illustration
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Seeds, hope keepers and family
Over a long weekend we had a family gathering to celebrate a graduation! Before traveling to spend several days together with everyone, my wife and I spent time in the Portland Japanese Garden. Here’s one of the photos my wife took of me in the act of drawing some of the 300 year old bonsai…
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Touristing, a happy hippo, and a pink elephant
We went touristing and drove 20 minutes from our house to Camas WA independent bookstore called Its Bookish. It’s a delightful store focused on children’s books up to young adult with some adult books too. Here’s some views of what we saw on our way to Its Bookish. Not pictured, because I wasn’t able to…
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A box of leaves – Pembral Forgets
The inside of a book is made up of pages which are called “leaves”. The handmade box I’ve been constructing holds all of the “loose leaves” for Pembral Forgets. I love the pun…a story about fall leaves housed in a box covered with a pattern of leaves, containing loose leaf pages…. Yes, I know…🤣 ……
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A box for Pembral Forgets
A horrible but predictable insurrection happened in the US last week. My book shaped box to hold the original artwork for Pembral Forgets was at the needs-to-dry stage the day before, so Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the day of the attempted coup, I nervously read a lot of news. And thought of how a seditious…
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Art for Pembral Forgets
I’ve illustrated Pembral Forgets written by Steve Tubbs and in my last post I talked about my process of creating the cover and my leaf motif that flows through the book. Well here, below, are some of the finished illustrations with the text so you can see what I mean. Later on in the story…
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Pembral Forgets and a holiday
Mid November 2020 I was asked to illustrate Pembral Forgets by Steve Tubbs. It’s a story about fall leaves, good food and an absentminded boy who forgets something important. In mid December I took a social media break in order to focus more intensely on my illustrations. (There’s 38 pages of illustrations!) I’m glad I…
A Creative Life, Alphapets, Alphapets Too, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, Authors, fine art, handmade books, handmade papers, illustration, Narrative Art, pattern design, Pembral Forgets, publications – publishing, published art, surface design, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures, Writing And Illustrating -

Gouache and grin cycles
Since I’ve been asked by several people: here’s info about the art media gouache, why it makes me grin and my working cycles with it. Gouache is a water based paint. It’s more opaque than watercolor. Using gouache feels like spreading soft butter on toast. Applied gouache dries quickly but is easily made moist and…
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Numpurrs and a dragon
It’s barely been a week and Numpurrs on Storyberries.com has been read over 3000 times! Here’s one kind comment: “Thank you, this is exactly what teachers are looking for, online opportunities during virtual teaching makes teachers lives so much easier. That was perfect timing! And a beautifully illustrated and written book! The weird thing is,…
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Numpurrs 20 & it sums up…
There now! Despite all the odds (see last post) I finished “Numpurrs”! I’ve also sent it in to Storyberries for distribution. When I sent it in this last week Storyberries said “I just LOVE it Sue!!! It has come together so nicely !!!! Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work with us!!” So…
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Alphapets Too: Q, R, S and T
This weeks work on Alphapets Too my sequel to Alphapets by Clancy at the request of my fans and Storyberries – the publisher/distribution house I’ve been working with! (See my last post for details) The Alphapets Too pet portrait project this week is brought to you by the letters Q, R, S and T. Here’s…
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