Redrawing an Old Cabin

I first drew this cabin back in the 1980s and might have taken a slide of the finished piece. A slide? Yes, Little Grasshopper, it was the way to get high quality photographs, back in the olden days when telephones were for making phone calls and cameras were for taking photographs. We also knew how to read cursive, paper maps, and face clocks. Sometimes we drank out of hoses in the yard, rode standing up in the back of a pickup, didn’t wear helmets while riding bicycles, and sometimes didn’t wear seatbelts either. It is a wonder you have anyone at all still alive over the age of 60 to help you understand the weirdness of the olden days. But that isn’t why we are talking about drawing today.

It began with 2 sketches. Mr. Customer chose the horizontal version. I began in my usual manner of lightly laying out where all the parts will go, and then started shading in the upper left corner.

Day #2 of shading brought me this far. I haven’t kept track of my hours – that is a pointless exercise since I charge by the size of the drawing. (Reminds me of what our guide in Israel used to say every time someone would ask him how long something would take – he’d say, “‘How Long’ sounds like a Chinese name.”)

This is the smallest size I draw now – it is 9×12″ and costs $200. (“How much?” is an easier question to answer.)

In case you are curious about pencils, my current favorite brand is Tombow, a Japanese word for “dragonfly”. They are smooth smooth smooth. 

Drawing cabins using pencil is a return to my “happy place”, “comfort zone”, and “wheel house” to use all the current cliches. If I find the slide of the old drawing, I probably won’t show you because translating a slide into something digital is not in my wheel house or comfort zone, and never you mind about a happy place either.

Finished, Finished, and Finished

Here are the scanned versions of the most recently finished oil painting commissions. Scanning produces better results than photographing, but first the paintings have to be dry. This is why there is a time lapse between you seeing them on the easel and seeing the finished product. But don’t be confused by the bridge – I didn’t get around to showing it to you on the easel until it was actually finished and dry in real life.  

Devol Coat of Arms
Green Tunnel, Mineral King
Oak Grove Bridge XXXI (#31), but probably closer to #35 since I didn’t number my oil paintings very accurately for a few years.)

If you are like me, you are curious to see the difference between the last 6×18″ Oak Grove Bridge and the current one. It is interesting that I can paint from the same photo twice and get different results. Some of this is because I have to just make up the “growies”, since there is no way to copy them exactly. Besides, real life is messy. And speaking of real life, there probably isn’t as much difference in the colors between the 2 paintings if we saw them in person. So much has to do with how it photographs or scans.

Oak Grove Bridge XXIX (#29)

If you ever think you might like a painting from a photo you see on my blog (or one you’ve taken), or if you’d like a painting that has already sold, I can do that for you.

Inching Along the Commissions

Reminder: “commission” is Art Speak for a custom piece of art. Here are two in progress:

No matter how often I paint the Oak Grove Bridge, it challenges my ability to draw with a paintbrush. Drawing with a paintbrush is something that is sneered at in the Art World, but I am hard-pressed to imagine how one of those loosey-goosey painters would handle this subject.

I sent this photo to my customer, and he declared me to be finished. He was actually nicer than that – he said, “As I said before, you are the best!” Aw shucks, thank you, DB. You are a dream customer.

The giant circle continues to develop. The surface of smooth plywood with several base coats of paint is different than canvas and will take multiple layers to cover. That’s fine, because I can get tighter and better with each layer. This is my preferred method of painting, fix, fix, fix some more, and fix again, called “glazing” in Art Speak. That is how I painted the bridge commission.

My customer the citrus grower asked if the trees would be darker, because I sent a photo taken earlier than this one. Then I took this photo, and because the paint is wet here, it is reflective so it still looks pale. I kept painting, and then sent this photo:

I love this subject matter just as much as the Oak Grove Bridge and am quite happy about getting to spend many hours making it look as good as possible.

Irresistible Subject

Ever painted a circle? I have. It was a heavy saw blade with sharp teeth. Sawteeth? Yeppers, Sawtooth with sawteeth.

This one is much kinder to work with. It isn’t heavy, the surface is very smooth, the top is clearly marked, and it fits on an easel.

The paper photograph hadn’t arrived, but I couldn’t wait a moment longer to begin. A scene with citrus and mountains, a true source of inspiration, is just irresistible to this Central California artist!

Good thing my customers have faith in my ability, because as always, things start out looking rough.

HURRY UP, PRINTED PHOTO!!

