Orange Grove in Pencil

This is a commissioned pencil drawing, custom art, a specific job as requested by a customer. (All that is in case you are only tuning in right now and missed the previous posts leading up to this).

The most difficult part of this drawing is the children. I found photos of children walking from the back, and then put together various elements from these photos to depict something that doesn’t actually exist. The youngest child that this drawing is supposed to represent is not yet walking. By the time she is walking, the other child will be older (duh) than she currently is. Hence, by guess and by golly. 

I started here because if this is impossible, there is no point in continuing. The customer said it was fine. No, that’s not what he said, but I decided that is what he meant.

Then I photographed it with a pencil so the size could be understood. After that, the mountains, and beginning the distant trees.

All this was done at the dining table in the house. I started this on the snow day, because the wood stove puts out better heat than the little wall propane heater in the studio. 

Lighting was a bit of a challenge, so toward the end of the drawing session I turned on the flashlight in the phone to use as a spotlight. This made it possible to work close and make precise leaves and oranges in the upper right corner.

P.S. The customer’s wife weighed in at the end of the day and had a very valid and helpful suggestion to make the smallest girl look younger. I believe this will be a lengthy series of blog posts as I bumble along in new territory of drawing little people without benefit of photos in a size that is ridiculously small. It will all be worth it, because this drawing will be ridiculously perfectly darlingly cute, a brilliant idea! (Plus, there will be some added color)

Orange Grove, Improved

Because my friend liked this little rough sketch enough to mention framing it, it seemed prudent to improve it. I do have a professional reputation to consider, since word-of-mouth is my strongest marketing method.

So, I spent a little time polishing the sketch. This time I photographed it with a ruler so he could see how small it is.

He asked if I had started the real drawing yet. I replied that I was about to start, but first I had to squash a spider. My studio is really out there on the edge of civilization. (Please be impressed by my pioneering spirit.)

With that nasty little job finished, I began the real drawing.

I started the 11×14″ drawing on Strathmore Bristol Smooth 400 series paper WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT ANY REFERENCE PHOTOS!

Looks like a nothing-burger at this stage. Good thing that you all know I know how to draw. 

I love making custom art for people, especially for friends, ESPECIALLY of orange groves, and ESPECIALLY in pencil.

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

And More Orange Groves

Remember this painting?

A friend saw it and wondered if I could draw a similar scene in pencil, this time adding in two little girls. Because I love to draw, love to draw and paint orange groves, and really like my friend, I said yes.

Ahem. There isn’t a photo of the two little girls from the back, walking together holding hands, because one doesn’t even walk yet. 

My friend sent me photos of the girls as they look now. Then I went to The Duck (search engine DuckDuckGo) to see if I could find helpful photos. 

From those photos, I did this little sketch.

Good thing my friend knows that I know how to draw. He was very taken with the sketch, so I think this idea will work, IF I CAN DRAW TWO LITTLE GIRLS THAT I CANNOT SEE!

No pressure or any undue stress.

Just shut up and pick up your pencils, Central California Artist.

Orange and Green

The previous posts were Green and Orange, so I decided to shake things up by calling this one “Orange and Green”.

I spent a few hours painting one sunny afternoon while a hummingbird went bonkers inside the workshop, refusing to leave. He buzzed and buzzed, while Jackson talked and talked to him, talked to me about him, and finally gave up.

This excitement didn’t interfere too much with my ability to concentrate, but I did lose interest after finishing 4 poppies. Then I smeared a bit of paint on the oranges before quitting entirely.

The 6×6 and 8×8 poppies are commissions, so there is incentive to get them finished. The other pieces are just for general inventory, so no one is clamoring for them. No shows are scheduled, and it is nice outside. I have some knitting projects, the weeds are going nuts, and maybe, just maybe, I am lazy.

P.S. Instead of being “lazy”, I decided that I am just be tired.

Green and Orange

Green and Orange are secondary colors. They are mixed from the primary colors, red, blue and yellow. This is my palette before I started some new green and orange paintings. Instead of two yellows, I used three this time, because I had them all and they made mixing the right colors a bit quicker.

This is layer number one on a 6×6″ and an 8×8″ canvas. 

More details are needed, and you can see that the color photographs in a murky fashion by the late afternoon light. This is the 8×8″.

Same same here on the 6×6. More details, weird color at the end of the day.

Both of these paintings are spoken for.

Back to Sawtooth

Remember all those oil paintings of Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint? Sunnypoint was a Forest Service campground in Mineral King closed in the 1970s (or was it the 1960s? I wasn’t there then.)

