author/artist

Odditerrarium, art, ants, anteaters and books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, children's book, ebook, fine art, Odditerrarium, sketchbook, visual story, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

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.

Now to do the graphic design hocus pocus and send a digital file containing all of these ants to Storyberries!

In my last post I shared a sketchbook page that had Anteaters in it … yes, there’s a new children’s book in progress. The text was written by Judy Sullens. Please notice that I used my ant research in this project too! Ha! Here’s the first illustration:

But this new book has been put aside temporarily so I can make new Odditerrarium paintings to replace some of the paintings that have sold at Burnt Bridge Cellars via Caplan Art Designs.

Here’s my studio supervisor dachshund supervising the paintings in progress. They need to be finished by the time you read this post so my supervisor is helping to keep me focused. Says the dog “Hey, where are you going..?”

Here’s a look at the two paintings on my easel now that they’re finished except for the varnishing, framing and delivering. Due Tuesday!

Storyberries contacted me about their release date for the ebook version of my Odditerrarium. Here’s a Reel about Odditerrarium on Storyberries that I did to help explain the visual story puzzle aspect of my Odditerrarium project.

And – drumroll please – here’s the ebook version of Odditerrarium on Storyberries! https://www.storyberries.com/short-stories-for-kids-odditerrarium-by-sue-clancy-art-books-for-kids/

When I was a kid I loved looking at coffee table books with paintings in them. Now I’m enjoying making books for children that contain my fine art because the little kid I once was would have absolutely loved a book like Odditerrarium!

Anyway, this week has been very busy but even so I still played in my sketchbook most mornings (you can see what I sketched via my Substack sketchbook emails here) and each evening I read books. Here’s what I’ve been reading:

And here’s the evening shift supervisor cat who makes sure we have whipped cream on our hot chocolate, maintain a regular reading program and still get to bed at a decent hour. Says the cat “Hey, you with the thumbs, quit poking about on the phone and get back to lap making and book reading.”

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

How To Draw A Dragon, fine art and postal whimsy

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, Art Word Combinations, artist book, book design and layout, children's book, creative thinking, ebook, fine art, greeting cards, household surrealism, Odditorium, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

If you got a post titled “Dragon postal whimsy” I accidentally hit a button. Here’s the real post about “How To Draw A Dragon“! After a week spent creating cover art and scanning 36 pages there’s now a coloring book poem that exists in the world!

This is the book description:

“How do you draw a grumpy dragon? This coloring book story poem written and illustrated by the artist sue clancy shows you how.

This whimsical poem is also about how creativity works, how our creative child selves and our analytical adult selves can work together.”

Below is a look at the original manuscript.

I used the computer to put the text on the front and back covers. I thought long and hard about handwriting it all but I learned when I did Patch La Belle that handwritten text on a cover isn’t “searchable” and could be harder for people to find. That searchable issue isn’t a big concern for me coming from the art world as I do where one-of-a-kind things are the norm. But after thinking a while I opted to type the cover text for “How To Draw A Dragon” even though I hand drew and hand colored everything else.

So here’s the cover becoming…

And here’s what the cover became.

https://www.blurb.com/b/10815467-how-to-draw-a-dragon

I’m especially pleased that my book layout “thinking in page spreads” turned out so well! They line up in the middle when bound! In the first photo below you see my original art. Below that you see the printed book.

Since we’re still in a pandemic I have added a free printable pdf file for this book to my “shop” page where I have several of my free downloadable artist books. It’s on my to-do list to make a portfolio page for How To Draw A Dragon and have everything in one spot.

Storyberries will, eventually, also do a free ebook version of How To Draw A Dragon and have a link to the free printable pdf too. But that’s still in progress. I will update my still-to-be -made portfolio page and this blog when it’s been set up at Storyberries.

On another topic: My Odditorium exhibit will open in September at Caplan Art Designs with some additional new art for the series!

Since we are still in a pandemic the Gallery is doing all the prudent safety measures and I’m doing my part as best I can. Besides doing the virtual page about Odditorium I have done a series of videos on my YouTube channel about this exhibit as well as about why I do this work. I’ve made 5 videos in all but here’s the one about this exhibit. The Gallery will post my videos and share them with clients digitally thereby minimizing everyone’s exposure. I’m glad and grateful to work with a gallery that cares about the health of both their artists and their clients.

On still another topic: A friend recently enjoyed getting a card from me and called it “postal whimsy”. I like that phrase and asked for and was give permission to use it! So I’ve updated my Zazzle collection of odd greeting cards both with the “postal whimsy” phrase and some new card designs. I am getting serious about sending postal whimsy and helping cheer people. Below is one of my favorite cards…

https://www.zazzle.com/hare_in_the_sink_postcard-256418650416992132

This week was so busy that while I did make sure to eat meals of fruits, vegetables and whole grains – more often than not – I didn’t do any sketches or photos of the food. I just stuffed my quiche-hole and got to work.

