Drawings, Old & New

Have I told you lately that I love to draw in pencil?

Last week I had the opportunity to give a drawing lesson to a girl that I only see once a year while in Mineral King. Instead of taking her through all the usual steps, I took a shortcut to a finished drawing. This is because she will be drawing on her own, far away without me hovering and coaching.  

After looking through my photos, she chose this photo:

We went through the beginning steps, and suddenly, 2 hours had passed. Now what?? How can I help her continue? 

By drawing the picture for her and letting her copy the drawing, that’s how! It is easiest to learn to draw from other people’s drawings, because you can see what they made the pencil do.

To keep my head from getting fat, have a look at these two sketches from 1985 and 1986. WHY do my friends keep these things? And WHY do they send them to me?? To keep my head from getting fat, of course.

That “artist” could have used a few drawing lessons.

P.S. What a blessing to still be friends and in touch with people after 35 years!

 

Pencil Reminiscing, Part Four

After my booming (in my own little mind) success with the original set of notecards for Tulare County, Mineral King, and Visalia landmarks, I moved on. My memory is fuzzy about which card sets came next, and at what point I quit my job in the print shop. I worked from our little house in Lemon Cove and supplemented my income with a summer job baking at the Silver City Store, helping out at a friend’s Exeter gift shop for Christmas, and filling in at the printer when they had need. 

The ideas continued to flow. Now it was time for Tulare County Landmarks II, which moved into other towns of the county.

 Since this set included Lindsay, Tulare, Porterville, and Exeter, I found stores in all those little towns to sell the cards. I may have spent as much in gas expenses to drive around calling on the stores as my profits.

(The little circles are holes; these cards were samples for customers to see what was in the variety packages.)

To be continued. . .

Pencil Reminiscing, Part Two

After the notecard set of Tulare County Landmarks began selling, the ideas began flowing. Mineral King was the next logical set, especially since I already had two drawings finished. Reruns, but I didn’t care and didn’t think anyone else did either.

This was the first time I drew the Oak Grove Bridge; this view is now too overgrown to photograph the bridge clearly.

All of these were from my own photos with the exception of the Mineral King Store. I don’t remember my family going to Mineral King until after the store had disappeared, so I used an old postcard without any regard or concern for copyright laws.

This is also the first time I drew the scene of Farewell Gap with the Crowley cabin. I had no idea how popular that would become or that I would draw and paint it so many more times (or any idea that I would become a painter).

Stay tuned. . . many more notecards ahead in this series!

Because She Asked

A former drawing student, now a long time friend who lives far away, ordered many notecard packages from my website (you can do that too – this is The Notecard Page.)

She asked if I had anything of Kings Canyon, or perhaps Hume Lake. Nothing. I’ve got nothing. Even the General Grant Tree has finally sold out.

This sent me to my photographs, in search of something to redraw, or maybe even something new. It also caused me to dig around to find the old drawings of Kings Canyon.

Kings Canyon Overlook, drawn in 2001 for one of the last variety set of notecards. It’s not embarrassing, even 19 years later.
This is a small part of a larger collage drawing, and I like the addition of the yucca in bloom.
The collage was a commissioned drawing of highlights from both Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. 

The overlook is the winner for a Kings Canyon drawing to be made into notecards. It isn’t part of Kings Canyon National Park, just part of the geographical area called Kings Canyon. But since I am not doing this for The Park, it doesn’t matter. 

Beginnings, looking at a mess of photos and a messed up print of the yucca version.

This is going quite fast, helped along by experience, combined with listening to Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, read by Tom Hanks. (I love our county library system.)

And if you are interested in buying notecards with this drawing on it, please let me know. If enough folks want them, I’ll order some. They’ll be the same as most of my cards – 4-1/2 x 5-1/2″, 4 to a package for $8.

Hockett Meadow, Two Pencil Drawings

The customer allowed me to put color in the flag, a technique that I am very partial to. I added smoke, scanned it, and did the Photoshop clean-up.

