Sue Clancy's Blog, page 44

sketch of musicians

 

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Sue Clancy’s sketch of women musicians in action

My sketchbook page from Sunday’s concert… I used ink and watercolor.

 

kitchen music and sustainable creativity

I strongly believe in taking care of oneself as a way of sustaining creativity.  Keeping a go-to list of  “things that feed your soul” and regularly using it can help maintain ones artistic battery.  One item on my list, well okay two items, is cooking food and listening to music. So I also strongly believe that music belongs in the kitchen and dining room.  Belongs there loudly.

Luckily I now live in a part of the country where I have friends who both play musical instruments and cook! I also now live in a city that holds music concerts in the park – a park ringed with food carts, restaurants and pubs/breweries – all of them cooking something that smells delicious. Picnics are often brought to these park concerts – baskets full of mouth-watering food and wine or beer.

To celebrate this music-plus-food life I’ve created some tea towels and dinner napkins with a music motif.

Now I’ll give you three guesses as to what I’m happily doing this evening.

Oh, and here are the direct links to information about the above pictured tea towels and napkins:

https://roostery.com/p/orpington-linen-tea-towels/6575299-songs-by-sueclancy

https://roostery.com/p/amarela-cloth-dinner-napkins/6575299-songs-by-sueclancy

 

dog drawing demo done!

I spent most of the day at the “Words and Pictures Festival” at a branch of my local library – doing a drawing demo and promoting my artist book “Dogs by Sue Clancy”. It was a good day – only came home with 3 copies of my book all the rest have happy new homes! People were talking and asking me questions before I could even get set up and they continued to come and talk with me constantly even when I was packing up to go home! What fun!

Needless to say I didn’t have time to take photos of the crowd I was so busy! I did manage to do these drawings while talking to people.  Yes, that’s a bit like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time.  Going to go have some wine after I post this.

On giving art demonstrations

On Saturday I’m participating in a “Words and Pictures Festival” at my local library.  I’ll be signing two of my book titles (more about my books here: https://sueclancy.com/artist-books/ ) and doing some of my dog drawings and talking about how I create my images. I’ll talk about my ideas, show my tools and discuss methods.

The challenge for me is the talking-while-drawing part of the demo equation. So to help myself I’ve done a video of me drawing… this way I can watch myself and think of what I need to talk about.  When you watch the video do you have questions that you’d like me to answer?

 

 

studio sketchbooks and dogs

I’ve posted in this blog about my “running around loose sketchbooks” – sketchbooks that I carry with me and record my observations of daily life.  My studio sketchbooks are a different breed.  In these I’m using my imagination – like what is in “Dogs by Sue Clancy” https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Dogs-By-Sue-Clancy  I make it a regular habit to play with my imagination like this.

I’ll be signing copies of this published version of my studio sketchbook Friday night during my art exhibit opening at Burnt Bridge Cellars.  My exhibit is called “Dogs In The Winery” and the fine artwork exhibited is like what’s in the book… only more so.

See also https://sueclancy.com/2017/07/01/my-running-around-loose-sketching-kit/

 

 

kitchen tales and non-traditional notions

I’m playfully experimenting again. I’m combining several things: my thought that knowing how to cook is an essential artist survival skill, my not-so-secret desire to illustrate a cookbook and the fact that I’ve been asked to do my fine artwork (dogs and food!) as prints for sometimes messy home kitchens.

So I’m collecting my kitchen art efforts together and publishing them on a web page – https://sueclancy.com/pattern-design/kitchen-tales/ — as you can see I’m doing a series of individual prints instead of printing a series of images in a traditional book.  This way people can mix and match to their liking.

The same with tea towels and napkins… can recipes become something useable like a towel? Can I tell visual stories, that you can wipe your hands with, about enjoying food and drink? It’ll be fun to try!

And lucky for me I have a chef friend – Chef Kim Mahan of http://www.class-cooking.com – who wants to experiment with non-traditional cookbook notions too! We will do some practicing in public – on my blog as well as on the above mentioned web page.

Here’s a framed print… you saw progress towards this image in earlier posts.

