any grants with my project narratives aka exhibit statements. I used an informal version of my Odditerrarium statement during discussions with Caplan Art Designs about my proposed exhibit. Whenever I decide the formal written Odditerrarium statement is as good as I can make it I will send it to the gallery.

Putting together the artist book version of my Odditerrarium series will help me know when my statement is done.

Here’s my dachshund supervisor helping me process photos of the finished artwork for use in the book design for Odditerrarium.

My newest artist book “Juggling Numbers” is now out on Storyberries!! In this video I’m showing the original artist book “Juggling Numbers” a handmade artist book that plays in a visual way with the flow of numbers. I made a digital ebook version of this artist book for the experimental art category of Storyberries.com – see it here – a free ebook site for children. I chose the number range from 1 to 25 because a friends grandchildren could count to 20.

https://www.storyberries.com/counting-books-juggling-numbers-by-clancy-experimental-kids-art-books/

Below are a few still photos of the original book – video and links are also on my portfolio page here. The logline for Juggling Numbers is something like this ” … can you count forwards and backwards with a cat?”

I got news this week that my adopted Mom is not doing well health wise (hospice) and big sister, Mom and I visited by phone several times. Mom told me repeatedly to “keep making your art”. I know she’s quite serious about that. So I’ve begun drawing and painting orchids, Mom’s favorite flower. That’s all I know to do whenever I’m sad – channel feelings and love into art. Putting symbolic things in my art is my way of doing a version of Carol Burnett’s ear tug. Printed books whenever they appear in my artwork are for my adopted Dad – in case you wondered.

Grateful for my sketchbook as a way of both holding on and letting go.

A brunch I had with my wife this weekend was particularly lovely: homemade scrambled eggs, bacon, sourdough toast with homemade jam made by our friend Carol. Our coffee cups resting on handmade coasters by our friend Jeannie – and we felt surrounded by the love and support of friendship! And yes I put tobasco sauce on my eggs and tobasco jelly on my toast … is there anything I don’t put Tobasco on? Maybe ice cream. But I haven’t tried that yet so I don’t know for sure.

I hope your week is full of love and friendships. I hope you have plenty of tobasco sauce if you like it. I’ll keep making art because my Mom says so and I hope you’ll keep on keeping on too. See you next Monday.