A Sore Subject

A drawing student of mine recounted a conversation she had with an elderly artist from here in Tulare County. She told him she was taking oil painting lessons from someone in the area, and the old artist said, “That’s not creative – that’s just copying”.

Ow. That struck a nerve with me. What is or is not “CREATIVE”?

To be clear, it was not the words of my student that caused me to say, “Ow”. It is the subject matter that causes me insecurity and doubt. My drawing student is a lovely person; by reporting this interchange, she opened up an opportunity to discuss it and examine why it is a difficult topic.

I draw from photos, almost 100% my own, and way more often than I like, I have to combine photos to CREATE the scene I’m looking for.

I also teach people to draw, by COPYING photos.

How else can they learn to see?

How can you be CREATIVE with graphite if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, drive a pencil in a manner that it is an extension of your hand?

How can you be CREATIVE with oil paint if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, mix colors, or drive a paintbrush in a manner that is an extension of your hand?

How is it not CREATIVE to take a color photo (or several) and make a picture look beautiful and interesting in black and white and shades of gray?

Sorry, Elderly Artist. I think you are nice and usually a friendly man, you mean well, and you paint prolifically. Your work may be CREATIVE, but personally speaking (which is the only way I can speak),  I think your work is just weird.

So there.

Working from a photo isn’t creative? Working on a canvas of different proportions than the photo isn’t creative? Figuring out the arrangement, filling in the gaps, figuring out a new background–not creative? And turning this ugly beginning into something attractive isn’t creative?? It might not even work out to be worth the effort. . . an artistic adventure. . .

P.S. This topic is reminiscent of the ongoing conflict between studio artists and those who paint plein air. I imagine there is a similar situation between those who read music and those who play by ear. IT IS ALL VALID, PEOPLE, ALL OF IT!

Squishing a Meadow

How does one “squish a meadow”?

One layer at a time, with oil paint on canvas, a 6×18″ canvas to be specific. Canvases this size and shape have become popular; they seem to fit well into odd spaces for people. I can accommodate this.

This is how Crescent Meadow in Sequoia National Park looked about 2 weeks ago.

Crescent Meadow

The proportions are different in this photo than on a 6×18″ canvas. Can I squish this into a horizontal format? Can I stretch it out and remain believable? Sure. This is a forgiving subject, not an architectural exactitude where I have to artificially elongate things, maybe shorten the height and add a few windows. That would be neither forgiving nor believable.

This messy and sort of ugly beginning lets me know this will work.
Tucker doesn’t care, because there is something much more intriguing up the hill.
All this discussion about proportion, believability and elongating has put Scout to sleep.
Better sky (it is the farthest element), next grayish green on the trees that are farthest away.
Those distant grasses come next.
More trees, both near and far. 
Closer trees on the left.
Closer trees on the right, bright yellow ones last.

After this is dry, I will look at it with more critical eyes, add a few more details, decide if the colors are really correct, and then sign it.

And honestly, Dear Readers, my paintings look a ton better in person.

What is an Art Administrator?

Linda’s Barn, a new notecard, package of 4 for $8, available on my website.

I’m not sure what an art administrator is, but that is what I seem to be about once a week, or sometimes once every two weeks. Look at this list of tasks:

  1. Package up a painting to send, find the receipt book, see if a deposit was made, update the receipt, make a self-addressed stamped envelope, write a note, unseal the package, add the paper work, reseal the package.
  2. Do it all over again for another customer, then remember that the package can’t be sent until the replacement calendars arrive.
  3. Email someone who has wanted to get together to look over an old drawing for several months but is too busy. . . how about this week?
  4. Send a thank you note to a customer who provided a generous discount when I bought new tires from him recently.
  5. Change an invoice to a statement for a customer who overpaid me and then chose a painting rather than keep a large credit on file; write a thank you note to go with it.
  6. Contact the great guy who will be letting the Kaweah Artisans use his empty building for our annual Perfect Gift Boutique, coming soon on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.
  7. Gather the photos and prep a canvas for a new oil painting commission.
  8. Sort out a bank deposit – sold things using the Square, so how much was oil paintings, other merchandise, tax and Square’s fee; how much came in cash and how much of that was oil paintings, other merchandise, tax and drawing lessons; go through the same breakdown for any checks; find a check still in an envelope in another stack of stuff; redo the deposit slip.
  9. Add 3 new notecard designs to website.
  10. Dig deep into a box of orphaned cards to find any of a drawing I did in 1992, and then write a note and send the cards (YIPPEE SKIPPEE, I FOUND SOME!) to the nice lady who asked about the drawing.
  11. Go to the Post Office to learn the best way to package all the calendars that have to be resent.

