cabinart weblog

In the continuing saga of what an artist does, here is what happened today. First, I photographed 2 good-looking teenage siblings for a portrait in graphite. We had to spend a little time walking around the yard, finding good locations, and then wasting a bunch of shots until they felt somewhat comfortable with a camera in their faces.

Next, I spent time messing around with the photos to decide which were the best possibilties for drawing. Digital cameras are very convenient, but do you remember the days when you just turned in some film and waited? Wow, take the photos and be finished! Now, in the name of convenience, there is an inordinate amount of messing around before photos are useful.

After that, a girl came to the studio for a lesson on portraiture. She was a quick learner, soaked up all I had for her and then drew a great looking eye!

Meanwhile, Maggie came to retrieve her lemons and another friend/business associate came by for a sketch. We are working on a possible mural together. . . as usual, more will be revealed! (we hope, anyway!)

Then, it was time to return missed phone calls. The best one was from an old friend who has been asked to paint an ornament for the White House Christmas Tree and had some questions! Since I am able to talk and draw at the same time, we visited while I worked on the big fat commission collage.

Next, a very thoughtful young man came by to get a wedding present for his sister. (He was referred by mutual friends and made an appointment.) He chose a most appropriate piece: The Honeymoon Cabin!

Thus concludes another busy day in the life of an artist!

Each day is different from the others because the variety prevents a set routine. Yesterday was full of variety - preparing the entry form for the Ag Art show, talking to someone who wants a portrait drawn, visiting with someone else who is looking for “authentic California art” as a wedding gift for his sister, doing some banking along with other errands, finishing up little oddments from drawing lessons, preparing for a private lesson on portraiture, and actually drawing.

Have a look at what got finished yesterday:

In the photo provided by the customer, the garage was quite prominent, as was a sunlit picket fence across the entire front. In fact, those were the dominant features. The customer gave me the liberty to adjust things to emphasize the house.

Last year at this time I was in China. I spent the month of July there, teaching conversational English at a University to a classroom comprised mostly of university teachers. They were quite literate, but were not very conversant at first, because they hadn’t spent anytime practicing with native English speakers. (My only qualification for such an undertaking was that I am a native speaker, plus my experience teaching people how to draw!) It was the greatest adventure of my life, and it still amazes me that I got to go. I made some wonderful friends, and every day was interesting, truly interesting!

Across the way from my apartment in Weihai, there was a dorm painted in a weird combination of pink and yellow. My first thought was “Yuck!” or something equally ungracious. After being there a few days, the mimosa trees in front of the building burst into bloom and suddenly what had been Yucky became Ohhhhh! Hmmm, another little life lesson. . .

So while painting at S’s, I was looking out the window at her mimosa trees in bloom and it made me a little nostalgic for last year’s remarkable experience.

Today I finished the job of flowering up S’s dining room. It surprised me to spend another 8 hours on it today. . . don’t know why I was surprised, because there are 26′ of morning glories! There is also the inevitable dinking around at the end that I have learned (the hard way) is Very Important. So often I am operating in the Get-er-dun mode; this means I sign it, pack it up and go! Then, I look at it later and say “Oh. Oooops!” (I confess that sometimes I have been known to say something worse than ooops.)

This time, S was home all afternoon, and we had such a good time hanging around together. She enjoyed watching the final part of the process. I think she was also glad that I was the one up and down the ladder rather than her!

This was a great learning experience, and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to create a little more beauty in S’s life. Her home is so very beautiful that I had to adopt a mantra - Thou Shalt Not Covet - and repeat it from time to time.

This is kind of fun, but I do have to make a decision by Tuesday! Look at these additional suggestions:

Yesterday’s memories
Uncle Bill’s Barn
Home Sweet Home
The Barn Again
Well Seasoned
Timeless
Here to Stay
Vroom Room (just kidding!!!)

And Built to Last is ahead of Character Counts.

You all helped me select the graphite portrayal of several barns with a tractor. Thanks! Now I am requesting your input again. Will you help me name it?

