Dogs in Art

Dogs on the block and places

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This week the holiday begins at Caplan Art Designs with seven artists who have created 3D box sculptures. I’m one of the seven! My box sculpture is titled “Dogs On The Block”. Here’s a series of photos of my box. You know I like dogs…

More details about the exhibit of holiday boxes by seven artists.

Speaking further of dogs in art…there are several dog related artist books by me available at the Aurora Gallery. Here’s one of them…

And a dog appeared in my sketchbook this week

I’m also busy doing a few dog portrait commissions for holiday gifts so I’ll say no more about that.

Poetry about dogs is helpful reading material in the mornings before beginning a days dog portrait work.

On a non canine topic: I’m leaving Twitter. Besides here on this blog you can fetch me on Substack, Instagram, Facebook and now on Mastodon.

I hope your week is a pleasant one! See you next Monday.

My adopted Mom’s quilt and a searcher

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This week the Aurora Gallery finished framing my adopted Mom’s quilt that I told you about in a prior post. Doesn’t the frame look great? We went right home and hung it in a special place!

Elizabeth Steinbaugh at the Aurora Gallery
Mom Penny Hoke’s quilt on our wall at home

As you see in the photo above – included in the frame is a piece of handmade paper on which I hand wrote Mom’s name and a bit about the quilt.

I also remembered a story related to the quilt theme of “knowing what it is when you pick it up” (details in this post). The story I remembered goes like this: A man holding a lit candle went looking for fire with which to cook his rice. It was a long search. If he had known what fire was or asked some questions when he began searching he could have cooked his rice a lot sooner.

Below is one of my Odditerrarium series paintings for the upcoming exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery. It’s titled “A Searcher”

This week we went for a browse at Vintage Books an independent bookstore a few miles from where we live. As I browsed I came across the local author shelves and was delighted to see a book I illustrated, “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit”, right there on the shelf where I was browsing! What a fun surprise! It’s available via the bookstore website too!

Below is the book haul we came home with!

Below is a sketchbook drawing I did of two books I’m currently enjoying reading! I’ve added both of these titles to my public books to cheer up by book list here.

I enjoyed seeing this photo of a happy person with their dog with my artwork in the background at Canal District Wines this week and thought you’d enjoy it too. I’m thinking I want to do more art like this … I like the boldness and simplicity.

https://www.canaldistrictwines.com/

This project in progress below is a 3d cube 8 inches square that I’m doing for a holiday exhibit at Caplan Art Designs! I’m aiming for the used wooden toy block look – but with a dog theme.

My drawing marathon for NIL-TECH will start on Monday and run for a number of weeks! If you’ve followed my blog you’ve seen me working towards this… and now here it is! Drum roll please! Actually please follow NIL-TECH on their Instagram or Facebook pages so you can see the end results of all the practice you watched me do here on my blog! And thank you for cheering me on! Here’s the link to the 54 piece watercolor pencil set I’ll be using in my marathon. Wish me luck!

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

A Readers World

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For your amusement here is a collection of a few artworks in “A Readers World”, my one-person fine art exhibit opening Thursday, Sept 5 at Caplan Art Designs. http://www.caplanartdesigns.com/

I’m playing with the interconnectedness of life; the ways imaginative stories flow out into the readers world. And vice versa of course. Art can stir life. And life can stir art.

As I created these artworks, I thought of how a story is actions mixer. For example, each of these pieces contain ingredients from my experiences, the “actions” I’ve seen as I’ve lived my life, put into the cocktail shaker of my imagination.

Enjoy!

“Daily News” by Clancy – 7 x 5 inches – ink and gouache on paper
“Pie In The Sky” – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink and gouache on board
“100 Things To Do On A Rainy Day” by Clancy – 11 x 14 inches – ink and gouache on board
“Sea Stories” by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink and gouache on board
“Suspense” by Clancy – 7 x 5 inches – ink and gouache on paper
“It’s Magic” by Clancy – 7 x 5 inches – ink and gouache on paper
“Immortal Good Fortune” by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – gouache and ink on board

And yes, if you recognize aspects of a person, a pet, a place or a thing and wonder if…. the answer is probably “yes”! (It’s sort of like the “Easter Eggs” that can be found in some films.)

Anyway, if you look at some of my recent blog posts you can see more details of the ingredients of life that I mixed together to make each particular visual story.

Thanks for reading and (ahem) “reading”!

feature article in The Columbian about my art

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Here’s a link to an article written by Scott Hewitt for The Columbian about my art exhibit “Dear Readers” that is currently at Burnt Bridge Cellars! And a picture of the front page of the newspaper with a bit of my artwork on it and pictures of the other 2 pages.  I was relieved to see that my artwork reproduced so well in print. Even though by now I know very well how to create images for reproduction I still breathe a sigh of relief when I see them looking good in glorious color print. Anyway, here’s the newspaper link all spelled out: https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/jul/18/vancouver-artists-ties-together-dogs-books-in-whimsical-ways/

DearReadersColumbianArticleP1A

Both gouache paints and acrylic paints reproduce well (even in newsprint!) but to my eye the gouache reproduces best of all. But then gouache was originally created for use in illuminating manuscripts back in the days, around the 16th century, when all “books” were hand written, hand illustrated and hand bound – one at a time.

Acrylic, a medium that originated in the late 1940’s, tends to be shinier and more difficult to photograph and thus get a good reproduction quality image.

Have I mentioned lately that I really like gouache??

pie in the sky

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Been thinking of how people can focus too much on things that are unlikely to happen and forget to see what really is possible – such as enjoying the here-and-now moments. I’ve also thought of related quotes and phrases: “Life is not a dress rehearsal” and “Take tarts when tarts are passed” and “If not now, when?”.  These thoughts baked in my brain pan a while and out came this painting I’ve titled “Pie In The Sky”

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Pie In The Sky – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink and gouache on board

Dear Readers on view and my art opening jitters remedy

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All of the 28 artworks for my Dear Readers exhibit have been delivered to Burnt Bridge Cellars now – and hung. Over on my Instagram page you can see a fun pic of the curator looking at a table full of my artwork deciding what art goes where.  Here, just above the wine taps the winery uses to fill wine growlers, is the perfect place where the curator chose to hang my painting “Party Pointers”:

PartyPointersOverTapsI’ll try to post other views of the exhibit – most likely on Instagram – but don’t hold your breath for many more posts from me about Dear Readers – because I’ll be getting started on my tried and true opening party jitters remedy: getting on with other art projects.

Too often, early on in my art career, I had the “what if I throw a party and nobody comes” jitters during the week between art delivery and the opening party. That wasn’t helpful. Quickly I learned that starting on new artwork well before the official opening  for an exhibition is the best exhibit-opening-jitters and general exhibit-up-and-running-I-feel-naked-now remedy. My blog posts, from here on, are likely to reflect new projects I’m working on.  For additional views and information about my Dear Readers exhibit – which will run from June through the end of July – please watch the various Burnt Bridge Cellars social media pages.

Now that the Dear Readers exhibit is hung all that needs to be done, from my point of view, is to do laundry, dress reasonably and show up at the opening party June 7th. More details about the opening party, including the chef’s menu here.  So I’m focusing now on sharpening pencils, taking inventory of the art supplies, looking at my sketchbooks and starting new things.

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement as I have worked on my Dear Readers exhibit!

 

Dear Readers exhibit prep

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I’ve been busy getting the framing, wiring and labeling done for all of the artwork destined for my “Dear Readers” exhibit that opens June 7th, the first Friday, at Burnt Bridge Cellars. There are 28 new artworks by me for this one-person exhibit – titled “Dear Readers” – this photo only shows a fraction of the artworks, wrapped up, packed in boxes ready to be delivered. Lots more to do!

DearReadersExhibitPacking

I got my frames from a local independent frame shop called Aurora Gallery. Most of the rest of my art supplies came from a local (Portland Or) art supply called Artists And Craftsman.

The exhibit content, of course, came from my mind and personal life. More about that here and in my recent blog posts.

What did I eat and drink while doing all of this work? Well I’ve posted about that over on my Instagram page.

And yes, I carefully save and reuse packing material like you wouldn’t believe.

Or maybe you would.

 

Dear Readers exhibit pun

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Since my upcoming fine art exhibit, opening June 7, at Burnt Bridge Cellars is titled “Dear Readers” and contains nested ideas – for the additional pun of it I’ll have some artist books available. So here’s a pic of a few of the books I’ll have at the exhibit.

