Christmas Ornament Story, Chapter Four

The crowd shuffled back down the hall when the party was over. The conversations were so much fun. I heard people going on about the bathrooms (“Fine facilities!” in a very Southern accent), talking about how many paper napkins with the White House emblem that they stuffed in their purses, and the cameras never stopped snapping. (This was in the olden days before phones became cameras.)

We were very reluctant to leave, as were most of the guests. It was all such a beautiful fantasy, and  it was hard to believe it was over so quickly.  While I changed from my vindictive and useless high heels to a pair of walking shoes, Michael made friends with Jeff, a Secret Service guy.

He showed him the photos of meeting the President in Sequoia in 2001 and referred to him as “Dubya”. I said, horrified,  “Michael! They probably don’t call him that here!!” Jeff said, “Actually, we call him Forty-three”.

There are many layers of security around the White House, several different fences and gates to pass through before emerging onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

I may have stood on a bench for this one. (It was safe – my high heels were in my oh-so-dorky-with-dress-up-clothes-backpack). There was a fence separating us from the White House and another one separating us from outside the White House.  Our next mission was to locate a Metro Station and figure out how to get back to Alexandria, where we had a 19 block walk back to Janey’s (the reason I brought normal shoes).

Here is the magical little item that gave me this unforgettable adventure.

It is interesting to note that no where are the artists mentioned when the ornaments are shown, only the National Parks that we represented. (That website is gone now.) We were instructed to not use our designs commercially – no reproductions, no advertising saying “as designed for the White House”. I have been asked many times why I haven’t made more ornaments, and that is the main reason. If that agreement wasn’t part of the deal, perhaps I might have done so, but to paint the same little fussy object over and over probably would have lost its appeal.

However, last year someone asked for one, so I painted 3 more, sold 2 and have one small one remaining. I took a chance that the statute of limitations would have expired after 10 years. So far no one has come to get me in the middle of the night, but this is the first time I’ve put this on the World Wide Web. (If my blog goes silent, will someone please contact the Secret Service?)

My official White House photos, along with the 3 new ornaments. (The one on the far right is available for $75.)

Christmas Ornament Story, Chapter Three

Fancy and happy and a little overwhelmed

About getting “gussied up”. . . I faxed the White House a second time to ask about the dress code. Here in Tulare County, “dressed up” means that I iron a polo shirt for Michael to wear with decent jeans. “Formal” means his best Wranglers, boots, and a “sport” jacket. (“Sport?” What, is he going to play basketball??) Really really formal means a tie with the formal ensemble. The White House returned my fax with a phone call, and I was told in no uncertain terms that “No denim is allowed on the compound”.  This meant a major shopping expedition for Michael. Me? I found a $3 blue velveteen jacket at the local thrift shop, and since I have enough clothing for a small island nation of semi-shortish women who wear their skirts too long, this was adequate.

We arrived in style at the White House, and joined the queue to be officially identified as invited guests. Everyone was excited, dressed up, and friendly. When we finally got inside the White House, we began the shuffle down a long hall. Everything was interesting, everyone was nice, every moment was memorable and thrilling. There were 2 men at the reception wearing blue jeans. Michael asked one of them how he got away with that, and the guy said ,”I don’t dress up for nobody”. Apparently he doesn’t bother with proper English either.

The reception was in the East Room.

Outstanding food, and incredible to be there in every way. Here is the podium where Laura Bush spoke. We were too short and too far back in the crowd to see her. (I was wearing my highest heels, to no avail other than possibly doing permanent damage to my feet.)

The tree in The Blue Room was 18′ tall, and my ornament was placed in The Most Perfect Spot Imaginable. It doesn’t show in this blurry photo but appeared in a video of Mrs. Bush with her dogs.

Here is the view from the Blue Room where we were all standing around in shock and awe:

We handed the camera to a stranger to pose in The Red Room (this was in the Pre-selfie Era), and suddenly, the carriages turned to pumpkins. Everywhere we looked, a uniformed guard was saying, “This way please”. That had to have been the quickest 2 hours of my life! 

To be concluded on December 26, AKA Boxing Day. . .

Christmas Ornament Story, Chapter Two

Once we knew the date of the White House reception, I began making plans. We have very good friends in Pennsylvania who invited us to stay with them AND, get this, loaned us a car! So we flew into Harrisburg, which has rocking chairs in its airport. (Now that is a bit more common than in 2007.)