What’s going on here?? I just want to be an artist!

Sorry, Toots. This is called the Business of Art, and today you are an administrator.

Oh yeah? Does this mean I can paint tomorrow? Promise?

No promises. You might be returning phone calls, scheduling things, prepping for the Perfect Gift Boutique, or responding to new inquiries via email.

Life as an artist certainly isn’t boring. . . always something to do, necessary, but not necessarily glamorous.

P.S. There might still be time for oil painting or pencil drawing commissions before Christmas, if they aren’t too big or too complicated! Use the Contact button or email me at cabinart at cabinart dot net.

Painting Chickens

I’m never quite sure what to do with these 2×2″ canvases. I thought I was ordering 6 but ordered 60 by accident. (This was quite a few years ago.) They are difficult to paint, and it doesn’t seem right to ask more than $20 apiece. Each canvas with an easel cost me about $3, and each one takes about 2 hours to complete. I probably could find a better paying job than this, but I’d have to put on real shoes and leave the house.

This was the first pass over the canvas. I wasn’t sure whether or not they were worth finishing, and I couldn’t find anyone to tell me the answer to this. Sometimes it might be nice to have a job with a boss to tell me what to do because then stupid decisions wouldn’t be my fault.

Now they are finished, except for signing. That is its own challenge on a canvas too small for a signature. (I sign the edges, and they have to dry first.)

Only the chicken in the middle remains at the time of this post – the other two have sold.

What is this unit?
Maybe you can tell here.
I bet you’ve figured it out by now.

I completed the first pass, waited a few days, and then revisited the painting with my tiniest brushes and strong magnifying glasses (the ones that melted a big divot in my stereo), There is never too much detail in my estimation.

Original oil painting, cleverly titled “Rooster”, 8×8″ on wrapped canvas, $100

Remember to contact me if you bought a 2019 calendar in person – if you bought it through the website, I have your info already.

Almost Mineral King

One day last week, Trail Guy and I drove up to the Conifer Gate (the upper gate) on the Mineral King Road so he could replace the combination lock that allows cabin folks to access their cabins in the winter. That is the elevation where the black oaks are, and they can be so glowingly gorgeous with sunlight coming through.

But first, we passed the Eden Creek fire, a lightning strike across the canyon. Because the relative humidity (what?) and the moisture content of the plants are up and the some-big-word-I-only-guessed-at-and-then-forgot is down, this isn’t considered to be the big threat that the summer’s Horse Creek lightning strike fire was.

Now for some bright leaves: 

The leaves aren’t as pretty on the ground.

And a little tree lesson (both are little – the tree and the lesson).

White fir: these grow at a lower elevation than red firs and the needles lie flat on the branches instead of sticking up.
Trail Guy had to explain some things about the lower gate to Ranger John.
Road closed; Ranger John looks kind of happy about it.

Remember to contact me if you bought a 2019 calendar in person – if you bought it through the website, I have your info already.

 

Chasing the Big Trees and Dogwoods

We (Trail Guy, Hiking Buddy, and Mr. Hiking Buddy) joined in with the madding crowd (I don’t know what “madding” actually means, but I liked the book and the movies “Far From the Madding Crowd”) and visited the main part of Sequoia National Park.

I wanted to see the dogwoods in their autumn colors and gather more photos of the big trees, AKA Sequoia Gigantea AKA Redwoods (Redwood High School, Class of ’77, yea for us). It was a fun day, but also smoky and crowded up there.

