Victory Tomatoes

My drawing of tomatoes is completed. Carrie Lewis asked for a paragraph of 100 words or less to accompany the drawing. Here is what I submitted.

Gardening feels like a war. We planted many tomatoes in an enclosed area, protected underneath from gophers, on all sides from deer, and over the top from birds*. We faithfully watered and fertilized all summer. Finally, in mid-October, we began getting tiny cherry tomatoes, many no more than 1/2” in diameter. Every tomato felt like a victory, so I took photos of them as proof that we had actually grown some food.

This was not for a competition. It is just a submission to Carrie’s magazine (digital rather than print) called CP Magic, which is all about colored pencil. Colored pencil is not my main medium, as you know, but Carrie is a friend, and I wanted to participate simply because sometimes it is fun to try different things.

*After I wrote this, I realized that we had left the tomatoes exposed to the birds. I meant to put mesh on top but just never got to it.

Happy Birthday, Trail Guy! (all those years are also a victory)

Suddenly Felt Like Drawing

If you receive this in your email and want to see the photos, click on the title.

My friend Carrie Lewis is fully immersed in colored pencil. At the end of December, she put out a call to artists for their best colored pencil work from 2023. I realized that I had done none all year, but suddenly, I had an overwhelming desire to work in colored pencil. It might have been related to working on multiple paintings that felt too hard for me, wanting to do something easier.

After looking through my photos for something that I could easily complete in the one week remaining in 2023, I chose this photo of our little tomatoes. (Small garden, small crop, even smaller fruit).

I chose Strathmore 500 series Bristol vellum paper. (Won’t mean a thing to most of my readers, but it helps me remember in case Carrie wants to know). In looking at my extensive collection of colored pencils, I decided to keep things simple, so I chose Blackwing Colors, a set of 12. Yeppers, only 12 colors. (For a short time, they offered a set of 24, but as a never-early-adopter of anything, I missed it.)

First I drew the tomatoes. In keeping with the desire for simplicity, I didn’t draw all of the tomatoes in the photo, so it was ready for color very quickly.

To make the darker and shaded reds, I used purple and brown beneath the red. To brighten the red in some places, I used orange and pink beneath the red. I used many layers of red in both instances, keeping a very sharp point (on all the pencils).

It didn’t take long to for the red pencil to get used up. Of course, if the last 3 inches hadn’t been broken inside, I could have kept using it. I don’t remember dropping it, but I could have. New pencils are always a bit of a thrill. (Don’t tell me to get a life—this is my life and it’s a fine one!)

Better add the shadows so the ‘maters aren’t just floating. I used purple and brown, but I may try that silver pencil (or is it gray?) over the top to smooth it out. Later.

That was decent start. The daylight was running out and my feet were cold, but I did one more little thing before calling it a day: I smoothed and sharpened all the edges of the tomatoes.

What’s left: finish the background, correct the color on the stems, fill in tomato color more to get rid of the white specks, sign, and scan.

Testing my Skills with a Sunflower

While you were reading about Mineral King, I may have been cowering in the air conditioned studio, testing my drawing skills with a sunflower. 

Does that make you curious?
My Kansas artist friend Carrie Lewis gives a colored pencil drawing challenge each month in her magazine Colored Pencil Magic.

The last issue had a few references to me, so she sent me a copy of the magazine. I proofread for her, and then asked permission to take that month’s drawing challenge, working from a sunflower photo that she provided. Of course it was a sunflower, the state flower of Kansas.

I cropped it significantly, because there was an odd-shaped scrap of good paper ready to go. (That means easy to grab.) I didn’t spend a ton of time drawing it because a sunflower is a forgiving shape, and I just wanted to start coloring. (Serious colored pencil artists call it “painting”, but I just can’t bring myself to call it that, not being serious about colored pencil and being an actual painter.)

I rotated it around multiple times, both while working on the shapes and while coloring. My printer is a bit weak, so I worked from Carrie’s photo on the laptop. See? Weak.

Yellow isn’t an easy color for me to use, probably due to the fact that I rarely draw (or even paint) yellow things, so I don’t know yellow colored pencils very well. Hence, a cheat sheet.

When it was finished, I scanned it.

Then I got the bright idea to test my drawing skills, since I accidentally drew it almost the same size as the weak print. Can I actually see proportions and shapes correctly? To find out, I traced the print and then laid the tracing over the completed drawing. 

Not great, wouldn’t work on something that really mattered such as a building or a face, but it’s not too bad for just sort of throwing it together while cowering in the air conditioning.

Next time, maybe I should warn myself that there might be a test and then try harder.

P.S. Thanks, Carrie!

 

Look What I Tried Next With Colored Pencils

If you can’t see the photos, go here: cabinart.net/blog. Sometimes I just live on the edge. In 2019 I took a plein air oil painting workshop, wanting to learn the skills of slamming out a painting before the light changed too much. It wasn’t easy for this studio artist who is used to a fixed environment, working from my own zillion photos. It wasn’t easy for this near-sighted artist who has fought to see clearly her entire life to enjoy painting loosey-goosey. Blurry on purpose?? Why would anyone do that?

Being somewhat adventurous with my art doesn’t come easily to me. However, I took a clipboard with a piece of good paper and my box of twelve (times two) colored pencils down to a spot along the creek in Mineral King.

First I photographed the scene so I would know what to do if/when the light changed or if it took too long and I needed to finish it in the studio. (Please, please, let me work in my studio, you mean bossy fake plein air artist!)

Then I began drawing, this time using Polychromos, because they don’t need sharpening as often as Prismacolor and they don’t break as easily. I chose brown for sketching, because the plein air oil painting teacher had us put our first layers down in a brown.

This is hard. Maybe I should just do the Honeymoon Cabin as it looks from this perch in the dirt.

