Unfinished Paintings, Finished Drawing

These paintings have been waiting for attention for weeks, or perhaps months.

IMG_0671

It is true that what comes easily is usually more fun. I find painting to be work. It is satisfying, but laborious and more often than not, it is difficult.

In troubling times, I gravitate back toward that which brings me pleasure and comfort. Drawing in pencil fits that description.

Perhaps I am just procrastinating. Or maybe it has to do with life’s difficult situations using up whatever extra oomph is needed for me to tackle more challenging projects. Whatever the reason, right now I am choosing pencils over paintbrushes.

Poppies at the Beach

Poppies at the Beach, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11×14″, not for sale

11 Items in My Portfolio Life

“Portfolio life” is a term I found in Jeff Goins’ The Art of Work.

Sequoia 4 seasons

Collage of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in 4 Seasons, pencil and colored pencil, private collection

Portfolio life doesn’t mean being a jack of all trades, or being the master of one, or being ADHD. It means your work life is full of variety that all relates to and supports your chosen line.

Indeed! Forsooth! (an archaic word for “indeed”)

Check out this list:

  1. Blogger – writer, photographer, a tiny bit computerish
  2. Oil painter
  3. Pencil artist
  4. Drawing teacher
  5. Muralist
  6. Sign painter
  7. Bookkeeper/office manager/marketing director
  8. Web site upkeeper
  9. Author (So what if it is a picture book – it has words!!)
  10. Publisher
  11. Public speaker

“Sign painter”? Only under duress. I’ll let you know more when there is more to let you know.

Item #6 may be more accurately titled “Odd Jobber”. . . I’ve painted a sign for a houseboat, Christmas ornaments, old windows, umbrellas, quilt patches, and saltillo tiles. Those are just the odd jobs I can remember on the spur of the moment.

A Central California artist has got to do what she’s got to do.

It is an honor to be thought of when someone needs an artist.

Anyone else out there living a “portfolio life”?

Maybe I should go vacuum the studio or pull a few weeds. (Should I add janitor and groundskeeper to the list?)

What’s A Central California Artist to Do? part 2

beach birds

Beach Birds, pencil, size forgotten, sold

If you are a Central California artist, you may occasionally have times when: taking inventory is boring; ordering packaging supplies for notecards that aren’t moving very quickly feels like a waste of money, planning for paintings when one’s current body of work is collecting dust feels futile, writing blog posts is difficult when technology fails and photos won’t load; calling on stores and galleries feels futile when they don’t keep their posted hours or end up closing altogether.

So what?

One of my drawing students and friends often the line blurs) gave me a sign that hangs in the painting studio. It reads “Put on your big girl pants and get busy”.

Getting busy looks like this:

  1. order envelopes and clear bags for notecards
  2. order some of the card designs that have sold out
  3. edit newer photos and order prints
  4. call or email the names on the waiting list for drawing lessons (One lady said “I’m waiting for you to give a watercolor class”. She’ll be waiting a very long time, because I don’t know how to watercolor paint.)
  5. blog ahead
  6. update the inventory, where-to-buy and events pages on the website
  7. put more sticker decals on the covers of The Cabins of Wilsonia
  8. package notecards
  9. take care of the hassles and realities of tax season

AHA! Tax season. Could that be the reason for the current state of mind? Thanks, IRS. Way to wreck the most beautiful time of year.

Guess I’ll just pretend as if someone has forbidden me to work on the business of art. That should light a fire under me!

How do you remain productive during your slow seasons?

Same County, Different Bridge

In February, I told you of my drawing of the Clover Creek Bridge up in Sequoia National Park and a man who saw it and contacted me. (That post will open in another window if you click here.)

The man, named Todd,  had googled “pencil drawing of a cabin” and found my site. On my site (the old one) was a drawing of the Clover Creek Bridge.

clovercreek_bridge_1

Todd practiced drawing by copying my picture. It is the easiest way to learn how to draw and is what my 6th grade teacher had us do. (I credit him with teaching me how to draw.)

I thought he was doing a fine job because his proportions were correct. That is the most important thing when beginning a drawing. It is comparable to having your foundation level and your posts vertical if you are framing a building.

I also gave him a couple of tips about hard edges and soft edges. Real life doesn’t have black outlines separating things; it has edges. Hard edges are clean exact edges, where one item ends precisely and another begins. They draw the viewers eye and are very noticeable. Soft edges are slightly fuzzy transitions from one to another part of the same thing. They make things not stand out.

(I don’t see any black outlines – I just wanted to give him some tips because he was thoughtful enough to contact me.)

Todd gave me permission to post his work here:

todd's clvr crk

 

I hope he finishes the drawing and continues to draw.

Broken Communication in an Information Age

I got an email from a stranger in Kansas who googled “pencil drawing of a cabin”. YEA! This brought him to “Cabinart”! He had seen a drawing of the Clover Creek Bridge on my site and then could no longer find it. (Since the site has been rebuilt, I left off some of the older pieces because I don’t like how they look with a watermark across them.)

clovercreek_bridge_1

 

I sent him a mess of pictures of bridges, trying to determine which one he was asking about. (love those bridges) I didn’t even remember this one, and finally he sent me photos of his sketchbook where he copied my drawing.

He didn’t ask my permission to draw from my drawing, but having stuff on the internet means that people can either be ignorant of copyright laws or just ignore them. (Same root word – anyone know Latin to further explain this?)

