Building Bridges In Drawing Lessons

For the past 20 years I’ve been teaching people how to draw. One hour per week, 4 people at a time, each working on her own project (and sometimes his), $55/month – drawing lessons! Here is the link if you want to learn more: Drawing Lessons.

Everyone learns in a different way and at a different pace. Some people slam through drawing after drawing, finishing them by themselves at home and bringing them in for fine tuning. Some people spend weeks on the beginning exercises. Some people want me to show them one step at a time how to shade each element in their drawings. Some people practice on scratch paper before putting a pencil on their real drawing. These are just a few examples of learning styles. I could write an entire week of posts about this!

One of my drawing students is working on a bridge picture. She has gotten all the shapes down on paper and now we are working on the various textures. There was a weird spot under the bridge that I saw as one thing and she saw as another.

I go to great lengths to help my students understand. In this case, I built a wonky paper bridge so we could see a three dimensional version and understand what we were seeing in the two dimensional photo.

There is the bridge, the photo, the drawing in progress, and three different practice sheets of ways to shade the part under the bridge.

She got it!

 

 

Turning Away Work

Really? Turn away work? Who would do that?

Me, that’s who.

Why?

Because I know my limitations.

The story: 

An acquaintance called me to take a look at an old photo of a pilot posing on the wing of his aircraft in the 1940s. It was an 8×10 black and white photo, the man was about 1-1/2″ high (he was in a squat) and his face may have been about 1/2″ high.

If I can’t see it, I can’t draw it.

I could see the man’s face with really strong magnifying lenses, but to reproduce it accurately and in color (that was the point of him calling me), it would have been extremely time consuming. A dot here, erase, move the dot slightly left, erase, move the dot slightly higher, oops now he looks like a Cyclops. . . that is how those tiny portraits go.

I speak from hard-won experience. No faces smaller than an egg.

Once in awhile I get lucky and succeed with these tiny tiny faces, but it is after a serious and honest conversation with the customer about their expectations and my abilities. Remember this?

(Well, oops, the link broke and I don’t know what it was.)

So I recommended that the potential customer find someone who is very skilled with Adobe Photoshop to take the crud out and put some color in.

However, if would like to have it drawn large, perhaps 16×20, some sort of size that would bring the man’s face up to the size of an egg, then yes, I am the artist he wants!

Nice man. I think it will be good to do work for him in the future. He appreciated my honesty, and he said that he just hadn’t allowed enough in his budget for a larger drawing.

In my experience, people rarely allow enough in their budgets for art. Oh well, got a good blog post out of it. Waste not, want not. (Stop thinking “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – I can hear you out there!)

Drawing Because I Love To Draw

After spending an entire year completely focused on completing one drawing after another after another after another until 268 drawings were completed. . .

What was I saying? All those after anothers got me lost.

I love to draw. It has been a long time since I drew simply because there was a picture I wanted to draw instead of a commission or a cabin related drawing for The Cabins of Wilsonia.

See?

Grazing in Kaweah Country, graphite (AKA “pencil”), 14×11″, $250

If you live in Three Rivers, you’ll be wondering where this is. It is on Kaweah River Drive, at the place called “The Catfish Farm”. It might be called The Chess Ranch. Whatever you call it, the place is for sale. It is a huge piece of wonderful property, which can be yours for about $5,000,000. Yeah, five million dollars. Whatever.  Just write a check or something.

Makes this pencil drawing look like the bargain of the year!

Amazing Work from my Drawing Students

This year marks the completion of 20 years of teaching people how to draw. Or, perhaps it marks the beginning of year #21. Numbers aren’t my strongest subject.

When I started, I didn’t know how to teach. I just bumbled, fumbled and mumbled. If someone wanted to draw, say, a lion, I’d procrastinate on the parts I didn’t know how to do. Then, we’d figure it out together.

My students were kids 4th grade and older. I was too nervous to teach adults, because I was sure they’d see how little I knew. Eventually I caved in, and learned that it is easier to teach adults than children. Even children who are there because they want to be get a little squirrely at times.

The fact that adults were easier didn’t mean I stopped teaching kids or that I didn’t enjoy it. I LOVE teaching people how to draw.

The only people who haven’t learned how to draw from me are the ones who quit too soon.

I could go on and on about learning to draw. Instead, I’m going to show off the work of some of my students. I’ve chosen these because each one was drawn from the artist’s own photos and because I happened to have scans of them. Besides, they’ll knock your socks off!

End of the Trail, by Kelvin Farris

Swing girl, Wendy Miller

Kaia, Maggie Meling

Mineral King in February?

Nope, I’m not there. (Where did the word “nope” come from??)  But, it is Friday, so have a look at some Mineral King art from my pencil archives:

Fret not. Summer will return.

Mineral King is one of the treasures of Tulare County, a place I love.

