Owls and pussycats

and a studio visit

This very busy week contained a studio visit from one of the commercial art galleries I work with year-around. Caplan Art Designs represents my fine art which means any time of the year you can see my fine art there. The gallery has me do a one-person exhibit of new art each year so that they have a regularly rotating collection of art from me. Studio visit are often about that year's exhibit planning. Each year's new art series is featured one month of a year and then it is dispersed throughout the gallery and included in other exhibits, shown, sold, delivered or shipped to clients wherever they are.

Since it's a busy week full of preparation for the gallery visit I worked on this one sketchbook page all week, drawing a character per day with my fountain pen filed with blue ink. The sticky-note flag helped me find my page quickly so I could draw for 10 minutes or so during breakfast before each day accelerated. I also wrote very short stories about some of these characters in my notebook.

In my post last week my friend

Liz Gauffreau

named my owls “Harold” and “Sylvain”.

So here’s a drawing of Harold this week and a story:

Harold enjoys a quiet moment before beginning the evening's resistance action against the rats.

Here's a drawing of Sylvain and a story:

Around dawn young Sylvain likes to read collections of wisdom written by older wiser owls. This is Sylvain's small resistance against the ugly stereotypes of "birdbrains" currently being spread by the foxes.

Here's an as yet unnamed blue cat and a story:

In her imagination, while pulling a cart of library books, the blue tabby joined the Norse goddess Freyja's cart pulling cats bestowing strength, protection and affection as they went ... (and now we humans know what some cats are dreaming when their paws twitch in sleep.)

Here's another unnamed blue cat and a story - thought:

Time to read in the garden is the cats meow.

If you're wondering “why all the owls and cats?” below is a video hint. This video was taken by the gallery owner Amy from Caplan Art Designs during the studio visit.

As you know I keep things informal - even sketchy 😆 - here on my Substack but over on my blog I talk more in depth, i.e. art history and literature get mentioned, about why I'm creating the fine artwork I'm in the process of making. The gallery sometimes uses my blog posts within their work so that's why there are more descriptions of what inspires me as well as references to an art historical/literary context.

Here on Substack I'm just having breakfast and doodling in my sketchbook.

In my blog post this week there are more photos from the studio visit and I wrote about what has inspired my current painting series which features an owl and a cat. So if reasons why owls and cats are on my mind interest you here's a link to my blog post titled “Studio Nonsense”.

If you're curious you can see my artwork from last year's exhibit at Caplan Art Designs via this link and more on this link and the exhibit book and the related sketchbook.¹

Yes, there's definitely crossover from what happens here in my sketchbook to my fine art just like there's crossover from my sketchbook to my coffee cups, coasters, greeting cards, artist books, children's books (on Storyberries.com), and fabric designs. I don't usually show a step-by-step through line from my sketchbook to the finished artwork in this newsletter yet it's there. Perhaps this newsletter combined with my blog post link gives you a sense of the connections between my sketchbook and my new art series.

Really almost everything in my life starts and is managed or developed in my A.M. sketchbooks and notebooks.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, “and so it goes.”

Thank you, to all of you, for your ongoing patronage and support of my work! I appreciate every one of you! If you're a newly paid subscriber please feel free to access or download any or all of the 24 ebooks that I've written and illustrated which you can download and access anytime you wish from this index page.
Thank you again for being here!! 💚💚

1. Perk for my subscribers: follow either of the links to my books and when you check out add the code INSPIRE15 to get 15% off during March 21-26. Here's the links 👇

https://www.blurb.com/b/12223780-a-m-sketching-g

https://www.blurb.com/b/11994221-figures-of-speech-2-0 👇