fine art exhibits

Sweet peppers, prose, poetry and pens

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art supplies, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, creative thinking, drawing as thinking, ebook, illustrated poem, Patch La Belle, poetry, publications - publishing, reading, sketchbook, Storyberries, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

My spouse’s sweet pepper plants are doing well in the heat! I stuffed the just picked peppers with cheese and roasted them with black beans, corn, zucchini and red onion. Tasted yummy!

The heat inspired me, as I’ve illustrated recently with a drawing demo, to stay in a cool place and finish reading a wonderful novel.

A Gentleman In Moscow by Towles was so good that when I finished reading I added it to my books-to-cheer-up-by shelf for rereading whenever I need a pick-me-up.

I got wonderful news from Storyberries this week – they’ve started a bookstore! (Here’s a direct link to some of my books https://www.bookstore.storyberries.com/product-tag/sue-clancy/  ) When I looked at the new store I discovered that of the 18 books by me on Storyberries 12 of my titles are spread between 3 categories: art books, poetry, ABC123!! What a fun surprise!!

When someone clicks on a bookstore link the viewer can sample the book, read about the book, click a button to read the book for free and now there’s an option to buy a print copy too! Below is a screenshot example of what it looks like, this is a screenshot and not operational, click this link if you want lights and action about my poetry book below.

Since we’re just having fun today here’s one of my illustrated poems from Patch La Belle so you can see how I’ve hand written all of the poem text for the book. I wrote with a felt tip pen. I went through lots of felt tip pens while working on this book. I already had a fountain pen so I was missing the ability to refill a pen but the fountain pen nib I had at the time of this project wasn’t bold enough. (This is how I knew what to request as a birthday gift! 😁 ) Anyway, here’s a poem.

This week the rest of my birthday present came in to our local pen and stationary store Oblation Papers and Press ! The extra fine nib fountain pen that I got the actual day of my birthday is now joined by a broad nib and a stub nib!

I love fountain pens for the ease of use that a good quality pen, like these TWSBI kind. They write and draw super smoothly have a built in converter which allows me to fill them with my preferred ink (Heart of Darkness by Noodlers Ink). Now there’s even fewer plastic bits of disposable felt tip pens to go into a land fill from my studio!

Right away I practiced writing an alphabet and drawing with each pen.

Here’s a single drawing I did with all 3 fountain pens. Yes, I totally see more handwritten illustrated poetry books in my future!

Over on my email newsletter A.M. Sketching I shared my favorite book about fountain pens and I’m sharing it here too just in case you’re curious.

To test how my new pens write over my gouache colors I wrote a poetic kind of phrase on a scrap of paper.

Then I painted an Earth in Space inspired by the “plaid” striations in my breakfast orange.

When the painting was dry I wrote my phrase as neatly as I could.

So you can see the page better…

…it worked fairly well! So, yes, I’ll definitely be doing more illustrated poetry!

The above mentioned novel by Towles is a hard act to follow but here’s what I’m reading and enjoying now. I’m thinking there may be some drawings of foxes and hedgehogs soon.

I also made some progress this week on a new painting for an upcoming fine art exhibit, there’s my current art exhibit to promote, there progress I could share on a new ABC123 category book (I have a category! Wahoo!! 🙌❤) but it’s early days in these projects and I’m tired of typing now.

I hope your week is sweetly filled with peppers, prose, poetry and pens just as you like them. See you next Monday.

Professional dogs, artist books, unmentionables and hamburger

A Creative Life, art commission, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, business of art, children's book, creative thinking, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fine art, Fine Art Commission, public art, Sustainable creativity, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

My new childrens book, The Professional Dog, is progressing nicely. I’ve been thinking of this as a fine art dog portrait album inspired by the idea of the 19th century parlor game The Minister’s Cat. My book concept is an excuse to talk to my friends about their dogs and see if I can do 40 portraits of dogs whose owners are people I know. It just so happens that I know people occupying an alphabets worth of professions! How fun is that?! Anyway, here are three of the dog portraits together.

