more cats book progress

A Creative Life, animals in art, artist book, cat portrait, Cats in art, fine art, published art

I’d written recently here about my progress towards making a 22 page full color book of my cat themed artwork. Well, I’ve gotten my “proof copy” in the snail-mail, showed it to Hawkeye my studio supervisor cat – and my wife, a cat-lover – and all of us approved of the print quality! Even Rusty, my studio supervisor dachshund, admitted that the cat art looked good.

I’ve photo’d a few pages so you can see for yourself:

What do you think?

Right now you can get a copy – either softcover (like in the picture) or hardcover – here: http://www.blurb.com/b/8837851-cats or via Amazon.   Later this year I’m to do a library event and I may have a few copies at that time to sell directly.  We’ll see…

But no matter how this particular cheese gets sliced I heartily thank you for your support of my projects.

off the coffee table

A Creative Life, art techniques, creative thinking, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity

Woke up today thinking about waiters, restaurants and cafe’s. So I’m looking back through my sketchbooks for drawings of waiters…. and thinking about designs for new fine art work. One of the sketchbooks I’m looking through is my “Coffee, Table, Book” – which has also become an ebook https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book – along with some other sketchbooks for sketches like this:

DinersDining72

I love having a resource collection of sketchbooks to pull from for new artwork ideas!!

Dogs in bathrooms what art is for and Irish stew

A Creative Life, animals in art, artist book, books, comfort food, Dogs in Art, ebook, fine art, mental health, sketchbook suppers, words and pictures

When my new artist book “Dogs by Sue Clancy” came out (mid Feb 2017) I showed an advance copy to a dear friend who said “I hope this won’t offend you but this would be a perfect bathroom book!”

Of course I wasn’t offended! In fact I think bathrooms are the perfect place for good art and fun/funny books! I think this because of what I think art is for: art is for practicing good mental health skills. Art and books can be mood setters. In a bathroom a person can take a few deep breaths and re-center themselves, re-set their mental mood.

I’ve worked in the genres of “animals in art” and “dogs in art” because of my thoughts about what art is for… but enough about philosophy of art. It’s Saint Patrick’s day! Happy St. Pat’s!!

Here to celebrate and/or up-lift your mood is a page from my book “Dogs by Sue Clancy” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Dogs-By-Sue-Clancy

pgspread472

Because it’s St. Pat’s – and because the studio of an artist with an Irish sur-name must have sustenance – here is one of my favorite “chop, toss in a pot and let it cook ’till you’re ready to eat it” recipes from my sketchbook:

DublinCoddle172

page from “Coffee, Table, Book” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

 

feeding the beast

A Creative Life, Art Apparel, art commissions, art gallery, books, ebook, fine art, graphic narrative, Not-So-Sketchy-Food, sketchbook

A problem I’ve had as a professional artist who does fine art commissions – is that often the project is a secret. Which means even though my day (and mind) is filled with drawings, paper patterns and colors related to my commission I can’t talk about it online. No posting “in progress” photos because it’d spoil the surprise for somebody.

But still the Social Media Beast must be fed.

I’ve solved this problem – in hopefully an amusing way – by posting my short-narrative work (see my last post as an example), or something about one of my artist books…Here’s a page I particularly like today from my book Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit:

SWIFTtherapyremedy72

page from “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/dr-bobs-emotional-repair-program-first-aid-kit

Or posting a page from my sketchbook – like this one – which also happens to be an ebook page from my Coffee Table Book – (by the way, it is also a very good recipe for lunch):

DublinCoddle172

page from “Coffee, Table, Book” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

Or posting something about one of my pattern designs: The art apparel with my pattern designs that I do for VIDA really do have my signature on them!  You can see my entire signature collection here: http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

scarfwithsignature72

Sue Clancy’s “signature collection” of art apparel really does have a signature!  See the whole collection here: http://shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

And now that I’ve told you my secret – and fed the Beast a bit – I’ll get back to work on my art commission.

my artist books and libraries

A Creative Life, artist book, ebook, handmade books, words and pictures

My one-of-a-kind artist books have been included in several library special collections (most recently at the UCLA Fine Arts library – thanks to the 23 Sandy Gallery) – well, I’ve newly been included in the Washington State Indie Book Collection!  This means that two of my artist books that I’ve created in eBook form can now be accessed by the general public via libraries that subscribe to something called the Biblioboard! https://www.biblioboard.com/

The two of my books that have been made available for libraries are: “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” and “Coffee Table Book”

Both of these books are talked about at the top of the artist book page on my website – with links for more info etc.

Anyway, now that this possibility of library love exists for me as a book artist I’ve created a postcard about one of my books (Hint: the book “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” is my fave…) so I will have a card I can give away just in case I happen to meet a friendly librarian or two in the urban wilds.

