I guess you could draw with chalk or a paintbrush or your finger on a fogged up window, but drawing with pencils is what I do.
Student work
It’s also what I teach. A returning drawing student had one month free for lessons before embarking on a new chapter of life. We dove right in, and she stayed for several hours each time rather than the normal one hour weekly lesson. The final one took place in my studio, which is where we started about 12 years ago when she was a wee fourth grader. I made an exception to my usual 6th grade minimum age requirement because she was an exceptional child and private lessons meant much more help and attention.
Here’s a drawing she did in about 5th grade.
Here is the drawing she just completed.
She has become an exceptional adult. To quote another one of my drawing students who has known her through the years, “She’s all that AND a bag of chips!”
Protecting identity, because this IS the World Wide Web.
Central Calif. Artist Work
This is a commissioned pencil drawing I finished in July. I haven’t posted it because I didn’t know if the intended recipient reads my blog. (If you recognize yourself, please pretend to be surprised when you receive the drawing!)
Cats in the house
HEY! WHY DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WEASEL YOUR WAY INTO OUR HOUSE??
Five of these pencil drawings sold at my solo show in Tulare, “Around Here (and Sometimes a Little Farther)”. The others were pencil commissions, which I showed you with all the slow developments in painstaking detail.
I almost didn’t include this one in the show because I forgot. I may have forgotten subconsciously on purpose, due to my inordinate love of ocean scenes.
I drew this one specifically for the show, and although sales are thrilling, I was sort of hoping to keep it. (What kind of a business person am I with this attitude?)
This is too big for my scanner, so the photograph isn’t the quality of those shown above. HOWEVER, the drawing was quite excellent, if I do say so myself, which I just did say.
Same disclaimer on quality as above.
I love pencil. Did you know that?
Thus we conclude another post about the business of art, because. . .
Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that you can understand of places and things you love for prices that won’t scare you.
These “Sold” posts are mostly to reassure myself that I’m not just drawing and painting for the fun of it. They serve a secondary purpose in reminding my tens of readers that I accept commissions (lest you think I am a prima donna who only creates what I “feel like” creating) and that I do sell my work (lest you think I just prefer to cover my walls with my own art.)
I distorted the proportions of West Florence and Vandever in this painting. I hope someone from far away bought it so that they don’t notice my “artistic license”.
Most of these sold at the Silver City Store, four miles below Mineral King. The sequoia paintings mostly sold at both of the stores which sell for me in Three Rivers (Kaweah Arts and Stem & Stone). One sequoia painting was a commissioned piece for a long time friend and customer, and another was to some new friends/customers.
If it weren’t for all those folks passing through town on their way to Sequoia National Park, I’d be sure that only my friends and relatives buy from me. It is thrilling when a stranger likes my art enough to part with their hard-earned pieces of green paper with dead presidents’ faces on them.
Tomorrow I’ll show you all the pencil drawings that sold. You’ve seen most of them already, so it will be reruns for you.
The plan was to finish the 10×30” commissioned oil painting of the two redwood trees. When I set up in the painting workshop, it looked too hard and too big and too daunting. So I indulged in some productive procrastination, opting instead to finish the plein air painting of the pumpkin field.
This meant that I added a few blossoms, detailed some foreground leaves, and signed the painting. Since it is too wet to scan, here is the photograph, which include shiny spots.
No, no, no, REALLY, it looks so much better in person! And it might be a bad idea to title it “Pumpkin Patch” since no pumpkins are visible. Besides, Mrs. Texas and I thought it was a field of summer squash for a few months.
Never mind. Let’s return to our twin redwoods, Sequoia Sisters, Sequoia Siblings, Aunt Tillie & Uncle Pete, Two Sisters. The last title is the real one, because my boss chose it. Who is my boss? Mrs. Customer, of course!
The upper mid section of greenery and trunk was lacking in detail. Mrs. Customer also requested to see some flowing water into the trough, along with a few wildflowers.
The water really flummoxed me because it flows in a little ravine, not right at the surface where it is visible. So, on the way up the hill recently, the idea of a waterfall came to me. On the way down the hill, we did a drive-by shooting of the waterfall. I’ve circled it and messed with the contrast so you can get an idea of what I am working with.
First, I had to paint out the fake-looking stream that I put down in order to force myself to address the issue. Buh-bye, little fake stream. You can see that there are boulders indicating a stream flowing into the trough. However, there isn’t room for a believable waterfall.
