Writing And Illustrating
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The good things of this life
A fun creative exercise is to list the good things in my life. As the saying goes here’s “a few of my favorite things”. Items on my list are in bold type. Painting. Basset Hounds. Flowers. I combined these favorites in a mixed media painting titled “The Goods Of This Life”. It’s 8 x 11…
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Hedgehogs, foxes, reading and making meaning
I wrote in my last post that there may be hedgehogs and foxes in my upcoming sketchbook pages because I’m reading “The Hedgehog and the Fox” Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay about Tolstoy and history based on the Greek aphorism “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing” In his book Isaiah…
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Sweet peppers, prose, poetry and pens
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…
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Hot times, cold tea, teaching and learning
I’ve been thinking about the process of teaching and learning lately as I plan upcoming drawing tutorials for Nil-tech. I don’t think I’m an authority on drawing. I’m just fascinated by the subject and have done drawings almost daily for a really long time. It seems that there’s interest in me showing more of how…
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Mom, Odditerrarium, A.M. Sketching and rulings IRL
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…
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Odditerrarium, art, ants, anteaters and books
Ants are making progress… in my new artist book that is! In my last post I was working on “Ant Hology” using a collage of letters, ink and gouache. It’s another miniature 2 inch square book that opens to 20 inches long. Here’s the progress: The letters I used came from Columbia Gorge Book Arts.…
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The ants the wetlands and the wild books
In our neighborhood we joke that western Washington is built on a giant anthill. Each spring we all battle ants outside our houses before they can invade indoors. The first hint is a mound of dirt where there wasn’t one before. Like this one on the edge of our patio. I lifted the bricks and…
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Unwearied fancie, the flowers, the books and the stew
Unlike ball obsessed dogs I get tired and need a break even from my most favorite activity in the world: making art. In my last post I talked of finishing most of the prep for my upcoming Odditerrarium exhibit a week or so early in order to give myself time to rest and recharge before…
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Using much eloquence while juggling numbers
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…
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Curiosity, cats, our minds and alphabets
I’ve been thinking this week about the role of curiosity in a creative life. So here’s a fun curiosity/creativity game I play with myself. To play you’ll need: any printed book with lots of visual images in it, 5 sticky post-it notes from a post-it note pad, a separate piece of paper and a pen or…
