Drawing in pencil is my favorite thing. My second favorite part of my business might be helping other people draw in pencil. One afternoon a week, I teach 5 small groups of people for one hour per group. Each participant works on his own drawing at his own pace. Her own drawing at her own pace. (Nope, I will NOT use the plural “their” when discussing the singular participant.)
My students are FABULOUS people. Each one has his own reasons for attending, her own goals for lessons; I enjoy each individual and the unique blend of each group.
There is a mix of ages (6th grade is the youngest I accept) and a mix of skill levels. Have a look at some of the recent work.
This is an interesting little coincidence – 2 livestock portraits across the table from one another. Each was working from her own photo.This drawing is from a photo taken by the student who was almost charged by this elephant. We have named him Elliott.Clearly this student has an interest in marine life. We are both a bit stumped on how to portray the water, but we’ll figure it out. And no, she didn’t take the original photo of the whale herself.
Today’s featured oil painting at Anne Lang’s Emporium:
Crescent Meadow, oil on wrapped canvas (why do I ALWAYS say this??), 6×18″, $150 plus tax.
In 1998, Jane Coughran and I published The Cabins of Mineral King*. Some of the drawings crossed over the center seam of the book to cover 2 pages. Some of the drawings were an odd shape to accommodate words.
This is one of those drawings (only photographed, not scanned and touched up for the web, so the background looks gray instead of white):
A member of this cabin family asked me if there were any drawings of the cabin remaining. I remembered this very large drawing with its odd shape. He and I looked at it together to see if it could be completed, and how he’d like it to be completed.
This is the result of that conversation. Highly satisfying! (but that little rude voice asks, “Yes, but is it creative?”)
*The only way to get a copy of The Cabins of Mineral King is to get lucky on Amazon or eBay. Good luck!
Someone’s Colorado cabin –definitely not small, rustic or rude
There are three distinct parts to cabin-ness:
The building itself – small, rustic, basic, simple, often without electronic amenities. (But wait! What about the cabin pictured above?)
The setting – rural, semi-secluded, in the mountains, taking an effort to get to (But wait! Have you ever been up Highway 180 to Wilsonia? And do these cabins look semi-secluded to you?)
A Wilsonia road
A Wilsonia neighborhood
The culture – slower, focused on people instead of technology; a place to play, recreate and relax, mostly outside; a place where meals and fireplaces become events in and of themselves; returning to nostalgic pastimes either of our youth or of some idealized youth of our parents and grandparents.
Outdoor dining is a big part of cabin life.Napping is a big part of relaxing at a cabinSee? Outdoor diningEven outdoor cooking!Fireplaces are a huge part of cabin culture.Eat and run??
It seems that the culture part is the strongest determining factor of cabin life. Some of our cabin neighbors gathered in another location for several summers, due to illness of one of their group. One of them told me, “We do Mineral King things in Seattle, and Mineral King is present with us there.” (I probably paraphrased it beyond all recognition – Forgive me, Sawtooth Six!)
P.S. Most of the drawings in this post are part of the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, available here.
C and Friends, pencil drawing, 11×14, unframed, $200
About 2 weeks ago, I took the brave leap into admitting that I have unsold drawings and that it bothers me. I also admitted publicly that those drawings were heading to the shredder if unsold for another month. This is not something many artists are willing to discuss, but I am not normal. (Thank you for playing along with me as if I am normal – you are very kind.)
Apparently, that was a good idea because almost all of those drawings sold! And there is still time. . . as of the date that I am writing this post, there are a few left that someone is pondering. (Those are labeled “Sale Pending”, as if I am selling real estate.)
Sometimes I go through those flat files and look at the unsold drawings, wonder if I could do any better, alternate between dark thoughts such as “Why bother?” and “But these are good!”. Then I go around and around: Could I have drawn it from another angle? Should it have been cropped differently? Should it not have been cropped? Is the subject irrelevant to my “collectors”? (Why does that word sound so pretentious to me?) Did I not show it to the right people? Who are the right people? Where are they and how do I find them?
