coloring book | Cabin Art

Building a Coloring Book Cover, Part 2

After thinking over the title Heart of Rural Tulare County, I wasn’t satisfied.

I looked at the original coloring book, Heart of the Hills, and realized that this one needed to be Heart of the County.

That’s the ticket! My Shadow Consultant agreed, after suggesting a couple of tiny adjustments.

The idea to do this came quickly, and the retail places that sell my work want it in time for Christmas. That’s why most of the drawings are gleaned from the previous coloring books, compiling them into a broad portrait of the county’s rural places. I thought you might need to know that. It is sort of like buying a “Best of” album from your favorite music group, and then you either say, “Oh I love this song” or “Wait, I already have this”.

Like all the previous coloring books, each page has a tiny hidden heart.

The coloring book is $20 and is available here on my website.

Upcoming Solo Art Show:

Images of Home

Exeter Courthouse Gallery

November 14 – December 30, 2021

Opening Reception – Sunday, November 14, 1-4 p.m.

coloring book Tulare county

Building a Coloring Book Page, Part 3

We last saw this drawing at this stage of erasing the gray background. I think it scans gray because the paper is a little bit thin, and also because that’s just the way the scanner sees things. If I lighten the background while scanning, the lines also get lighter.

After the background gray is erased, and the overlapping and gapping lines fixed, I add a border.

This is appealing (not up on blocks!), representative of rural Tulare County (yeppers, that’s the reality of any non-gentrified rural area), and has enough white space that it will be the cover of the coloring book, in addition to being an interior page.

Next step: get it printed on white paper with some substance to it at a print shop so that I can color it.

You can preorder the coloring book here: Heart of the County.

Would you believe that I love to draw, but coloring feels like a silly waste of time. It took a bit of self-talk to convince myself that this is part of my job.

UPCOMING SHOW:

Images of Home

Exeter Courthouse Gallery

November 14 – December 30, 2021

Opening Reception – Sunday, November 14, 2-4 p.m.

coloring book

Do You Color?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHEEBS!

The only times I color is when I am doing a little boutique-festival-fair-show-sale – whatever those events are called. Coloring is more fitting than knitting and certainly more approachable than reading a book in between customers. (If I am attending a festival and a vendor is reading a book, I just keep walking past that booth because that vendor clearly does not want to be interrupted.)

I think it might be fun for people to see how the artist of a coloring book fills in those blank pages, and it gives us something to talk about, especially if they are also colorers. (colorists? people who color?)

The only coloring book I’ve worked on so far is Heart of Agriculture. Ag is a colorful subject, and I enjoy the challenge of blending new colors with my limited Blackwing set of colored pencils.

Having several recent shows, I’ve made some progress in the coloring book. I sort of like it with unfinished leaves.

I’ve probably already shown you these, but in case I have new blog followers, here is a rerun. Although the olives are my favorite drawing in the coloring book, I got tired of working with only greens and browns, so I abandoned this one for awhile.

It takes some reining in to keep from spending 400 hours per page. Good enough is good enough in a coloring book, dontcha think?? And at this current pace, this one coloring book alone could provide show time-filler for at least another decade.

TODAY’S FEATURED PAINTING AT ANNE LANG’S EMPORIUM:

coloring book

Testing a Coloring Book

Designing coloring books involves drawing, my favorite thing. Coloring the pages is for other people to do.

But, I got curious. So, I gave it a try in the ag coloring book, Heart of Agriculture: Celebrating Tulare County Farm Bureau’s First 100 years.

This is as far as I got on the title page. I filled the letters in with blues, because there is very little blue in agriculture unless you drive a New Holland Tractor. (Cats are yellow, Massey-Ferguson are red, John Deere are green: I don’t know about Kubota or Mahindra or International Harvesters.) Couldn’t decide on the cow – dairy? beef? Reddish? Black Angus?

And this is the beginning of the citrus page, one of my favorite designs in the book. I don’t know why I started at the bottom of the page. Look – more blue! It makes the yellows and oranges look brighter.

This stuff is time-consuming. I think it is probably the most fun for people who don’t draw or paint (or knit). It would be a fun group activity – a bunch of friends sharing conversation, ideas and colored pencils or markers. A bowl of M&Ms would be appropriate too. . . dark chocolate, if I’m there.

