Hard Drawing and Painting Hard

Last week I did some sketching and designing for a very difficult pencil commission. It is breaking a hard and fast rule that I have set for myself, but I can’t figure out how to say no and still help the customer. It’s too scary to show you right now. . . more will be revealed. . .

Then I painted hard. How hard?

I painted so hard that my brush snapped. That’s a first for me in 18 years of painting.

These two paintings got moved into the house near the wood stove to dry. There’s more to be done on both, but I am spending my week working on my presentation for How To Draw.

IMPORTANT

Tuesday, November 12, 6:30-7:30, I will give a demo/talk called How To Draw at CACHE. Contact me if you are interested, because seating is limited and there is one more spot.

SIMPLY HOME

Olive Orchard, 10×10″, $200

CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.

Variety in the Working Life of a Central California Artist

There you go, Search Engines. Hope you like that ridiculously long title.

I had a day of great variety, all of it interesting, all of it productive

  1. This book, Adventures in Boy Scouting, will soon be available as an ebook through Bookbaby. It took a lot of learning, and a lot of proofreading. The print version is available at the Three Rivers Mercantile, Three Rivers Historical Museum, and BookBaby.com. 
  2. After enjoying the nice fire in the house (in the wood stove—no need to be concerned) while proofreading (we had a few cold days), I moved to the painting workshop to do a bit of polishing on the Fiftieth Bouquet oil painting. “Polishing” here means making some small corrections. The roses, red bow, vase, coaster and background are not finished.
  3. I detailed the mountains and put a second layer on my favorite scene.

  4. Then I left the painting workshop and moved into the studio to finish a drawing. After scanning it, I sent it to the customer to get her approval before spray-fixing it and then adding color.

It was a good day of working on projects that are all presold. While it is fun to just paint and draw what I want, it is more satisfying to paint and draw for other people, particularly when they choose subjects that float my boat.

In case you have forgotten because I haven’t shouted this at you for awhile:

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

 

A Special Commission

If you have followed this blog for awhile, you may have noticed that I have a slight touch of a Cat Disorder. Nothing crazy. Trail Guy brings sensibility into my life, so we only have 3 cats. (We’ve had as many as 8, but that was short lived.)

Some dear friends who live far away have an unusually personable cat named Zelda. They sent a few photos, and I put all jobs aside to work on this one.

Everything else had to wait.

 

ONE MORE THING:

BOOK SIGNING SUNDAY, APRIL 24, THREE RIVERS HISTORICAL MUSEUM, NOON-4 PM. I will be joining Bob Kellogg as he signs his book “Adventures in Boy Scouting: Tales by the Old Scoutmaster”.

Crying “Uncle” and Throwing in the Towel

The agreement with my customer M was that I would try to capture a likeness in her Dad’s face. If I was unable to do that, we would understand and accept that this job is beyond my ability. It is EXACTLY the kind of drawing job that I have struggled with for many years, and finally decided to stop accepting commissions for.

BUT, M is my friend and a great communicator, and I want to please her. I also like testing myself from time to time to see if I have improved.

Attempt # 3 was a reject.

Attempt #4 was a reject.

Attempt #5 was sent to M with this: “If this one isn’t right, then I am crying “uncle”, accepting the fact that this is beyond my ability, and throwing in the towel. (Jeopardy music in the background as the drawing awaits its fate. . .)”

I recognized that I was falling into the trap of trying to do the impossible. I thought that I had chosen a large enough piece of paper to include the whole scene with faces large enough to draw, but I was wrong. The most minute change, a slight dab of the eraser, half a pencil point width change, using HB instead H or H instead of 3H (those are pencil hardness/darkness indicators), a vague variation in paper texture. . . all I am doing is tickling the paper and hoping something works. 

So, for once in my career of accepting challenges that are beyond my ability to execute well in a manner that pleases the customer, I am willing to quit on this one and STOP SAYING YES TO THESE TYPES OF COMMISSIONS.

Nope. Didn’t look like M’s dad. Bye-bye, drawing.

P.S. M, it is not your fault. It is mine for saying yes when I knew better. Thank you for your patience and for the opportunity to try one more time and then finally accept reality.

See? I have tried and tried and tried with these tiny faces in the past:

More Can’t See ‘Ems  This one worked because the customer didn’t know the people personally.

Custom Pencil Drawings Another one where the customer said a likeness wasn’t necessary.

P.S. I didn’t cry. It is just a figure of speech. Thank you for your concern.

 

 

Eensy Forward Motion

As I struggle along on this pencil drawing commission of faces that are too small for me to capture a likeness, you get to see the progress.

This is the original photo.

This is my first attempt at capturing M’s Dad accurately.

This is a scanned and enlarged version of the faces.

Here is the second version of my drawing.

And finally, so you will understand what I am working with, here is the drawing with a ruler.

Phooey. The inch marks don’t show.  M’s dad’s face is 1-3/4″ high. That’s all.

That’s all I can stand of this today. I will go pull some weeds, because that doesn’t require perfection.

Intimidated

I began working on the 16×20″ commissioned pencil drawing of the big old country house. It is a challenge, due to combining several views into one scene, and due to the size. It is intimidating, so I decided to warm up to the task by working on the little old houses from the single little old photos.

No people will be included in the drawing. Can’t see ’em, can’t draw ’em.

That was fun and maybe even a little bit easy. Not too easy, because some of it just had to be guessed at. There is a mop drying on the roof, a broom leaning up against the front window, and the handle of a hoe or shovel leaning against the wall. I don’t know what those vines are or what is supporting them. The shingles on the roof were hard until I figured out how to duplicate the pattern. Grass, in case you are interested, is just organized scribbling.

NEXT! I love to draw, particularly architectural subjects. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that people can understand of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Custom Pencil Drawings

A friend’s mom was visiting from Georgia. She brought me these photographs.

Each one is the only existing photo of a house that no longer stands.

Each one will become a 9×12″ drawing.

Each drawing will be better than the photo, at least that is always my goal. 

There will be no visible wrinkles either.

 

Christmas Cabin Surprise

A friend asked me to draw this cabin, another one that didn’t survive the wildfires. Her photos were fairly inadequate, but my confidence in making up things is growing. This is due to experience, both with cabins, and knowing that most people don’t observe detail to the degree that I do when drawing.

The front door of a place is the most important feature, and this one is hidden by the dual trees. I asked my friend if I could remove those trees and if she could describe the front door. She said yes to both.

When custom art jobs are tricky, meaning when there aren’t adequate photos, a sketch is often helpful.  This one has an unusual roof shape on the left gable end, and a surprisingly wide chimney, along with steps that were hidden behind the tree that I removed.

The sketch was approved, so I did the drawing. 

 

Winter Cabin

This cabin burned. I don’t know where it was or who owned it. The customer provided the photo and requested the drawing as a gift for the cabin owner. I haven’t heard the outcome. I feel fairly confident that the cabin owner won’t know about me or my blog.

P.S. If you recognize this cabin, shhhhh. It is meant to be a surprise.