Here is how it looks around our friends’ neighborhood: 

After recovering from a red-eye flight (Note to self:  NEVER do that again), we drove to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia to the home of our friend/cabin neighbor/partner in The Cabins of Mineral King, Janey. The drive was so interesting to us. Just seeing signs along the freeway that mentioned Civil War battlegrounds was fascinating to these West-coasters. And the colors – this photo was taken at a rest stop.

I knew I would love Janey’s town from years of hearing about it. (Please excuse the car in the way – parking is at such a premium in her neighborhood that we had to have a permit for our borrowed car and she had to negotiate with a construction crew for a place to put the car.) These homes were built in the late 1700s, and I was instantly in love with the whole place.

We got all gussied up, and Janey drove us to the White House.  Tune in next week. . .

Christmas Ornament Story, Chapter One

I’ve told this story before, but hope I have new readers since that original telling. Here goes. . .

In August of 2007, I was asked to paint an ornament for the White House Christmas tree, representing Sequoia National Park. My first thought was to moan, “Not another freebie”. An invitation to a White House reception would come with the ornament, and I thought, “So? That’ll be expensive”. A friend said I would be nuts to turn this opportunity down, and then Michael said he’d be happy to come to the White House with me. So, I began painting. (You can see that my painting skills have developed since then, but just be polite, okay?)

At the time the call came, I was working on a painting of Sequoia trees in the snow.  I got a few little ornaments and tried the same design on one in acrylic paint, but it dried way too fast. I tried oil paint on another, and that was better.

Eventually, a large shiny gold ornament arrived. It looked like glass, and I was afraid of dropping it. I put layer after layer of white paint on it, carefully handling it as if would break, because if that happened, what would I do?? During one of these layers, my thumb dented the thing a little bit and I realized it was plastic! That eased a bit of worry. When it was finished, my neighbor took photos of me holding it so that the size would be evident.

(This was pre-bangs and pre-gray hair too. Remember to be polite.)

You can see this is no ordinary ornament – it was very big, which made it much easier to paint than my little practice ones.

There was a little difficulty about the reception because no date was given, and various reservations needed to be made. We painters were given a fax number to send any questions, so I faxed a note asking the reception date and how tight the deadline for mailing the ornament was. As I was frantically trying to program in the fax number so a response could be received by my fax machine, the phone rang. “Cabinart, this is Jana”, I answered. “This is Bob at The White House”, came the response. “Hi Bob,” said I, ever so casually. To be continued. . .

Starting and Ending

I started a new citrus painting, much like a recent one (that is still too wet to photograph well.)

Really, it is different from the other one. . . see?

Almost finished. needs a couple more layers on some of the do-over parts.

Citrus sells steadily in Exeter at the Mural Gallery, so it is good to always have another one ready to go.

Finished and delivered this one: SHHHH, IT IS A SURPRISE! And yes, I know the scene is cobbled together from places that aren’t together in real life.

 

Secret Painting Class, Day Two

The poinsettia as an oil painting subject was challenging. One of my students requested that I demonstrate rather than just explain. That was a big “duh” moment for me. I should have thought of that myself!

I’ve been in workshops before where it seemed as if the demonstration was a waste of time. This is because the demonstrator/teacher/artist didn’t say why he was doing each thing. He would forget to explain, so I’d watch with no idea of how to make my own decisions. I did my best to explain how I mixed each color and why I added how much of which primary or white.

My demo painting is lying on the table on the left, with just a corner painted. It was enough help for this painter to approach her painting with more confidence than the previous session.
Good progress made, color mixing learned, shapes refined, blending techniques successfully used.

 

The color got corrected on 2 petals to a more satisfactory match to the photo. Matching the photo wasn’t necessary for believability, but it is great practice.
Great progress made on this one – petal shapes refined, color mixing and blending learned a bit more.
This one is closest to being finished, but knowing the painter, she’ll probably want to keep layering and perfecting. (She is the most experienced painter in the group and a quick study.) It looks a little pale because it is wet and shiny.

Maybe next year we’ll just finish all the incomplete paintings from previous years’ workshops.

 

 

 

 

Secret Painting Class

Sometimes, in spite of feeling highly unqualified, I show a few of my drawing students what I know about oil painting. I’ve been oil painting since March 8, 2006, and yet I feel green as grass.

But, they want to learn and practice, and I want to share what I know.

This year they all worked on a poinsettia. I provided a stack of different photos, and every participant chose the same photo. What??

The flower shape was a bit confounding, although mostly forgivable. After all, who cares exactly how many petals (which are actually leaves, but who cares about that either?) are on a poinsettia?

I thought this would be an easy-ish subject because we worked mostly in shades of red. Because, who cares if the color is exactly the same as the photo or if it is a red that the painter finds more pleasing?