Titles definitely matter - think of last year’s First Place winner in the Farm Equipment category. What if it had been called “Tractor Tire” instead of “Size Matters”? (I shudder to think of it)

So here are my top two choices:
1. Character Counts
2. Built to Last

Perhaps you have a better suggestion - I am open to hear it!

This was a good painting day! It brings to mind the saying, “The worst day painting is better than the best day working”, although I think that was originally about fishing, not painting. And come to think of it, my painting is working!! (in both senses of that statement) Such a great life I have been blessed with!

Anyway, here is a new photo of yesterday’s completed left side, (because even my photos were blurry yesterday) and a new photo of today’s completed right side. Oh my, S will be very pleased when she gets home tonight!

Some of the same flowers here: poppies, lupine, Bigelow sneeze-weed, Indian paintbrush, farewell-to-spring, baby blue eyes; and, some new ones: wild iris, fairy lanterns, and a tiger (or is it leopard?) lily.

p.s. I only dropped one paintbrush today!

Wow, this was hard today! Look at all the hassles:

1. S was out of water
2. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on her ceiling fan (it gets hot up there in the upper reaches of her dining room!). But it was good I couldn’t turn on the fan, because it would have chopped my head off working on the morning glories!
3. I kept climbing up and down the ladders and the scaffolding because I either forgot stuff or dropped it. (There is no place to put things while standing on a ladder or a platform, so it is a bit of a juggling act.) Plus, I have to climb up and down to see how it looks from a normal viewing position.
4. It was weird trying to see with the glare, the brightness of the windows, needing glasses for the reference photos and also not needing glasses to see where to carefully place my feet on the platform. . . phew! I was glad to come home, until I found that our water softening machine had been blowing gallons of water into the yard for an hour or two.
5. The 5 kittens snuck in the back door while S’s Dad was trying to solve the water problem, and I had to round them up and throw them out!

At least the painting turned out well today!

More greenery has happened at the bottom, and now it is flowing into a row of morning glories. For the farmers out there that read my blog, I apologize for including such a pernicious weed. However, this one won’t spread outside of these walls, and even you have to admit that it is a fabulous color!

Today I returned to house of S, aka the Divine Dining Room project. There was black plastic blocking the blinding window light, so it was a little easier to see. However, there were a few distractions as i looked out the window below! (Have I mentioned my Cat Disorder?? Never mind, just try to pretend that I am normal.)

This little guy was calling to me through the window, but I cold-heartedly pretended as if I didn’t know what he wanted. It was an act, it hurt a little, but I am trying to overcome this little problem.

Here is how the wildflowers look now:

In case you are wondering, these are California poppies, a variety of lupine, Bigelow Sneeze Weed (the yellow with big brown centers), Indian Paintbrush (the red), Baby Blue Eyes (bet you can figure out which one that is), Farewell To Spring (the pink - a clarkia, but I don’t know which variety), and 2 different kinds of brodaiea (or some such collection of vowels. . .) I hope to return to the job on Wednesday. This is a fun fun job! (never mind about the part where I forgot my brushes and had to drive back home before starting this a.m.)

One of the most frequently asked questions about my art is “How long did it take you to do that?”

I, who am usually honest to a fault, dance around the answer to that question. There isn’t a straightforward answer, and when there is, I don’t like it!

Here are some of my answers:
1. Why? do you want to calculate my hourly wage?
2. It went really quickly this time.
3. I can’t believe how long this took!
4. Who has time to calculate hours?
5. The side of my brain that makes art isn’t the side of my brain that can tell time.

The plain truth is that I don’t keep track of my time. Most of my work is produced in fits and starts rather than sitting down in the a.m. and getting up at the end of the day to check off the 8 hour box.

When a commission customer asks about how long, I assume (usually correctly) that the question has to do with when the piece will be ready. I ask when he would like it. Then I do my very best to finish it by that time, and I haven’t missed a deadline or promise yet! (except for the time I was in a big fat car wreck, but that’s for another post. . . or maybe not.)