I didn’t mind, and was happy to help him. It is fun to help people draw better, so I gave him tips for drawing, and then I asked his permission to show you his sketch.

He didn’t respond.

My email? His busy life? An unreasonable request?

This is broken communication in an age of information. . . cell phones, texting, voice mail, email, regular mail, normal telephones. . . and still we lose opportunities, lose clarity, lose focus, and lose our train of thought.

If he replies with permission, I’ll show you his sketch. He did well with proportions before asking my input. I hope that he’ll incorporate my tips and send another photo. It would be fun to show you his before and after.

Challenging Pencil Commission, Finished!

I made the changes suggested by Cowboy Bert’s wife. She is very aware of what a mule looks like from all angles, and very observant of details. (As a retired law enforcement Captain, she sometimes refers to herself as a “trained observer”.)

Here it is:

The customer requested color, in a hand-tinted old photo sort of manner. This is how it looks:

The customer requested more color. I’m on my way out to the studio to work on that. . . or “back to the drawing board”.

Ahem. Perhaps I underbid this job slightly.

P.S. Did you figure out that this is Mineral King?

Working Through a Challenging Pencil Commission

There I was, faced with the necessity to draw the north end of a mule headed south, and no reference material!

What’s a Central California artist to do?

Call in Cowboy Bert, of course.

That would be Cowboy Bert, Equine Photographer, who graciously set up one of his mules and positioned him for numerous photos. I was able to print out 3 for reference, but because it took a couple of hours for them to load on my computer, I didn’t save the photos to show you.

Then, I commenced drawing. When I can see what I need to see and know what I am seeing, I can draw very quickly. When I am drawing the north end of a mule headed south and the photos are all just a tad bit different and various pieces of information are obscured behind a tail or in shadow. I take my time. Here are a few of the stages that the drawing went through:

Nope, not drawing anything I can’t see. Waiting for photos. . .

Okay, let’s try this thing.

Hard to see the difference from the previous one. Maybe it is time to get an expert opinion.

At this point, I emailed it to The Captain, who is the prettier partner of Cowboy Bert. She has also taken drawing lessons from me, so I knew she’d observe every detail and prevent me from exposing my ignorance of a mule’s back side.

We laid tissue paper over a printout of the drawing, and the Captain showed me what she saw while explaining it. I repeated it back to her to be sure I understood, and then wrote notes so I could fix things later. (This all happened while setting up for her father’s memorial service – shows you what a thoughtful generous person she is, and possibly what a jerk I am for asking such a thing at such a time.)

Stay tuned for the final drawing. (At the time of this post, it isn’t yet finished.)

A Challenging Pencil Commission

A regular customer wants to republish a book. The original drawing from the cover is missing, and it doesn’t look very good when scanned from a printed book. They asked me to redraw it, and to add color so it has the look of an old hand-tinted black and white photo. All I have to look at is a blurry dark photo and someone else’s drawing. Someone Else (never met her) drew it using the provided photo and other photos of unknown origin. This means there is some vital information missing. It is very difficult to draw from other people’s drawings, particularly when you don’t know the subject very well.

I saw this and thought, “Oh Missy Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies”. I have painted and drawn a few mules, but it was under strict supervision and with good reference photos!

At least it is in a place I recognize and have drawn or painted a couple of times. A couple of dozen times!

Well, oops. Where is the mule? Where is the man leading the mule? Where is the man sitting on the boulder? Where did the previous artist get those images?

Where will I get those images? I can’t accurately and confidently draw things that I cannot see.

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

Cabin Commission

The upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, will have 268 pencil drawings of cabins and cabin details.

Not everyone is pleased with the way I have represented his cabin. Most people are gracious about it and know that the book is an overview, rather than a documentary or a complete album.

One friend was not sure about how to tell me that she didn’t want to buy the original drawing of her cabin. She asked a few polite questions, and I got it. I told her that I can redraw it for her any way that she wants. She said, “But I don’t want to add to your work!” I replied, “Darlin’, that’s how I earn my living!” We laughed, and she commissioned me to draw her cabin.

I took many photos and then did a sketch for her, complete with lots of notes.

After I was sure that I knew what she wanted, I started.

commissioned pencil drawing of cabin in progress

After I got this far, I got a little worried and needed reassurance that I was on the right track.

She gave me the okay, so I finished it.

Commissioned pencil drawing of cabin

 She was thrilled, so of course so am I!

I Love To Teach People How to Draw

One afternoon per week, I am in Exeter at the Courthouse Gallery of the Arts. Each hour on the half hour, four people come in for their weekly drawing lesson. Each person works at her own pace on her own picture. Or his. We have a great time, and people really learn to draw!

The gallery just got new wood floors in the workshop room and it is beautiful.

We go to great lengths to understand what we are drawing. In spite of having set up the scene and taking and editing multiple photos, Elainea and I found it helpful to have these creatures here in person to really inspect. If we can’t see it, we can’t draw it.

Mae is more than ready to have the background finished on her rose. See? Her hands are flying!

Mary is working on the layout.  (I know – it looks as if she is picking the longhorn’s nose.) To draw, we have to know where everything belongs and get the shapes and sizes right. Proportion is everything.

I teach both adults and pre-adults. As long as you are at least in 6th grade, you can take drawing lessons from me.

Finishing touches are important. Celeste has worked very diligently on this for quite awhile, and it shows. This is FABULOUS!

I love to teach people how to draw. It is all about seeing correctly, and then learning the steps. Then we just inch along, piece by piece, step by step.