Nothing is easy when you are new to painting (or drawing or knitting or driving or playing golf or playing a flute . . .)

Wow. That session went quickly. Tune in tomorrow to see the process and the results of day 2.

Going to a Weird Place

Ever been to Death Valley? It is a weird weird place. I’ll just show you the photos from our recent excursion. Long post, so get comfortable.

The human element interests me, or “cultural history” as the National Parks refer to it. These wagons hauled borax a long distance away, which some very hardy (or weird) folks mined for about 5 years in the 1880s. It wasn’t profitable.
Always looking for things to draw.
“Artist’s Palette” along Artist’s Drive: how it looked on a gray day.
Yup. It rained.
How it looks in the picture books (I used some cheater setting on my camera).
Golden Canyon, really just another shade of brown. The dark spot is Trail Guy.
Red Cathedral looks reddish in the distance, but faded to another shade of brown when we got close.
Does it look redder in the distance? Maybe. The contrast is nice.
Weird. This is a fancy-pants oasis with GREEN LAWN!!
On a sunny day we followed a road (on foot) up past the place where we stayed. We were told there was a spring up there.
Weird. These are dead palm trees, not a tipi. They are non-native, so are frowned upon by the Park.
LOOK! Cactus and a cabin!
The spring area had lots of growing things, including goldenrod, just like in Mineral King. Weird.
When there is water on the soil in Death Valley, it brings up borax. It made for nice spongy footing. Just another weird feature of DV.

 

What? Was the old cabin owner a baker??
His kitchen still looks like this.
Little scraps of life. . . why are they still here? Why are they all broken? Weird.
I was entranced by the massive tamarisk trees on the side of his cabin. These are native to Israel and frowned upon in DV. It was thrilling to see trees, just thrilling! (Or was it the shade that was thrilling?)
The little structure on the side isn’t a doghouse. Maybe he killed big horn sheep and hung the meat in that semi-underground shed.
Desert Holly was a common sight.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE. . .

Nice light in the late afternoon. Makes the browns look more golden.
A view across the valley to the Panamint Range, which got snow when we got rain.
Trail Guy is doing his thing, checking out the view with the binoculars.
Weird rock thing.
Another weird rock thing.
Apparently, what looks weird to me is common in DV.
I love historic structures, particularly stone ones.
Let’s go home. This place makes me hot and thirsty. (And please admire the way the pick-’em-up truck blends in. . . the color is “Desert Gold”.)

Death Valley is the largest National Park in the lower 48 states and includes 7 (SEVEN!) mountain ranges. It is the hottest place on earth and gets maybe 2″ of rain a year. Although it is straight across the mountains from us, it takes more than 6 hours to get there. Everything in the desert seems to be designed to hurt or kill you – heat, lack of water, water that contains tremendous salinity or even arsenic, thorns on everything that grows. Oh, and scorpions too. The folks who choose to live and work there are warriors, soldiers, and unusually tough people. I am not one of them, but our good friend is, so we went to visit her. I’m glad we did, and glad we got to come home.

Another Fun Day at the Easels

I took three photos of these paintings so you could see the improvement, or was it so I could have something to say on the blog today?

The former. I always have something to say. (Have you noticed this?)

There was a problem on the far left. Sometimes this happens when I just blindly copy my photos. See how those 2 oranges merge into a somewhat visually confusing lump? After studying it for a weekend while it dried above the wood stove, I figured out how to repair it.
Decision made – change this into one large orange. And while repairing things, I straightened the line of the table. Used a yardstick – is it cheating to use tools in the Art World? Not in my little art world.
Almost finished. needs a couple more layers on some of the do-over parts, a signature, and a much better photograph.
I thought this would take much longer, but these colors are fun and there is a real freedom in painting what I choose instead of what might sell. Not complaining about the business of art, just enjoying some yippee-skippee time at the easels with these happy colors.
The colors are truer when I photograph it outside.
This might be finished. It is now signed, but while it is drying, I might find aspects that could be improved.

And since I am outside, let us enjoy the yellow leaves. I am so thankful we didn’t follow through on our first impulse when we moved here 20 years ago to get rid of the mulberry tree with its ugly knobby over-pruned knuckles. Instead, on the advice of the very experienced Gene Castro’s Tree Service of Three Rivers, (not a paid ad, just a statement of fact) we allowed the tree to gradually grow a large enough trunk to support its limbs through some judicious pruning.

It is the purview of the middle-aged to think that walks and leaves are great. (Don’t worry Little Grasshopper, one day you too will be able to enjoy these lovely and healthful freebies in life and be able to correctly use words like “purview”.)