From Shed to Cottage

My studio began as a shed. We filled it with avocado green sinks and other junk when we remodeled our house 19 years ago. When we remodeled the interior of the studio in December 2001, I was thrilled to stop commuting to Exeter 5-6 days a week.

Well whoopeedoo, I painted the door all fancy white.

Gradually I added plants; this flowering pear tree looks great in February and November. Sometimes I wonder if it leans so much because Perkins pushed it each time he scratched there.

Studio in spring
Studio in fall, after I painted a mural on the big blank canvas that also serves as a door.

I kept adding plants and little things like the mosaic stepping stones and table, and Cowboy Bert made me the tractor seat and a railing for the steps (With a last name of Weldon, he must be a welder). Next, I painted the workshop.

Boring mural, never completed.

Then I got tired of the mural and began another one, but never liked it well enough to bother finishing.

 

What’s an artist to do? Paint another mural, of course.

With the fancy new wildflower mural, the siding really looked shabby.

This time, we centered the sign over the door rather than under the gable point.

Incremental changes really do add up. Now I am the proud and grateful owner and occupant of a darling little shingled cottage.

The interior isn’t always neat, because it is where I work, with lots of coming and going, and a variety of activity in the 11×14′ space.

Tomorrow is the first Saturday of April and my studio will be one of the stops. The theme is wildflowers. Stop by Anne Lang’s Emporium for a map and directions, and come by the studio for a little wildflower freebie! (Due to a death in my family, my studio will be staffed by some of the dearest people to me in the whole wide world.)

New Mineral King Cards For Sale

Last summer I had a hankering to draw some new Mineral King pictures in pencil. I did four of them without a plan for reproduction or framing. Artists make art, and I am a Central California artist making art of the flyover center of California, my main source of inspiration (along with liking to drive and to eat.)

This spring I decided to test the marketability of these drawings as cards. These are packages of 4 different cards, 5×7″, blank inside with envelopes, $15 per package. There are only 9 5 packages available. Through this blog post and Saturday’s open studio, I will decide if these are popular enough to print in greater quantity.

This sort of thing is just part of the business of art. Make the art I want, and then figure out if there is a market for it. . .

This is the insert that goes inside the package of cards. The drawings are too small to really appreciate on the insert, so I’ve placed them underneath. Scroll on, Gentle Blog Reader. What?? No Honeymoon Cabin?

Nope – sometimes an artist’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. (But she is willing to listen to customer requests, within reason.)

P.S. I thought at first that $15 was a little high-ish for 4 cards. Then I went inside a real store and looked at real cards that are sold one at a time. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I was astonished at the prices, so believe these are a bargain.

Just Another Workday

One day a week or so ago, I painted in the morning and drew in the afternoon. This is what it looked like:

Piper was needy. He is resting his little head on my arm, not biting me the way Samson did.
Felt compelled to paint this view again; 4 days later a friend/customer/collector emailed to ask if I had this view available; turns out he wants it to be 16×16″, not 6×6″. Good thing I have practiced this view many times.
This is a popular size and shape, so my last canvas of this size became Sawtooth #29.
Finished? Sawtooth definitely fits this shape of canvas nicely.

Then I moved into the studio. It was a sunny day, so I raised the blind and saw this:

Hi Mike, the carpenter (not to be confused with Michael, the Trail Guy)
Here is another drawing in progress for the 2019 calendar.
The plan is to put a little color into this drawing of oranges. Can’t be considered an authentic Tulare County artist unless I include oranges in my rotation of subjects.

And thus we conclude another workday in the life of this Central California artist.

Shedding More Light on Those Lanterns

The lanterns languished. Finally, I reminded myself that I am the Mayor of Realville, the lanterns were too hard for me at that size (a paintbrush will never quite behave like a pencil), and it was time to make them go away.

So, I turned the painting into one of pomegranates.

Five Poms, 6×18″, oil on wrapped canvas, $160 including tax

Still, I wanted to do something with those charming little lanterns. If it was too difficult a subject in oil, then surely I could draw them!

This time I had to change the format, because my intention is to use them in the 2019 calendar. I squished them closer together, eliminated a board at the bottom, and began.

When they were in progress, I took them to my students and said, “Do to me what I do to you – evaluate this drawing honestly!”

They told me to forget all the grass and turn the entire background into boards. Being confident that I have taught my students well, I followed their directives. You can see that the grass on the left side is boards; the grass of the right side is still grass (or hair or a weird texture of something?)

I also hadn’t yet decided how much color to include, so the lantern on the far right needs more blue. The shadows aren’t dark enough, and the drawing isn’t finished yet in the top picture.