Then I shut the drawers and move on.
Telling The Blog about the situation was a good idea. Thank you for listening.
P.S. There are more. Maybe in the future I will have the courage to put them on the auction block (The Blog) or the chopping block (The Shredder).
I looked up “cabin” on my Mac. The dictionary on my computer has fairly useless definitions as far as our discussion is concerned.
Cabin may refer to:
Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
Log cabin, a house built from logs
Cottage, a small house
Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
Small, remote, mansion (Western Canada)
Small, free-standing structures that serve as individual lodging spaces of a motel
Forget that. Where’s my real Webster’s dictionary?? Mine was published in 2004 rather than 1935. Oh good grief, look at this:
A small, simple, one-story house.
Willow Window, pencil. Is this a cabin? Nope, it is a bungalow. But it is a small, simple, one-story house. How do I know? Because I used to live there.Kitchen Corner, pencil, framed, $150. Is this a cabin? Yep. How do I know? I live there in the summer. But wait! It has 2 stories!
A few folks checked in with their thoughts on what a cabin is. One suggested “primitive”; another said a place to get away from every day life; a third (and someone else I talked to in person) suggests that a cabin is a state of mind, “non-fancy” is a good description, and someone else added in a description of an ideal cabin. She used the word “spare”, which could mean an extra home or it could mean without clutter. (I’ve seen some pretty cluttered cabins, and I have lived in a cabin when it was my only place of residence.)
Come back tomorrow for more thoughts on cabins and cabin life; clearly, there is no clear definition of cabin, but there are many ideas about it. Clearly.
There are many seasoned artists who freely share their experience with other artists. One of the nuggets I’ve gleaned through the years is “Get rid of your junk”. There is no reason to keep things around that do not sell or do not represent your best work.
The Cabins of Mineral King represented my best work in 1998. I draw better now, which is good; I would better have improved over the last 20 years or that would be a sorry situation. (That was an awkward sentence – anyone know a good editor?)
Still, the unsold drawings haunt me, take up space and just need to go away, either through a sale or through a shredder.
Before they go into the shredder, here is a chance for you to own an original pencil drawing for a peanut butter sandwich, as my dad used to say. I will consider offers, as long as they are not insulting.
One month from today, October 7, is the deadline on this batch of drawings.
4-1/2 x 5″, $20, SOLD6-1/2 x 4″, $25, SOLD7 x 10″, $904-1/2 x 5″, $25, SOLD4-1/2 x 6-1/2″, $35, SOLD5 x 7″, $40. SOLD
As a full time professional artist since 1993, I have accumulated a pile of work. It is overwhelming at times for several reasons.
If I am looking for something in particular, I have to sift through many other things.
If the flat file drawers get too crowded, some of the paper folds, squishes, migrates to the back of a drawer, or otherwise gets wrecked. I hate it when that happens to an original drawing!
Unsold things haunt and taunt me. They say, “Loser! Poser! Fake artist! No one wants your work!” They are mean, and eventually those mean words work their way into my psyche. (What’s a psyche??)
Therefore, I have made a decision. Unsold and unframed original drawings from The Cabins of Mineral King (published in 1998) have been here long enough. If a cabin owner doesn’t value original art of his cabin, why should I? I have my own preferences and favorites already jamming up my flat files (and they treat me better than those other unsolds).
Before these go into the shredder, I will show them to you and give them one last chance. I might even send out a newsletter to those who might open an email but don’t read the blog. I will tell you the approximate size and the price, and consider all offers (unless they are insulting. The drawings are already insulting me enough, and your Central California artist can only take so much abuse.)
Let’s begin, shall we? If these drawings aren’t sold by October 6, one month away, then say “Hasta la vista, baby”.
