words and pictures

Movies and noticing stuff

A Creative Life, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, food for thought, life of the mind, mundane and magical moments, sketchbook, small things, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking, words and pictures

My wife and I went to see the movie Barbie at the Mcmenamins St. John’s Theater and Pub – a friend suggested seeing Barbie at this particular theater because it might be easier for me to hear. She was right! And this theater has a closed captioning device that sit in the cup holder and has a positional gooseneck!!! This made it possible for deaf me to comfortably enjoy the movie! And boy did we enjoy it!! Had to have a beer afterwards and discuss it! What fun! We discussed the many subtle jokes in the backgrounds, small allusions to elements of consumer culture, in the various scenes. It made me aware all over again of how important small things are in our daily physical and mental lives.

In the walkway leading towards the theater I loved all of the trees and the various colors of greenery…

….and the “enchanted forest” entryway into the theater and pub.

Stepping inside the neighborhood pub itself was magical. It had an old-world  artsy, funky, steam-punky, weird odd whimsical vibe that I enjoyed.

We want through the pub to go inside the wooden domed theater. It was possible to order food and beverage to be delivered to our theater seats. In front of each of the rows of seats were long communal table ledges just wide enough to hold plates and glasses. We didn’t order anything as I felt I had enough to do to prepare to “hear” the movie. The wooden dome and the art all around the perimeter were amazing to look at while we waited for the movie to begin.

The screen was at one end of the round room that seated perhaps 50 people.

When we bought our tickets I requested use of the closed captioning device. Then I wedged one end of the device into the cupholder and positioned the captioning end so it’d be under my view of the screen but yet not impeding anyone else’s view. Here’s me positioning the device.

Then the movie started and I turned my phone off and didn’t turn it back on till we got home. After the movie was over we sat in the pub having food and beverages while talking about the movie. There were so many fun things to see in the pub itself that besides going back for another movie – the captioning device worked wonderfully for me – I want to bring my sketchbook and draw. The food and beers were very good too but there were so many things to notice in the pub and outside around the pub that I ached for my notebook and sketchbook!

As you know, as part of my art practice (fully described in my recent newsletter) I try to notice 7 small things each day. That’s harder to do than it sounds. And I recently  read this seriously-jaw-dropping newsletter by Rob Walker which explains why it’s so hard.

Here’s a look at my notebook where I write stuff I notice every day…

I find it such an odd curious thing, about myself and about most humans, that 9 pleasant things can happen within a day but the 1 unpleasant thing will usually get all of the emotion and attention. And besides that often we wait until something grabs our attention (usually negatively) before we tune in. So I try to be contrarian and give more of my feelings and attention to the good things. Also I try to do my own purposful noticing instead of waiting for something external to move me … but I take the pressure off by only asking of myself that I notice 7 small (hopefully) nice things per day.

This is a book I have appreciated, and highly recommend, about noticing things.

Kirt Vonnegut also writes about trying to notice nice things that happen every day specifically to notice when you’re happy. This book is ostensibly for young people but I figure the young people I’ve been in my 5-years-past-half-century lifetime are still inside me so I reread this book fairly often.

So I hope you’re having many pleasant moments today and that you remember to notice as many of them as you can.

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.

Thinking outside boxes and The Artist’s Mind by Kathryn Vercillo

A Creative Life, artistic inspirations, books, Emotional health, fine art, life of the mind, mental health, reading, sculpture 3d, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures

This week I realized there are many cardboard box color variations. In my studio alone I count 10 different colors of brown box material. So the phrase “Thinking Outside The Box” has been on my mind and I’ve begun a new 8 inch wooden cube sculpture by painting it to look like a cardboard box. In the photo below my in progress sculpture is in the background and in the foreground is a box I’m using as a model for the flap-fold edges. (A different box was the model for the color…)

Here’s some of my thinking: I noticed that many commercial cardboard boxes have writing on them. In my city’s downtown there are murals on the sides of many of the buildings. Some of the murals have stylized text on them. The act of writing things down is a way to think…

So I began thinking “what about creating a character who is painting a mural with lettering on the outside of a cardboard box”?

Below is one of my sketchbook pages related to this project. I chose an elephant character because I also thought of the “memory of an elephant” phrase. That led to thoughts of how both memory and imagination are integral parts of creativity and the ability to think outside the boxes.

I did contemplate a cat character and cat boxes … as you see below my cat made certain I thought of this.

He even pointed out, by rubbing his chin emphatically on the box edge, that his favorite box is lovely shade of brown…

My cat’s chosen box is indeed a very nice brown color – and I do love cats – however I’m going with the elephant character in my artwork for the reasons described above… sorry kitty.

“Humph” pouts the cat.

Anyhoo, in addition to the meanings of particular words and phrases as I’m working on my sculpture I’m thinking about thinking itself; being creative, being logical and utilizing critical thinking skills. Generally I think and read regularly about mental and emotional health for many reasons but chiefly because our brains and thought processes are our main tools for creativity.

Creativity itself can be a tool for good mental health. Yes, there’s a chicken/egg aspect here – but regardless of whichever comes first I want to use my own thinking processes as well as I can. So besides reading philosophy or about mental health whenever I’m reading fiction, biographies and history I’m looking for the thinking, the words and actions over time that led to the events described as well as the responses to those events.

Recently I became aware of a new book “The Artist’s Mind” by Kathryn Vercillo. Because this book is directly on the topic that is on my mind so gosh-darn often I asked the author if I could chat with her about her book and share our conversation publicly. She kindly said yes!

Kathryn Vercillo even sent me a reader’s copy in a mail art envelope that she made! It was a fun touch! As of writing this blog post I’ve read her book and we’ve begun talking! [To somewhat reciprocate her generosity as well as to let her know where I’m coming from I sent her a copy of the book I illustrated for a psychiatrist “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit“.]

About the author: Kathryn Vercillo is a full time writer with a master’s degree in psychological studies. She is the owner of Create Me Free, a small business that researches the link between art and mental health in order to educate, inspire and empower artists to achieve financial and creative success while maintaining well being. She is the author of eight books, including Crochet Saved My Life, which is about the health benefits of handcrafting. When not creating, she’s enjoying life in San Francisco with her loved ones and her rescue pups.

We’re talking together about the content of Kathryn’s new book The Artist’s Mind and the many ways artists throughout history dealt with issues in the real world – stressors like illness, poverty, war, racism, bigotry etc – and kept creating their work. Naturally we’re also discussing coping skills artists can use today!

I’m enjoying a front row seat for her virtual book tour – it’s an amazing community effort – and I’m honored to have a backstage pass, so to speak, by getting to do an interview!

I look forward to sharing our finished conversation next Monday Aug 7th!

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.

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.