Remember this? On overcast days, I draw in the studio rather than paint in the workshop. Have I mentioned how much I love to draw? 😎 Now that my seasonal shows are behind me, I can finish this so the customer will have it in hand before Christmas.
In progress
When it is overcast, the light is too low for painting. So, I draw instead! Here is the chosen sketch for this comissioned collage piece:
Looks like a scribbly mess unless you know the photos. I showed the customers 4 options and they chose A with a few minor changes. Here is the beginning of the drawing:
Growth, part five (Facing Faces)
After about 9 years and on the fourth address for cabinart, it became apparent that notecards were fading fast, and the local market for house and cabin commissioned drawings was getting saturated. The next step? Portraits! I had skirted around this subject for years, refusing commissions, terrified of not being able to capture a likeness. This was and is a reasonable fear. If someone pays you to draw Steve, they expect you to draw Steve, not his cousin! Faces are so subtly different; we all have the same components, and yet we most definitely do not look like one another. (However, I do tend to get all the cookie-cutter blondies on The O’Reilly Factor mixed up. . . )
What to do? This was a brick wall on which I had been bashing my head for years. A wise friend said, “Why don’t you pray about it?” Duh. So, I did. Within the year, the CPSA offered 2 separate workshops on colored pencil portraiture, and the principles definitely crossed over to graphite. I was on my way in portraits! However, this will always be a difficult subject for me; unless I pray through each and every portrait, I do tend to draw the guy’s cousin. The subtle differences can just divert a face from the intended person to a stranger or a distance relative with a slight mis-stroke of the pencil.
Growth, part two (Cards & Commissions)
I used to draw pictures that fit nicely into sets of notecards, which then sold very well both retail and wholesale. I still do a few cards, but the market just isn’t as big. In fact, it is microscopic. Tell me, how many cards, thank yous and little notes do you send a year? How many do you receive? Hmmmm, really have to think about that one. Cards do sell, but not very many anymore. (Despite the handiness of communicating via computer, the truth is, no one ever cherished an email, so there.)
In addition, I drew cabins and homes on a commission basis. (still do!) That was the sum total of my abilities in the early years, and it kept me quite busy.
Unusual commission
Have a look at the completed umbrella. Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but isn’t this the coolest thing?!? Have you ever seen this treatment before? Painting a patio umbrella wasn’t my idea, but the poppies were. I’m into poppies, but if you read this blog, you knew that.
“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!
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:
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. . .