You can get the Heart of Ag coloring book at the Three Rivers Mercantile, Rosemary & Thyme or the Mural Gallery in Exeter, or on my website here. And, of course, if you see me around somewhere, I almost always have some in the trunk of my car, along with many of the other books I’ve published. (coloring books and The Cabins of Wilsonia)

citrus art coloring book drawing Tulare County art

Heart of Agriculture

That is an apt title for today – a nod to both Valentine’s Day and the World Ag Expo’s opening day in the title of my latest coloring book.

This coloring book was published in partnership with the Tulare County Farm Bureau, a delightful group of people to work with (in spite of their rejection of pomegranates).

There is a tiny heart hidden in every picture, even this one:

This is my favorite:

And this might be the most fun to color:

The coloring book for grownups has 20 colorable pages and is $15 including sales tax. (If the Paypal button charges you tax, I will send you a refund.) If you prefer to pay with a check, I accept those in the mail to Cabinart, PO Box 311, Three Rivers, CA 93271. If you like to cheat a little, you might be able to print these pages from the blog, but I don’t know how and am not going to instruct you in this.

The For Sale pages work now, unless you are using Firefox for your browser. (I think that is the only one that doesn’t work with my site.) Here is a link to the Heart of Agriculture page. Tap or click here, depending on your device.

coloring book Tulare county Tulare County art

New Coloring Book in Progress

A few weeks back I told you that I am working on a new coloring book for grownups. (I use the childish sounding word “grownups” instead of “adult” because of the negative connotations on the internet with the “a” word. We wouldn’t want anyone to jump to conclusions about the appropriateness of my coloring books, would we?)

I am working with a committee on this project. If there are 5 people on a committee, there might be 6 opinions. Here are some coloring book pages that won’t be appearing in the new book.

pomegranates — Pomegranates are not a large crop of Tulare County.

There is a dairyman on the committee who will supply me with photos of his cows.

rows — Someone on the committee said this looks like the midwest. I replied, “The photos came from Strathmore!” Still didn’t fly.

These tractors are too antique for the committee’s taste. That is why they are so cute.

This sort of thing is just part of the business of art. Every situation is a new set of challenges. Often I don’t anticipate things, such as my main contact getting overridden by a committee. Who knew to ask such a question? This project is so fun that I dove in fast, rather than thinking through of all the “what ifs”.

I ought to guess these things in advance and bid jobs higher in anticipation of such potholes or speed bumps or detours.

But I don’t consider these pages as a waste – I was practicing my ability to convert photos into coloring book designs, practicing my design abilities, and maybe someday I’ll find a way to turn these into a special coloring book.

Yes, I am stringing you along, not telling you what the project is or who it is for. You may be able to guess. . .

coloring book

Speaking of Coloring Books

Who was speaking of coloring books?

I was. Yesterday. I said that I thought about skipping a calendar this year because I was so busy with coloring books.

I am at work on #5 now. I haven’t cleared it with the customer to reveal their identity (yikes, I just used a plural pronoun. . . never mind, this isn’t supposed to be about my editing skills).

However, I will show you the beginnings stages and one of the new drawings.

first-page

olives

Doesn’t this look hard to color? It is supposed to be challenging – these coloring books are for grown-ups.

That’s a little weird. Real grownups need to wear magnifying glasses to see these sections!

coloring book

HEART OF THE PARKS is HERE!

Please excuse me for shouting, and for publishing an extra blog post off schedule.

The latest coloring book has arrived, and boy is it a good one, if I do say so myself.

I did say so myself.

This has Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park designs, including Mineral King (of course – did you expect any less?). There are a few repeats from previous coloring books – this means you’ve had practice.

Want one? They are on my website here and will be made available on Amazon when I am able to navigate all their hoops, tunnels, jumps and clicks.

1-c-seq-cover 23-s-lodgepole-bridge 35-kc-panoramic-point 13-s-parker-group

coloring book Sequoia Sequoia National park

Gathering Visual Information

Visual information is necessary to an artist. In the olden days, artist did sketches. Cameras came along and made things easier. Digital cameras showed up, and now the visual information is quick, easy and abundant.

I am working on a coloring book for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, to be titled Heart of the Park. Those of us with ready access to these places call them “The Park”. It is 2 parks that overlap in several areas and are administered by the largest employer in Three Rivers. (That would be SEKI, AKA The Park, AKA National Park Service.)

My friend and I took a field trip so I could get the final photos needed. These were all in Kings Canyon, so we went through Sequoia to get there. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there, but most of it was in Wilsonia, working on The Cabins of Wilsonia. My photos were inadequate for the task at hand.