Category: commissions

“You’re an artist. . .”

“. . . and I have this project.” Those words can be a big OH-OH or they can signal an adventure on the way. Now that I know how to paint, those words are most often in the adventure category. When you are an artist, especially one who makes her living rather than being a hobbyist, people ask the strangest things! Here is my latest adventure:

This is not a funny looking tablecloth but a patio umbrella! It has some sort of water resistant stuff on it, so it has to be rather forcefully persuaded to take the paint. Several layers into the process it gets easier to spread the color around. It needs more, but I ran out of workday today, as usual.

Giant Project Revealed

First published in January 2009

What? the next mural in Exeter
Where? the 100 north block of E street, on the west side, facing south . Yes, that is correct – it overlooks the parking lot of the Exeter Sun.
When? We are hoping to project the image on the wall on the evenings of Thursday and Friday, February 5 and 6
Biggest what: (no surprise here) – Mineral King, of course! 😎
Size: The wall is 105′ x 15″; the mural will be 103′ x 12′ *
Who? me! I get to paint it after planning for months and months and months. . .

Print this out, cut out the pictures, tape them together in this order, imagine the longest sepia part scooted to the left, and there is the next mural!!

Update: The wall turned out to be 110′ long, and the mural ran the entire length

Breakthrough!

First published in January 2009

This little gem is a sneak peak at the Giant Project, known hereon as GP. Why am I teasing you with this? Because I have had a victory and want to share it! I have been fighting my paint and brushes, trying like crazy to get them to do what I want. I struggle along, wondering if I will ever learn to paint properly, wondering why I can’t get anything to do what I request, wondering why no matter how many hours spent it still looks like a dog’s breakfast.

On Sunday a.m. a bottle of linseed oil appeared on my front porch with a note from my 6th grade teacher. (He signed it “Tom S.” and I thought it was from someone I know here in town because I always think of my 6th grade teacher’s first name as “Mr.”, not “Tom”, for goodness sake!)

Like the good girl that I try to be, I wrote him a thank you note and wondered if I would ever have a use for linseed oil in painting because my earlier attempts at using it have been crap less than satisfactory. It left random shiny spots on the painting which I tried to ignore, and then a well meaning friend said, “I like this painting but it has shiny spots on it”.

Then I learned about some special recipe from the teacher at the junior college where I soldiered through half a semester of a painting class 2 years ago. (I sort of knew he and I weren’t a good teacher-student match when he said to me “The trouble is, you don’t know how to draw!” Okay, thanks for that helpful tidbit Mister, but I am about to have an opening of a solo show of my drawings so your opinion of my abilities is crap less than satisfactory.) Anyway, this special recipe also made random shiny spots and was weird to use, sort of sticky and it made the color too weak, and I could see no point to using it. Maybe if I had stayed the entire semester I would have learned how to solve this problem, but it seemed that staying home to paint was a better use of my time than driving 80 minutes round trip for each class that was mostly just easel time with bad light and bad rap “music”.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I bravely went out to the easel, determined to master this problem of misbehaving paint and WHAM! into my brain came the idea of linseed oil from Mr. S. (the good teacher who taught me how to draw but denies it saying I already knew. . . go figure! I knew how to draw in 6th grade but somehow forgot through my career of drawing?)

Knowing things on the easel couldn’t possibly get any worse, I tried the linseed oil mixed with the paint and it was MAGICAL! It was fabulous! All I can say is THANK YOU GOD for sending Mr. S by with that linseed oil, even before I knew it was needed so desperately!

Murals

The Ornament Story, chapter 4

This is the crowd shuffling back down the hall as the party was over. The conversations were so much fun. I heard people going on about the bathrooms (“Fine facilities!” in a very Southern accent), talking about how many paper napkins with the White House emblem that they stuffed in their purses, and the cameras never stopped snapping. (In 2007, people took photos with cameras, not phones. I still do.)

We were very reluctant to leave, as were most of the guests. It was all such a beautiful fantasy, and it was hard to believe it was over so quickly. While I changed from my useless high heels to a pair of walking shoes, Michael made friends with Jeff, a Secret Service guy:

He showed him the photos of meeting the President in Sequoia in 2001 and referred to him as “Dubya”. I said, horrified, “Michael! They probably don’t call him that here!!” Jeff said, “Actually, we call him Forty-three”. Isn’t that a hoot?

There are many many layers of security around the White House, several different fences and gates to pass through before emerging onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Here is one last glance back:

I think I stood on a bench for this one. (It was safe – my high heels were in my oh-so-dorky-with-dress-up-clothes trusty red backpack). There was a fence separating us from the White House and another fence separating us from outside the White House.

Our next mission was to locate a Metro Station and figure out how to get back to Alexandria, where we had a 19 block walk back to Janey’s (see why I brought normal shoes with me?) Michael was a little uneasy with this, but since I had just been in China, I knew this would be a piece of cake. Why? Because everyone spoke English here AND we could read the signs. So, that is my story of the ornament. One last thing: have a look at the little item that gave me this adventure!

You used to be able to view all the ornaments but that webpage has expired. It is interesting to note that no where were the artists mentioned, only the National Parks that we represented. And we were instructed to not use our designs commercially—no reproductions, no advertising saying “as designed for the White House”. Since then,I have made more ornaments, although none identical. Besides, I paint better now.

The Ornament Story, chapter 3

A note about getting “gussied up”. . . I faxed the White House a second time to ask about the dress code. Here in Tulare County, “dressed up” means that I iron a polo shirt for Michael to wear with decent jeans. “Formal” means his best Wranglers, boots, and a “sport” jacket. (“Sport?” What, is he going to play basketball??) Really really formal means a tie with the formal ensemble. So the White House returned my fax with a phone call, and I was told in no uncertain terms (in a nasally whiny tone) that “No denim is allowed on the compound”. This meant a major shopping expedition for Michael.

