creativity chats

The Arabian Nights, miniature art and studio equipment

A Creative Life, art prints, art techniques, artistic inspirations, books, creative thinking, Creativity Chats, fine art, household surrealism, mental health, miniature art, publications - publishing, published art, sketchbook, small things, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

This week was … there. Reading Marcus Aurelius helped. So did the oranges, the coffee, the leaves in the yard, the books and art. Talking with my spouse helped too. I kept returning to this quote from Marcus Aurelius so I did this gouache and ink painting. Then I added it to my “for encouragement” art print series on my Society 6 shop.

The Happiness Of Your Life – art print by Clancy – https://society6.com/product/the-happiness-of-your-life6331072_print?sku=s6-22625085p4a1v45#1=45

Here are a few of my sketchbook pages that formed part of my self-care this week.

In my last post I wrote about “discovering” miniature art by way of reading The Annotated Arabian Nights. While reading more about some of the artists and artwork illustrating the Arabian Nights I learned of the uses of magnifying glasses when creating art details within the miniatures. “Well duh! Wouldn’t that be helpful?” I thought.

So when a nice surprise from Storyberries came I used the windfall to get some anti fatigue mat flooring for when I’m standing at my easel and moving about my work area. It has the added benefit of protecting the wood floor! And….

…I got a magnifying glass that clamps on my easel!

Since feelings and dealing well with emotions has been on my mind I used that topic for the first of my Creativity Chats for 2022.

Creativity Chats: feelings – https://youtu.be/KvCfOgtOaMY

Here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/KvCfOgtOaMY
I talk about dealing with feelings and sustaining a creative project over time. Even during difficult times.

I posted my sketchbook page in my last post and someone asked me to put my drawing on a shirt. So amongst everything this week I did that. It was pleasant to remember my mantra this way. https://www.zazzle.com/inhale_exhale_t_shirt-235875329442442858

Books are some of the “good shit” that I inhale. And in stressful times I’ve found it can be hard to “let things get through” even beloved books. All I know to do is to keep reading and trust the process.

Anyway The Annotated Arabian Nights is “getting through to me” more than I’d have guessed. In addition to the miniature art concept I’ve also learned that there’s a genre of writing called “mirrors for princes”. I’ve no idea what, if anything, I’ll do with this awareness. I’m mostly just vividly aware that I sat up and took notice when I learned this.

https://www.powells.com/book/annotated-arabian-nights-tales-from-1001-nights-9781631493638

In looking at online sources for information about miniature art I learned about a book by Joan Cornish Willies titled “Miniature Painting”. It was touted in multiple online sources as a go-to book resource. I contacted an independent bookstore and got a copy mailed to me which I read cover to cover the day it arrived.

According to Joan Cornish Willies I wouldn’t at all be considered a “true” miniature artist because I tend to use multiple media in just about everything I do; a bit of ink, gouache, watercolor, color pencil and collage to name a few of my art mediums. Plus, according to Willies, my typical subject matter isn’t considered within the realm of “traditional” subjects for miniatures. Oh well.

Fortunately I’ve read other sources and know that Joan Cornish Willies’s thoughts aren’t the only ones about miniature art and it’s definitions.

Despite the “no true Scotsman…” rhetoric and traditionalist tones in this book by Willies I found several of the technical painting directions of interest and possibly applicable to what I create. The rest of the book I take with a grain of salt or perhaps a large sack of salt. Anyway I’ve no intention, at this time, to participate in the formal miniature art society’s – as suggested by Willies – they sound entirely too rigid and puritanical for my tastes.

In the process of reading on this topic I’ve realized what I like about the idea of miniature art is the focus on storytelling, the intimacy and the connection with bookmaking and publishing. I love all of the intricate artistic details that can be achieved by the various methods of working “in the little”. Most of all I relish the way the details created in the smaller sizes are able to be reproduced in print (or online) so clearly! I had already noticed this with my own fine art and book publishing work (see my portfolio). Larger paintings often lose clarity and charm when they’re reproduced at smaller sizes… like in books. So I’m keen to do better at fine detail in smaller sized artwork with an eye toward more publishing.

That’s specifically what has amazed me about the artwork in The Annotated Arabian Nights so many of the illustrations are reproduced at the actual size – or very near it – to the artist’s original artwork! And the artistic details are glorious!

