Building a Coloring Book Cover, Part 2

After thinking over the title Heart of Rural Tulare County, I wasn’t satisfied.

I looked at the original coloring book, Heart of the Hills, and realized that this one needed to be Heart of the County.

That’s the ticket! My Shadow Consultant agreed, after suggesting a couple of tiny adjustments.

The idea to do this came quickly, and the retail places that sell my work want it in time for Christmas. That’s why most of the drawings are gleaned from the previous coloring books, compiling them into a broad portrait of the county’s rural places. I thought you might need to know that. It is sort of like buying a “Best of” album from your favorite music group, and then you either say, “Oh I love this song” or “Wait, I already have this”. 

Like all the previous coloring books, each page has a tiny hidden heart. 

The coloring book is $20 and is available here on my website. 

Upcoming Solo Art Show:

Images of Home

Exeter Courthouse Gallery

November 14 – December 30, 2021

Opening Reception – Sunday, November 14, 1-4 p.m.

 

Building a Coloring Book Cover

The reasons for choosing this drawing for the cover of my new coloring book of rural Tulare County were because it is representational of the subject matter, appealing, and has enough blank space for words.

I looked at the previous coloring books and did a draft for the cover. These things don’t fall into place for me in one shot – I have to think things over, and usually send them to my Shadow Consultant in Bellingham who has a great eye for design. Ooh, weird, there’s that single “eye” again, just like when something “catches your eye”.

Good enough to know that things will fit here. I got out my colored pencils, put on a good podcast, and dove in.

When you are listening to something good, even simple mundane tasks like coloring go quickly. I think it was Mike Rowe’s podcast. Great vocabulary, intriguing stories, nice voice, excellent sense of humor.

UPCOMING SOLO SHOW:

Images of Home

Exeter Courthouse Gallery

November 14 – December 30, 2021

Opening Reception – Sunday, November 14, 2-4 p.m.

Building a Coloring Book Page, Part 3

We last saw this drawing at this stage of erasing the gray background. I think it scans gray because the paper is a little bit thin, and also because that’s just the way the scanner sees things. If I lighten the background while scanning, the lines also get lighter.

After the background gray is erased, and the overlapping and gapping lines fixed, I add a border.

This is appealing (not up on blocks!), representative of rural Tulare County (yeppers, that’s the reality of any non-gentrified rural area), and has enough white space that it will be the cover of the coloring book, in addition to being an interior page.

Next step: get it printed on white paper with some substance to it at a print shop so that I can color it.

You can preorder the coloring book here: Heart of the County.

Would you believe that I love to draw, but coloring feels like a silly waste of time. It took a bit of self-talk to convince myself that this is part of my job. 

UPCOMING SHOW:

Images of Home

Exeter Courthouse Gallery

November 14 – December 30, 2021

Opening Reception – Sunday, November 14, 2-4 p.m.

