Lisa’s Lake House #5

As I was painting on this fifth pass over the canvas, the phone rang. I was between colors and just staring at the canvas, so contrary to my normal phone habits while painting, I answered.

The caller identified herself, and I was completely blank mentally.  Completely. I realized that I was concentrating so much on the details of the painting that I felt as if I was at the lake in Minnesota. In addition to not putting down the brush, not interrupting the flow of thoughts is another reason to let the answering machine pick up while painting.

After showing Lisa step #4, she made a few requests and changes and additions. I paid attention, then put on my strongest magnifying glasses and went to work on the details of the distant lake line along with some other things. I LOVE detail. (Hmmm, I’ve mentioned this before, yes?)

Here is the latest pass over the canvas:

The lake was looking rather ocean-ish. Because I couldn’t see the horizon line in any of the photos, and Lisa asked me to open up the trees for a better view of the lake, I was just baffled as to what to do. (My normal thing is to bury stuff that I can’t see under growing things.)

Lisa sent me a video, taken while standing on her dock and slowly turning 360 degrees around the entire lake view. I watched that video numerous times, and then paused it and studied the distant shore line. Aha! So THAT’s how a lake shore looks at a distance. . .

The house and windows now have tighter detail. There needs to be more shadow on the house, but not as much as in the photo sitting at the base of the easel. I’ll work on that next.

I began “planting” things below the house on the left. When Lisa advises me as to whether or not these are believable, then I’ll either turn them into something else or continue. (Well, duh, Captain Obvious.)

Commissioned Pencil Drawing of Wilsonia Cabin

This is a completed drawing of a Wilsonia cabin. I couldn’t decide if this post belonged here on my normal blog, or if it belongs on The Cabins of Wilsonia.

The drawing won’t be in the book. Those pages are already designed, and this cabin has its front door represented in the chapter of Park Road.

Knowing the drawing won’t be in the book freed me up to put color in the flag. I love doing that!

Lisa’s Lake House #4

Nope, not the fourth lake house of Lisa; it is the 4th pass across the canvas.

In my opinion, the sky, clouds, lake and trees are finished. However, my opinion is subject to change, and if I see something to improve, pass the paint brushes and step aside!

The roof, the porch and steps all seem finished to me, but Lisa has the final say.

I’ve resized and repositioned the windows until they finally look right. (or perhaps I have commission fatigue? Lake house fatigue? Lake house painting blindness syndrome?)

Lisa’s Lake House, 3

Lisa is enjoying watching her painting develop as this California (cabin) artist paints a Minnesota (lake) house. Apparently she isn’t squeamish. Because there is no one photo that says it all, she needs to be involved.  For example, in most photos that she provided, the trees look very thick. But, she wants to see the lake and remembers how it looked when they had those trees thinned out for the lake view.

I sent her this photo after my third pass over the canvas.

The very tall tree on the right of the house is too tall for the width of its branches. I wanted to add much wider branches at the base. Lisa asked that I simply shrink the tree. It probably needs both things to happen.

As I looked through all the photos, some on paper and some on my computer, I saw a picture of the house that shows a tad bit more of the right side. It looked better to me, so I scooted things around a bit. I also increased the size of the windows to be more accurate and began adding detail to the porch area.

I love detail. I LOVE DETAIL. I LOVE DETAIL!

(Do you believe me?)

Lisa had asked me to remove one of the birches on the lower right. I did. She asked me to put it back. I will. I’m just easy to get along with that way. 😎

Let’s get through these decisions so I can get to the detail sooner – I can’t wait!!

A Good Challenge (Or a Crazy-Hard Pencil Commission)

A wise colored pencil artist taught me to NEVER draw a face smaller than an egg. I’ve passed that on to my drawing students. It is tricky enough to capture a likeness correctly with photos or people that you can actually see and measure. Try doing it when you can’t see the details. Worse, try doing it when you can’t see the details on the photo AND the size of the drawn face is smaller than an egg, and there are TWO of these microscopic faces in the pictures.

A friend brought me this photo and asked me to draw it for her. I’ve shot it holding it in my hand so you can see how small it is, and how small the people are, and how truly miniature the faces are:

Then she said, “I enlarged it for you in case that will help,” and she gave me this:

Blurry and pixelated is how the tiny faces appear in this enlargement. Notice that the enlarged faces are perhaps about the size of my thumbnail now. (I have chunky hands, but even my thumbnail is no where near the size of an egg.)

She said that her daughter, a long time drawing student of mine, begged her to not bring this to me or be crazy enough to ask me to draw it. She didn’t listen to her daughter, whose advice was based on years of listening to me.

I like me a good challenge. Because this lady and I are friends, I told her I’d try. What does friendship have to do with it? The ability to communicate honestly is EVERYTHING when drawing or painting commissioned art. EVERYTHING. Besides, she flattered me by saying, “I figured if anyone would be able to do this, it would be you.”

Flattery often succeeds in getting me to try things that I know are crazy-hard (unless it involves the possibility of bodily injury).

The plan was to get it laid out and then shade in the faces. If she didn’t like the faces, I could just stop without having invested hours and hours. “No harm, no foul” seems to be the appropriate cliche’ for this approach.

I told my drawing students. There were guffaws, gasps of horror, looks of incomprehension, several “but you always say to never draw a face smaller than an egg”, and maybe a couple of screams.

Here is what I did to show the customer:

Blurry and small, just like the photo. Lacking in detail, it is hoped that the angle of the heads and the suggestions of features will bring to mind the correct little humans.

What did the customer, the mother of my long-term drawing student, the friend with whom I must have honest communication say about it?

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . .

Lisa’s Lake House, a Commissioned Oil Painting

Lisa’s family has a lake house in Minnesota, somewhere northern and treed and lakey and gorgeous. She asked me to paint it.

After briefly considering a request to be flown there to see it with my own eyes, I came to my senses and said “Yes, of course I can work from your photos.”

(I have yet to find a customer who will fly me to her lake house in Michigan or Minnesota, family estate in South Africa or Brazil, beach house on Cape Cod or the Outer Banks, log home in Montana or Colorado, et cetera. What am I doing wrong here??)

Lisa wrote me some very thorough notes. We emailed often when she was at the lake house. She took photos. We spoke on the phone. We wrote a few more emails.

Then, I did a sketch for her.

We emailed a bit more. She mailed some more photos. I took copious notes.

Then, I primed a canvas in the orange that was already on my palette. Orange is in the middle of the dark to light spectrum, so it is rumored to be a good priming color.

I emailed her a photo similar to this and warned her not to be scared by the sloppiness. I’ve heard that watching a painting happen is similar to watching sausage being made. Couldn’t prove it by me; however, I do know that my paintings begin their lives looking a little loosey-goosey, sloppy-woppy, ugly-bugly.

Put on your rose-colored glasses, willya for Pete’s Sake?

(Who is Pete?)

Responding to the Voices in My Head

That’s a scary title, is it not?

“Sisters” took a long time to paint. The customer hired me because she liked my precision, and she gave me all the time necessary to complete this to both of our satisfaction.

When I paint, I listen to lots of things. There is music, podcasts, talk radio, books on tape, and voices in my head, including my own.

An aside: Someone said we should talk to ourselves the way we talk to our best friends. You know how sometimes you say things to yourself like, “How could you be so dumb?” (Maybe you don’t – please just play along for a moment. . .) If your best friend did something dumb, you’d be more likely to say, “That’s okay – stuff happens and we can learn from it.” Or, “Don’t worry about it – it is a small thing that can be fixed.”

This is what I have chosen to believe and follow:

  1. I am a studio painter who works from photos.
  2. Good paintings take a long time to finish.
  3. Precision and accuracy are attractive.
  4. I love detail.

Here are what the voices in my head have been saying, and here are my new responses in light of my recent decision (see the September 12 post):

VOICE #1 – “You are drawing with your paintbrush”.

Me – “So what?”

VOICE #2 – “If you paint standing up, you’ll paint with more energy.”

Me – “If my foot hurts, I will paint with more pain.”

VOICE #3 – “You need to listen to cool music while you paint, jazz or classical”.

Me – “This is a great time to listen to talk radio, podcasts about the business of art, interviews with artists and authors and inspirational speakers, sermons I’ve missed from my pastor, and audible books.”

VOICE#4 – “Real artists don’t paint from photos.”

Me – “Okay, I’ll be a fake artist.”

VOICE #5 – “You need to step back from your painting to see how it reads from a distance.”

My – “Thanks for the reminder. I am so into the detail that I forgot!”

Loves Cotton, Loves To Knit, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″, $100

 

What Is The California Artist Doing?

Perhaps you’ve been wondering if I am still a California artist. Cruising to Alaska, having fun in Mineral King; is this chick even working any more??

I am working diligently on The Cabins of Wilsonia. You can follow the progress on my other blog, called The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Sometimes my own cleverness just slays me.) Actually, you can follow my thoughts about the process, because I’m not showing everything I’ve finished. Gotta have a little mystery, so people will want to buy the book!

My drawing quota for August has been met, and now it is time to work on some commissions.

I have 2 cabins in Wilsonia to draw that are outside the scope of the book. This is good, because income is good. This is not good, because doggonit, I will have 230+ cabin drawings and now I’m adding to the + side of things!

Nope. not complaining. It is tricky to choose the exact cabins and views that will please the cabin folks and also keep the book from looking all samey-samey on every page.

The entry-way door of this cabin is interesting to me.

Wilsonia cabin door pencil drawing

It is also interesting to the people who own the cabin, but they are more interested in seeing the cabin in its entirety. So, I’ve done a couple of sketches so they can choose. The differences between the two choices are subtle – can you spot them?

sketches for a pencil drawing commission of a cabin

The California Artist Finds Her Big Girl Pants

I got serious about working on this commissioned oil painting of the Kaweah Post Office in Three Rivers for a nice (and hopefully patient) lady from New Jersey.

Kaweah Post Office oil painting in progress

Now, this is more like it. layers, details, contrast, texture. It needs to dry so I can paint the words on the signs – KAWEAH, POST OFFICE. The year established and the zip code are too small. The other words are sort of too small too, but I’ve done it before and I can do it again. I’ll probably end up tightening up other parts of the painting too. That’s usually how it goes.

So, I’ll just lift it off the easel, paint the edges, hang it up by the window, and then wipe the paint off my forearms. I always get paint on my forearms when I paint the edges of the canvas.

Kaweah Post Office oil painting hanging upside down by the windows

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Would you just look at that!?!!

The wire is on the wrong side. The title on the back will be upside down too. I’ve only done this about 800 times so far.

I might need some time off soon.

Kaweah Post Office and Big Girl Pants

Dabbling, thinking it might be good to finish this before it gets hot again when I’d rather be in the drawing studio with its A/C unit instead of in the painting studio with its swamp cooler. Dabbling, deciding, doodling. . .

Has anything even changed from yesterday?

Get going – drink some coffee or eat some chocolate!

Here’s the problem: I’ve been concentrating so hard and long on the upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, just drawing like a pencil machine, that I’ve gotten nervous about my painting abilities.

This is a commission, I’ve been paid, and the customer is waiting. Put on your big girl pants and get busy.

Wow. That created a sense of urgency. Stay tuned. . . more will be revealed.