Now it is finished, photoshopped for best reproduction, and I really really like it!!

P.S. The 2019 calendar will be called “A Touch of Color” and will be pencil drawings with a little bit of color in them, probably all Tulare County subject matter.

Shedding Light on Some Lanterns

While participating at a boutique on a quaint little farm in Three Rivers in December of 2016, I photographed these lanterns:

Everything the farm couple touches is quaint, beautiful, pretty, attractive, and every other complimentary term I can think of. My intention was to paint the lanterns on a 6×18″ canvas.
I started the painting with high hopes. First layers are never anything to feel good about.

The second and third layers provided a little more confidence.

Then I got to refresh a mural in Exeter, prepare for and participate in a pencil show with 3 of my students, paint some Mineral King to sell in the summer, draw lots of water, do 2 more murals in some vacation rentals, teach a couple of drawing workshops, work, and more work, all of it challenging in a great way.

Meanwhile, the lantern oil painting just hung in the workshop, getting dusty. I took almost the entire month of July off work, and hiked, sought out new wildflowers, visited Hume Lake.

More Mineral King oil paintings were necessary on short notice, then I drew morempictures of water in pencil, some pencil drawing commissions came in, and suddenly it was time to prepare for the fall shows.

Still the lanterns waited for some attention.

What was this Central California artist going to do with those lanterns?

Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you.

While I Was Painting

While I was painting, there were 2 men working on my real studio. I paint in another building, a giant workshop where it doesn’t matter if I drop wet things, and where there is a little heater with a shelf in front of it for drying, along with pegboard for hanging wet paintings and two young cats hiding underneath and behind things.

My studio has been a wonderful little gift. It began its life as a shed where the previous occupant planed wood for his grandfather clocks, which he built in the workshop. He shoved the wood in the front door and out the back door. When our friend Mike remodeled the shed for me in 2001 (I moved in January 1, 2002), he removed the back door and put a window there. The window was on the wall looking out at the workshop, and that isn’t a coveted view by any stretch of the imagination. Besides, I needed a solid wall to hang my art.

But I digress. Why were 2 men, both named Michael, working on my studio?

They were cutifying it!


The dark brown building next door is where I paint (and drop wet things and harbor stray kittens).

 

Random Roundup

  1. We got rain and snow and clear bright days.
    Three Rivers, as it looks in my neighborhood.

  2. I painted 3 poppies, thinking they would be quick and easy. Fall down laughing. I have had to reshape and reshape and relayer and wait and relayer yet again and on and on and on. . . this is just one of the three poppies that will not cooperate.
  3. I started painting a bear. During our Bear Autumn of 2015, I got a few photos. This is probably the dude who tore battens off the side of my studio while seeking acorns.
  4. After much calculation, I figured out how many more Mineral King paintings are needed, which subjects and which sizes. This is based on numbers sold in previous summers, popularity of subjects, and women’s intuition. Time will tell if I have chosen correctly. (I can always paint roosters over the tops of the ones that don’t sell.)I chose the sizes, paired the canvases with the photos, assigned inventory numbers, titled the pieces, attached the hanging hardware to the backs, and primed the canvases. 
  5. The web designer said there is progress being made. Sounds as if I have hours and hours of computer work ahead as I load up all my art (NOT paying someone else to do this!)
  6. March First Saturday in Three Rivers at Anne Lang’s was better than both January and February combined. Some fine folks were waiting for me to arrive (Hi D & B & R & A!!), a friend bought my lunch (T/U, GE!!), and a friend stopped by for a long overdue visit (Hi CHO!). Of course, sales made the day particularly happy, and I did more coloring in the Heart of Ag coloring book, along with lots of explaining to people how to layer with a minimalist box of Black Wing Colors.

And thus we conclude a random roundup of the business of art, as defined by me. I wonder how other artists go about their business? On artists blogs, they all sound so professionally successful, discussing plein air outings (oh shut up, that is so hard and I don’t know how and I am a studio artist and if I am outside it will be to hike, walk, prune or pull weeds), or packaging up things to deliver to galleries (galleries, schmalleries – this is Tulare County), or showing off big deal sales to a local hospital or courthouse or university (Hunh? those places spend money on art, big money on originals?? Not in Tulare County), or fancy commissions (I paint wooden geese and or draw barns), or shows in nice places (I do them in Art Centers without plumbing, the local Remorial Building, or in people’s stores or backyards).

HaHa. I live in Tulare County and they don’t. 

Oops. Sold two more Mineral King paintings recently so I may need to recalculate! Customers keep depleting my inventory. . . what’s an artist to do except keep painting??

Odd Job With a Goose

This is Tony’s wooden goose with a coat of primer on it.