Despite all of the busy-ness I still did drawings in my sketchbook in the mornings and my evening reading of books before bed. Makes for nice creative bookends, pun intended, to a day.

However busy your week is I hope it is bounded by pleasant things. See you next Monday? Or before then if I hit a wrong button again…

Dragon in the details

A Creative Life, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, business of art, creative thinking, Gifts, household surrealism, illustrated poem, Odditorium, On Looking At Odditorium, recipe illustration, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures

A work rhythm has been fairly firmly established. I wrote about that in my last post. My days now have a regularity that goes like this:

Breakfast time contains sketchbook drawings with or without characters from my currently in progress childrens book “How To Draw A Dragon”

Perhaps after eating breakfast I spend a few minutes more reading a poem or working the crossword puzzle with my spouse (we take turns doing 5 or 6 clues) while we finish our coffee. (The poem in the photo below is by Robert Service)

Then I pour another cup of coffee and carry it to the studio. There I look at the work I did last and my project schedule/guide that I described in my last post. I sip my coffee and settle in to work.

By now I’ve done about 10 of the 32 pages but even those, as you can probably see in the photos below, aren’t really finished. Some elements like the text will be the last to be inked and only after all 32 pages have been mostly finished. Similarly I will edit and ink all of the elements of foreshadowing for my poem story after all 32 pages are mostly inked.

As I work I am thinking of the pages both as page spreads and as individual pages.

These pages below have been quickly photographed where they are on my easel for sharing my progress with you here. My set up for photos for book reproductions is another thing entirely- and I’m not at that point yet.

The sharp eyed will probably notice that some changes have been made to my story setting and to my poem text since my last post.

Basically I’m in the early stages of this book project and everything is in flux and there aren’t “for public” images for this project yet.

So instead of anything about this project when I put something on my social media I post about my current art exhibit Odditorium at Burnt Bridge Cellars and about the related items I’ve designed on my Zazzle shop. For example my “Odd mugs” collection.

And my books. I talk about one of the 9 books in my portfolio. Or I talk about one of my 10 books on Storyberries. Or I post a photo of my cat or dog. Or I post nothing at all. Especially as I settle into a project working rhythm I find I’m online less and less. That said I do enjoy finding your kind comments when I check in! And I thank you in advance for them.

Lunch, however, is rarely missed. This week the easiest meals were bean and grain bowls like this photo below and here’s the recipe scheme from my Favorites So Far kitchen sketchbook.

https://www.blurb.com/b/9759759-favorites-so-far

After lunch I head back to the studio for more work on my How To Draw A Dragon book. Generally speaking I get 2 pages finished per day. If I’m lucky I’ll get a start on a 3rd page. But my focus is on maintaining a work rhythm not in a quota of pages. If I have to totally redo a page and thus only get one page done in a day that’s fine! I just keep going! It’s a dance between discipline and the spaciousness of pleasurable play as talked about in this article.

I did take the time this week to go with my spouse to visit a new independent bookstore in our town Birdhouse Books! This was my book haul.

Short stories, poems and short essays give me an intellectual boost without requiring an investment of time like a long novel does. But sometimes a long novel is just the thing to accompany a long creative project. It just depends.

What’s not in question is the fact that time to sit and read each evening is essential to helping me maintain a steady working rhythm.

Hope your week has some good rhythms too! See you next Monday.

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!

illustrated poem aka birthday card

A Creative Life, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, illustrated poem, illustrated shorts, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

Some twins I’m lucky enough to know turned one year old today. So in collaboration with my wife, I wrote a poem and illustrated it for them. It was a good opportunity to practice art word combinations. And I think they’ll like it. Their parents and grandparents seemed to.  Anyway here’s a picture of the birthday card:

CupcakeParadeTwins1yrBday72

I used a fountain pen to write the poem text this time.  Last time I’d illustrated one of my poems I’d used brush and ink. For this birthday poem lower case letters were used. I like the lower case style. At least for this poem…  The fountain pen was easier to control (and something I’m used to) and the neatness of the type and the softness of the lower case style are pleasing to me.

When I’d finished lettering the poem I then drew the illustration in brush and ink. After that dried I used gouache to give it color.  That method too was an experiment in using ink and gouache in combination.

I am pleased with the resulting art word combination and will likely do that again; lower case letters and all.

What do you think of this lettering style?