Consequently I’m thinking up a new artist book or two as well as a new fine art series – and deliberately planning smaller sizes now!

Onward into the fog as they say. See you next Monday?

Professional dogs, clutch pencils, fountain pens, writing and drawing

A Creative Life, art gallery, art techniques, artistic inspirations, children's book, creative thinking, Creativity Chats, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, pet portraits, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

More progress this week on The Professional Dog, my latest childrens book project. Here are three together and like I mentioned in my last post perhaps you can see how the colors transition from one piece to the next?

Here are closer looks so you can see the details. I’m creating each portrait using ink and gouache on board. The text I plan to use for the book is below each artwork.

The Guidance Counselor’s dog is a generous dog.
The Guitarist’s dog is a gentle dog.
The Hairdresser’s dog is a happy dog.

This week a friend dropped by with a surprise! Her son had made the pencil I’m holding in this photo!

The pencil is a lead holder aka a “clutch pencil” that extends then holds 2mm lead by clutching the lead in its jaws so to speak. This gift pencil is thicker than the clutch pencils I’ve used in the past! Right away I drew with it in my sketchbook. It is nicely balanced and the thickness does make it easier for my hand!

This new clutch pencil has now joined my fountain pen in daily use. Both have thick barrels which are easy to hold for durations of time.

To play some more I used my new pencil to draw a portrait of my pencil. Then I added ink and gouache. I’m thinking this might be a fun image for a thinking-of-you note card … for my Zazzle shop eventually.

If I’ve made you curious about clutch pencils aka lead holders there’s a good blog here with juicy details https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2015/10/02/why-use-a-clutch-pencil/

One of the many things I like about both clutch pencils and fountain pens is the environmental friendliness of them. Both are refillable so there’s no trash to throw away! Below are a few of my favorite books about using pencils and fountain pens.

I think the creative writing process benefits from visual drawings and vice versa. If a writer can draw a floorplan in which the story action happens sometimes that will help the written descriptions flow more easily. If a painter can write a verbal description of what they see in their imagination that can help the visual image flow better.

I’ve been thinking on this topic, the helpful cross-training effects on perception that comes from playing with words and pictures, for about a week. So almost the second the house was quiet and workmen had ceased hammering and sawing I did one of my Creativity Chat videos about this topic of seeing. https://youtu.be/4ljLOhgK30o

Creativity Chat: seeing https://youtu.be/4ljLOhgK30o

As I mentioned in my last post I’m still waiting for the go-ahead from the Caplan Art Designs gallery to post about my holiday box project. I varnished it this past week and will deliver it to the gallery soon. Here’s my art studio supervisor dachshund waiting … and wearing a sweater because it’s cold.

The food creativity this week now that the kitchen is back (Yay!) was a lentil stew over basmati rice. Yum! Here’s the recipe I used: https://mydominicankitchen.com/slow-cooker-lentil-stew/

Here’s hoping your week is full of fun play with words and pictures. See you next Monday.

Professional dogs, box project, studio tour and veggie lasagna

A Creative Life, art gallery, artist book, author illustrator, children's book, Creativity Chats, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, pet portraits, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures

My childrens book The Professional Dog progresses along! Below are three in a row. Do you see how the colors in one piece leads to the colors of the next? For example the background color on the left dog becomes the shirt color on the middle dog… My use of color is one of the ways I am planning the pages to flow from one to another in the book. The original portrait is done on board and will be framed as fine art.

Below is a closer look at each dog portrait. The text for the book is under each painting.

The Dean’s dog is a distinguished dog.
The Doctor’s dog is a diligent dog.
The Entrepreneur’s dog is an energetic dog.

Now about the holiday box project: as I mentioned in my last post the Caplan Art Designs Gallery is asking us artists to wait to do social media about our box work until after early November. So I’m waiting … While we wait here’s my studio supervisor dachshund with a fuzzy toy.

And now for something completely different as they say in Monty Python:

Here’s a look at my art studio – I have small sketchbooks and a box of pens that travel, like my coffeecup, between rooms of my house and outdoors to the patio. Then there’s a room that has all of my art supplies including my art easel – in the photo you can see my work on The Professional Dog on my easel.

My holiday box project has been very carefully not depicted, displayed or described in the following photos of my studio. Oh, look a dachshund with a fuzzy toy! (See photo above)

When you see all the non-digital tools I use to make my artwork perhaps it won’t surprise you much to hear that I really enjoyed this poem on contrariness by Wendell Berry .

