Author: cabinart

wildflower saga continues

Wow, this was hard today! Look at all the hassles:

1. S was out of water
2. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on her ceiling fan (it gets hot up there in the upper reaches of her dining room!). But it was good I couldn’t turn on the fan, because it would have chopped my head off working on the morning glories!
3. I kept climbing up and down the ladders and the scaffolding because I either forgot stuff or dropped it. (There is no place to put things while standing on a ladder or a platform, so it is a bit of a juggling act.) Plus, I have to climb up and down to see how it looks from a normal viewing position.
4. It was weird trying to see with the glare, the brightness of the windows, needing glasses for the reference photos and also not needing glasses to see where to carefully place my feet on the platform. . . phew! I was glad to come home, until I found that our water softening machine had been blowing gallons of water into the yard for an hour or two.
5. The 5 kittens snuck in the back door while S’s Dad was trying to solve the water problem, and I had to round them up and throw them out!

At least the painting turned out well today!

More greenery has happened at the bottom, and now it is flowing into a row of morning glories. For the farmers out there that read my blog, I apologize for including such a pernicious weed. However, this one won’t spread outside of these walls, and even you have to admit that it is a fabulous color!

Getting a little easier

Today I returned to house of S, aka the Divine Dining Room project. There was black plastic blocking the blinding window light, so it was a little easier to see. However, there were a few distractions as i looked out the window below! (Have I mentioned my Cat Disorder?? Never mind, just try to pretend that I am normal.)

This little guy was calling to me through the window, but I cold-heartedly pretended as if I didn’t know what he wanted. It was an act, it hurt a little, but I am trying to overcome this little problem.

Here is how the wildflowers look now:

In case you are wondering, these are California poppies, a variety of lupine, Bigelow Sneeze Weed (the yellow with big brown centers), Indian Paintbrush (the red), Baby Blue Eyes (bet you can figure out which one that is), Farewell To Spring (the pink – a clarkia, but I don’t know which variety), and 2 different kinds of brodaiea (or some such collection of vowels. . .) I hope to return to the job on Wednesday. This is a fun fun job! (never mind about the part where I forgot my brushes and had to drive back home before starting this a.m.)

How Long??

One of the most frequently asked questions about my art is “How long did it take you to do that?”

I, who am usually honest to a fault, dance around the answer to that question. There isn’t a straightforward answer, and when there is, I don’t like it!

Here are some of my answers:
1. Why? do you want to calculate my hourly wage?
2. It went really quickly this time.
3. I can’t believe how long this took!
4. Who has time to calculate hours?
5. The side of my brain that makes art isn’t the side of my brain that can tell time.

The plain truth is that I don’t keep track of my time. Most of my work is produced in fits and starts rather than sitting down in the a.m. and getting up at the end of the day to check off the 8 hour box.

When a commission customer asks about how long, I assume (usually correctly) that the question has to do with when the piece will be ready. I ask when he would like it. Then I do my very best to finish it by that time, and I haven’t missed a deadline or promise yet! (except for the time I was in a big fat car wreck, but that’s for another post. . . or maybe not.)

Lemons

Maggie bought a painting of oranges and asked for a companion piece of lemons. Just so happened that someone had brought me a bag of them, so I was prepared. And, I figured if I was going to paint lemons for Maggie, I should do a series of lemons. Hers is the first in the series. Two thoughts about lemons: 1. they have less dimples than oranges and 2. what a thrill to be able to paint with a different color than orange!

Say what??

In drawing lessons, sometimes it is difficult to articulate my thoughts. A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes a thousand words still can’t explain the picture. Often, I can’t find the right word, so I will make one up. The funny part is that my students understand the meaning!

This morning a woman was working on some boulders but something wasn’t looking believable. The problem was that she had inadvertantly made potatoes and an oversized pinto bean! Once we had that figured out, she asked how to draw some grass behind the boulders. I was trying to keep her from making a lot of little lines all in a perfect row. The instructions came out, “You need to sort of bounce your clumpage along – that’s it, just horizontalize it a bit more”. She got it.