Below the larger portrait is the text I’ve written for the book.

The Helper’s dog is a hopeful dog.
The Inventory Manager’s dog is an insightful dog.
The Judge’s dog is a jolly dog.

Besides keeping on my work schedule for The Professional Dog I’ve been working closely with two of my galleries. We’re doing fine art commissions and studio visits in prep for the upcoming gift giving season. It’s beginning to resemble Santa’s workshop around here.

For example I created, then delivered, an art commission to Aurora this week for someone’s holiday gifts (shhhh!). Then while I was in the Gallery I got to see a glorious display of my own work! That sight inspired and encouraged me to keep making my stuff. https://auroragalleryonline.com/

The Aurora Gallery does such a good job displaying my wide variety of differently sized things – artistbooks, greetingcards and fineart – I love it that someone can see my books and around the corner nearby in the art gallery they can see the original artwork in the books!

Since we’re not talking about the fine art commission I just did for the Aurora Gallery here’s the art studio dachshund keeping mum with me.

And as I mentioned in my last post we’re still very definitely not talking about the Caplan Art Designs upcoming holiday box project.

Also there’s another event upcoming at Caplan Art Gallery that… well, we’ll talk more about that later. (There is a hint on my Instagram page about that however 😉)

Suffice it to say that I was extremely busy this week, working in both short and long bursts, on several projects I can’t talk about publicly.

Thank goodness I can talk about my childrens book project The Professional Dog! The book is farther along than my posts make it appear. And I’m excited about this book! I believe kids need fine art in their lives too so I’m taking great pleasure in making an album of fine art paintings and producing the work in such a way that while being an art object itself – as in I am personally making an artistic reproduction of my original artwork – my finished book will be affordable and will also withstand little hands with grape jelly on them!

I’ve been so slowly posting about this work because when I run out of time in a day it’s the online posting that drops off my to-do list. Creative work comes first. Talking about it comes later.

Similarly there wasn’t time for one of my Creativity Chats this week. I wrote notes for it though.

Food got simplified this week too. I threw ingredients for this recipe from a blog I follow called In Diane’s Kitchen into my slow cooker, pressed buttons and went to work in my studio. The reheated leftovers were even better the next two days.

And you bet your sweet bippy that I am still taking the time, up to an hour or so every evening, to read books and have hot chocolate before bedtime. It’s the way I keep calm and carry on during busy times.

My secrets to maintaining this level of creativity? In the mornings 5 or 10 minutes daily playing around with my sketchbook. In the evenings 30 minutes to an hour playing with books – print books I own as well as ebooks from my local library. (I especially love cozy mysteries, fiction, short story collections, poetry…)

And between those daily just-for-me fun times I play with whatever project is at hand. I just charge ahead with my project in my best imitation of a child arriving enthusiastically at a playground.

Yep, those are my secrets to a sustainable creative life which could be distilled to “Play and have fun every day come heck or high water!”.

I hope your week is a playful one no matter what else is happening. See you next Monday.

Of odd hats flowers and books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, fine art, household surrealism, magic realism, mundane and magical moments, printed books, rabbits in art, visual thinking, whimsical art

I’m practicing household surrealism as I work towards fine art exhibits later this year. Ordinary objects and plants are sources of inspiration.

Here’s a few sketchbook pages in which I’m playfully combining hats and plants.

Below are some primrose flowers a friend gave us. They sat on my table and I drew them and photographed them.

The flowers eventually became part of a hat in an acrylic painting I’ve titled “Of Sense”.

“Of Sense” – by Clancy- 10 x 8 inches- acrylic and collage on board

In my new series of artworks for exhibits at Burnt Bridge Cellars and Caplan Art Designs I’m using a bit of collage. The collage elements come from my old falling apart copy of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”.

