Chekhov

Professional dogs, box project, cards, chats, contrasting books and soup

A Creative Life, animals in art, art gallery, artist book, books, comfort food, Creativity Chats, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fabric design, fine art, greeting cards, mental health, sketchbook, words and pictures

I’m steadily progressing on my children’s book “The Professional Dog”.  Here are three art pieces together so you can see how the colors flow from one piece to the next. This project will be both a book an art exhibit. So each piece needs to both work with the others and stand alone. My last post tells more about this project.

Below are closer looks at each of these pieces. The text for the book is below the art.

The Botanist’s dog is a beautiful dog.
The Bus Driver’s dog is a bouncy dog.
The Chef’s dog is a charming dog.

Progress is also happening at an even more rapid pace on my holiday box project for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. I’ve been in touch with the Gallery, sharing photos of my progress privately with them and it’s been agreed that I won’t post much publicly yet about this project. It wouldn’t be good to get too far ahead in posting… the art isn’t due at the Gallery till November and the exhibit is later still… so we don’t want to give too many clues too early.

It’s hard to keep my excitement to myself but I can do this. Right? Right?

I trust it won’t be too much of a spoiler to say that doing dog paintings in black and white is helpful when I’m  also doing a series of dog portraits in color. Nothing like painting in black, white and shades of grey to sharpen my observation skills. Very carefully I made sure that both of my main projects are dog related. This way the project concepts strengthen each other. Kind of like how doing similar but different physical exercises strengthen muscles better that just doing one kind of exercise.

Anyway, here’s a few sketchbook pages related to this holiday box project that we’re very carefully not talking about too much yet. Mums the word. Shhhh…

I heard this week from someone who got one of my fabricdesigns so they could sew nice things for a teacher in their life!! This makes my heart happy that my reading, literacy, fabricpattern on Spoonflower made someone smile!

https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/10048658-read-by-sueclancy

Also this week my spouse and I sent some greeting cards to friends and family. I really enjoy making greeting cards! By now I’ve done over 35 card designs on my Zazzle shop – not nearly  enough! Lol!

Another one of my Creativity Chats  is on my YouTube channel now! This one is about my strategy for picking  topics to write, draw or paint about. https://youtu.be/92Sx7Pm18Y4

Creativity Chats: picking topics- https://youtu.be/92Sx7Pm18Y4

Here’s the direct link to the emotional health book “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” that I talk about in the video. Our brains and emotions are what we create with and taking care of them can be fun as I mention in the video.

Anyway, speaking of taking care… it’s soup weather here in the Pacific Northwest! So I got out one of our favorite cookbooks “The Big Book Of Soups and Stews” by Vollstedt and made the recipe for chicken noodle soup. I used precooked chicken as a shortcut but otherwise followed the recipe. It’s so yummy and really feels kind to the soul.

Speaking of kindness – I saw this in my local newspaper and took a photo so I could save it and share it. It feels important to me. Crucial even.

One of the other ways I’ve been gentle with myself this week is knocking off work a wee bit earlier so I can spend more time reading. I finished the George Saunders title I was reading in my last post. Saunders talked about and included stories from Chekhov which I enjoyed. So I’m reading more of Chekhov’s work.

I’m also reading “A Perry Mason Casebook” by Erle Stanley Gardner. Talk about two almost polar opposite kinds of writers! Chekhov’s characters, generally speaking, consider the feelings of other characters – the stories seem emotion driven. Gardner’s characters, generally, don’t consider or respond much to the emotion of other characters – these stories seem situation driven.

My response to each book is so very different that it almost seems unfair to compare them at all. They were written in such different era’s. Chekhov wrote in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Gardner wrote in the 1950’s. But reading both books at the same time is a fun mental contrast – rather like the experience of contrasts that I remember from visiting the state fair; enjoying the quiet exhibits of quilts, animals, jams and jellies alongside noisy rides, carnival games, street performers and aerial acrobats.

Anyway, my spouse and I got a nice syrah wine from Burnt Bridge Cellars and had a glass of wine with our books in the evenings. Such fun!

Here’s hoping your week will give you many opportunities to be gentle and tender with yourself and the people in your life. See you next Monday.