BooksBySC

There’s my Dogs and Cats and a Cookbook I illustrated (with Chef Kim Mahan’s recipes). And yes – there’s a little tiny mini-guide to drawing dogs! How’s that for a visual pun in an art exhibit full of paintings of dogs reading?

There are also cats and food depicted in my artwork… and of course books! So my books relate to my artwork which relates to my books…

Basically I’ve had a lot of fun playing with nested ideas!

BTW the “How to Draw Dogs” mini-guide is only available via the Brooklyn Art Library in New York …. except for the few I’ll have in my exhibit in Vancouver WA. 

A link to my Dear Readers exhibit statement that explains my thinking behind this exhibit is here.

More generally about my artist books here.

And now to get back to work framing and labeling everything…

dogs strawberries and cookbooks

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My wife’s garden has at least 100 strawberry plants in it. They currently are in bloom. My favorite dessert is strawberries and shortcake. I only have this dessert in the summer on account of trying to be sensible. Nonetheless I’ve been anticipating “strawberry season” and making new artwork about it.

DogberrysStrawberryTreats72

Dogberry’s Strawberry Treats – by Clancy – 20 x 16 inches – acrylic on board

I chose a Bassett Hound as my character because of the breeds easy-going relaxed nature. It’s the way I think of the Pacific Northwest summer.

As I’ve been doing for this series of artworks I’ve spoofed two of my own still life paintings in the background of the above painting titled “Dogberry’s Strawberry Treats”. Below are the two still life’s I’ve spoofed:

JunesTreasure72

June’s Treasure – by Clancy – 7 x 5 inches – acrylic and gouache on board

ItMustBeJune72

It Must Be June – by Clancy – 5 x 7 inches – acrylic and gouache on board

Since we have so many strawberry plants – and get lots of produce from them – besides sharing strawberries with neighbors and friends and making strawberry shortcake desserts I’m often looking at cookbooks for ideas of what else to do with an abundance of strawberries.

My one-person art exhibit, which opens the first Friday in June at Burnt Bridge Cellars, is book and reading themed. So naturally, for the exhibit, I had to have a painting with cookbook and a Bassett Hound cook consulting a book while working with strawberries.

And yes, in the exhibit I’ll have all three of the above artworks displayed. I’m hoping that sharp-eyed attendees of my exhibit will connect-the-dots so to speak and see the correlation between the paintings, sort of an in-person story-puzzle effect; the ability to walk about (glass of wine in hand) finding the related art pieces and identifying the story-theme for each.

But whether or not people catch any of the correlations between my paintings I’m hoping the exhibit will be as fun for visitors to see as it’s been for me to create.

reading and mutts in art

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On one of my walks near the Columbia River I had the pleasure of seeing, then meeting, a mutt. She was a beautiful white and buff longhaired dog, larger than a Labrador, stockier than a Greyhound and hairier than a Golden Retriever. I asked the owner what breed she was and the owner didn’t know. The dog and human had rescued each other. The dog was friendly, beautiful and let me make drawings of her in my sketchbook.

Fast forward to my currently in progress reading and books in art series – and the wonderful mutt I’d met made an appearance:

MeditationsForTheMetrosexualMutt72

“Meditations For The Metrosexual Mutt” by Clancy – 16 x 20 inches – acrylic on cradled board – image copyright 2019

Yes, in “Meditations For The Metrosexual Mutt” I’ve spoofed a famous painting by James Whistler along with two of my own still life paintings. If you look at the titles I’ve used for each of my paintings you’ll get a hint about my theme…

LifesABowlOfCherriesStemsPitsAndAll72

“Life’s a bowl of cherries, stems pits and all” – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – acrylic and gouache on board

The still life, pictured below, is on the deep cradled edge of “Meditations for the Metrosexual Mutt”, where it will only be seen if you’re able to see my work in person.

Gala72

“Gala” by Clancy – acrylic and gouache on board

The selection of Whistler’s famous painting to spoof was deliberate as the art history around Whistler’s work is part of my meditation on life, beginnings, origin stories etc.

I imagined that the dog in my painting is reading a book titled “Meditations For The Metrosexual Mutt” – which is why I used that as the title for my work.

As you can tell I’m still thinking about “nesting ideas” and stories within stories…