Oranges in Pencil, The Point

What’s my point? Not the point of my pencil. The point of all this careful drawing and explaining is to make everything in this custom pencil drawing believable.
I have added a ladder to the wind machine, smoothed the sky, and begun the lower leaves and oranges on the bottom left. Have a look at the 2 little girls, the way I see them under the giant lighted magnifying glass. They truly are almost impossible to draw and hardly show up. But they will have color on them at the end, so they will be more visually significant.

Building up the foliage is tedious; some might say “restful”; others might call it “zen”. The tedium is alleviated by the continual need to check the sizes of the leaves and fruit, thinking about where they are landing on the rows of diminishing sizes. 

I also worked on the ground a bit. I want it to look real and as always, believable. Usually within an orchard, there are many dead leaves, broken sticks, and dropped fruit. So, I will put some of this in but be careful to not have it too noticeable, because it isn’t the point. What is the point??

Believability!

Inching Forward With Pencils

The custom pencil drawing of 2 little girls in an orange grove is going to take awhile. I can quickly scribble in the distant orange trees and have them be believable, but everything up close needs to be carefully drawn.

In order for the snow-covered mountains and the wind machine to show up, it needs sky. This is because you cannot draw white; you have to put shading around a white thing for it to appear.

You can see that the leaves on the trees are getting added to, and the distant hills and mountains are too. One side of the wind machine is darker than the other; this will require some attention. 

I think this drawing will have quite a bit of “put some on, take some off, put some on, take some off”. Sounds like a middle-aged woman trying to get comfortable, but I am talking about pencil here. I keep adjusting darks and lights in the distance, looking for the best way to make it look the most believable.

 

Orange Grove in Pencil

This is a commissioned pencil drawing, custom art, a specific job as requested by a customer. (All that is in case you are only tuning in right now and missed the previous posts leading up to this).

The most difficult part of this drawing is the children. I found photos of children walking from the back, and then put together various elements from these photos to depict something that doesn’t actually exist. The youngest child that this drawing is supposed to represent is not yet walking. By the time she is walking, the other child will be older (duh) than she currently is. Hence, by guess and by golly. 

I started here because if this is impossible, there is no point in continuing. The customer said it was fine. No, that’s not what he said, but I decided that is what he meant.

Then I photographed it with a pencil so the size could be understood. After that, the mountains, and beginning the distant trees.

All this was done at the dining table in the house. I started this on the snow day, because the wood stove puts out better heat than the little wall propane heater in the studio. 

Lighting was a bit of a challenge, so toward the end of the drawing session I turned on the flashlight in the phone to use as a spotlight. This made it possible to work close and make precise leaves and oranges in the upper right corner.

P.S. The customer’s wife weighed in at the end of the day and had a very valid and helpful suggestion to make the smallest girl look younger. I believe this will be a lengthy series of blog posts as I bumble along in new territory of drawing little people without benefit of photos in a size that is ridiculously small. It will all be worth it, because this drawing will be ridiculously perfectly darlingly cute, a brilliant idea! (Plus, there will be some added color)

Orange Grove, Improved

Because my friend liked this little rough sketch enough to mention framing it, it seemed prudent to improve it. I do have a professional reputation to consider, since word-of-mouth is my strongest marketing method.

So, I spent a little time polishing the sketch. This time I photographed it with a ruler so he could see how small it is.

He asked if I had started the real drawing yet. I replied that I was about to start, but first I had to squash a spider. My studio is really out there on the edge of civilization. (Please be impressed by my pioneering spirit.)

With that nasty little job finished, I began the real drawing.

I started the 11×14″ drawing on Strathmore Bristol Smooth 400 series paper WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT ANY REFERENCE PHOTOS!

Looks like a nothing-burger at this stage. Good thing that you all know I know how to draw. 

I love making custom art for people, especially for friends, ESPECIALLY of orange groves, and ESPECIALLY in pencil.

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

Coming Home to Orange Groves

I grew up in an orange grove.

That sounds weird. Until I was about 11 years old, we lived in a house in an orange grove, not under a tree with the jackrabbits. After that, we moved to a house in an olive grove. Although picturesque, olive trees are not as appealing to me as oranges trees. That opinion has to do with the scent of orange blossoms, along with the ready availability of food. (Don’t try to eat an olive directly from the tree. You’re welcome.) 

A year or two (probably three—you know how time flies) ago, I developed a strong desire to paint orange groves with foothills and mountains in the background. This isn’t my best selling subject (that would currently be Sawtooth and before that Farewell Gap or the Honeymoon Cabin), but it sells steadily. 

