Mr. and Mrs. Customer requested a few more leaves and oranges to extend into the margins. I did a bit of subtle extensions, then sprayed, colored, and signed it.
This is the closest I am able to get to perfect.
Mr. and Mrs. Customer requested a few more leaves and oranges to extend into the margins. I did a bit of subtle extensions, then sprayed, colored, and signed it.
This is the closest I am able to get to perfect.
It is time for me to really study this pencil commission. The pencil drawing needs to be perfect, because the next step is to spray it with a fixative, to prevent smearing when I add colored pencil to a few areas.
Mr. Customer asked for clouds, so I decided some wispy types would add texture, variety, and interest without becoming too busy. Everything else is highly detailed, so the sky needs to be somewhat visually restful.
All this remains to be inspected:
After I addressed all those items, I scanned the drawing, cleaned up the scanner messes (it ALWAYS leaves spots, and the paper color scans as gray), and emailed it to Mr. and Mrs. Customer for their final approval.
More will be revealed in the fullness of time, or as my dad used to say, “Time will tell”. Meanwhile, I will continue to. . .
What’s my point? Not the point of my pencil. The point of all this careful drawing and explaining is to make everything in this custom pencil drawing believable.
I have added a ladder to the wind machine, smoothed the sky, and begun the lower leaves and oranges on the bottom left. Have a look at the 2 little girls, the way I see them under the giant lighted magnifying glass. They truly are almost impossible to draw and hardly show up. But they will have color on them at the end, so they will be more visually significant.
Building up the foliage is tedious; some might say “restful”; others might call it “zen”. The tedium is alleviated by the continual need to check the sizes of the leaves and fruit, thinking about where they are landing on the rows of diminishing sizes.
I also worked on the ground a bit. I want it to look real and as always, believable. Usually within an orchard, there are many dead leaves, broken sticks, and dropped fruit. So, I will put some of this in but be careful to not have it too noticeable, because it isn’t the point. What is the point??
Believability!
This is a commissioned pencil drawing, custom art, a specific job as requested by a customer. (All that is in case you are only tuning in right now and missed the previous posts leading up to this).
The most difficult part of this drawing is the children. I found photos of children walking from the back, and then put together various elements from these photos to depict something that doesn’t actually exist. The youngest child that this drawing is supposed to represent is not yet walking. By the time she is walking, the other child will be older (duh) than she currently is. Hence, by guess and by golly.
I started here because if this is impossible, there is no point in continuing. The customer said it was fine. No, that’s not what he said, but I decided that is what he meant.
Then I photographed it with a pencil so the size could be understood. After that, the mountains, and beginning the distant trees.
All this was done at the dining table in the house. I started this on the snow day, because the wood stove puts out better heat than the little wall propane heater in the studio.
Lighting was a bit of a challenge, so toward the end of the drawing session I turned on the flashlight in the phone to use as a spotlight. This made it possible to work close and make precise leaves and oranges in the upper right corner.
P.S. The customer’s wife weighed in at the end of the day and had a very valid and helpful suggestion to make the smallest girl look younger. I believe this will be a lengthy series of blog posts as I bumble along in new territory of drawing little people without benefit of photos in a size that is ridiculously small. It will all be worth it, because this drawing will be ridiculously perfectly darlingly cute, a brilliant idea! (Plus, there will be some added color)
Remember this painting?
A friend saw it and wondered if I could draw a similar scene in pencil, this time adding in two little girls. Because I love to draw, love to draw and paint orange groves, and really like my friend, I said yes.
Ahem. There isn’t a photo of the two little girls from the back, walking together holding hands, because one doesn’t even walk yet.
My friend sent me photos of the girls as they look now. Then I went to The Duck (search engine DuckDuckGo) to see if I could find helpful photos.
From those photos, I did this little sketch.
Good thing my friend knows that I know how to draw. He was very taken with the sketch, so I think this idea will work, IF I CAN DRAW TWO LITTLE GIRLS THAT I CANNOT SEE!
No pressure or any undue stress.
Just shut up and pick up your pencils, Central California Artist.
When I see all these sold pieces, both pencil drawings and oil paintings, I am astonished. Trail Guy and I loaded up “Images of Home” into the back of his pick-’em-up truck, and it felt as if I was taking home MORE than I hung at the show.
That feeling slapped me upside the confidence, making me want to paint over everything that didn’t sell and pull the drawings from the frames and shred them. Ridiculous. Several of the sold pieces happened outside of the show (all those repaints), and each time something sold, I replaced it with a new piece.
So, having put to rest the foolishness of wanting to destroy my remaining work, let’s resume yesterday’s triumphant post of art that sold in December, shall we?
Upon further reflection, I am realizing that several of these sold earlier in the fall but I didn’t show you. That brings December down to a more believable number of sales.
The year started in a somewhat ignominious manner with tech troubles. That stuff is quite alarming, upsetting, and interruptive. I combat this by reviewing all the sales in the previous month (necessary to pay for all the tech repairs, and I am sorry to report that no fat lady has sung yet).
I had sales through Kaweah Arts, the Mural Gallery, Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery, along with commissions. All is not lost – let’s rejoice together!
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! Tune in tomorrow, same Bat time, same Bat channel.
P.S. Happy Birthday to Trail Guy!
When the air is hazardous as it was at the beginning of last week, I just closed myself into the studio and focused on a large commissioned pencil collage. It made 9 hours fly by, and I forgot about the smoke outside.
You last saw the drawing at this stage:
This is what happened In 2 days of drawing.
Wow, sometimes I impress myself.
Excuse me. That was obnoxious. You probably are interested in a bit of a story about this drawing rather than some puffed up bloviation by a Central California artist who complains about smoke unless she is tooting her own horn.
This drawing will be a gift (not from me but from the customer) to a lady pilot who lives in this house along an airstrip, has her own hangar, and a view of a lake. Her husband was also a pilot, designed the house and hangar, and he recently died. Our lady pilot will be selling and moving away, and her friend commissioned me to do this piece for her.
These are remarkable people, both the giver and the recipient, and it is a privilege to participate in their lives, even on the outer fringes.
Happy Birthday, JG!
… then I draw. (Unless I spend time on the computer designing a calendar, a new coloring book, a custom collage drawing, or some cards). But yesterday, I drew.
In 2022, the Gateway Bridge, AKA Pumpkin Hollow Bridge, will be 100 years old. This means there will be some attention on the bridge, which will probably bring about some opportunities to sell images of the bridge. Remember, I am a business person whose product is art, although I often act like an artist trying to figure out the business end of things.
People often confuse my favorite bridge, Oak Grove, with the Gateway Bridge. Let me help you with this:
Oak Grove: single arch, deep canyon of the East Fork of the Kaweah River, 6.5 miles up the Mineral King Road
Gateway Bridge: three arches, shallower canyon of the convergence of the East Fork and Middle Forks of the Kaweah River, just below the entrance to Sequoia National Park on Highway 198
This new pencil drawing is 9×12″, unframed, and I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. That will be a business decision, and yesterday I was focused on being an artist.
P.S. The top view is supposed to look like this: