This was on March 26, so things already don’t look like this. Spring goes too fast, particularly when we get early days of heat.
And look at my yard when almost everything bloomed at the same time because of the early heat.
Spring will end soon, and I will remember that this blog is supposed to be supporting my art business, not just a place to gloat about being able to live in Three Rivers in the springtime.
During my most recent pencil drawing commission, I contemplated how this would have been difficult in the past. There was great satisfaction in putting this together with confidence, knowing that I was exceeding the customer’s expectations while meeting a tight deadline.
Not bragging, just relaxing into the sense of work done well because of many years of experience.
Remember the chosen sketch?
In the past, just the oval shape alone would have had me puzzling over how to make a perfect one that fit the shape and size of the image. That was before Photoshop Jr. and I made friends. Definitely not besties, because Adobe is NOT Apple and therefore not intuitive AND keeps getting updated and complicated, requiring learning it all over again.
But I digress. Jr. was able to make an oval for me to transfer to my drawing paper. Thanks, Buddy.
Here is a little bit more of the progression. As usual, mostly working top to bottom, and left to right, to prevent smearing. The hot press watercolor paper I chose for the drawing is smearier than my usual Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Smooth. I chose it because the entire pad of the Strathmore was trimmed crooked. What?? Yeppers. Weird.
I sent this to Mrs. Customer to reassure her that I was back on schedule.
Then I worked on the oranges in the upper corners. Oranges are almost always my fallback position for decor in art.
There was a gap between the houses, larger than anticipated in the sketch, so I asked her for photos of flowers that mean something to her and she sent this:
In the past I might have suggested something more distinct instead of a mass of small flowers. But, I tapped into the confidence reservoir that experience brings and dove in.
Mrs. Customer was pleased, and so was I. The above photo is good enough to get approval, but not adequate should she request a reproduction of any sort. As the artist, I hold the copyright, and want to be sure that all reproductions are of the highest possible quality.
So back to my “frenemy” Photoshop Jr., because my scanner isn’t large enough for this 14×17” drawing. That meant I scanned it in 2 parts and then patched them together. I may have figured out a better way to make this happen. The learning never stops around here, accumulating experience with every new job.
And now that I am showing you here, I can see there is a bit more work to be done on Photoshop Jr.
Apparently the work never stops, along with the learning. Guess I got a little cocky. . .
After I finished formatting, photo editing and captioning, cover designing, bar code ordering and finally ordering the Springville book, I went back to the drawing board, which is actually a “drawing table”, I think.
Remember this sketch?
The upper house is mostly finished, and I was able to begin the lower one.
Jackson came into the studio, announcing his presence or perhaps expressing his dissatisfaction with life. He sat behind me in my chair so he could bite the back of my arms.
I hissed at him to make him stop, so he climbed onto the table.
That felt risky, so I was glad he decided to move on. He seemed interested in taking a nap in this basket, and as soon as I pulled out the inferior phone to take a photo, he changed his mind. Notice the wooden palette hanging on the wall. This was a gift from my thoughtful and comical Intern.
Despite the feline disruptions, I was able to make progress. As much as I enjoy editing and book design, it is never as restful as simply operating a pencil on paper. I was able to have a couple of phone calls and still be productive, something that is not possible when banging along on a keyboard, trying to make Photoshop, InDesign, or Word cooperate.
Okay, it’s just pictures of spring in my yard. And I took these photos 2 weeks ago. Just hanging on to every last drop.
Herb Garden first. Why do I have an herb garden? Because when we first moved to Three Rivers, I was desperately looking for anything the deer wouldn’t eat. Eventually I cobbled a series of fences together to protect this little area, but the soil is poor, and it gets zero sun in the winter while baking in the summer. So, herbs mostly work.
Now let’s return to the most beautiful part of the yard. Yeppers, you’ve seen this before, but more are open now and the light changes too.
I’ll pull myself together soon, think of something to write about, focus on the work ahead. Thanks for hanging with me.
Yes, some repetition here. This little segment of the yard is stunning, and I try to look at it different times of the day, every single day.
Enjoying our seasonal “lawn”, which is mowed weeds, irrigated by rain.
Lilac!
P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, K.C.!
Silly title, sacrificing sense for alliteration. My blog, my silliness.
This is the April page on my 2026 calendar. (all gone. . . whaddya expect in month #4?)
These sycamores are so picturesque. . . used to be so thick that the buildings beyond were a mystery. After I started drawing this, the trees got pruned, things got raked, and a few months later I attended a Celebration of Life at the barn hidden back there. Who knew??
Yeppers, it’s for sale. You can email me for details if you are interested.
Happy April to all y’all!
