The reason for some of my apparently pointless posts is simply this: beauty heals. One of my favorite writers* says it this way: “beauty contains within it the promise of restoration.”.
P.S. Humor and unexpected good things do a great deal for us too.
*John Eldredge
Recently, I noticed red things in my yard. Maybe that is just what artists do. That’s what this one does.
I could have titled this “Mural, Day Thirteen” because I am not superstitious; however what if someone reading my blog is superstitious? Where in the world did that fear of #13 originate? Never mind, we have a mural to see.
After staring at this photo for awhile, I made a list of things to fix.
My plan was to go in the morning for the bright sunlight so that I could really see details. The parts I wanted to fix were small enough that the direct sun drying paint too quickly was only going to be a nuisance rather than a hindrance.
Alas, I was trapped at home for 3 hours. Southern California Edison is very proactive about replacing wobbly poles and cutting interfering trees.
I still made it to St. Anthony’s with bright sunshine on the wall. 
An employee was present and asked me what was left to do. It was a good chance to articulate the parts that were not quite right and to cement the idea that they needed a bit of polishing. He was surprised by all my criticisms, and we had a good conversation in which he told me about a book titled “Beauty Will Save the World”. He said that the premise of the book is that people want to get rich in order to protect themselves from ugliness! That was an entirely new concept to me, and it certainly makes sense.
Working all over the mural meant lots of ladder moving and climbing.
A partial list of what needed to be fixed: more branches above, 2 trees were too narrow at the top, one of the big trees was lacking in texture and was too red, more ferns at the base, and many more things too boring to burden you with.
The shade moved quickly, and it went from tee shirt weather to jacket time in very short order.
Most of the changes are too small to see in this format and probably could have been skipped, but that’s not the way I work.
You can see that the too-red tree is calmed down and has more texture now, but I will need to return to photograph it in bright sunlight.
I lay on the ground to sign, and as careful as I tried to be, my brush bounced all over the stucco. Thanks to my friend Jon, I was spared writing “www” before my web address. He recently taught me that “www is so last year”. I depend on my friends to haul me forward on those important trends.
Thank you for following along with my sequoia mural at St. Anthony’s Retreat (Santa Teresita Youth Center) in Three Rivers. No new murals are planned at this time, but I am always interested because:
I thought I would be able to finish the mural yesterday. Instead, I held back a little, with the intention of spending time today really studying it, making the little improvements that make me proud to put my name on the mural. I am more motivated to finish things than to perfect them, so this is a matter of professional discipline.
It has been a few weeks since I was at the mural and there are quite a few leaves on the ground. Doesn’t matter – just an observation. This photo was taken with a phone rather than a camera.
I wonder why the camera’s pictures are more dull than the phone.
I stood there a bit, studying the mural, trying to remember what I had planned to do next.
That’s right – too much empty sky.
Over the archway too – too empty.
Better.
This is how it looked at the end of the painting session yesterday. I will study this photo and make some notes to take with me today.
This cabin burned. I don’t know where it was or who owned it. The customer provided the photo and requested the drawing as a gift for the cabin owner. I haven’t heard the outcome. I feel fairly confident that the cabin owner won’t know about me or my blog.
Someone I have never met contacted me to draw a house I’ve never seen. When I received the photo, I marked it with colored circles, and sent an email asking for closer photos or descriptions of what each circle contained.
The customer was very responsive, and sent helpful photos of each area. This was on a tight deadline, and silly me, I forgot to mention the rush charge. I also didn’t save the detail photos of each area of mystery, because space on my laptop is limited.
You can see that the photo was taken with a phone, using the built-in wide-angle lens. This distorts things – the verticals aren’t vertical, and distant things look farther away while closer things appear too big.
Time was fleeing quickly, so I just dove in. Often if I draw the parts I can see and understand, then the other parts aren’t so daunting and can be faked somewhat.
Thanks to great communication with the customer, I was able to finish the drawing well ahead of the requested date and also get good instructions about the parts that the original photo didn’t explain.
P.S. I love to draw!
A dear friend of mine and I were together a few weeks ago, eating something, and there were some really pretty napkins on the table. We both said, “Wow, that is so pretty”, or something to that effect. She is a jokester, someone with a sense of humor that makes me laugh at the dumbest things. She popped off with, “You can paint that for me!” That is an outrageous thing to say, and it made me laugh.
So, I did, knowing my equally impulsive and outrageous response would make her laugh.
Copyright law says that if the original artist can recognize her work, it doesn’t matter if you change it 10% (that used to be a common but wrong myth).
My excuses are: 1. I changed the scene some; 2. The artist’s name is not on the paper napkin; 3. I am not profiting from it.
Excuses made. I started on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the dining room table, tickled about how surprised my friend would be.
Then I had real jobs to do, custom art with deadlines to meet, so it just went into the Later Pile for awhile. After I finished those jobs with the tight deadlines, I wanted some more fun. Working with these bright colors qualifies as fun in my little world.
The fruits on the napkin are grocery store food; around here in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, California’s Flyover Country where no one knows about us and no one cares, WE FEED THE WORLD! We have pomegranates, persimmons, stone fruit (my friend’s favorite are plums), and of course citrus. 
I worked from my own fruits, both real and photos, of which I have a huge stack from when little canvases of fruits sold steadily at those boutiques and festivals.
Here it is freshly finished, drying on the wall in the painting workshop. I like mine better than the one on the napkin.
I don’t know if I should even sign this. Is a fruit basket generic and universal enough, along with my tighter and brighter style, that this can qualify as my art?? Did I break the law? Would the original artist care? Do I care when people do this to my work?
Too many questions.
My friend is thrilled with her new painting, and I am too.
After Christmas I will show you all the commissions that have to remain a secret until the gifts have been given from my customers to their people.
Having met the tight deadlines of all the custom art, I returned to the paintings without deadlines. Remember the house painting?
So hard. So very hard. The photos. Yikes. (Would I like some cheese with that whine? perhaps – what have you got?)
Okay, put on your big girl breeches and git ‘er dun.
I sent this photo to the customer to tell her this is the best I can dig out of the photos and when it dries a bit, I’ll tighten up some of the detail.
She said, “Perfect!” (really??) and sent me this photo:
Umm, what?
There is a basket of fuschias hanging behind the people. I told her that I can’t tell where this is, and she answered, “The porch”. I said where on the porch? She sent me this and said, “Where I put the white spots”.
I enjoy communicating with my customers in a variety of creative ways. Really makes me smile!
When it dries, I’ll add the fuschia baskets and tighten up what detail I can see. I think the floor of the porch is brick rather than concrete, so that will need to be changed. There was a tree in the front lawn, but it would hide the gable end if I added it. I’ll make better leaves on the front shrub, brighten the grass, make the porch pillars better, and the window frames too.
I wish she had asked for a pencil drawing.
So, I worked on something fun in order to take the edge off. I’ll show you tomorrow.
Just in case you want something new to add to your gift baskets, stockings, or to encourage yourself to write notes to people, here are some cards that you may have seen as original art, but not as cards. They are available from my website, by putting a check in the mail, by emailing me for further instructions, or perhaps if we run into each other at the Post Office (unless I can’t recognize or understand you because you are wearing a mask).
Clicking on the name beneath each card picture will take you to the appropriate page of my website.