He didn’t give me any instructions other than to paint the goose. I found several helpful photos of Canada geese to work from, with visible head, neck, wing tops, wing bottoms, tail and the back.(What did people do before The Google came along to answer all our questions? They didn’t say yes to as many odd jobs.)

First step: mixing paint. I used my mural paints because this will be outside and because it needed to dry quickly.

White, burnt umber and phthalo blue, along with some grays, browns, a purple and an orange.
The first color, black, was achieved with the purple (alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue), phthalo and orange (cadmium yellow and cadmium red). I made a small dot of the color with white and it made a pure gray, so I knew it was black and not purple or brown or green.
Here is a brown that will work. It is an old mixture that I called “dark redwood”, but altered a bit here with orange and some of the black.
Ahem. I seemed to have painted this guy’s head upside down.
Better!
Found another photo of a goose’s back.
The underside of the wings are important, because this is a flapping goose that will be seen from all angles. I was able to flip the photos horizontally in order to see the goose both directions.
Will this work? Do I need more detail? The color is grayer on my goose than on The Google’s goose. Can I trust the photo? Will Tony be disappointed?
It was easiest to paint when it was lying flat and I could see each side at the same time.

Am I finished? I’ll email this photo to Tony and see what he says.

Whoa, Tony, you’d better come get this goose because he is trying to fly outta here!

More Blogging Thoughts

Chloe, colored pencil, private collection, chosen for this post because she is the opposite of a middle-aged blogger

I googled “middle-aged bloggers” and found several. One site posted an invitation for middle-aged bloggers to comment and put their site links in the comments, so I clicked through and read some of them. They are sort of boring. Lots of talk about why they started blogging, talk about their grandchildren, their new lives with their husbands gone, new grandchildren, new phases of life with new retirement, and clothing and hair color. Lots and lots of talk about staying young, dressing well, finding your style, whether or not to color your hair, staying positive. . . boring.

Scared me. Am I that boring? Why do they have so many subscribers and comments when they are boring? Why do I not when I am so witty, original, clever and entertaining? (Oh, and humble about my bloggery skills too. . .)

Life’s not fair. (My dad used to ask the rhetorical question, “Who said life has to be fair?” I once said this to a friend, and she replied, “I don’t know; was it Benjamin Franklin?”)

Several acquaintances and a few friends have expressed a desire to blog, and then nothing happens. They think I am “a-MAY-zing” for blogging so often, so consistently, so long. Well, they already have jobs; this is part of mine.

Because I am producing things that no one needs in a county where art is a definite luxury, because I am not on Facebook or Twitter or any of those instant and constant connected things, because I work in isolation and do not have a public studio, because there are only a small handful of galleries around here (and all are non-profit and run by volunteers who are not motivated by sales), because I choose to focus on Tulare County, I MUST do something public. Blogging is that something, and it suits me. 

Many bloggers are now producing podcasts. I won’t say “never”, but I will say “probably never”. This is a trend, and I am too busy painting, drawing, teaching, figuring out various methods of marketing, doing shows and open studios and demonstrations and workshops, and of course, blogging.

I’ve got to keep being me, because all the other roles are already taken. I have too much to say, too much to show, too much to explain, too many thoughts about being a full time, self-employed artist in a poor, uneducated, rural county.

After all that, you deserve a treat. How about a nice cup of tea?

Tea Time, colored pencil, private collection (or did I lose this? Is it in my file somewhere?)

 

Barn Raising

Just kidding. I’m not raising a barn, just drawing it. Well, maybe I am raising it out of the vast whiteness of the paper.

I received these 2 photos along with many instructions. The top photo is how the barn looks now; the lower one is how it looked when the customer was a child and what he is wanting me to draw.

He also wanted me to match the size of the barn in this print, drawn (or is that ink with a watercolor wash or something else I don’t recognize?) by one of my art heroes.

Part of the business of art is communicating thoroughly and clearly with customers and potential customers. I realized that this job would require a sketch and approval of the sketch before I began, because there were lots of places for misunderstanding. I sketched it roughly 2″ x 3″, to match the proportions of the size the customer requested (measured in picas, so just trust me that it is proportionally correct). 

Got it in one attempt! Sketch approved, drawing begun. The photo isn’t great, nor is the printer. I am working primarily from the sketch and the notes.

A few hours later, this is where I was:

I told the customer it would be 2-3 weeks, but commissions always jump to the front of the queue. (2 poppy paintings need a final layer, there are 4 paintings in Birdland, and I still need a few more paintings of the most popular Mineral King scene because 3 more sold last week. Not complaining, just explaining.)