Category: General

Another day

In the continuing saga of what an artist does, here is what happened today. First, I photographed 2 good-looking teenage siblings for a portrait in graphite. We had to spend a little time walking around the yard, finding good locations, and then wasting a bunch of shots until they felt somewhat comfortable with a camera in their faces.

Next, I spent time messing around with the photos to decide which were the best possibilties for drawing. Digital cameras are very convenient, but do you remember the days when you just turned in some film and waited? Wow, take the photos and be finished! Now, in the name of convenience, there is an inordinate amount of messing around before photos are useful.

After that, a girl came to the studio for a lesson on portraiture. She was a quick learner, soaked up all I had for her and then drew a great looking eye!

Meanwhile, Maggie came to retrieve her lemons and another friend/business associate came by for a sketch. We are working on a possible mural together. . . as usual, more will be revealed! (we hope, anyway!)

Then, it was time to return missed phone calls. The best one was from an old friend who has been asked to paint an ornament for the White House Christmas Tree and had some questions! Since I am able to talk and draw at the same time, we visited while I worked on the big fat commission collage.

Next, a very thoughtful young man came by to get a wedding present for his sister. (He was referred by mutual friends and made an appointment.) He chose a most appropriate piece: The Honeymoon Cabin!

Thus concludes another busy day in the life of an artist!

too many names!!

This is kind of fun, but I do have to make a decision by Tuesday! Look at these additional suggestions:

Yesterday’s memories
Uncle Bill’s Barn
Home Sweet Home
The Barn Again
Well Seasoned
Timeless
Here to Stay
Vroom Room (just kidding!!!)

And Built to Last is ahead of Character Counts.

the barn again

You all helped me select the graphite portrayal of several barns with a tractor. Thanks! Now I am requesting your input again. Will you help me name it?

Titles definitely matter – think of last year’s First Place winner in the Farm Equipment category. What if it had been called “Tractor Tire” instead of “Size Matters”? (I shudder to think of it)

So here are my top two choices:
1. Character Counts
2. Built to Last

Perhaps you have a better suggestion – I am open to hear it!

This is my job???

This was a good painting day! It brings to mind the saying, “The worst day painting is better than the best day working”, although I think that was originally about fishing, not painting. And come to think of it, my painting is working!! (in both senses of that statement) Such a great life I have been blessed with!

Anyway, here is a new photo of yesterday’s completed left side, (because even my photos were blurry yesterday) and a new photo of today’s completed right side. Oh my, S will be very pleased when she gets home tonight!

Some of the same flowers here: poppies, lupine, Bigelow sneeze-weed, Indian paintbrush, farewell-to-spring, baby blue eyes; and, some new ones: wild iris, fairy lanterns, and a tiger (or is it leopard?) lily.

p.s. I only dropped one paintbrush today!

wildflower saga continues

Wow, this was hard today! Look at all the hassles:

1. S was out of water
2. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on her ceiling fan (it gets hot up there in the upper reaches of her dining room!). But it was good I couldn’t turn on the fan, because it would have chopped my head off working on the morning glories!
3. I kept climbing up and down the ladders and the scaffolding because I either forgot stuff or dropped it. (There is no place to put things while standing on a ladder or a platform, so it is a bit of a juggling act.) Plus, I have to climb up and down to see how it looks from a normal viewing position.
4. It was weird trying to see with the glare, the brightness of the windows, needing glasses for the reference photos and also not needing glasses to see where to carefully place my feet on the platform. . . phew! I was glad to come home, until I found that our water softening machine had been blowing gallons of water into the yard for an hour or two.
5. The 5 kittens snuck in the back door while S’s Dad was trying to solve the water problem, and I had to round them up and throw them out!

At least the painting turned out well today!

More greenery has happened at the bottom, and now it is flowing into a row of morning glories. For the farmers out there that read my blog, I apologize for including such a pernicious weed. However, this one won’t spread outside of these walls, and even you have to admit that it is a fabulous color!

How Long??

One of the most frequently asked questions about my art is “How long did it take you to do that?”