We break for this commercial message: This pencil drawing of Mineral King has sold. If you would like your own original pencil drawing of this (or of something else), I can do it for you. In fact, it would be a pleasure to draw for you!

9×12″ – $200

11×14″ –  $250

Happy 2014, O Gentle Blog Readers

Hi.

I finished all the drawings for The Cabins of Wilsonia.  Maybe. When I get the book designed, I might need to add, subtract or rework the 265 pencil drawings. T W O H U N D R E D S I X T Y F I V E PENCIL DRAWINGS OF CABINS!

Excuse me for shouting. It is a little overwhelming.

Tired of drawing? Never. Ready to just goof off a little? Maybe.

I was goofing off, cruising around the internet and found the most beautiful blog ever. It is called stillblog dot net. Here is the link. It is my little gift to you, O Gentle Blog Readers. Scroll through, enjoy. I share this with you because

I appreciate you!

Aw shucks.

Anyone need a last minute gift?

I’m here to help if you need a last minute gift. You can call me at the studio (out of fear of the unknown  internet trolls I’ll put my phone # in words) five six one seven six zero six. (I figure if you need the area code, then you probably aren’t going to find this post very helpful because I’m too far from you to help at the last minute – however, it is 559)

Note card packages, oil paintings, pencil drawings, drawing lessons, Mineral King tee shirts, all available from me at my studio in Three Rivers. Calendars – sold out.

You know how I feel about shopping. This means I want it to be easy on you too. Let me know if I can help you.

If you live in the area, in Tulare County or here in Three Rivers, we can probably make arrangements to have it to you almost immediately. No guarantees, just hoping for the best. (I remember those childhood Christmas Eve trips to the Ivanhoe Drug Store with my Dad. . . I thought that was normal. Guess it was at our house!)

Here, take a deep breath and then rest your eyes upon this:

My favorite bridge, colored pencil drawing from 2006, sold

Worst Critic

Has anyone ever said to you, “You are your own worst critic”?

It might be meant as an insult, although it could be interpreted as a compliment, meaning “no one else is as hard on you because there is no reason to be hard on you”.

I think being one’s own worst critic is a helpful skill in art, especially when one works alone. Who else is there to do any criticizing with the intent of helping or critiquing with the intent of improving?

A long time ago, last century, I drew this picture:

It is called “My Front Porch”. It sold recently, and before I packaged it up to ship, I put on some magnifying glasses (aka “cheaters” or “readers”) to look it over.

UNACCEPTABLE!

I spent about 1-1/2 hours improving it, because I draw better now. Yes, it looks like a different color because the method of scanning has changed. But, if you click on each picture and make them bigger on your screen, I think you will see the difference. If you can’t see the difference, that’s okay. I’m my own worst critic, not you! 😎

Growth is good (unless trying to lose weight or are a cancer cell.)

P.S. I just clicked on each picture separately, enlarged them on the screen, and realized that the new one looks all pixelated and icky. Okay, you’ll just have to trust me that the second one is better. The customer may not know of the improvements, but I certainly feel better.

New Notecards for the Thank You Revolution

Have you heard of the Thank You Revolution? This is something begun (or perhaps continued?) by my friend Matt McWilliams on his blog, “Life. Leadership. Love. Learned the Hard Way.” He writes thank you notes every Thursday and encourages his readers to do the same. He is a prolific writer of a great business blog, a wise man who shares information freely with his audience and interacts honestly with his commenters.

Thank you acorn cards, 4 cards and envelopes, $7 plus tax

 

I’m a big advocate of writing cards and thank you notes any day of the week. My mama taught me this at an early age, and I’ve never stopped.

Matt got me thinking that it is time to update the notecard page of my website. I’ve got many cards that haven’t been visible to the World Wide Web but only to people who visit my studio or see me at the small handful of shows I do.

So, click here to go to the page of cards and see what is new!

Okay, here is another peek for you:

Old Mineral King Store, 4 cards and envelopes, $7 plus tax




Crazy Hard Pencil Commission – DONE!

Remember that crazy hard pencil commission of those two miniature fuzzy faces? (You can see it in the October 2 blog post.)

The customer/friend asked me to make an adjustment to the boy’s cheek because his face was more narrow than round in real life (couldn’t prove it by me or by that photo). Adjustment made, I began the rest of the drawing. It turned out like this:

She thought that by adjusting his cheek, his face went out of balance. Yup. His face is crooked. Why? You might need a microscope to see it. Why don’t I just show you the corrected version:

Can you see the difference? Neither can I, but it showed up under the giant magnifying light at the drawing table. After I got the customer’s approval, I scanned it, then spray fixed it, then added a bit of red to the trailer and blue to the trike.

No, you aren’t blind. I didn’t scan it again after adding the color.