Oops, too small to see. Here is a close-up of the bottom left corner.
Allrighty then, let the water fall, and let the lupine bloom!
Will Mrs. Customer approve? (I signed it anyway. . . always hoping for the best.)
Why two photos of the (hopefully) finished commissioned oil painting? Because I photographed one with my inferior phone camera and one with my little Canon Elph, which probably is also inferior compared to most people’s phones. This will be an enormous challenge to photograph. When it is dry, I’ll tackle that aspect of the job. Or, more accurately, after Mrs. Customer is pleased and it is dry, then I will take on that challenge.
P.S. I like this painting a lot. Thank you, Mrs. Customer for commissioning a subject that I’ve never done for some odd reason!
The weekend began with a surprise visit by a childhood friend. I knew she might be coming in the fall, but so many people tell me their potential visit dates that I don’t even try to keep track. That meant it was a wonderful surprise, and I got to spend an hour or so with her and her offspring. Since this is the World Wide Web, and because I want to experience and value life even when it isn’t documented and publicized, I took no photos (except for asking her daughter to take one of us together, which I HOPE her mom will send to me!)
The road construction continues. We waited just below Wolverton Point for about 45 minutes for the 10 o’clock pilot car shuttle which we followed to Silver City. SEE THE NEW SCHEDULE BELOW.
A neighboring cabin had 8-10 hazard trees threatening their place. We went snooping, and all is safe now (but the cabin is exposed), and there is a boatload of downed wood, a real mess. Here is how part of it looked as drawn for The Cabins of Mineral King and how it looks now in real life.
It rained several times and was overcast. We did not hike. People who live in Mineral King just hang out sometimes. Instead of being on vacation, we are simply experiencing cabin life.
We thoroughly enjoyed the warmth from the wood stove, trying but not succeeding to keep a fire going all day. That stove wants feeding fairly often. I would have split more wood, but we kept covering the woodstack due to the rain.
We walked to the pack station and found an enormous tarp all wadded up, and the stock was gone. Couldn’t just waste that tarp, because chances are we paid for it with our tax dollars. So we folded it up and then put it in the storage container.
I saw this trimmed mule hoof on the ground, and the snow stake is now installed for viewing on the winter webcam.
Berries are ripe in the fall. Don’t eat the white ones. Trail Guy loves the red ones, Wax Currant.
There is a specific type of mistletoe which grows in red fir trees. It is weird stuff.
Look at these two huge chunks of the red fir that got dropped a few weeks ago. They got randomly placed in our neighborhood after being moved from the road. One has a thing attached that had something to do with phone lines. I didn’t photograph the messes from the dropped trees, but know I will be dragging brush and sawing limbs for a long time coming.
Now, the funnest of the fun things: I FINALLY* met Kevin Alltucker, author of The Mules of Mineral King, a book that I told you about back in August. He graciously accepted a gift of my Wilsonia book, and then his brother said that he (the brother) is one of my tens of blog readers. This gave me the idea to do this dorky photo (me dorky-looking, clearly too thrilled to think about posing better or controlling my grin) and remind you all who like Mineral King to BUY THE BOOK! It is so well-written. It was also fun to talk about the logistics of writing, publishing and (not) marketing one’s own books with a fellow self-published author.
The Mules of Mineral King is available through Riverfeet Press, (also at that big online store which begins with A and takes a large bite out of an author’s profits.)
Amazon is changing its terms. Now, if you want Prime, you cannot hitchhike on your sister’s account or your mom’s or your daughter’s or. . . but we are going to wait and see if this actually happens, because Amazon didn’t publicize the change. I heard it through the grapevine (Remember that song? The full-length version was 11 minutes.)
2. AT&T is so awful. I have known this for a long time, but it got driven home again when I got a letter from a collection agency saying I owe $666 for a phone number that they NEVER activated, I NEVER had or used (because how can you use something you don’t have?), and they NEVER billed me for it. I’ve wasted so much time on the phone and writing letters, and wasted money sending the letters in a manner that the collection agency cannot lie about receiving them.
3. Seeing the Supernaturalby Lee Strobel is so fascinating and weirdly believable. The premise is that there is an unseen world that DOES exist and there are countless stories which are corroborated by evidence. It’s not about UFOs; it is about real miracles, dreams, angels, deathbed wishes, and near-death experiences.
