It’s been another busy week but there’s still been progress on my new artist book for children called Numpurrs. On Storyberries.com I had done a counting book titled “The Crow and the Water Jug” so Storyberries wants another book from me related to numbers and math.
Here’s my progress: the finished poem lines that fit with my next 4 illustrations for Numpurrs
Eight divides the large wheels of brie
Nine adds mice caught in the lea
Ten has a bird as big as the sky
Eleven bakes a vegetable pie
To create the illustrations I chose the cats-to-be-illustrated from the various photos of cats that my friends have shared. My happy thoughts of my friends – and their cat photos – inspired which cat to pair with which number and poem line. Life near-to-hand provides so much of my inspiration. I made these paintings with ink and gouache on board. They’re small, 3.5 x 2.5 inches. Just little savory slices of a good life…
As I wrote in my last post I’m still using the Dictionary Of Color Combinations as a playful inspiration source for my color schemes.
I’m also still reading the cat-themed book “I Am A Cat” by Soseki Natsume that I spoke of in my last post.
Speaking of slices – my last post also spoke of pizza…and I did manage to get that indulgence, and a movie worked into this busy week. It was so enjoyable! Here’s what my homemade pizza looked like
I used my simple sauce recipe from my published kitchen sketchbook “Favorites So Far” and topped it with mozzarella, gruyere and Comte cheeses. Simple pizza – sauce and cheese – but I adult-ed it, so to speak, with my homemade sauce and cheese choices. Here’s my sauce recipe:
You can see the whole sketchbook here.
And yes, my cat shamelessly begged for bites of the cheeses.
Part of what I was busy doing this week was answering questions about my upcoming exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs gallery. One of the questions asked what inspired the artworks with birds in them. My answer: the poem from Emily Dickinson “Hope is a thing with feathers…” In these strange and interesting times maintaining one’s human spirit, hope and good mental health is crucial. So my entire exhibit is about that. You can see a virtual exhibit tour of sorts webpage here (hint: the very newest pieces have birds reading books) https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/readings-from-the-heart/
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’ll post during the week on my Instagram page and sum up here next Monday.
I wish you peace, a lap full of purrs and a plate full of good pizza.