The view that has been so popular is a bit made up. When you are standing where I have stood to take so many photos, year after year, of the same scene, your eyes tell you that the barest tip of Sawtooth shows. When you leave the exact spot, you remember it as a place where Sawtooth, Black Wolf Falls, the stream, and wildflowers are all coexisting in beautiful harmony.

It is my job to gather up all those pieces of reality and combine them into a believable fantasy for you. This beautiful fantasy, which matches up with peoples’ memories, has brought me back to the easel once again.

After a week of messing around, taking walks, editing 2 books, and staying away from the painting workshop, I finally went back to work.

The work that remains after this dries:

  1. Add the wildflowers
  2. Fix whatever is wrong that I have noticed during the drying process
  3. Sign
  4. Let dry again
  5. Scan
  6. Varnish
  7. DELIVER!

There is more to the story of multiple iterations of the Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint paintings. Mañana. . .

Last Oil Commission of the Year

On December 31, it was cold and gray outside. This meant it would take awhile to get heat up near the easels in the painting workshop, so I chose to paint inside the house. 

The lady from Spain who bought a poppy and requested an orange and a pomegranate to match extended her stay here. (Clearly, she is liking our subject matter.) This meant there was enough time for me to paint a pomegranate. It made me wish I could get the orange painting back in order to touch it up, assign an inventory number, and scan it. (I painted the orange in a day while sitting at the Courthouse Gallery.)

It has a few days to dry before it is ready to be scanned and delivered. 

It is very pleasant to paint in the house – I sit at the dining table instead of standing at the easels. The room is warm, Trail Guy is hanging around, Pippin is in the living room (under strict rules), there are tunes. Yes, I can have tunes in the painting workshop but I generally listen to podcasts instead. Maybe I’ll get my hard-nosed work face in place a little later in the new year. But for now, this is my preference. 

Thank you, Señora España, for choosing the art of this Central California artist!

Day Six on Indoor Murals

Mr. and Mrs. Customer sent a photo of the mural to their son who said, “Dad, be careful you don’t trip on those rocks!”

This time I started at the bottom of the stairs, adding texture to the boulders, along with more lichen.

Then it was time for the flowers to start blooming. Mr. Customer said, “This is a magical place, and all the flowers bloom at the same time.” That gave me the freedom to put in every foothill wildflower that came to mind.

I finished the carnival of colors, and moved to the other side of the stairs. The sequoia mural that I painted 10 years ago is on the right-hand wall leading down.

My instructions for this wall are simply a manzanita shrub.

Mrs. Customer requested blooms on the manzanita. Mr. and Mrs. Customer have asked many times for me to be sure to sign and date every one of these mini murals. 

I told them to live with it all for a few days. This gives them a chance to ponder any ways to make it fit their vision better. They have great suggestions and have been right every time.

Next time, I will put blooms on the manzanita, maybe add some more leaves above and behind the bannister, fulfill any correction or addition requests, and sign everything.

Day Five on Indoor Murals

On Day Five I finished the trumpet vine. 

Next I went downstairs to begin the third mural: boulders with lichen, grass, and wildflowers, along the staircase.

Before I started, I went outside to look at boulders in order to mix the right shades of gray.

Look upstairs!

Lichen will be a challenge. I might need to buy some smaller brushes. Look at how I wish it would turn out:

Hmmm, as with many of my projects, this feels a little bit too hard. This is how it looked when I started getting stupid at the end of 6 hours of painting.

 

Day Four on Indoor Murals

I forgot my good brushes at home. I thought about calling Trail Guy to bring them to me, and I thought about going back home to get them. Since I was the one who messed up, I didn’t want to mess up TG’s day; I also knew that if I drove back home, I’d find a reason to not go back to work. It is hard to leave home any day; on cold wet days it is even harder to leave, so leaving twice in one day was a bit much for this lazy Central California artist.

Since I wasn’t getting into tight detail yet, I decided to just use inferior brushes. No need to wear out the good ones on base layers.

The Customers and I decided that the leaves and blossoms were too small, and that the trunk would need to be wider and also to cross around the corner to the left.

I poured 3 greens onto the paint bucket lid that doubles as a palette. The greens have been mixed from the primary colors, and are very useful to have ready to go, so I always have several on hand.

Mr. and Mrs. Customer and I discussed my not having found good photos of the trunks of trumpet vine. They went to work on locating some photos, and then Mr. Customer taped them to the door.

I finished the leaves and poured out some reds, oranges, and yellows, along with a bit of white. The photos helped, although I don’t copy what I see. The specifics rarely fit exactly, paintbrushes are NOT pencils, and inferior paintbrushes are definitely not able to do the kind of details that I love. So, I pushed through some base coating to locate clumps of flowers.

On the next painting day, I WILL remember my good brushes and will detail this into shape. Just seeing the photos here on the screen gives me ideas of how to make this better.