fine art
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Desirous naturally of travel and Juggling Numbers
I thought about travel this week and the newest painting in my Odditerrarium series is titled “Desirous Naturally Of Travel”. It’s a portrait of a Portuguese Water Dog who is contemplating sailing. Here’s a closer look. Like the other paintings in my Odditerrarium series this new one is 10 x 8 inches and was created…
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Curiosity, cats, our minds and alphabets
I’ve been thinking this week about the role of curiosity in a creative life. So here’s a fun curiosity/creativity game I play with myself. To play you’ll need: any printed book with lots of visual images in it, 5 sticky post-it notes from a post-it note pad, a separate piece of paper and a pen or…
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Troublesome wit, books, poetry and essential ordinariness
Work happily proceeds on my new Odditerrarium series. I’ve a work schedule and I’m sticking to it. As I worked on this pug painting titled “Troublesome Wit” I thought of John Lewis and his phrase ‘good trouble’. I thought of how humans work together in order to have the wit and fortitude to deal with…
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Public art private art and pretending
I’ve been thinking lately of how important the ability to imagine is. What if “let’s pretend…” is one of the most useful skills to cultivate all of one’s life? Besides being lots of fun to do using your imagination is an essential mental health skill. I quote from this article “So when you choose to…
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Fine art, books and similarities between art and writing
More work this week towards an upcoming art exhibit I’m calling “Odditerrarium”. I’ll tell more about my creative process on this exhibit here and in subsequent posts. Odditerrarium will be an exhibit via Caplan Art Designs later this year. This week I finished a dog portrait I’ve titled “Secret Knowledge”. It’s 10 x 8 inches…
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On playing with books, art and being wholly bent
I painted an unauthorized portrait of a playful cat that I’ve met courtesy of a dear friend. This portrait is titled “Wholly Bent” and is 10 x 8 inches. This is me just playing and working towards future art exhibits. Here’s a closer view of “Wholly Bent” it is 10 x 8 inches, ink, gouache…
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Benefits of miniature art, celebrations and a love letter to librarians
Some of my sketchbook pages this week felt like personal milestone markers, like “Yeah! That’s exactly the point of it!” This what I enjoy about having a regular sketchbook habit, the aha moments. In the studio I’m working on a fine art reproductions project that I can’t talk about much yet. But I’ve discovered another…
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On using banned book lists as a buyer’s guide and other subversive activities
Book banning is a hot topic with me because I’ve been on the receiving end of bans. Those occurrences happened in Oklahoma over 10 years ago when I lived there. To name just one example, in 2008 I was to have a one person art exhibit at the Oklahoma State Capital. More than a few…
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How the cow went over the moon, a dragon and got books that were banned
In my last post I shared my methods of making the original artist books “How The Cow Went Over The Moon” and “Tiny Notes”. The handmade original one-of-a-kind books are the basis for a printed version, newly released, titled “How The Cow Went Over The Moon and Tiny Note To The Sun” (https://www.blurb.com/b/11033023-how-the-cow-went-over-the-moon-and-tiny-notes-to) Almost exclusively…
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Miniature art, books, dogs, a cow, a bird, a dragon and a rabbit review
This week I finished the dog painting you saw in my sketchbook and on my easel in my last post. The cow is still active in the field of my imagination as is a wee bird. More on that later in this post. Here’s the completed dog portrait titled “Being exquisite”. Like the dog portrait…
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