2. Do NOT let piles of paper accumulate! I finally went through the stack of birthday and Christmas cards and in that stack I found THREE Very Important Items: 1. a letter I thought I had mailed in October (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 2. a gift certificate to Luis Nursery (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 3. An email and phone number for a dear old friend (HI CAREEN!! WE ACTUALLY TEXTED AND I ALWAYS THINK OF THINGS TO TELL YOU BUT DON’T WANT TO BE A WEIRDO AND A PEST.)
3. “Faff” can be both a verb and a noun, considered British English. (Great word, thank you, Elisabeth from Canada!) NOUN: An unnecessary or over-complicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time. VERB: To waste time on an unproductive activity.
4. “Cruft” is similar to “faff”. It means redundant, old, inferior, especially as it relates to code (computer stuff).
5. Brushing scam is an entirely new term to me. It is yet another scam, this one a “fraudulent tactic where sellers send unsolicited packages to individuals to create fake “verified” reviews under their names, boosting the seller’s credibility without the recipient’s consent. This can expose personal information and lead to identity theft or other scams.” So, beware if you receive something you did not order! Keep it, donate it, bury it in your garden, but do NOT review it online or respond to the wicked “geniuses” who sent it.
6. Lone Oak Cemetery, still there in spite of neglect, still with poppies and a lone oak, right there in the orange groves of Ivanhoe as it was 60 years ago.
7. There are tollways in California. I thought there were only freeways, but I was wrong. It is a real privilege to live in a place where we say “the freeway” and everyone knows what is meant.
8. My cousin was a voracious reader and a list-maker. How did I not know this about him? Despite all our differences, we really and truly were related!
9. I went to an awards dinner (as a guest of a winner friend) and this tiny oval-ish citrus fruit was part of the centerpieces. I took a couple home to try and they were Very Sweet. No idea what they were! I should have taken more. . .
10. Wisdom from James Clear about unexpected forms of generosity:
11. I learned how to make scrambled eggs that don’t stick to the pan. (But where did I learn this??) Put your fat in the pan and heat the pan hot enough that a drop of water dances, not sizzles. Then your eggs won’t stick! It actually works. ‘Bout time I figured this out.
And thus we conclude a month of many new pieces of information. I wonder how much I will retain.
Did you learn anything new in March?
Let’s just enjoy some photos. Or how about you enjoy them while I recover from the book project, Springville’s Hospital.
And then, I headed to church to work on Phase II of the landscaping project begun a couple of years ago.
THE BOOK IS FINISHED! It was a ten-year project, with a giant distraction of a different book getting written and published first—Tales of TB: White Plague of the North, available through BookBaby. Here’s the link: Tales of TB
But that was last year.
The book is now available through Lulu, a great place to print short-run books. Springville’s Hospital at the Lulu Bookstore.
Dr. William Winn, a (now retired) pulmonologist (that means lung doctor), hired me to illustrate a few things for this book that he’d been wanting to write. I asked if he had an editor, and after I explained the role, he hired me for that, in addition to three illustrations.
He clearly loves research, and the Springville book got pushed aside when we realized he was accidentally accumulating enough material for a different book about tuberculosis. After FINALLY finishing Tales of TB, I urged him to write about Springville’s TB hospital, a place that ignited my curiosity back when I first saw it in about 5th or 6th grade. (I’ve always loved old buildings, always always always. Am I being unclear?)
Bill encountered some serious health set-backs, and I finally accepted the fact that he would not be able to complete the book to his satisfaction. (Perfectionism can be a real obstacle to progress, but you can bet that he was a fabulous doctor.) I told him that he had enough chapters for a good book, not the one he had hoped for, but still a good and important book.
He gave me the go-ahead, so I gathered all those chapters (multiple versions of them, sigh) and arranged them into order, finally reading it as a book instead of little bits and pieces, dividing some into two chapters, turning some into appendices, rearranging paragraphs (yeppers, still editing), cobbling enough together for an afterword. Then re-editing and proofreading, gathering and scanning many photos, doing the Photoshop Junior thing, finding captions, and figuring out where each photo belonged in the book. After that came formatting, which I promise you don’t want to hear about. Then oops, what is the title? Bill hadn’t looked that far ahead, so I wrote a list, and he chose one in a phone conversation we had. Oh, oops, I needed to design the cover, and OH NO, he didn’t write a “blurb” for the back. Alrighty then, after some prayer and a night or two lying awake staring at the ceiling, I was able to complete that. I even learned how to turn an ISBN into a bar code, and the final step was to set it up to be sold through the Lulu bookstore.
Now, I am waiting for my copy.
Here is a link to a post I wrote about one of the illustrations back in 2017: Edythe
And another: First Building
And the last two: Tent living I, Tent living
I SURE HOPE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GET A COPY OFF OF THE LULU BOOKSTORE!
Ahem. Excuse me for shouting. It’s been a long week.