As I was adding the grassy meadow to the foreground, I was thinking about the first time I drew the Hockett Meadow Ranger Station. It was part of a notecard set called “Backcountry Structures”.

Back in the olden days (in the 1980s), people used pens to handwrite notes in cursive, put them in envelopes, address them, LICK a stamp to put on the envelope, and then place into a real mailbox for people in other parts of the country to receive. 

How quaint. Those were definitely kinder, gentler, slower, more personal times.

Now, hold onto your hats, Dear Blog Readers, because I am going to show you something frightening. 

Your Central California artist needs to keep reminding herself that it is good to be humble.

Growth is good.

People were very kind in the olden days and hadn’t learned all that anonymous internet rude behavior yet.

If you bought art from me back then, THANK YOU!!

Another Secret Cabin Drawing

How “secret” is something on the World Wide Web? 

The one who isn’t supposed to see the drawing doesn’t know about my blog, so we’re safe. (also true for the drawing shown on this post)

Working from photos I took before my customer was even born showed me the upper window with the shutter opened.
On the table: I worked on this all day on First Saturday December in between visitors to the studio.
Almost finished, except for all that grassy foreground to figure out first.

I put in the grass, thought it was finished, scanned it, did the Photoshop clean-up, emailed it to the customer, and then I remembered that he asked me to have smoke coming out of the chimney. 

Well, oops. 

Tomorrow I’ll show you the finished drawing, along with something that might drop your jaw.

Loves Pencil, Loves to Draw

This is my most recent pencil drawing commission. A group of friends are getting this for another friend. That’s all I’m allowed to say, not knowing the the scope of readership of this blog or degree of silence required for this gift.

Beginning stages
First scanned

This is the scanned, cleaned up version using Photoshop Junior, which is actually Photoshop Elements. It is converted to grayscale mode and anything that is paper color on the drawing gets “erased”  so it looks almost as clean here as it does in person.

Do-Over #2

This is the other pencil drawing that I will enter in the juried show at the County building.

The frame and mat are still good.
It isn’t actually discolored – that is the inadequate photography.

Again, the inadequate photography doesn’t do justice to the delicate colors. But, I am very pleased with its new look!

Now, I just need to think of a good title. “Grapes”, “Reworked Grapes” – nope.

How about “Before M&Ms. . .”?

Yes. I like that!

What do you think?

All 3 grays look alike to me in the faces.

Finished

A little unfinished business here on The Blog: finished pieces you haven’t yet seen in their official photographic documented form.

This little 8×8″ oil painting is titled “My Geraniums”, because it is my geraniums, although they are actually pelargoniums, (but I’m guessing no one cares). Anyway, this is hanging in my kitchen. Ever listen to Bruce Williams on the radio? He used to say, “Everything is for sale if the price is right”, and I guess if you really really like this, you may offer a high price which I may consider. Otherwise, it remains mine.

This is a commissioned pencil drawing of a Silver City cabin, a Christmas surprise which I could only tell you about but not show you. Christmas 2018 is now history, and this drawing was given and received. Hence, you get to see it now. (“Hence”? Who uses that word? The Central California blogging artist, that’s who, but only while blogging.)

Sometimes I draw simply because I can, want to, and love to draw. Besides, it is always good to keep up the practice and to keep up my inventory. This is 9×12″, unframed. It could be for sale. . . And yes, it is the Honeymoon Cabin, a little one room museum in Mineral King.

Normally it takes about 10 minutes for me to decorate for Christmas. This year it took several days, because oil paint dries very slowly. This little 8×8″painting was begun to demonstrate some techniques for the secret oil painting workshop; I brought it home and finished it because I realized my decorating efforts could use a boost. I could have photographed it in the entryway of my house, but that feels like a fakey Instagram sort of thing to do. Fakey isn’t my style, as you may have discerned (although occasionally my vocabulary gets a little stuffy).

This finally feels finished. It was dry enough to photograph on a sunny day. Still mulling over a good title – Citrus Queue, perhaps? It is 18×6″, $175.