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“Bear Salad” https://society6.com/product/bear-salad_framed-print#s6-7068429p21a12v52a13v54

 

 

 

my running around loose sketching kit

People attending my fine art opening at Burnt Bridge Cellars have told me that they enjoyed seeing my free ebook sketchbook as part of my exhibit and several have asked me: “What does your sketching kit look like?”

Here’s a picture of it.

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Clancy’s “running around loose” sketching kit

The bag is new to me recently – but this is the contents of my “running around loose” sketching kit: a mechanical pencil, an eraser, ink pens, a small watercolor set, color pencils and my bound sketchbook.  The sketchbook is 5 x 3 inches. My new bag measures 9 inches by 7 inches and about 3.5 inches deep. My old bag was bigger but had the same contents as above plus half the library and the kitchen sink.  This new smaller bag weighs much less because the only “extra” thing I add to it is my sunglasses.

I call this my “running around loose” kit – because I take it along with me wherever I go and make 5 minute or less drawings with it.  This name also distinguishes it from my studio sketchbook – which is a different breed ….

You can download, for free, my recent “running loose” sketchbook here: https://sueclancy.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/gladtobealivedrinkmusiced.pdf

Other sketches – and artist books by me can be seen here https://sueclancy.com/artist-books/

North Bank Now article

An article (link below) in the magazine North Bank Now mentions my art exhibit “Dogs in the Winery” that is currently up at Burnt Bridge Cellars using words like “marvelous” and “whimsical” to describe it.  Then it goes on and mentions my book “Dogs by Sue Clancy” as “beguiling”.

Pinch me I must be dreaming. Wow! Thank you!

https://northbanknow.com/2017/06/fourth-of-july-weekend-at-burnt-bridge-cellars/

http://www.burntbridgecellars.com/

https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Dogs-By-Sue-Clancy

Dogs in the Winery exhibit video

Some time back I did a blog post about my experimental exhibit currently at Burnt Bridge Cellars. In that post (link here: https://sueclancy.com/2017/06/13/my-experiment-of-exhibiting-art-as-a-multi-layered-story-environment/) I talked about creating a multilayered story environment; I included links to a free ebook sketchbook I’d done – as well as to a printed book and I included a few images of the artwork along with some short story-like descriptions for them. I wanted to share something with all of my fans whether they could physically come to my exhibit or not.

Then life went on in a hectic busy way and well I’ve only just now gotten around to posting on YouTube the video I’d shot, quick walk through style, after we hung the exhibit.  Here it is:

Now all that’s left is for you to taste the wine… but as far as I know there’s no way to upload wine to everyone’s screen in a way that they can taste it. Sigh.

The next opening party for my exhibit is July 7th. http://www.burntbridgecellars.com

 

of waiters and sketchy definitions

In my last post I mentioned that I was looking through my sketchbooks for drawings I’ve done of restaurant waiters and posted one sketch.  Then, inspired by one of the sketches I found in my various books, I drew this finished drawing using ink and watercolor on handmade paper. By ‘finished’ I mean it could be framed and hung as it is.

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Tomato Brisk by Clancy – 4 x 5 inches – ink and watercolor on handmade paper

Posting about this got me to thinking about how I define the term “sketching”.  Some people might call the drawing posted above a “sketch” because it is done using a  fairly loose and simple style. But I don’t call it a sketch and here’s some of why…

Sketches are: Drawings made on-site that capture and document observed surroundings.

Sketches are: Drawings that communicate a thought/feeling/story that reflects the reality the sketcher perceives at the moment (however accurate the drawing may/may not be).

Sketches are: Drawings that can serve as a reminder of observations and thoughts. As in the drawing and writing is legible enough that I, or someone else, could recognize and understand what I’ve observed even though the sketch/drawing doesn’t contain as much detail as a more finished artwork may have.

Sketches are: Drawings that are documentations of one’s day (auto biographical data) – a personal  visual diary collecting both words and images reflecting the associative thoughts of the sketcher at that day/time.

Sketches are: Drawings that are studies in preparation for later more finished artwork. Practicing to “get a particular shape right” etc.

Sketches are: Drawings where the sketcher is “working out” thoughts and ideas along a theme or series concept.

Sketches are: Drawings that are done in a bound book (usually) and not intended for framing or display.