Sue Clancy's Blog, page 69

art toad of mushrooms

Here’s one of my fine artworks titled “Toad Shroom” that Caplan Art Designs www.caplanartdesigns.com has currently on exhibit at The Daily Cafe in the Pearl http://dailyinthepearl.com/  – “Toad Shroom” was inspired by two novels by Tom Robbins; “Another Roadside Attraction” and “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas”.  Tom Robbins is one of my favorite authors.

On another topic: Tom Robbins’s Twitter feed is really cool @DailyRobbins

Toad Shroom

 

Paws to Enjoy

Amy Caplan from Caplan Art Designs www.caplanartdesigns.com has installed my artwork at The Daily In The Pearl http://dailyinthepearl.com/events.html for an exhibit running the month of October! The theme I’ve been creating art towards (for over a year) is “Paws to Enjoy”. This installation is a well curated collection of all of the little moments I’ve paused (ahem) to enjoy!  And I’m sure you can imagine why my art theme has been paired with a fine restaurant and why the exhibit opening is a 3 course dinner and wine event.

As seen in a previous blog post here’s the exhibit statement aka “blurb”:

Paws to Enjoy

Life happens and Sue’s response is to pause and think about it by cutting up one-of-a-kind hand dyed papers, smearing glue on them and putting the cut paper pieces together again. She thinks about dogs, cats, and rabbits and soup, coffee, and whiskey. Then she sums up her thoughts and transforms them into literary images. This exhibit is a collection of enjoyable thoughts.

art books; reviews and previews

Since I often get asked for suggestions of “good books about art” I’ve decided to start reviewing books about various aspects of art on Goodreads.com now and again.  The photo is of one of my favorite “go to” books that I recently reviewed.

I may review cookbooks too as I think knowing how to cook is an essential survival skill to have as an artist.

And while I was setting that up I also made some downloadable “previews” of my 2 currently available ebooks available too:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7594198.Sue_Clancy

Of course you can also see info about my two eBooks on my website www.sueclancy.com on the “books” page.

the inspiration lab

A neighbor asked me to take care of her three Labradors while she was away.  Each time, as I served up doggy dinner, one of the dogs “sang” in a sweet baritone – thus inspiring my artwork pictured above titled “Lyrical Lab”.

This is one of the artworks that will be in an exhibit opening Oct 3rd (see the event tab at www.caplanartdesigns.com).  I’ll also give a short talk about what inspires my artwork.  Here’s my best tip about giving short art talks: tell stories.

art americano

Art for an upcoming exhibit via Caplan Art Designs.  See http://www.caplanartdesigns.com/ and http://dailyinthepearl.com/events.html for more info.

knowing beans

Knowing how to cook dry beans, and having a pot of formerly-dry beans ready to use in any quick-recipe, is a good thing to know when you’re a busy artist getting ready for a major art exhibit…. Here’s a page from an old sketchbook drawn some years back when, after a time of struggle, I’d finally attained The Knowledge of Beans.

 

 

Some enchanted buffalo

My submission for the SCBWI monthly drawing prompt word “Enchanted”.

writing art exhibit statements or “blurbs”

As I’ve mentioned before in other posts there is a lot of writing that goes on in a professional fine artist’s career.  Exhibit statements (or “blurbs” as I call them) are written for each gallery show an artist has.  These blurbs are often less than 100 words.

When I write such statements I try to: be descriptive, interesting, and clear/concise.  It’s a tall order to fill, one that uses all of my writer’s skills and stimulates me to learn more about writing in general – because I know I’ll need to write another blurb for the next show.

This very important exhibit statement gets used by the gallery (in this case Caplan Art Designs) in flyers, on press releases, in online promotions – just to name a few uses – to help promote the exhibit.  Like most writers I submit my best draft and an editor, aka the gallery agent, edits my best draft as needed.

Here is the final blurb for my upcoming exhibit titled “Paws to Enjoy”:

Life happens and Sue’s response is to pause and think about it by cutting up one-of-a-kind hand dyed papers, smearing glue on them and putting the cut paper pieces together again. She thinks about dogs, cats, and rabbits and soup, coffee, and whiskey. Then she sums up my thoughts and transforms them into literary images. This exhibit is a collection of enjoyable thoughts.

—–

This is the “signature” image the Caplan Art Designs gallery chose to represent my exhibit in their promotions:

For more info about my upcoming exhibit see:

www.caplanartdesigns.com

http://dailyinthepearl.com/events.html

from the coffee table book

I’ve been working towards an upcoming fine art exhibit at Caplan Art Designs; writing an exhibit statement, compiling an inventory list, writing promo materials.  You’d be amazed at how much writing there is in this “visual” art field.  I also have to write a speech to give during the opening reception.  One of the things I plan to talk about is how I take notes, do drawings in my sketchbook and then how those thoughts are transformed into my fine art. It seemed easier to post somewhere (besides randomly on this blog or on Twitter) some of my actual sketchbook pages so people could see for themselves what I’m talking about.  So I made an eBook that collects my sketchbook pages – particularly pages that relate to artwork that will be in the exhibit. It is titled “Coffee Table Book” (http://my.bookbaby.com/book/coffee-table-book) – and this book is best viewed on a smart phone or tablet with the portrait orientation lock on.

Here are a few pages from Coffee Table Book:

Sue sketches Ursula

Sue Clancy’s sketchbook page created during Ursula K. Le Guin’s talk at Powell’s bookstore

Disclaimer: the “quotes” written around the drawings are what I think heard Ursula Le Guin say during her talk at Powell’s books – any and all errors, miss-scribbles and darn-doodles are mine and mine alone. Any and all brilliance, insight and encouragement is Ursula Le Guin’s.  Her website is http://www.ursulakleguin.com/ and she does stuff here: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/ – And you can get more accurate quotes from Powell’s twitter feed here powells.us/1UI5Epa