Hmmm, this is all so weird. I will refrain from sharing my opinion about the government shut down, because people come to this blog to be entertained and inspired. Discussing a difficult and divisive subject could possibly be entertaining, but I doubt if it would be inspiring.
Have a look at a painting of a familiar, comforting scene in Mineral King. Feel inspired. Feel entertained. Don’t worry, be happy!
Mineral King Autumn, 8×8″, oil on wrapped canvas, $95, sold
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!
Nope, not the fourth lake house of Lisa; it is the 4th pass across the canvas.
In my opinion, the sky, clouds, lake and trees are finished. However, my opinion is subject to change, and if I see something to improve, pass the paint brushes and step aside!
The roof, the porch and steps all seem finished to me, but Lisa has the final say.
I’ve resized and repositioned the windows until they finally look right. (or perhaps I have commission fatigue? Lake house fatigue? Lake house painting blindness syndrome?)
Lisa is enjoying watching her painting develop as this California (cabin) artist paints a Minnesota (lake) house. Apparently she isn’t squeamish. Because there is no one photo that says it all, she needs to be involved. For example, in most photos that she provided, the trees look very thick. But, she wants to see the lake and remembers how it looked when they had those trees thinned out for the lake view.
I sent her this photo after my third pass over the canvas.
The very tall tree on the right of the house is too tall for the width of its branches. I wanted to add much wider branches at the base. Lisa asked that I simply shrink the tree. It probably needs both things to happen.
As I looked through all the photos, some on paper and some on my computer, I saw a picture of the house that shows a tad bit more of the right side. It looked better to me, so I scooted things around a bit. I also increased the size of the windows to be more accurate and began adding detail to the porch area.
I love detail. I LOVE DETAIL. I LOVE DETAIL!
(Do you believe me?)
Lisa had asked me to remove one of the birches on the lower right. I did. She asked me to put it back. I will. I’m just easy to get along with that way. 😎
Let’s get through these decisions so I can get to the detail sooner – I can’t wait!!
In early September, I had the pleasure of a weekend at the cabin with two dear friends. They requested a hike to a lake. Eagle is steep, Mosquito didn’t call to me, one friend has been to Franklin twice, Crystal is really difficult, and Monarch is far but has a well-graded trail. It was ten miles round trip, and a good time was had by all.
This guy knows he is safe on the west side of Farewell Gap this time of year.
Hmmm, maybe we should have gone to White Chief – look how the sun is shining over there.
It is always reassuring to come to this sign, which is not telling us that Crystal Lake is a DIFFICULT 1.4 miles compared to the 1.2 relatively easy miles to Monarch.
Are these trees considered “monarchs”? Is that how the lake got its moniker? (couldn’t help myself – monarch and moniker obviously go together)
Some folks were swimming. I hate immersing myself in cold water – hate it!
A weird view of Sawtooth – too close to see its true shape.
I love these women dearly.
They look chummy and palsy here, but I think they might be propping one another up!
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. . .
Lisa reviewed the progress from painting session #1 and sent me some more information. It is rather astonishing to realize the amount of words and communication necessary to create a painting from someone else’s photos. There isn’t a single photo that says it all, so many photos with lots of explanation is the only way to understand it well enough to paint it.
Here it is after the 2nd painting session.
More paint to cover the orange (WHY do some artists think that it is good to paint the canvas orange? Furthermore, WHY did I listen to them??), evergreens thinned (fewer of them and fewer branches than before), horizon line raised (it didn’t show in the photos where the lake sort of peeked through the trees so I guessed, and guessed wrong)
I think the painting looks fairly good now if you view it from the back of a fast horse.