Numpurrs 4, 5, 6, 7

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It’s been a busy week but there’s still been progress on my new artist book for children called Numpurrs. On Storyberries.com I had done a counting book titled “The Crow and the Water Jug” and it’s been popular with readers so Storyberries wants another book from me related to numbers and math.

In my last posts I’ve written about how I work in short bursts [Very Small Goals] until my idea has firmed up a bit. But this week let’s cut the chatter and get right to it…

Here are the finished poem lines that fit with my next 4 illustrations for Numpurrs

Four brings jugs of heavy sweet cream

Five fetches trout in from the stream

Six tallies the tables and chairs

Seven moves them from under the stairs

I chose the cats-to-be-illustrated from the various photos of cats that my friends have been kind enough to share. The cat photos themselves – and my happy thoughts of my friends – inspired which cat to pair with which number and poem line.

While painting these cat portraits with my gouache and ink method I’m still using the Dictionary of Color Combinations that I spoke of in my last post and playing around with colors. Working in small chunks steadily – and keeping it fun – gets things done despite all else.

As I said it’s been an extremely busy week but to keep myself in a feline fun frame of mind I found time to amuse myself with this quirky book about a cat. It’s an enjoyable read, the reviews that call it a “comic masterpiece” have it correctly I think. If you’re interested this link and this one tell more details about the book.

If you’re wondering what I’ve been so busy doing: I finished up some new fine art pieces for an upcoming exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs gallery – I also added my new art pieces to this virtual exhibit tour of sorts webpage here (hint: the newest pieces have birds reading books) https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/readings-from-the-heart/

I’ll post more of my Numpurrs progress during the week on my Instagram etc. social media pages and then sum up with more details about my creative process in a blog post next Monday.

But first let there be pizza, time to read books and watch movies.

Thanks for reading, commenting and buying my artist books – you help me keep going.