I replaced that old Austen book with a newer intact copy. I’m enjoying my Austen collection. Just like a writer constructs a bibliography for a book being written I tend to have a bibliography behind my fine art exhibits. Jane Austen’s prominent in this year’s art bibliography … I plan to talk more about that in coming posts.

My sketchbooks also reveal what’s on my mind – and I’ll post pages from them too. My sketchbook pages in this post have quotes about dealing with emotions. Jane Austen’s work is about emotions and the social comedy of dealing with ones own emotions or reading the emotions of other people. So I’ve been thinking about that…

My most recent published sketchbook “Another Sketchbook” is a prequel to my current sketchbook and fine art series. You can see it here. Spoiler alert: it’s lots of drawings about books and cultivating one’s mental life.

It’s nothing new for me to be as fully my odd self as possible – in fact I’m doing this as I work towards my new fine art exhibits – but I saw this image below on Austin Kleon‘s Instagram – and I thought heck yes. So I’m going to continue to be odd with household things for a while as I contemplate emotional health and Jane Austen out loud – so to speak.

If you haven’t seen Austin Kleon’s books, blog or newsletter it’s worth a look.

My recent children’s book “This Rabbit” has been read over 11 thousand times on Storyberries.com as of this writing! Wow! Thank you! 🤗 And yes, I plan to make more kids books … as one of my followers you’ll be the first to know. But for a while there’ll be odd household surrealism from me in this space and I hope you enjoy it.

See you next Monday? Stay weird and know that you’re loved by the universe.

A Readers World

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, artistic inspirations, Books In Art, Dogs in Art, drinks in art, fine art, food in art, magic realism, public art, visual story

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!

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

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”!

yarns heard around the world

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, Dogs in Art, fine art, magic realism, mundane and magical moments, reading in art, visual thinking

I realized recently that the “bedtime story” ritual, for both children and adults, is nearly universal across cultures. While there is scientific evidence (see links here and here) that reading printed books before bed can help you sleep and provide other benefits – for me it’s plain indulgence.  Naturally bedtime-reading is subject matter for one of my artworks that will be included in an upcoming exhibit in September at Caplan Art Designs:

YarnsHeardAroundTheWorldSM

Yarns Heard Around The World – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink, gouache on board

For fun as I created this piece I combined my thoughts about bedtime reading with the concepts of teams and coaches…. counting sheep is a world-wide sport. Right? Lol!

Dear Readers on view and my art opening jitters remedy

A Creative Life, art exhibit, Books In Art, business of art, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, drinks in art, food in art, public art, reading in art, Sustainable creativity, words and pictures

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

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art techniques, business of art, Cats in art, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fine art, reading in art, still life, visual story

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.

 

party pointers and books in art

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, artistic inspirations, Books In Art, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, drinks in art, fine art, reading in art, visual thinking

I’ve been thinking about cookbooks and bartending books. And parties. It’s becoming the season here in the Pacific Northwest for drinks with friends outside on patios and decks.

On one of my walks I saw a beautiful Pointer dog. The dog dovetailed with my thoughts about bartending books which give “pointers” – pun intended – for drink mixing.

Here’s the painting those thoughts inspired – titled “Party Pointers”.

PartyPointers72

Party Pointers by Clancy – 16 x 20 inches – acrylic on board

As I’ve been doing with this “readers series”, my body of work for my upcoming one-person exhibit at Burnt Bridge Cellars, in the background of “Party Pointers” I’ve spoofed several of my own still life paintings. You can see a few of the original still lifes here and I’ll post some over on my Instagram page.

Hope you’ll also get to sit outside and have an adult beverage with a fun companion or two!

Cheers!

dogs strawberries and cookbooks

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artistic inspirations, Books In Art, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fine art, food in art, kitchen art, reading in art, still life, visual story

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

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, artistic inspirations, Books In Art, creative thinking, dog portrait, Dogs in Art, fine art, food in art, reading in art, still life, visual story, visual thinking

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…