Smoky – this mess is coming over a ridge or two from a lightning fire in the Camp Nelson area.
Dogwood is a tree that blesses us twice – flowers in spring, colored leaves in fall. This is by the Crystal Cave Road.
Crescent Meadow
A fallen giant next to a midget man.
We walked on top of it and the midget man became Trail Guy, who helped us get down off of the big tree.
Woodpeckers go after redwood trees??
Tharp’s Log as it appeared when we approached it from a different trail.
I’ve painted this fence (not itself, but oil paintings of it) several times.
This big tree fell recently and its roots landed on a boulder.
This is the brightest one we saw.
It is tricky to find colored dogwood with redwood trees nearby, good sunlight, and a turnout off the road all together.
The colors were brighter in person.
Dogwood berries?

Remember to contact me if you bought a 2019 calendar in person – if you bought it through the website, I have your info already.

Grapes, Again

Is watching grapes get painted about the same as watching paint dry on a fence?

Don’t answer that!

Outlining the grapes first seemed like the right approach.
I wanted to start filling them in before the outlines were finished, but restrained myself.
Sometimes it is easier to support my hand in a different position. Besides, to draw a circle, it is best to be on the inside of the circle.
I filled them in from top to bottom, and for the most part, I just ignored the photo. And grapes come in all sorts of shades of purple, violet, red-violet, greenish purple (gurple), so no matter what I do within those boundaries, it will be believable.
And kept rotating the canvas as I went.

When this is dryer, I will add brighter sunshine on the edges of some of the grapes. That contrast is what made me go for my camera when I saw these grapes.

And now it is dryer, and I am finished! Looks better right side up, yes?

Remember to contact me if you bought a 2019 calendar in person – if you bought it through the website, I have your info already.

Growing Some Grapes

A dear friend bought some little fruit paintings for her dining room a couple of years ago.

She decided that another painting would look good on the other side of the window. I agreed.

We discussed the options, and she thought grapes would be good there. I told her that grapes are crazy hard, so we discussed another option, maybe a collage, but the design process made grapes sound pretty good. She and I have been friends since about 5th grade, and I am willing to do crazy hard for her. Crazy hard in painting beats crazy hard in design right now. . . don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.

The pink line is just a weird thing that my computer does some times – it is not part of the painting.

 

Remember to contact me if you bought a 2019 calendar in person – if you bought it through the website, I have your info already.

Another Harvest Festival Round-up

“Harvest Festival” is a popular name for an arts and craft show in the fall. I have been in 2 this year, and will soon be in a 3rd Harvest Festival which is more of a carnival (not as an artist this time – I’ll probably be making popcorn.)

New show, new location, new faces, and 5 new paintings along with a now-known faulty calendar.

The most recent was at a church in Visalia on Saturday. This was a First Annual Harvest Festival, and the organizers did a good job for their first time out. It isn’t easy to put such an event together.

A benefit of participating in a new show like this is that the organizers are extraordinarily hospitable and helpful. Another benefit, which might be also viewed as a not-so-good, is that with lower attendance, there is plenty of time to talk to each visitor. People are so nice, so interesting and so encouraging at a show like this.

My sales were surprisingly good, but selling oil paintings always boosts the bottom line. 😎 I even presold a non-faulty calendar, along with coloring books, a pencil reproduction print or two, and lots of cards.

I had the privilege of meeting 2 young artists. One showed me some fun assignments on her phone, and we talked about the possibility of an art career. Another was making something during the show and seemed to have an interest in faces. I had the iPad with me and photographed his face so I could teach him about facial proportions. If the show had been busy, I wouldn’t have been able to meet Hailey and Jacob, 2 delightful people who keep me from falling into deep despair over the future of our youths. (Such a middle-aged thing to admit, but I am middle-aged, so there.)

Honeymoon Cabin #32, sold.
Sawtooth #31, sold.

I spent some time coloring in my ag coloring book in between visitors. Coloring is only part of my life during shows; normally I knit, garden or read in my time off. What a life, when coloring feels like work!

Extra Post Today

Today I am here! Will you join me?

If you read this flyer, you will see there is a $3 entry fee. If you buy something from me at the craft fair, I will reimburse your $3.