10 Things I Learned in October

  1. Ever heard of a car called the MR2 Spyder? I hadn’t. It was made by Toyota from 1984-2007 (2005 in the US)– how did I miss this? (Oh that’s right – I drive Hondas) MR2 comes from mid-engine (in the rear like a VW), rear wheel drive, 2 door or “Midship Runabout 2-seater”. It is considered one of the most dangerous cars in the world, for reasons that I read here but didn’t understand. Who cares? I do, because one of my former drawing students just bought one of these hot-looking little sports cars.
  2. Fire teams travel with a copy trailer; that’s how they get those giant maps printed every single day for reporting to the public.
  3. Libby is an app available through the library- I tried this so I could read from the phone. While it works, not many books on my To-Be-Read list are available in this format and even fewer as audio books, and I prefer real books made out of paper. I resorted to this because the library in Three Rivers closed again, this time because of smoke.
  4. There is an exodus from California, more than 182,000 leaving in 2020. I have lost drawing students to Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, and Wisconsin and know other folks who have gone to Texas, Idaho, and Arizona. This emigration (could it be called “right flight”?) has made it is very difficult to find moving companies or U-Haul vehicles.
  5. Air Quality Index is determined by people living in the area. There are monitors set around the community and the information is updated regularly, maybe even automatically. For example, in Three Rivers, there are 10 addresses listed; they get averaged together, and I can see the specific reading that is closest to my house.
  6. Firefighting is not all that it appears to be. This disturbing opinion piece by a longtime firefighter shows a side to our fires that some may have suspected, but had nothing to go on. Adversarial Front Line is an opinion piece published in an independent Truckee newspaper called Moonshine Ink.
  7. After a big wildfire followed by a rainstorm, the river turns black!
  8. Contentment is a beautiful state. A friend sent us a generous gift card as a thank you, which Trail Guy handed to me with the instructions to “Get something special”. I recently bought daffodil bulbs and some shrubs to plant (bug off, deer!) and some yarn (oh just hush up), and I truly want nothing.  (Well, I could use more time for gardening and knitting but money can’t buy that.)
  9. A good question to ask yourself if you are decluttering is: “Would I buy this again?” If the answer is no, GONE!
  10. A set of unusual circumstances gave me the opportunity to spend several evenings with some friends. While there, I learned that playing Jeopardy is fun, especially when you have a Pause button on your teevee. People have to know a ton to get on that show; a recent winning streak was about 35 games, with the guy seeming to know everything. Then suddenly he had an off night where he folded like a cheap card table. He couldn’t hear us shouting answers at him, and it was a mystery. My friends excel in popular music and in math; I did well in Ireland and Bible. We all were able to come up with surprising random answers, but it usually took us several minutes of discussing. I have no idea how the contestants can know so much and think so quickly, but I learned that Jeopardy can be fun.

 

Building a Coloring Book Page, Part 2

I left you hanging on by your fingernails, wondering how in the world this gray and black picture will become a useful page to color, with a bright white background and well-defined parts. Were you able to sleep for all the suspense?

Here you can see the piece in progress, with many of the big spaces erased.

Those small spaces are very time consuming. A cursor is not as good as a pencil, and sometimes things just go astray. The way I get precise on those tiny parts is by enlarging it beyond all rational belief.

Photoshop Elements is the program I am using; the specific tools are the magic wand, rubber stamp, and the eraser. (And UNDO, UNDO, UNDO!)

The next step is to add a border. Will you be able to sleep tonight as you eagerly await the next step?

 

Building a Coloring Book Page

It starts with an idea and moves to a picture to refer to when developing the idea.

This is a drawing that I did for Tucoemas, a Visalia based credit union, back in the last century. I was able to locate the photo that I originally worked from, but it was small and dark. I used to draw from 3-1/2 x 5″ snapshots!

Next, the picture becomes a pencil outline, and then it gets inked.

After inking, the pencil lines get erased, and it gets scanned.

See how the background of the drawing paper looks gray? That is the way it scans, so I have to erase all of that using Photoshop. I also have to repair all the lines that cross over as well as the ones that don’t quite reach their destinations.

And that’s not all. . . stay tuned!

For Your Shopping Convenience

Here is the new calendar again for your convenience. I don’t want to post the backside because Reader and Commenter Sharon doesn’t want to see any months in advance. If you want to see it, email me and I’ll send you the picture of the back. It is $15 including mailing and tax until November 1. Then it is $20 including mailing and tax. This is the link that works.

This is the new coloring book. It will be $20 and isn’t here yet. You may order it now if you don’t mind waiting until sometime after November 8 for me to ship it to you. Here is the link to the page where the book will be available.

Images of Home will be a solo show at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery, full of my oil paintings and pencil drawings. I will also bring calendars, coloring books, note cards, wildflower books, and Wilsonia books. The gallery hours are 12-4 on Saturday and Sunday. I will be there on Fridays to keep the place open, but don’t know what hours. The opening reception will be Sunday, November 14 from 2-4. I will continue to tell you about this until you want to unsubscribe or email with concerned notes about my repetitious blogging. The particulars about the show are here.