8-1/2 x 6″, $50, SOLD8-1/2 x 6-1/2, $55, SOLD5 x 6-1/2″, $40 SALE PENDING9 x 12″, $100, SOLD8 x 11″ – $95, SOLD7-1/2 x 9-1/2″, $80 SALE PENDING10 x 11″, $125 SALE PENDING9 x 11″, $120, SOLD8 x 12″, $100, SOLD
Someone very dear and important to me recently had a birthday. Awhile ago, she sent me a photo of her cat and said she wanted to commission me to draw it. Or maybe she said to paint it. I forget – it has been awhile.
With her birthday coming (do they ever stop coming, faster and faster and even faster??), it seemed like a good idea to draw it for her. I could have painted it, but as you know, I love to draw. Besides, I know she loves drawings, so that was my choice for her cat.
She rescued this guy, perhaps from the middle of a road in the middle of the night. I forget. There have been many. Mr. Mittens is a huge cat with some sort of eating disorder, not uncommon in strays. He also is a polydactyl, which means he has giant multi-toed paws. He also looks like a very large version of my skinny old Perkins. Sigh.
Sawtooth Peak is figuring large in my work life lately. Sometime last week I spent a few days in the studio listening to the reassuring hum of the air conditioner and listening to my own thoughts, and finally, listening to podcasts. This was all to keep me from falling asleep while working on a new pencil drawing of Sawtooth.
While listening to podcasts, I jot notes, and when I take breaks from staring at teensy details through a magnifying glass, I look up things. Gretchen Rubin’s podcast “Happier” mentioned a dish pattern, and something called a “corkicle”. . . had to see those things. She mentioned a writer named May Sarton who has a memoir called Plant Dreaming Deep; of course I had to click on the link to Amazon, then read about it on GoodReads, and finally, look for it in my library’s online catalog system.
Victor Davis Hanson uses big words to convey large ideas, and occasionally I write notes or look up words online when I hear him speak. Usually I just replay his interviews a few times to see if I understand his concepts.
All this listening helps me get through the seemingly endless miniature details of the current drawing.
And in spite of all this listening, learning, and thinking, I still haven’t decided if it is a good thing or a bad thing to put links within my own blog. Perhaps you will be so kind as to let me know if that is helpful or annoying. . .
A dear friend asked me to do something almost impossible. He wanted me to draw something for which he had no photo: the Mineral King Pack Station as it appeared in the 1980s. This was before everyone and his brother carried a camera around, documenting lives as if getting paid for it. (Or is it that people now document their lives because if it isn’t recorded, they aren’t sure it happened??)
I put out the word for help. It took 6 months, but I finally located a photo that I could almost see to draw from. If I knew horses and mules, this might be adequate. Barely. However, there is a lot of detail buried in shadow and the general mushy deterioration of a photo printed on a rough surface about 30 years ago.
I soldiered on. Gotta start somewhere, so I started with what I know – the mountains in the background. Printing the photo larger after converting to black and white helped somewhat.
Inching along – good thing there is no hard deadline.
Notice the collection of erasers. This is too hard, and a friend who knows horses offered this most welcome advice: “I think the mule may need a bit longer ears still and the dark horse in the front needs a bit of work. His face seems a bit too long and narrow to me and the front hoof seems a bit too big and clubby (that’s what we call hooves shaped like that in the horse world)”. See why I need all these erasers? Very non-forgiving subjects from a very non-visible photo by a very non-horsey artist.
Mineral King Pack station in the 1980s.
I almost finished it but forgot part of a saddle. Forgot? More likely procrastinated, because it was a blob of dark shapes. Regardless of the missing saddle, I scanned it and sent it to another very horsey friend.
I await her counsel as to whether or not these horses can be ridden or if they need a veterinarian or perhaps a bullet.
Wise artists know better than to draw or paint things they don’t know; someone who does know will know that I don’t know. Wise artists know better than to accept commissions for which there are no or poor reference materials.
Kind artists tell their dear friends they will try.
Wise or kind? This is a little bit too hard for me. And,I may not be charging enough. . .