 

New Commissioned Oil Painting

I stopped by the Silver City Store to check my paintings and encountered an old friend on the deck. He said how much he liked my bridge painting in the store. I went inside to do inventory and couldn’t find the bridge, so came back out and asked, “Did you say you ‘like’ the bridge or that you ‘bought’ it?”

He said that he “liked” it, and I told him it had sold. He was disappointed, so I offered to paint it again for him, and he said yes.

Wow. If only every sale was that easy. I went home and immediately began painting, because the Oak Grove Bridge is my favorite subject. (If you have been following this blog for awhile, then you already knew that. If you would like to see more, put “Oak Grove Bridge” in the search bar of the blog and it will give you a stack of old posts to read or to just look at photos, paintings and drawings of the bridge.)

Ooh. As soon as I saw the bottom photo here, I saw some things to correct on the painting.

 

 

More Green Tunnel

I’ve been painting the Green Tunnel from looking at the photo on my laptop. The progress left me unsure of my abilities and of the results. Sometimes commissions cause this sort of insecurity. (But I’d rather paint than go to counseling).

When the print finally arrived, I was surprised by how helpful it was, in a different way than painting from the screen. I can enlarge details on the screen, but there is something more tangible (duh!) about ink on paper.

The difference here is a photo taken with a phone (above) and a photo taken with a camera (lower). Neither one does the real painting any justice.

Now, let’s see what happened when I had the printed photo to work from.

The goal is not to match the photo exactly but to make the painting be as appealing or more so. I don’t think it is finished yet, but I already like it better.

Resting Coat of Arms

Whole lotta resting going on ’round here.

We chose silver gray for the customer’s name to match Helmet Dude. Now the coat of arms oil painting commission is drying. Sometimes when a painting is drying, I keep thinking of ways to improve it.

With this one, I am just trying not to look any more.

When it is dry, I’ll scan it for a better look. That’s for you to have a better look. I am FINISHED. (Please, please, may I be excused?)

Resting in the Green Tunnel

You last saw the commissioned Mineral King oil painting when it looked this way.

I spent a few more hours on it, and can’t decide if it is finished or not. So, it is resting.

The color is better in real life. 

I think the grasses need to be messier in order to be more believable.

Not sure. 

Keep resting, Green Tunnel.

Coat of Arms, Again

The saga continues. You last saw Revisions #1-4, and I speculated that the customer and I would continue on to Revision #5 or #6.

We met at her cabin in Mineral King for a pleasant time of friendship and revision. There are two things I like to do best with friends: take a walk, or work on a project. 

A wet painting on the very rough Mineral King road? Yeppers. Transported it without incident in the trunk of Fernando.

In the interest of privacy, I didn’t photograph the process or our time at her cabin. I did photograph the wet revision with a first layer only in the trunk of my car. You can see that we agreed on dark green, and together we rearranged ribbons. This was a great exercise for a crocheter (my friend) and a Knitter (me). (Yes, I am a Knitter, instead of one who knits, or even a knitter).

I brought it home and began the relayering process.

Neither one of us was satisfied with this solution to keep her name visible.
Rotating the painting allowed me to see the exact tip of the brush because I did NOT want to mess up the parts that we saved.
The 2nd layer of dark green needs to dry. Next, the blue and yellow ribbons will get a second coat.

But what about her name?

Stay tuned.

Second New Commission (or The Green Tunnel)

There is a section of trail in the Mineral King valley that I think of as the Yellow Tunnel in the fall. It is also the Green Tunnel in the summer, and I showed a photo of it on my blog last month. Here, have another look:

A faithful blog reader asked if I would be willing to paint that for her, and of course I said yes. We chose 11×14″, and then while I was waiting for a printed version of the photo (and a deposit on the painting because I have learned the hard way that if a customer doesn’t make a monetary commitment, it is only a conversation, not a commission), where was I, oh yeah, while I was waiting, I looked at the Green Tunnel from another perspective.

Doesn’t really say Green Tunnel from this view, eh? But fun to consider, if you are a fairly simple person with plain tastes in what constitutes fun.

The check came, and I couldn’t wait for the printed photo but began painting from my laptop. This has benefits and disadvantages, but when one is eager to begin a job, one does what is necessary.

This is not my normal way of painting, but when something feels right and is working, I just go with it. I turned off the voices of all my previous instructors and said to my self, “Self,” I said, “I’ll be me and they can be them and it will all work out just fine.”

Tucker and Pippin were also fine with that, and I had to be very careful of where I stepped when standing back to view my progress. (Jackson was out working or something.)

Call me “Butter” – I’m on a roll!

Now it needs to dry before I continue or the sky will turn green.