4. Check out these pumpkinharvest photos: it’s like a grown-up Easter egg hunt. (I wonder if my painting needs revision again.)
5. Tony’s Taverna in Three Riversis finally open!! It took four years to go from buying an old building to making a fabulous Greek restaurant. The food is so good that I wanted to lick the plate, but I found a little restraint and was able to maintain dignity.
6. Through an online friend I’ve never met (Hi WilliamB!), I learned about an organization called Foster Care to Success, which helps kids who have aged out of foster care. They have an annual red scarf project, which caused me to immediately abandon my severe ongoing yarn diet and order enough yarn to knit 2 scarves.
I know it’s not red. This was painted for a friend whose favorite color is orange.
This month’s list is long, many thoughts, few photos. Settle in, and enjoy!
Food
1.Intermittent fasting for three months did not work to remove me from the category of pre-diabetes. I am discouraged, disappointed, disgusted. Dis, dis, dis. Maybe it is time to accept the reality. I hear over and over that “EVERYONE” is prediabetic, but that does not reassure me. I pursue removal from that category just in case it is the cause of peripheral neuropathy, as the neurologist is so confident about this.
2. When I was with Mrs. Texas, she did something so funny that I want to share it with you. Whenever we were eating something really extra good, she held up her hands, palms out, and said in a commanding voice, “NO TALKING.” (She said when you talk, you can’t taste things as well.)
On one occasion we decided to get ice cream. We stood there awhile, deciphering and considering the flavors, and then Mrs. Texas pointed to the price for small size dish with a single scoop—$6.75. EXCUSE ME?? Nope. We left without ice cream.
Still wanting a treat, we went to Starbuck’s because I had such curiosity about pumpkin spice lattes. I ordered a 12 oz. requesting only 2 pumps of the glorious flavored substance instead of the normal 3 pumps (the employee explained it to me—I didn’t know this from experience). Holy guacamole—I had to take it back to the house and dilute it with black coffee because it made my teeth hum. HOLY GUACAMOLE — it was $6.25!
No wonder I don’t go out to eat much. (at all)
3.Serious Eats is an interesting website with tips and information about food—articles about letting meat rest, how to really clean your kitchen sponge, never cry while cutting onions. . . and that was just the first time I went exploring on the site. (Already forgot most of what I read.)
4. Some friends said they like to drizzle olive oil and then sprinkle a little salt on vanilla ice cream. At first it sounds like ice cream abuse, but they said it was delicious.
Someone seems obsessed by food in this month’s learning. Is this a result of intermittent fasting??
Work
5. Sold five pencil drawings and no oils. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?? I learned that I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to reading my customer base or understanding my market.
Since I didn’t sell any oil paintings, I will stop painting just for the fun of painting any particular subjects. Instead, I will accept commissions and paint sequoia trees or other subjects that stores sell for me.
Fun to learn
6. I finally toured the Point Pinos Lighthouse. (It ought to be Piños, but no one bothers with the tilde.) I learned so much about that lighthouse and lighthouses in general.
The late theologian and pastor Tim Keller once wrote that anger is energy spent defending what you love.. . .The next time you experience a bout of anger, be thankful that your brain has given you such a useful barometer into the things that you love. Take the opportunity to reflect on what makes you angry and whether those things accurately reflect the values you claim to treasure most. If not, it may be that the culture you live in has shaped you more than you realize, and that your loves have become misaligned.”
8.Getting older means loss. In the last year, I have sold my tennis racquet and my canoe, and this week I gave away my cross country skis. Tryna be realistic about my shrinking abilities to do stuff. The combination of a wrist problem and a foot problem have squeezed my limited activities even further. Never a fan of any sportsball*, the few activities I participated in didn’t require a great deal of athleticism. In actuality, I hadn’t used any of my gear for a long time. It just took awhile to face and accept this, and then figure out what to do with my unused stuff.
Maybe I should just join Pippin in the window, observing the outside world.
Wait a doggone minute here—why is that outdoor cat inside the house? Because Trail Guy is a pushover for this cat.
9. Clearly I need to face truth about my health, activity, business, and age. This wisdom is from M. Scott Peck. (When people use a first initial, does this mean they wish to be addressed by that initial? If not, then why even put it there?)
Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled)
