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

Painting Preparation or Procrastination?

It has been about 2 months since this California Artist did any oil painting. When I take a long hiatus*, I wonder if I will be able to paint any more.

I used to have that little niggling worry about drawing when several weeks would pass without my picking up a drawing pencil (unless I was using one to balance my checkbook).

Because the season of Mineral King is upon us, it is time for me to supply the Silver City Store with oil paintings to sell.

This happens in steps:

  1. Inventory existing paintings
  2. Make a list of subjects that should always be on hand and for sale
  3. Go through photos
  4. Choose photos to paint now and ones to paint later.
  5. Write the titles and inventory numbers on the inventory list and backs of the canvases
  6. Turn on the swamp cooler. Yes, in April. This gives me hope that we will have a shorter summer in terms of heat.
  7. Find something to listen to while painting. If the internet is working, I can listen to podcasts online. If it isn’t, I can listen to the radio or to my iTunes music.
  8. Wonder where Perkins is and if he’d like to hang out. Miss Zeke a little. Miss Kaweah a lot. Go back into the house for something or another thing.
  9. Paint! Just do it! I just listened to a podcast on productivity that said if you find yourself procrastinating, there is a problem. OF COURSE there is a problem if you procrastinate – you won’t get the work done! Then there is the Steven Pressfield book called The War of Art in which he discusses something called “resistance”. I’ve listened to podcasts and read blogs about this.
  10. Fix/finish those California poppy paintings I started 3 months ago.
  11. Use the leftover paint on your palette to base-coat canvases for the next painting session.

Any questions?

*Hiatus means pause or gap in sequence. Why use a one-syllable word when there is a great three-syllable word to do the job?

Mineral King Time Already – Early Early Early

It has been a dry winter. Trail Guy has been hiking this week.

Wow. This is early early early.

This is our friend and neighbor Keith. He is eating an orange on the bridge on April 26, 2013. There doesn’t appear to be any snow. Early early early.

The Park is officially opening the gate to the public on May 22. Early, early, early.

 Is “early” really a word? Looks funny. Nothing like a little overuse of a word to destroy one’s vocabulary.

Me? Just painting Mineral King scenes so that the Silver City Store can sell them for me this summer. They sell my Mineral King oil paintings very well. Maybe my prices are too low. Maybe you should pick one up this summer before I decide that my prices are too low. Then you can say, “I got her early work”. Early early early.

I was able to paint this week because I finished my April drawing quota for The Cabins of Wilsonia.  I finished them early.

Next week? Back to the drawing board.

Do you know anyone else who can honestly and literally say that?

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.