Here’s the card:

Postcard about the artist book "Dr Bob's Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit" that I can give to friendly librarians and other people

Postcard about the artist book “Dr Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” that I can give to friendly librarians and other nice people

sketchbook publishing

A Creative Life, ebook, illustration, sketchbook, travel art and writing, travelog, travelogue, visual story, words and pictures

Tomorrow I’ll be installing my “Verrry Big Project” so while I’m getting ready to deliver the art I’m thinking about my next sketchbook publishing action.  I want to publish my Oregon Coast Sketchbook (some sample pages are in this post and elsewhere on my blog) – but shall I do it as a printed book? an ebook? or both?

I’ve heard that some people have enjoyed my sketchbook that I published as an ebook titled “Coffee Table Book” (link here: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book) but that had recipes and fine art along with my sketchbook pages – so perhaps that made it interesting to folks?

My Oregon Coast Sketchbook is a travelogue, memoir and culture-study done in (duh!) a sketchbook form. Would you want to look at my Oregon Coast Sketchbook as a printed book or an ebook?  If it was printed only in black-and white ’cause that’s what I can afford – what would you think of that?

Obviously I’m going to be busy the next few days with the “Verry Big Project” – but I  will look forward to seeing your thoughts when I get back. And thanks in advance!

Here are some random non-sequential pages from my Oregon Coast Sketchbook:

7at72

8at72

12at72

10at72

Verry big love and sketches

A Creative Life, commonplace book, ebook, public art, sketchbook

As I mentioned in this post here the executive director came to my studio, saw the “Verry Big Project” and approved! “I love it!” the exec said. “Whew!” I said. Then we discussed installation and other nitty-gritty details. The next day I started varnishing the finished (and approved! yippeee!) artwork! The organization will do publicity regarding this public art project at the appropriate time. So for a while we’ll need to talk about something other than my Verry Big Project.

How about those sketchbooks? Have you got one? Is it a “sketchbook”, a “commonplace book” a “writer’s notebook” some combo of the above? I do a combo and jokingly call it a “Commonsketchplacebook”.

Here is a photo of my 2015 sketchbook which I just finished – and my new 2016 sketchbook (the one with the coffee beans on it).

2SketchbooksCoffeePen

And yes, that’s a fountain pen in the photo!

You can see some of my sketchbook pages here on my blog at www.sueclancy.com or collected in my ebooks:

“Coffee, Table, Book” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

“Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/dr-bobs-emotional-repair-program-first-aid-kit

my interactive art exhibit experiment

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, books, ebook, fine art, sketchbook, words and pictures

Some time ago I observed that when people visit art galleries or art museums they often have one hand on their smart phone or tablet. While at a gallery or museum people collect brochures, booklets, books and “artist monographs”.  They sit and read the booklets and look things up on their phones.  They lean in and look at any text near the artwork. If there are scan-tags or headphones or videos or website references – those get used. It’s called an “interactive exhibit”.

And yes, people do still look at the art without any ‘media aids’.  Here’s a picture the gallery owner at Caplan Art Designs snapped and shared with me of a kid who spent a lot of time just looking at one of my artworks in the gallery.

BoyLookingAtMyArt

Yet the media aids seem useful. So about a year ago I thought “I want to create an ‘interactive exhibit’!” and set about doing it.  The first step was to propose such a thing. My agent at Caplan Art Designs was enthusiastic about my idea and arranged for my exhibit to be located at The Daily Cafe in The Pearl where people could ‘enjoy good food’ while looking at my artwork about enjoying things!

As I worked to create a new body of artwork for this exhibit, titled “Paws to Enjoy”, I kept a sketchbook and a journal writing each thought, no matter how silly, as it related to my theme: pausing to enjoy things.

As readers of this blog you know I’ve been posting these sketchbook pages over the course of the year. Some of the pages looked like this:

DinersDining72

Some looked like this:

AlexieWritingAdviceNPasta72

You can find more of such past posts of my sketchbook pages by scrolling down a page and clicking on the + sign which will reveal an archive list.

My point being that halfway through my year of creating new artworks towards a body of work that could be in this current exhibit I had a LOT of sketchbook pages.  So I selected a grouping of my sketchbook pages and some images of my finished fine art and created an eBook using Book Baby http://www.bookbaby.com/ My criteria for what went into the eBook was that it had to be fun, useful to the reader and would somehow show, by association, how my creative thought pattern works.  The book would be relevant to the current art exhibit but also reflect “how I think” in a more general sense.

I titled my eBook “Coffee, Table, Book” because (spoiler alert) I enjoy coffee, food on tables and books and those are often my artistic inspirations. This fit with my current art exhibit theme nicely – and covers my general artistic thinking (and contains some recipes!).