Me? I found a $3 blue velveteen jacket at the local thrift shop, and since I have enough clothing for a small third world nation of short women who wear their skirts too long, this was adequate to complete an outfit for me.

We arrived in style at the White House, and joined the queue to be officially identified as invited guests. Everyone was excited, dressed up, and friendly. We finally got inside the White House itself and began the shuffle down a long hall. Everything was interesting, everyone was nice, every moment was fun! (incidentally, there were 2 men at the reception wearing blue jeans. Michael asked one of them how he got away with that, and the guy said ,”I don’t dress up for nobody”. Apparently he doesn’t bother with proper English either.)

I could go on and on about the details, but will try to contain my enthusiasm. (You realize that I really don’t get out much so this was over-the-top exciting.)

Here is a photo of the East Room where the reception was:

Outstanding food, truly outstanding! Incredible to be there, really.

Here is the podium where Laura Bush spoke:

We were too short and too far back in the crowd to see her. I was wearing my highest heels, to no avail other than killing my feet, and this was many years before the words “peripheral neuropathy” ever entered my lexicon.

This is the tree in The Blue Room. It was 18′ tall, and my ornament was placed in a perfect spot. Lower right is the back of the head of the woman guarding the tree on the side where my ornament hung. My ornament doesn’t show in this blurry photo—clearly I was a little too wound up to take proper photos.

Here is the view from the Blue Room where we were all standing around in shock and awe:

We handed the camera to a stranger for a photo in The Red Room (this was in 2007 when people used cameras instead of phones).

Suddenly, the carriages turned to pumpkins. Everywhere we looked, a uniformed guard was saying, “This way please”. That had to have been the quickest 2 hours of my life! to be continued. . .

Sequoia art sequoia national park art White House Ornament

The Ornament Story, chapter 2

Bob from the White House filled me in on the details of the reception, so I began making travel plans. (Nope, it wasn’t paid for by anyone but Trail Guy and your Central California artist.)

We have very good friends in Pennsylvania who invited us to stay with them AND, get this, lent us a car! So we flew into Harrisburg, which has rocking chairs in its airport. Yes, I know many airports have these now, but remember, this was 2007.

Here is what some of their area looked like:

After recovering from a red-eye flight (Note to self: NEVER do that again), the next day we drove to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia to the home of our cabin neighbor and partner in my book The Cabins of Mineral King. The drive was so interesting to us. Just seeing signs along the freeway that mentioned Civil War battlegrounds was fascinating to these West-coasters. And the colors – this photo was taken at a rest stop.

I knew I would love Janey’s town from years of hearing about it. Sure enough – just look where she lives! Please excuse the car in the way – parking is at such a premium in her neighborhood that we had to have a permit for our borrowed car and she had to negotiate with a construction crew for a place to put the car. These homes were built in the late 1700s, and I was shamelessly and instantly in love with the whole place.

We got all gussied up, and Janey drove us to the White House. To be continued. . .

Sequoia art sequoia national park art White House Ornament

The Ornament Story, chapter 1

In August of 2007, I was asked to paint an ornament for the White House Christmas tree, representing Sequoia National Park. My first thought was “Shoot! Another freebie!” I was told an invitation to a reception at the White House would come with the ornament, and I thought, “So? I have to pay for that too!” A friend told me I would be nuts to turn this opportunity down, and Michael said he’d be happy to come to the White House with me. So, I began painting.

At the time the call came, I was working on a painting of Sequoia trees in the snow.

I bought a few little ornaments and tried the same design on one in acrylic paint, but it dried way too fast. I tried oil paint on another, and that worked well.

Eventually, a large shiny gold ornament arrived. It looked like glass, and I was afraid of dropping it. I put layer after layer of white paint on it, carefully handling it as if would break, because if that happened, what would I do??

During one of these layers, my thumb dented the thing a little bit and I realized it was plastic! That took a load of worry off my mind!

When it was finished, my neighbor came over to take photos of me holding it so that the size would be evident.

You can see this is no ordinary ornament—it was big, which made it much easier to paint than my little practice ones.

There was a little difficulty about the reception because no date was given and reservations needed to be made. We painters were given a fax number to send any questions (remember, this was 2007), so I sent a note asking when the reception was and how tight the deadline for mailing the ornament was. As I was frantically trying to program in the fax number so a response could be received by my fax machine, the phone rang. (Yes, I had a phone/fax machine.)

“Cabinart, this is Jana”, I answered.

“This is Bob at The White House”, came the response. “Hi Bob,” said I, ever so casually. To be continued. . .

Sequoia art sequoia national park art White House Ornament

Flags should be in color!

This little gem was fun! Seems to me that any time there is a flag, color should be applied. On the last commission, the customer and I discussed adding color to the flowers. We concluded that there was only one place it would work, and then the front door would no longer be the main event. With this drawing, the color is conveniently located next to the front door, so that is not an issue. (Ick, that word really bugs me. However, note its proper usage here.)

And here is an admission: I am getting old. I know this, because 8×10 feels very very small. Much of this drawing happened under a giant lit magnifier. Those diamond shaped windows next to the front door took an alarmingly long time to get right – no pencil point can be sharpened small enough. This used to be normal work for me, and now it is so very very tiny that I can’t believe I used to draw this way! And to any of my drawing students who are reading this, please please forgive me for expecting the same from you if you are over 45 years old!!