Back to the Easels and the Drawing Table

After several months of no work (i.e. lovely free time at the cabin without deadlines or guilt), work is beginning to trickle back into my days.

First, a pencil commission. (I still love to draw.)

This was the little sketch for the customer to approve or amend.

She made a couple of suggestions, and I scribbled a few notes for further verification.

This is a house I visited. Actually, I visited the people there, but the house really stuck in my memory as very attractive. It will be quite fun to draw.

I worked on the herd of buffalo for the upcoming show at CACHE, called “A Bovine State of Mind”.

It might be finished, but I will wait to sign it until I am completely sure there is nothing left to improve.

I remembered that the Holiday Bazaar in Three Rivers is coming November 18, 2023. This is the Saturday BEFORE Thanksgiving. It is time to think about beefing up my inventory of smaller paintings for this annual boutique at the Remorial Building. (Remorial, liberry, prolly. . . bet you can translate these words).

Yep, messy, but the first layers always are.

It’s great to be producing art again, both with pencils and oil paints!

Another Interruption, This Time for Drawing

 

Once again, we interrupt our broadcast for this drawing.

Ever notice the annoyance of the English language, where a noun and a verb can be exactly the same word? And I didn’t actually mean “broadcast”, because we are in a series of posts about cabin life. This drawing fits the category of cabin life but it isn’t about cabin life; it’s about pencil drawing.

Get on with it, will ya??

An old friend (that seems to be where most of my work comes from, but new friends and young friends are welcome to commission me; even friends I haven’t met yet are welcome here) expressed an interest in a drawing from The Cabins of Wilsonia. 

Alas, it was gone.

We had a few options: 1. Oh well, sorry; 2. Buy another book, Sir, and rip out the page; 3. I can draw it for you again.

My wise friend chose option #3.

Have a look at the original photo that I used.

As always, working from a photo isn’t straightforward copying. Every photo has its indiscernible parts, because real life is messy. 

Because my friend was wanting the drawing from the book, I used that old drawing to help me make decisions. (I didn’t lie: although the original is gone, it’s still on my laptop.)

Then, I thought about it a bit more and decided that I ought to be able to do a better job now. That was 10 years ago, and I was cranking out those 272 (was that really the number??) drawings at a rapid pace. This time, there was no deadline. My friend’s only requirement was specific dimensions to go with another drawing, like a matched set.

Here is the other drawing.

And here is its new partner.

(The difference in darkness has something to do with the computer reproduction, not a change in pencils or pressure on the paper.)

This picnic table appears in the chapter called “Brewer”, which is the name of the road in Wilsonia depicted in that chapter. (I got clever that way.) The funny part is that I could not remember where this photo actually was, and I just put it on Brewer because I thought it looked good with the chaise lounge. 

Apparently my friend thought the same. He has actually had a strong influence over my art career, so this makes sense.

Thank you, DB!

Drawing Because I Can

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Sometimes I draw simply because I love to draw. I try to hold back, because my flat files are full. When I have a good reason and know the drawing will not simply be stored in my files, then get outta my way.

(“Outta” is like “prolly” and “liberry”: words I like in spite of being an editor and a proofreader.)

An acquaintance did me a big favor, so I am drawing her cabin. 

I started several months ago, then set it aside because of paid work. My work priority order is this: 1. commissions with a deadline; 2. commissions without a deadline; 3. building up inventory of subjects that will prolly sell; 4. reworking paintings that haven’t sold; 5. whatever I feel like painting or drawing.

This one is considered to be Category #2. The customer isn’t commissioning me because she doesn’t know she is a customer. I am commissioning myself.

What does commission mean? That’s another topic for another blog post.

This is the drawing before I tackled it with Photoshop Junior to prepare it for eventual printing, which most likely won’t happen.

And this is after I converted it to grayscale and erased any errant lines or spots, most likely the result of a scanner screen that WILL NOT come clean, which is most likely the result of scanning paintings that aren’t quite dry, which is most likely the result of being in a hurry, which is most like the result of any number of unfortunate incidents such as not planning ahead, pulling weeds or taking walks instead of working, or choosing to draw something without a deadline instead of painting to build up inventory.

Where were we?

Oh. The finished drawing.

Now I am outta here.

Quick Day, Quick Draw

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The very fastest days are the ones spent in my studio, drawing with pencils, listening to podcasts. It took me about 2 hours to do this drawing. . .

NOT!* Just felt like it because there were so many interesting podcasts to listen to. And, because I love to draw. (have I ever told you that before?)

We will miss our UPS driver when he retires. And we will probably learn to really like the new one. 

