Last Chance to See Wendy’s Awesome Pencil Drawings

Now there’s a title and a half!

Remember my amazing and very advanced drawing student, Wendy Miller?

Her show ends this coming weekend. The last day to view it at the Courthouse Gallery (at 125 South B Street in Exeter) will be September 29, 2013. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Here are some sneak peeks at a few of her amazing pencil drawings. Some of the titles may have changed. (We had a fun brain-storming session in drawing lessons to come up with scores of entertaining titles, but Wendy may have chosen differently for the show.)

Does This Dress. . .?

Inside Out

(If you have southwestern leanings, this picture would be wonderful in your home – it is small, and I am sorry I don’t know the prices or size!)

Not Moving

(If you are even half as smitten by cats as I am, you understand this title.)

Not The Gateway

(This is because it is officially the “Pumpkin Hollow” bridge.)

Plums

(Did I mention that Wendy works in colored pencil too?)

These BELONG in your kitchen, dontcha think??

Reader’s Corner

(I would have called it The Knitting Chair myself!)

If any of you would like to purchase any of these drawings, I will connect you with the Awesome Wendy Miller. 

What Is The California Artist Doing?

Perhaps you’ve been wondering if I am still a California artist. Cruising to Alaska, having fun in Mineral King; is this chick even working any more??

I am working diligently on The Cabins of Wilsonia. You can follow the progress on my other blog, called The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Sometimes my own cleverness just slays me.) Actually, you can follow my thoughts about the process, because I’m not showing everything I’ve finished. Gotta have a little mystery, so people will want to buy the book!

My drawing quota for August has been met, and now it is time to work on some commissions.

I have 2 cabins in Wilsonia to draw that are outside the scope of the book. This is good, because income is good. This is not good, because doggonit, I will have 230+ cabin drawings and now I’m adding to the + side of things!

Nope. not complaining. It is tricky to choose the exact cabins and views that will please the cabin folks and also keep the book from looking all samey-samey on every page.

The entry-way door of this cabin is interesting to me.

Wilsonia cabin door pencil drawing

It is also interesting to the people who own the cabin, but they are more interested in seeing the cabin in its entirety. So, I’ve done a couple of sketches so they can choose. The differences between the two choices are subtle – can you spot them?

sketches for a pencil drawing commission of a cabin

Mineral King Cabin Pencil Drawings For Sale Now

In the last century, I began drawing people’s cabins in pencil while I lived in a cabin. These were mostly in and around Mineral King. My business name, Cabinart, was born at that time.

Houk, page 119, 8-5/8×6″, $52

 

About ten years later, my friend Jennifer suggested that I make a book of drawings. Because this was all before  print-on-demand,  Amazon, assisted self-publishing, and all those other nifty tools, I called my cabin neighbor and friend Jane Coughran for help. She was a picture editor for Time-Life Books, and was thrilled to join me, as long as I allowed her to include historical photos. That decision took me about half of a second, and together in 1998, we published The Cabins of Mineral King.

Goldman-Davis, page 73, 9-1/2 x 6-5/8″, $63


 

All of the books and most of the original drawings sold. (You might get lucky on Amazon or eBay.)

 

Mann-Kennedy, page 114, 8-5/8 x 6-1/2″, $56

 

Now that I am working on The Cabins of Wilsonia, I am looking for more space in my studio for all the new drawings. Thus, I located 18 unsold drawings from the Mineral King book (more, actually, but the others are too big for my scanner, so I’m not showing them.)

Bissiri, rear, page 118, 5-1/4 x 6-5/8″, $35


 

These drawings are available for anyone who would like to buy them. Six appear in today’s post with a BuyNow button; the other 12 will be in consecutive posts.

Goldman-Davis, page 72, 10 x 8″, $80


 

The prices are well below my current (and even my former) commission prices because  I want to sell them and because they are on odd sized pieces of paper that might be a pain to frame. I’ve put the name as it appears in the book, the page # from the book, and the exact size of the piece of paper it is drawn on, in case you get lucky and have the perfect mat and frame waiting for one of these original pencil drawings.

Mann-Kennedy, page 115, 9 x 12″, $108



DON’T MISS THIS!

Wow. That sounded bossy. Please excuse me – my intention is excitement, rather than shouting orders.

Wendy Miller is one of the best drawing students I’ve ever had the privilege of helping. I urge you strongly to see this show. And, many of her pieces are for sale. What an opportunity to own high quality pencil art at very reasonable prices. (Hint of urgency: I bought one already!)

Yes, I know it is Friday and Fridays are for Mineral King. However, I’m the boss of this blog, and this is Really Important News.

Move Over Mom, graphite on paper, 11×14, Wendy Miller

You are invited to

SUMMER CLASSICS

An exhibit of original pencil drawings by

Wendy Miller

July 2nd – September 22, 2013

Reception Sunday, July 7, 2-4 p.m.

Courthouse Gallery of the Arts

125 South B Street

Exeter, California

Save The Date

Lean on Me, graphite on paper, Wendy Miller

You are invited to

SUMMER CLASSICS

An exhibit of original pencil drawings by

Wendy Miller

July 2nd – September 22, 2013

Reception Sunday, July 7, 2-4 p.m.

Courthouse Gallery of the Arts

125 South B Street

Exeter, California

A Friend’s First Art Show

One of my drawing students is so good that I asked The Courthouse Gallery in Exeter ( where I teach drawing lessons) to feature her in an upcoming show.

I’m defining “so good” based on several things:

  1. Her work is technically excellent.
  2. She composes her drawings from her own photos (and occasionally from mine), carefully choosing, scooting, cropping, editing, giving great thought to composition (which is the arrangement of the elements in the drawing) as opposed to automatically copying what is in the photo.
  3. She does the work – studies drawing on her own outside of class, draws on her own outside of class, sketches regularly and takes practice very seriously.
  4. She produces one good drawing after another after another – the big word for this is “prolific”.

The Courthouse Gallery selection committee asked her to show there in July through September!

We thought they were booked further ahead, but suddenly, we both felt some time pressure. We realized we would have to work together to get her work titled, framed and priced. We decided a postcard would be a good thing. We decided that scanning her work would be prudent. We realized that this could get expensive. We remembered that I have lots of mats and frames.

We had a lovely 1/2 day together, along with her daughter Jenna, digging through my mats and frames, deciding if any of them complement her drawings. We found several that worked. We scanned, we scrutinized, we did the work.

You will be seeing more about Wendy Miller and her work in this blog as her show approaches. Without giving away too much of her work, here is a teaser. (I want you to come to her show!)

 

“Hey Mom”

11×14, pencil on paper, by Wendy Miller, private collection

Weird

First, I want to share something with you.

I am a spelling nut. Typos jump out and slap me between the eyes. (My own don’t – it is a fact that proofreading one’s own work is nearly impossible.) It sometimes feels as if I might have a form of Tourette’s Syndrome, except that I shout “TYPO!” in inappropriate settings instead of swearing.

Come to think of it, “typo” IS  four letter word.

I’ve never forgotten the spelling rule “I before E except after C”.

Weird.

Think about that for a bit. I saw it as a pin on Pinterest. Might have been on a tee shirt:

I before E except after C.

Weird.

Now that I’ve shared that little oddment, I can’t remember what I was going to say.

I’m on schedule for the pencil drawings of The Cabins of Wilsonia. Here is a cabin drawing.

You can read more about the project at my other blog, The Cabins of Wilsonia.