But I am enjoying the digital tool of making short videos on topics I think about a lot.

This week in Creativity Chats I talk about the human attention/perception mechanism and how that relates to being creative…and how using that mechanism purposefully can help us relax. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/9eGsbENABP0

https://youtu.be/9eGsbENABP0

The food to be remarked on this week was vegetarian lasagna! I loosely used this recipe for inspiration: https://www.food.com/recipe/very-veggie-lasagna-25181

My variations to the recipe: I did my Simple Sauce (my hand drawn recipe card here), and Cuisinart chopped the broccoli, carrot, celery, garlic, onion, red bell pepper. Then I used Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset spice mix when I sauteed the veg before layering them with the noodles, the sauce, the cheese. Seriously yummy! I made individual servings in oven safe “boats”. There were no leftovers. We wished for some though.

I will likely be late on the blog post next Monday. We’re having work done on the house. Also both my spouse and I are getting Covid booster shots. Hopefully I’ll stay on my project production schedule for The Professional Dog at the very least but however things go will be fine. The main thing is to be gentle and easy… Here’s hoping we all have a gentle week. See you as soon as I do.

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.

Professional dog, the box project, encouragement, a chat and gnocchi

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, art prints, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, books, children's book, Creativity Chats, Dogs in Art, fine art, greeting cards, illustration, life of the mind, mental health, pet portraits, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

My childrens book “The Professional Dog” has moved into color! Over the last week I’ve inked more than 12 of the illustrations just so I could see where I was going. Now I’m doing the same testing with colors. I’m using my butterfly palette (a post about that here) – it’s a fun challenge to paint dogs using a palette based in a scientific study of the color variations of butterflies. I have been using a few extra colors – most notably dark brown- but my primary color scheme is butterflies!

Below is a look at three of my Professional Dog illustrations together so you can see how the colors look.

Then here’s a closer look at each of those illustrations: my book text for each portrait is below.

The Accountant’s dog is an adorable dog.
The Artist’s dog is an adventurous dog.
The Assistant’s dog is an angelic dog.

Progress has also been happening on my holiday box project for an upcoming exhibit at Caplan Art Designs. I now have the overall design plan somewhat in view. In the photos below I’m working in my sketchbook to see if my plan has legs so to speak.

I’ll do more sketchbook work over the coming days towards this holiday box project. The box project has a firm deadline attached to it so I’m playing with it every day.

This is true now too of The Professional Dog. There’s a deadline but it’s not as firm as the box project deadline. Even so I have two main projects to work on every day! How nice is that?!

I am still planning to add to my ongoing “For Pleasant Encouragement” art print project and to my “odd greeting cards” project but progress on both of these is primarily in my sketchbook now. My daily focus is on my two main projects but I’m making regular notes in my sketchbook of my ideas for future cards and art prints for when I have time to do them!

Here’s one of the art prints in the “for pleasant encouragement” collection.

https://society6.com/product/have-i-done-something_print?sku=s6-21898856p4a1v45

I also did another Creativity Chat this week – this one is about playing on paper https://youtu.be/UGCP2fm9IYg

If you’re curious about where I’m filming these chats here’s a blog post from some time ago that has a fun photo of the spot in my studio. It is still true for me what I write in that post that art is love made visible and that this spot in my studio is where I practice loving.

Creativity chats: playing on paper- https://youtu.be/UGCP2fm9IYg

This week for the main special get-creative-in-the-kitchen project I added sauteed zucchini but otherwise mostly followed this creamy gnocchi sauce recipe https://www.acouplecooks.com/easy-creamy-gnocchi-sauce/ It was tasty but a bit more heavy than we like to eat so I probably won’t make this again. Still, I’ve not cooked gnocchi very often so it was fun to try it.

Contrary to what it may seem like having two main art projects with deadlines actually frees up my brain time. In addition to playing in my sketchbook I can get some reading done! I’m within whiskers of finishing “A Swim In The Pond In The Rain” by George Saunders for the 2nd time. Gosh I’m glad I bought my own printed copy of this book … it’s such a good source of creative encouragement!

Here’s hoping you have many sources of encouragement this week and that your cat similarly saves a chair for you in your happy place.

See you next Monday.