Finally, this is what I saw when I walked back to the house from the studio one evening last week.

Sure beats smoke, eh?

Some Days Are Too Busy For Painting

Each day I have a list of what I hope to do. It usually only includes projects to finish, and I forget about all the Other Stuff. On Friday, the Other Stuff was piled high and deep. 

  1. Look at the tree outside the studio and decide it was worth photographing.
  2. Send out an email newsletter announcing the upcoming coloring book, the early sale price for the calendar, and the upcoming show. Do you get the newsletter? You can sign up on my blog, just over there to the right. (This thing below is just a picture of how the subscribe dealie looks, not something that you can actually make work.)
  3. Put calendars in envelopes and address them to fill orders as they come in.
  4. Test the website link that my friend Jon so graciously let me know didn’t work.
  5. Write and send a new email newsletter with the corrected link.
  6. Contact the places that requested coloring books so I can know about how many to order.
  7. Finish designing the coloring book and order. (Thank you, CJBK, for all your design assistance!)
  8. Write a new biography and artist statement for the upcoming solo show, “Images of Home” and send it to the gallery director, after calling him to learn what format he needs. (Things are so complicated now that tech has simplified our lives.)
  9. Finalize the list of paintings and drawings to go in the show and send it.
  10. Gather photos of paintings and drawings to use for publicity for the show and send them.
  11. Remember to use Instagram to reestablish a presence there so I can use it to publicize the show.

Finally, it was time to paint, but the neighbor’s dog was barking so incessantly that I couldn’t think. She doesn’t answer emails or return phone calls, so I can only conclude that she doesn’t care. It is a perpetual nuisance.

So, how about a look at the tree outside my studio? It is my very own leaning tree, a flowering pear. It makes flowers in February, shade throughout the summer, and good color in October. My old cat Perkins who was with me for 17 years used to scratch against the tree, and my theory is that he caused it to lean.

Tomorrow I will share some specifics about all the items mentioned above (and hope the links work).

Friday List

Here a listicle for you because I spent all day staring at the computer and feel a little dull.

  1. Mineral King cabin owners are allowed to go up and finish the process of securing their cabins for the winter. 2 teams went in last weekend, warriors in a posse to rescue cabins from various elements. Now some of the owners will get to inspect, perfect and complete their work. (“Some” because many live far away or don’t feel the need to go up before the predicted storm.)
  2. The storm is predicted to be bigger than any we’ve had for 2 years.
  3. Precipitation doesn’t always put a fire out. Things smolder for many months.
  4. There were 10 things broken on my website, several of which were repaired, and several which remain a mystery. I think there might be 2 versions of my blog – one which allows commenting and one which does not; one which shows the heading in a normal way, and another which does not. This is way out of my limited experience to explain or fix. 
  5. After spending an entire day staring at the computer screen, the new coloring book might be finished. (Will be $20 each) Here is the cover:
  6. The details of my upcoming SOLO show at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery got nailed down.

Images of Home

Opening Reception: Sunday, November 14, 2-4 p.m.
Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery, 125 So. B Street
Gallery open: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 12-4
Show will tentatively hang through Christmas Eve
I will be there on Fridays!
 

 

Not Boring To Me

I spent a day at the easels. To anyone else, it would probably be boring. There wasn’t anything really photo worthy, but I took 2 at the end of the day so you could see that I made progress.

Here it is in a list:

  1. I put a final layer on the Hume Lake ornaments, but only on the lake side. The photos looked very terrible. I didn’t even send them to the customer, because they were so non-representative of how cool these little things will be.
  2. When I walked back to the house, there were EIGHT deer on and around my little front lawn. Yes, EIGHT. I didn’t have my camera in my pocket.
  3. I worked very diligently on the 11×14 “In The Orchard II”. When it is drier, I will add a wind machine, more oranges, and orange blossoms.
  4. It was an easy transition to keep making oranges and leaves on the giant painting that probably won’t go in my dining room.

Are you yawning yet? It really was a wonderful day! Thank you for sticking with me to the end.