We saw this painting in progress a week or two ago:

Here are a few more stages of development:

It is lacking oranges on the right side, a wind machine, and maybe some blossoms. They might be too small at this scale. I was very careful to get the mountains accurate, so if you know the middle fork of the Kaweah, you will recognize Alta Peak and Castle Rocks.

Why do I love this subject so much? 

Prolly need some counseling.

Definitely need some counseling, but it prolly doesn’t have anything to do with this particular obsession.

“Prolly.” I love this non-word.

Finding My Way Home

It feels as if I am finding my way back home in my art pursuits. Sales are encouraging, commissions are energizing, rain and snow is reassuring, and all of those things reignite my desire to paint, draw, and tell you about it.

We recently saw this oil painting:

It didn’t look right to me. The colors were wrong, and it needed orange blossoms. Back on the easel with you!

Better.

Painting oranges feels like coming home.

That Was Quick

On Friday I delivered some notecard packages to the Mural Gallery in Exeter. Manager Cindy told me of good sales of paintings there and said someone bought an 8×8″ oil painting of a poppy. That someone also requested the same size of an orange and another of a pomegranate. I asked a few questions, then went off to the Courthouse Gallery for a day of gallery-sitting and painting.

A little later, I heard from Cindy that the customer is from Barcelona, Spain, and will be returning there shortly after Christmas. That’s cutting things a little close, especially since I may not be going back down the hill before then.

When I looked in my crate of supplies, I saw an 8×8″ canvas with a photo of an orange lying on top of it. Hmmm, I wonder. . .

So, I started a new painting of an orange.

Because I have painted more oranges than I can remember, I was able to veer away from the photo but keep it believable. Of course, I had my painting friend with me to point out any areas of weakness.

I bypassed a few steps here: no wire on the back, no layering, no drying, no scan, no varnishing. But it will dry, Cindy will deliver, and our customer from Spain will go home with 2 paintings in her luggage!

Still Painting as if I Have a Show Coming

Yesterday I told you to come back if you wanted to see what else I am working on. Glad you could make it. I hope you aren’t too bored with my repetitious subject matter.

But first, LOOK! It rained early in the morning, and we took a short walk here in Three Rivers to see shades of blue and hills that we hadn’t seen in weeks.

Back to work: this is large for me, 18×36″. Because it is my current favorite subject to see, experience, and paint, I decided to do this for my own dining room. Then, I got asked to do a solo show at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery, and realized that the piece belongs in the show. 

This is at the stage where it feels too hard and as if I will NEVER finish.

However, I am an experienced oil painter and I know better than to listen to these feelings. Phooey to you, Pheelings.

There. Guess I told them.

Despite my sense of apprehension, this is coming along nicely, with more color and texture in the hills, a bit more detailing on the foreground tree, another layer on the distant groves, closer orchard and ground.

Because I plan to put this in the gallery, and because all pieces in the show must be for sale, I have two choices when it is finished: paint it again for myself when it sells, or price it at $10,000 so it won’t sell. Since I am a professional, not a hobbyist, I will simply price it in the normal fashion, based on size. I want to raise the price, because it will hurt a bit less to part with it if there are more pieces of green paper with dead presidents’ faces on them in exchange for the painting, but I will keep it at the standard price for this size BECAUSE:

I use pencil, OIL PAINT, and murals to make art people can understand, of places and things they love, for PRICES THAT WON’T SCARE THEM!

Excuse me for shouting. Sometimes I get a little overly enthusiastic about that tag line.

Most Favorite Art Subject

For awhile now I have told you that my favorite subject to paint is citrus against the foothills and the mountains. It is almost my favorite subject to draw in pencil too. It is right up there with cabins, (published an entire book about them here), old homes (recently drew this one) and the Oak Grove Bridge. (One post about it here).,

Now I am working on a logo design, and it calls for a drawing. (I gave you a little teaser about it here.)

Here it is in progress. I used every source I could find – photos on my computer, previous drawings, physical snapshots – and then proceeded to make up the leaves and oranges and grove. 

This took much longer than a painting or a drawing of a cabin. I forgot how slow it is to place and delineate every leaf and orange. 

Here it is almost finished.

And here is it after photoshopping out all the grayish background.

If/when the customers approve, I will add colored pencil: orange in the oranges on the left, yellow in the lemons on the right, and a little bit of green to the leaves.