Never mind. Focus, Central California Artist!

Forget all that brown. I want to start coloring, because I know it will take umpty-umpt layers to even vaguely approximate the colors I see.

This is hard. These colors are inadequate. My hiney is sore from sitting on this dirt perch. Other people are hanging out together having fun.

Why exactly am I doing this?

No good reason. Guess I’ll stop now and head back to the cabin. 

Maybe I will finish this, and maybe I won’t. I have several paintings waiting to be done, and there will be payments when I am finished. 

Sounds like an easy decision.

Is 12 Enough Colors for these Little Projects?

If you can’t see the photos, go here: cabinart.net/blog. I wonder why colored pencil manufacturers chose to put twelve colors in their starter sets. Why not ten? Why not fifteen?

I wonder why they chose the twelve that they chose. Why this red and not that one? Why these particular blues? And greens?

Life is full of unanswered questions.

Here is my colored pencil drawing using only twelve Prismacolor colored pencils.

Here is my colored pencil drawing using only twelve Polychromos colored pencils (made by Staedtler).

Wait until you see what I tried next. . .

 

You Can Do THIS With Colored Pencils?

If my drawing students learn to draw with graphite pencils – i.e. see proportions, understand values (the darks and lights), understand hard and soft edges, and make the tools do what they intend for them to do, then my drawing students who want to can use colored pencils.

Colored pencils (mis)behave differently than graphite pencils. I’ve heard plenty of colored pencil artists say the reason to use colored pencils instead of paint is C O N T R O L.

Colored pencils require many many layers, and it hurts my wrist to use them. However, many of my advanced students choose to use them, and in spite of my ouchy wrist, I can help.

It may appear to you as if Mae has copied her photo as efficiently as a Xerox machine. I can assure you that she has done a fabulous job of interpreting the photo and adjusting it so the drawing makes more sense than the photo. She pays a great deal of attention to detail and chooses what to eliminate and what to enhance.

IMG_4610

May is using Polychromos by Faber Castell. These seem to be the highest quality for the price that I’ve used so far. They are oil based, made in Germany, and last a long time. They are a little fatter so they don’t fit in our normal sharpeners. They are also a little hard to find if you just want to buy them one at a time.

Prismacolor used to be my favorite. I learned their colors beginning with a set of 12 that my Aunt Shirley gave me when I was in 5th grade. They are wax based,  made in the USA,  and break easily, which is exasperating. They are readily available in sets or in one-sies, and can be repaired in the microwave (but don’t tell the company – they don’t take responsibility for the breakage and blame the pencil sharpeners, not the rough handling before they arrive in your hands.) I noticed they are now referred to as “soft-core”, probably a response to all the complaints!

So, yes, you CAN do this with colored pencils (after hours and hours of practice!)

Normally on Tuesday. . .

. . . I would be teaching people how to draw. This happens at the Courthouse Gallery in Exeter. No lessons in July or August because in the past, the attendance was abysmal during those months. Besides, it is just hot!

I’ve been teaching people how to draw since 1994. Looking back, I’m not sure I really knew how to draw or how to teach back then. People learned anyway.

Some of my students call what we do “art lessons”. I usually correct them and say “Drawing Lessons – I’m just teaching you how to draw.”

Whenever I take this 2 month break, I really miss my students. The interaction among each class is fun. They learn from me and from each other. I learn from them too. We all become friends, and it is just a thrill to see the progress each of them makes.

Hush up, California Artist, and show us what they have done!

Mrs. Bob's Italian Village

 

Limey Girl's old fashioned rose

Even tennis players can draw! This is plum blossoms, in case you were wondering.

Mae's A-mae-zing Pears in colored pencil

 

For more blog posts about drawing lessons, click here.

Year-end, Year-beginning

Ever notice how all those lists appear at this time of year? Here are two lists of mine:

1. Some of the things I did in 2010 that are worth noting:

Didn’t accept any more weird sweaters from my knitting needles – instead I ripped all the ones that were heading in the wrong direction.

Painted 2 more murals (So what if one is on my studio door? It is still a mural!)

Visited (and fell head-over-heels in love with) North Carolina

Trained for and completed the 21-Mile Big Sur Power Walk

Wrote and published regular articles on art in the Kaweah Commonwealth

2. Some things I hope for in 2011:

A working website

A working garage door opener

Another mural (or 3 or 4?)

Continued excellence in knitting (and finishing all those recalcitrant sweaters)

Continued weeding out of Stuff (I might have whatever is the opposite of that Hoarding problem)

A new fitness goal that doesn’t involve blisters or plantar fasciitis or 10+ hours a week when I should be painting

Business growth – increased skill, blog readers, customers, students, good ideas, pencil commissions (remember, I LOVE to draw!) and income

Of course there are piles of other things on both lists, but this is the very public internet, we all have short attention spans, and now I have to show you a piece of art because this is an art blog, not a place for personal aggrandizement. (Sorry – I just wanted to use another Big Word – can you find and understand the first one?)

Untitled (because Cotton Fleece is too obvious and A Good Yarn is taken), colored pencil, 9″x12″, private collection, took 4 years to complete, phew.

Growth, part four (Venturing into color)

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Just Picked – colored pencil – 18 x 21″ – $550

Just when I thought I “had it made” and was settling in to The One Way To Do An Art Business, several of my students wanted to learn colored pencil. In high school, my friend Lisa thought watercolors were for babies, and I had the same opinion of colored pencils. First, I had to find a new attitude toward colored pencils; second I had to learn to use them correctly. This happened through books and the Colored Pencil Society of America. They offer seminars and workshops that are phenomenal in their variety and scope  – this is a wonderful organization. http://www.cpsa.org/

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Orange Juice – colored pencil – 11 x 14″ – $200