Drawing in Pencil

I’m drawing in pencil because I love to. There might be a purpose to these drawings in progress, and it might be to keep from doing repetitive and boring work on the computer for the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia. The book isn’t repetitive and boring; the computer work is both of those things plus IMPOSSIBLE. No worries, I’ll figure it out or figure out who to ask for help. Meanwhile, I am drawing, a very therapeutic and productive procrastination technique.

This is a scene I’ve painted in a horizontal format, and one that I’ve lent the photo to a drawing student so she could draw it. I might have drawn it before, but I’ve slept since then. Actually, this drawing might be finished in this photo. Here, have a closer look:

This is the Generals Highway, above the Sequoia Park entrance at Ash Mountain but below Hospital Rock. You can see yucca in bloom (this is from a photo taken in June) and Moro Rock in the distance. Just a typical scene from Three Rivers, California. . . yawn.

But wait – there’s more!

This is an unfinished pencil drawing of a “Sheltie” named Wally.

Okay, I admit it. This is now finished too.

Turning Away Work

Really? Turn away work? Who would do that?

Me, that’s who.

Why?

Because I know my limitations.

The story: 

An acquaintance called me to take a look at an old photo of a pilot posing on the wing of his aircraft in the 1940s. It was an 8×10 black and white photo, the man was about 1-1/2″ high (he was in a squat) and his face may have been about 1/2″ high.

If I can’t see it, I can’t draw it.

I could see the man’s face with really strong magnifying lenses, but to reproduce it accurately and in color (that was the point of him calling me), it would have been extremely time consuming. A dot here, erase, move the dot slightly left, erase, move the dot slightly higher, oops now he looks like a Cyclops. . . that is how those tiny portraits go.

I speak from hard-won experience. No faces smaller than an egg.

Once in awhile I get lucky and succeed with these tiny tiny faces, but it is after a serious and honest conversation with the customer about their expectations and my abilities. Remember this?

(Well, oops, the link broke and I don’t know what it was.)

So I recommended that the potential customer find someone who is very skilled with Adobe Photoshop to take the crud out and put some color in.

However, if would like to have it drawn large, perhaps 16×20, some sort of size that would bring the man’s face up to the size of an egg, then yes, I am the artist he wants!

Nice man. I think it will be good to do work for him in the future. He appreciated my honesty, and he said that he just hadn’t allowed enough in his budget for a larger drawing.

In my experience, people rarely allow enough in their budgets for art. Oh well, got a good blog post out of it. Waste not, want not. (Stop thinking “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – I can hear you out there!)

Amazing Work from my Drawing Students

This year marks the completion of 20 years of teaching people how to draw. Or, perhaps it marks the beginning of year #21. Numbers aren’t my strongest subject.

When I started, I didn’t know how to teach. I just bumbled, fumbled and mumbled. If someone wanted to draw, say, a lion, I’d procrastinate on the parts I didn’t know how to do. Then, we’d figure it out together.

My students were kids 4th grade and older. I was too nervous to teach adults, because I was sure they’d see how little I knew. Eventually I caved in, and learned that it is easier to teach adults than children. Even children who are there because they want to be get a little squirrely at times.

The fact that adults were easier didn’t mean I stopped teaching kids or that I didn’t enjoy it. I LOVE teaching people how to draw.

The only people who haven’t learned how to draw from me are the ones who quit too soon.

I could go on and on about learning to draw. Instead, I’m going to show off the work of some of my students. I’ve chosen these because each one was drawn from the artist’s own photos and because I happened to have scans of them. Besides, they’ll knock your socks off!

End of the Trail, by Kelvin Farris

Swing girl, Wendy Miller

Kaia, Maggie Meling

Happy 2014, O Gentle Blog Readers

Hi.

I finished all the drawings for The Cabins of Wilsonia.  Maybe. When I get the book designed, I might need to add, subtract or rework the 265 pencil drawings. T W O H U N D R E D S I X T Y F I V E PENCIL DRAWINGS OF CABINS!

Excuse me for shouting. It is a little overwhelming.

Tired of drawing? Never. Ready to just goof off a little? Maybe.

I was goofing off, cruising around the internet and found the most beautiful blog ever. It is called stillblog dot net. Here is the link. It is my little gift to you, O Gentle Blog Readers. Scroll through, enjoy. I share this with you because

I appreciate you!

Aw shucks.

Crazy Hard Pencil Commission – DONE!

Remember that crazy hard pencil commission of those two miniature fuzzy faces? (You can see it in the October 2 blog post.)

The customer/friend asked me to make an adjustment to the boy’s cheek because his face was more narrow than round in real life (couldn’t prove it by me or by that photo). Adjustment made, I began the rest of the drawing. It turned out like this:

She thought that by adjusting his cheek, his face went out of balance. Yup. His face is crooked. Why? You might need a microscope to see it. Why don’t I just show you the corrected version:

Can you see the difference? Neither can I, but it showed up under the giant magnifying light at the drawing table. After I got the customer’s approval, I scanned it, then spray fixed it, then added a bit of red to the trailer and blue to the trike.

No, you aren’t blind. I didn’t scan it again after adding the color.

Commissioned Pencil Drawing of Wilsonia Cabin

This is a completed drawing of a Wilsonia cabin. I couldn’t decide if this post belonged here on my normal blog, or if it belongs on The Cabins of Wilsonia.

The drawing won’t be in the book. Those pages are already designed, and this cabin has its front door represented in the chapter of Park Road.

Knowing the drawing won’t be in the book freed me up to put color in the flag. I love doing that!

A Good Challenge (Or a Crazy-Hard Pencil Commission)

A wise colored pencil artist taught me to NEVER draw a face smaller than an egg. I’ve passed that on to my drawing students. It is tricky enough to capture a likeness correctly with photos or people that you can actually see and measure. Try doing it when you can’t see the details. Worse, try doing it when you can’t see the details on the photo AND the size of the drawn face is smaller than an egg, and there are TWO of these microscopic faces in the pictures.

A friend brought me this photo and asked me to draw it for her. I’ve shot it holding it in my hand so you can see how small it is, and how small the people are, and how truly miniature the faces are:

Then she said, “I enlarged it for you in case that will help,” and she gave me this:

Blurry and pixelated is how the tiny faces appear in this enlargement. Notice that the enlarged faces are perhaps about the size of my thumbnail now. (I have chunky hands, but even my thumbnail is no where near the size of an egg.)

She said that her daughter, a long time drawing student of mine, begged her to not bring this to me or be crazy enough to ask me to draw it. She didn’t listen to her daughter, whose advice was based on years of listening to me.

I like me a good challenge. Because this lady and I are friends, I told her I’d try. What does friendship have to do with it? The ability to communicate honestly is EVERYTHING when drawing or painting commissioned art. EVERYTHING. Besides, she flattered me by saying, “I figured if anyone would be able to do this, it would be you.”

Flattery often succeeds in getting me to try things that I know are crazy-hard (unless it involves the possibility of bodily injury).

The plan was to get it laid out and then shade in the faces. If she didn’t like the faces, I could just stop without having invested hours and hours. “No harm, no foul” seems to be the appropriate cliche’ for this approach.

I told my drawing students. There were guffaws, gasps of horror, looks of incomprehension, several “but you always say to never draw a face smaller than an egg”, and maybe a couple of screams.

Here is what I did to show the customer:

Blurry and small, just like the photo. Lacking in detail, it is hoped that the angle of the heads and the suggestions of features will bring to mind the correct little humans.

What did the customer, the mother of my long-term drawing student, the friend with whom I must have honest communication say about it?

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . .

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. 

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



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