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If you’re the type of person whose imagination goes to work when you’re outdoors, finding familiar shapes in cloud formations, or sensing the outline of animals in stumps in a forest — first, you’re definitely not alone, and second, Bend author Sandy Anderson has just published a book you’ll relate to.

The longstanding Bend artist works across a spectrum of three-dimensional art, from high-fired clay sculptures to printmaking, and has channeled that creativity into the paperback “Creatures Everywhere.” For the project, she photographed stumps that look like dogs, trees that seem to have faces, rocks that resemble gorillas and other forest-found objects, later fleshing out these along with other things, be they birds, mammals or monsters that she perceived.

Anderson said she’s been traipsing around Central Oregon forests since she began visiting Central Oregon yearly 40 years ago, and even more often after she moved to Bend 25 years ago.

“I love the forest,” she said. “I kept seeing these things, and I would paint pictures, and it suddenly occurred to me, ‘Wow, maybe that’s the book for the grandson.”

Regular visits to the forest with her 12-year-old akita, Aka, made it easy to gather material.

“We go to the forest, oh, three to seven times a week, so good chances to see things and keep taking the pictures, and then I’d come back and sketch what it is I thought I’d saw,” she said.

Just as people might see different things in Rorschach blots, “As people look at these things, and other images I have, they will say, ‘You know, that’s not what I see,’ which is true. Anybody can see anything, and it’s all valid.”

She tested the waters by showing her efforts to her three grandsons, to whom the book is dedicated. It was written with grandson Alistair in mind, as she’d already created earlier, one-off books for his brothers, Atticus and Alex.

Anderson also dedicated the book to friend and mentor Pat Clark, a master printmaker and the founder of former Bend printmaking studio and gallery Atelier 6000.

It was Clark who convinced Anderson she should publish “Creatures Everywhere.”

“She’s really been my mentor,” Anderson said. “I started printmaking because she wanted me to try it.”

Clark, Anderson’s deceased husband, Alex, and Anderson herself were key figures in the creation of Scalehouse Collaborative for the Arts, the nonprofit art center that recently had its 10th anniversary. From the start, Anderson has served on its board, but she resigned two weeks ago to return her focus to working in clay.

Anderson credits her partner, John Owen, a journalist who proved instrumental in getting the book out in the world. (Romantic sidenote: The two were pinned in college, and had not seen each other for 55 years before he moved to Bend two years ago “because we decided we’d get back together,” Anderson said.)

Her book is available at area bookstores including Roundabout Books, Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe, Barnes & Noble, Paulina Spring Books, as well as The Bend Store and Leapin’ Lizards Toy Co.

Along with kids, Anderson hope “Creatures Everywhere” resonates with parents, too.

“I hope it engages parents to interact with their kids, and what do you see, and that’s what I see, and let’s go look, that sort of thing,” Anderson said. There’s a tag at the end of the book with an email, creaturesbysandy@gmail.com, where those who think they see a creature in a stump or boulder — call it a still-life — can send a photo for Anderson to share on her website, alexandsandyanderson.com.

Meanwhile, Anderson continues to spy fresh subjects in the forest.

“I cannot stop. This is getting insane, but I’ve seen some really good things lately,” she said. “I really do hope that it helps with an awareness of the environment, and having people get curious enough to get outside and save the world.”