No potatoes allowed in my river!! The title of the piece is “Spring Run-off” and it is one of the few pieces I can’t bear to part with.

stretching out. . .

It is a common thought that one must stretch one’s abilities by trying new experiences. So, here I go again!

Back in January or so, my good friend S (who declined to be identified as “The Divine Miss S) asked me to paint something in her dining room (which is definitely a divine room!) My answer was a definite “Maybe”! At first we considerered ivy, then looked at some acorns and oak leaves. S wasn’t entirely sold on those ideas, and when I thought about her personality, I realized that what she needs is color, lots of color!

So, we decided that wildflowers were the right choice. First, I had to learn how to paint them, so we waited until I practiced on all those poppies and lupine.

Today I started her divine dining room project. Check this out:

Nice room, eh? (the ladders were for my benefit – S doesn’t normally store them in her dining room)

Whoa, I get to paint up there? The surface is a little rough, and the light coming in the windows makes it a little tough to see the colors I am putting on the wall. (stretch, stretch, stretch. . .)

This is how it looked after a couple of hours of dinking around, arranging materials and supports, and finally making the commitment of the first brush stroke. As usual, more will be revealed, so stay tuned.

And the winner is. . .

. . .the barn in pencil!!! Thank you all for helping me to see my way clearly to a decision. There were also a number of people who emailed me directly instead of commenting on the blog, and each one of those voted B. 2 voted for A, and I appreciate their strength in not running with the pack.

There is a different juror/judge each year. Some care about how well the entries interpret the category. Others only put the piece in the appropriate place and then judge it based on artistic merit. One judge actually down-graded a fabulous piece because the title didn’t match the work! Hard to say, so I just do my very best with each entry and do not settle for “good enough”.

We won’t know until late August how the piece fares in the competition. As with most things in life, more will be revealed in the fullness of time. (Are you sick of hearing that yet?)

several items, hopefully of interest

About these paintings in progress (They need So Many Layers!):

1. Maggie, can you spot your lemons? Clearly, I am thinking Series here!

2. Doug, can you spot your (if you like them) pumpkins?

3. Kathy, can you see your bridge beginning to emerge?

4. The 2 with their backs to you, the audience, are waiting for the fullness of time in which they will be revealed.

5. This is Zeke. He keeps me company in hopes that food might appear; he also loves to contribute hairs to the wet paintings.

And 2 items not related to the paintings shown:

1. My dental hygienist was quite pleased with her poppy painting. This makes me both happy and relieved, because when I allow someone to put pointy things in my mouth, I want that someone to like me!

2. About the choice of barns? More will be revealed. . . And I am wondering why no one noticed my brilliant use of the word “forsooth”! Did anyone wonder about it? Did anyone go for his dictionary? Most importantly, did anyone laugh?

Your opinions wanted

There is an art competition each year called “Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts”. This is a beautiful show with several categories that relate to agriculture: Dairy, Citrus, Irrigation, Cotton, etc. . . Artists can enter 2 categories, and this year I have 2 ideas for the same category. This is a no-no, because one would be competing with oneself if the same category were entered twice.

This is where you come in! Here are 2 different pieces of art for Farm Equipment And Structures. Since my choosing which piece might be akin to selecting my favorite cat (I love them all to distraction!), I am requesting help from you, my blog readers, in the hopes that you will be more objective than I am able to be.

These are not in order of my preference. Forsooth, if I had a preference, I wouldn’t be asking (begging and pleading and groveling) for your help! And there is no need for anyone to say, “I don’t know anything about art; I only know what I like” because this IS about what you like!

Choice A

Choice B

Inspiration, part 6

Yesterday in drawing lessons, a student brought photos of the family farm in hopes of designing and drawing a collage. There were close-up shots of fruit and blossoms, medium shots of individual trees and equipment, and long range views of orchards with hills behind them. I have been drawing this stuff for years, but yesterday one of those photos caused me to spontaneously erupt with “I’d like to paint that!” Why? Because it was beautiful! I am inspired by beauty, once again! Here is a similar picture that I drew in colored pencil a few years ago. Sorry, it is sold.

Okay, I lied. I am not sorry that it sold. I love to sell my work!