For my book cover I created a scribbly sketchbook style cover because I wanted to emphasize that this eBook contains my sketchbook pages, the collected thoughts behind my fine artwork. Here’s the cover art:

FrontCoverEbook72w

Because I hoped that people would use their smartphones while looking at my physical artwork my eBook file is in several downloadable formats. The book is obtainable via my website or via Amazon and many other places that sell eBooks. If the reader sets the Portrait Orientation Lock feature “on” in their smart phone or tablet it’ll be fun viewing as “artistically intended”. Here is a direct link for the book: http://my.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

A side benefit of doing this eBook has been that the gallery has been able to share it with their clients. Once I realized that the gallery was using the book to help explain my complicated artwork I posted on my website www.sueclancy.com a downloadable pdf file that would help explain my art technique using pictures. For simplicity’s sake that pdf file is here: AboutPreyingForPeas

The gallery shared that file with clients and other things that I posted on Facebook and Twitter (see my Home page for links). So that became another aspect of “interactivity” – as I posted (and still do) on my Facebook page, photos like this of me working:

Zpaper

All of these elements have been useful as communication aids for the gallery, as upcoming exhibit “teasers”, and as an interactive part of my current exhibit.

The exhibit “Paws to enjoy” actually went up on the walls October 1 2015.  I’d been working towards it since before July in 2014.  The exhibit looks like this (it’ll be up until Nov 2nd 2015):

exhibitphotobyAmy

There are a few other walls with more of my artwork on them too!

Anyway, as I’d alluded to earlier the gallery promoted the exhibit before it opened. I did too. Someone who saw an image of one of my new artworks online contacted the gallery and bought it before the exhibit opened.  As the exhibit progressed people contacted the gallery, contacted me, talked with the cafe owners – basically there’s been lots of “interactivity” both before and during the exhibit!  And as I’d hoped, people have used their smart phones to interact with my artwork!  Here are just two of the comments:

“Hi Sue! We LOVED your exhibit! The artwork looks wonderful on your website, but seeing them in person was a very different experience. They’re so vibrant, and you can get more of a feel of the depth and layers of materials. WOW! Thanks so much for letting us know about the exhibit. P.S. The food was good too.”

“We took our 2 grandchildren to lunch at the cafe and the youngest one (age 3) kept looking at your artwork, pointing and saying “doggy”, “rabbit” or “kitty”. I don’t think he’d ever noticed art on the walls before. The older one enjoyed your art too. Thank you.”

I heard from a lot of local (Pacific Northwest) people and from people all around the world – thanks to Facebook, Twitter and this blog.  Many people said that they’ve enjoyed getting to “see more” or “follow” my exhibit online and via my eBook. My agent at Caplan Art Designs even extended the time my exhibit was displayed at The Daily Cafe due to the exhibit popularity!

All in all my exhibit “interactivity” experiment has been a success! Now i want to do an even better job of creating interactive exhibits in the future…

Paws on the Coffee Table

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, books, ebook, food for thought, sketchbook

My current art exhibit “Paws to Enjoy” was largely centered on my rediscovery of soup. I rediscovered soup in restaurants and I also tried making soup at home. Here is a free sampler, a downloadable pdf file titled Coffee Table Preview containing a few pages from my Coffee Table Book a 36 page eBook which contains some of the soup recipes, pages from my sketchbook, background/raw data for my art exhibit. The downloadable sampler only includes one soup recipe…. But it’s a yummy one that my slow-cooker is currently percolating for today’s artistic inspiration aka eating enjoyment. Here’s the direct link for the full book:

http://my.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book

Please view both the sampler and the full book on smart phones and tablets with the Portrait Orientation Lock Setting On. Thank you – and enjoy!

For more about my current exhibit “Paws to Enjoy” see a pic in this prior post; http://sueclancy.com/2015/09/29/paws-to-enjoy/, see also  Daily Café http://dailyinthepearl.com/, and Caplan Art Designs http://www.caplanartdesigns.com/

art books; reviews and previews

A Creative Life, books, ebook, shelfies, words and pictures, writing

ArtOfColorDesignbyMGraves

Since I often get asked for suggestions of “good books about art” I’ve decided to start reviewing books about various aspects of art on Goodreads.com now and again.  The photo is of one of my favorite “go to” books that I recently reviewed.

I may review cookbooks too as I think knowing how to cook is an essential survival skill to have as an artist.

And while I was setting that up I also made some downloadable “previews” of my 2 currently available ebooks available too:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7594198.Sue_Clancy

Of course you can also see info about my two eBooks on my website www.sueclancy.com on the “books” page.