I, who am usually honest to a fault, dance around the answer to that question. There isn’t a straightforward answer, and when there is, I don’t like it!

Here are some of my answers:
1. Why? do you want to calculate my hourly wage?
2. It went really quickly this time.
3. I can’t believe how long this took!
4. Who has time to calculate hours?
5. The side of my brain that makes art isn’t the side of my brain that can tell time.

The plain truth is that I don’t keep track of my time. Most of my work is produced in fits and starts rather than sitting down in the a.m. and getting up at the end of the day to check off the 8 hour box.

When a commission customer asks about how long, I assume (usually correctly) that the question has to do with when the piece will be ready. I ask when he would like it. Then I do my very best to finish it by that time, and I haven’t missed a deadline or promise yet! (except for the time I was in a big fat car wreck, but that’s for another post. . . or maybe not.)

several items, hopefully of interest

About these paintings in progress (They need So Many Layers!):

1. Maggie, can you spot your lemons? Clearly, I am thinking Series here!

2. Doug, can you spot your (if you like them) pumpkins?

3. Kathy, can you see your bridge beginning to emerge?

4. The 2 with their backs to you, the audience, are waiting for the fullness of time in which they will be revealed.

5. This is Zeke. He keeps me company in hopes that food might appear; he also loves to contribute hairs to the wet paintings.

And 2 items not related to the paintings shown:

1. My dental hygienist was quite pleased with her poppy painting. This makes me both happy and relieved, because when I allow someone to put pointy things in my mouth, I want that someone to like me!

2. About the choice of barns? More will be revealed. . . And I am wondering why no one noticed my brilliant use of the word “forsooth”! Did anyone wonder about it? Did anyone go for his dictionary? Most importantly, did anyone laugh?

Your opinions wanted

There is an art competition each year called “Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts”. This is a beautiful show with several categories that relate to agriculture: Dairy, Citrus, Irrigation, Cotton, etc. . . Artists can enter 2 categories, and this year I have 2 ideas for the same category. This is a no-no, because one would be competing with oneself if the same category were entered twice.

This is where you come in! Here are 2 different pieces of art for Farm Equipment And Structures. Since my choosing which piece might be akin to selecting my favorite cat (I love them all to distraction!), I am requesting help from you, my blog readers, in the hopes that you will be more objective than I am able to be.

These are not in order of my preference. Forsooth, if I had a preference, I wouldn’t be asking (begging and pleading and groveling) for your help! And there is no need for anyone to say, “I don’t know anything about art; I only know what I like” because this IS about what you like!

Choice A

Choice B

Inspiration, part 6

Yesterday in drawing lessons, a student brought photos of the family farm in hopes of designing and drawing a collage. There were close-up shots of fruit and blossoms, medium shots of individual trees and equipment, and long range views of orchards with hills behind them. I have been drawing this stuff for years, but yesterday one of those photos caused me to spontaneously erupt with “I’d like to paint that!” Why? Because it was beautiful! I am inspired by beauty, once again! Here is a similar picture that I drew in colored pencil a few years ago. Sorry, it is sold.

Okay, I lied. I am not sorry that it sold. I love to sell my work!

inspiration, part 5 (open mind)

Sweet Seat II – 8×10 – oil on wrapped canvas – $80

My friend Lisa inspires me with her hard work, determination, and encouraging helpful criticism. We met the first semester of our freshman year at Redwood High School in an art class. She has been teaching junior high art for a number of years, and is now working on her master of fine arts degree in an online course. This adds about 30 hours to her work week, a killer schedule.

Lisa is an abstract painter, and has opened my eyes and mind to this style of art. Most abstract “art” leaves me scratching my head with wonder and amazement not only at the mess on the canvas, but at how it passes for art, enters a gallery and gets sold! I used to think it was nothing but an emotional outburst in a 2-dimensional form, but watching Lisa plan and create her work has changed my mind. Good abstract art does exist, and it is a result of hard work without the usual benefit of a scene, object or photo to guide the artist.

So now my mind is a bit more open, but I exercise caution in this area, lest my brains leak out.