*A long time ago I had jobs where I would work the entire day, then look at my watch and see it was only 9:30 in the morning.

Better When Scanned

This pencil drawing commission of a Mineral King cabin is finished. 

First, I went over the whole drawing with a giant magnifying glass and fixed everything that needed a bit of polishing.

Then, I scanned the drawing.

No matter how carefully I clean the glass on the scanner, there are always little black specks. No matter how many different ways I adjust the settings for scanning, there are always gray areas that should simply be paper white.

So, I clean it up with Photoshop Junior (Photoshop Elements).

Can you tell the difference? At this small size, it might be difficult to see the little improvements. However, I keep track of (almost) all my work, because I never know when I might need a good version for a calendar, some cards, some sort of advertising, to impress a potential customer. . . and to think I used to either make a photocopy or take a slide! 

Speaking of calendars, there are still some 2023 Mineral King HIKES calendars available here.

$20, including tax and mailing.

Drawing in My Little Studio

This is my studio when the flowering pear tree (a leaning tree) was at its peak fall color. The smaller building in the back is where I draw; the closer one with the open door is the workshop where I paint (and where the cats are fed and kept safe at night).

Where was I before all that irrelevant information?

Drawing. Drawing in the studio, using pencils. Drawing a cabin. Drawing a Mineral King cabin. Drawing a commissioned pencil drawing of a Mineral King cabin.

(There. That should satisfy that greedy search engine’s demands for short sentences and repetition.)

Remember this?

It morphed into a real drawing. Here are the steps, some of which you have already seen (but I understand that you actually have a life, and may have slept since then or perhaps even drank a bit.)

Meanwhile, the rains came down outside the studio, pingety-ponging off the metal roof. How’s that for a description of the blessed, life-giving, relief-bringing, green-making, dust-removing rain?

P.S. The drawing will be better when it is scanned, rather than photographed in low light with a substandard camera. Thanks for bearing with me on this process. 

 

Dabbling, Puttering, Inching Forward

This is a scarf, knit for a friend. The colors reminded me of her, and I couldn’t decide between 2 different yarns, so I got both. It is really a dark burgundy, but both the camera and the computer lie.

None of our three cats are allowed indoors. Oops. Is that Pippin in the living room again?

Stop puttering and get to work!

I have two 10×20″ oil painting commissions to complete and mail before Christmas. This is tricky to accomplish unless I put down the camera, put down the knitting, and plant my feet in front of the easels.

It might be tricky anyway, because the photos are less than stellar, less than clear, and full of murky indiscernible things. 

After getting the beginnings of both those oil paintings accomplished, I retreated to the studio for a bit of forward motion on the commissioned pencil drawing.

Inching forward. . . 

Art Emergency

A long time customer has regular art emergencies. She is Important, and works with Important People. Sometimes those Important People suddenly retire, and then she needs a custom pencil drawing on fairly short notice.

For clarification: she was a friend long before she became Important, but all my friends are important to me. The friendship factor is what keeps me saying yes to her when she calls with an art emergency.

Previous pencil drawings for art emergencies

 

 

The beginnings

The request appeared one month before the piece was needed. The photos arrived about a week later. Since I didn’t take the photos, I don’t feel free to publish them. They were downright scary, but I am a professional, and I managed to suppress my fear (although I whined to my drawing students, warning them to NEVER say yes to projects like this–small size, design complications, poor photographs, tight deadline).

Here it is in progress. This is when I decided that 9×12″ is probably too small to be cramming in this many scenes, particularly with this many tiny windows. (Two years ago I decided that 8×10″ was too small.)

I felt fairly certain that the recipient of the drawing doesn’t follow my blog (our paths have crossed a few times, but he has been Important since I was a kid, so friendship isn’t a factor here.)

Finished!

I was able to finish the drawing in a timely manner, and even was able to deliver it.

Congratulations on a long a fruitful career, 31 years of serving the City of Visalia, Mr. Important Person!

 

 

More Cold Water Drawing

This is the first drawing titled “Rock and Roll”, one that appeared in my 2018 calendar, sold, and now has been requested by a new customer as a do-over.

On a rainy weekend in Mineral King, I worked on the new drawing for another few hours.

 

This time I remembered to bring my Tombow pencils and also the original photos. I try to work from photos so that I am not simply interpreting a previous interpretation. Flowing water isn’t an exact subject, but I want to keep close to the original view because the customer recognized this section of river. If I stray too far, she might say it doesn’t look right.

I wrote a few reminder notes on the facing sheet, and then because of the overcast and rain, it got too dark to see the details, up there in the Land of No Electricity, Internet, or Cell Service.