Farewell to Spring in Three Rivers, Part II

By the time you are reading this, I hope to be on a flight to Texas. The way flights get cancelled these days, who knows? I could be sitting in a airport, fuming. I hope you are not fuming; instead, I hope you enjoy these last photographs of the most beautiful month in my yard and around its edges a bit.

Stop scratching your screen—it won’t make the scent of the lilacs come alive.
“Lilac” and “lavender” —two words for light purple with origins in very scented flowers, both in bloom at the same time in my yard.
Dutch iris all around my yard, and just a few with the yellow parts; not my favorite, but certainly nothing to ignore!
This one was falling over, so Trail Guy picked it, added fairy lanterns to the vase, and put it on the kitchen window sill.
This is a tiny weed/wildflower down the street; this is the first year I’ve noticed it.
Lemon geranium was taking over the herb garden chair. Too bad you can’t smell this.
I pruned it, and then put many clippings in pots to root and share with friends.
It makes a little pink flower. If it doesn’t look like a normal geranium to you, that is because this is a true geranium, not a pelargonium. (As if you care. . .)

Man oh man, the hillside will be all brown and/or weed-eated by the time I get home, and the Lady Banks rose will be finished, and so will the lavender. . . it is SO HARD to leave home, especially in the spring. (But I haven’t ever visited my dear friend in Texas during the 30 years she has lived there; I always wait until she comes here for a reunion, so it is past time.)

Farewell, spring in Three Rivers; hello Texas!

Farewell to Spring in Three Rivers

Maybe. Maybe not. However, I am heading to Texas tomorrow*, and when I return, I think the green in Three Rivers will be finished, or close to it.

My dear friend the Texan and I planned this visit to coincide with the blooming of the Texas bluebonnets (a variety of lupine). I think someone miscalculated, but I didn’t want to bump my trip earlier because there was just too much to adjust, AND I didn’t want to miss spring in Three Rivers.

So, let’s just enjoy the last hurrah of spring in Three Rivers. I might post while in Texas; I might not. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Instead of doing his business, this tom kept stepping on the hen’s tail while strutting around.
Bird’s Eye Gilia
Ithuriel’s Spear
Middle Fork of the Kaweah
Jackson, you will miss sleeping at my feet while I paint. No more campouts, you delinquent! You’d better be around when I come home.
Pretty Face
North Fork of the Kaweah
North Fork of the Kaweah River with Blossom Peaks in the distance.
White Crown Sparrow

I hate leaving but am so eager to see The Texan, another dear friend who is also a Texan, and yes, The Silos in Waco.

P.S. The Things I Learned post will appear on April 30. The Blog Equipment allows me to schedule posts ahead of time.

*Normally I would not post about being gone in real time on the World Wide Web, but the house won’t be empty so no squatters will take up residence while I’m away.

So Proud of my Drawing Students

For 30 years, I have been helping people learn to draw. The classes are small: 4-8 people together for an hour per week, each one working on his own work at his own pace. It has become the highlight of my art business, a chance to connect with fabulous people, sharing tips and encouragement with one another, becoming friends, and becoming artists. Some people start out knowing a little bit, and others begin knowing nothing. All learn, except those who quit too soon.

Someone drew this in pencil; my most experienced student borrowed the same photo and drew it in colored pencil.
This drawing is a significant location in this student’s life and the photo was TERRIBLE. Somehow we found our way through it to completion. Nice job, RN!
This duck was drawn from a photo I took while painting murals at Mooney Grove Park. My student was feeling down over some tough things in life, and I thought this goofy guy would lift her spirits. She named the drawing “George the Duck”, and it did lift her spirits.
My student only had a poor photo of this odd little barn as it looks now, and wanted to draw it the way she remembered it from childhood. It was a real challenge to crawl into her memory with her and figure out how to make this make sense, but we did it!!
Kelvin found a picture of Moro Rock taken by a drone (How? Aren’t those things illegal in National Parks?) We spent quite a bit of time contemplating whether or not he would be putting miniature people on top. You can see that he did a spectacular job!

Lessons happen on Tuesday afternoons in Exeter. My classes are full, but if four people who are all available from 1-2 p.m. get on a waiting list, I will add another class. Cost is $60 per month plus supplies. We don’t meet in December, July, or August.

Painting With a Few Interruptions

Another beautiful spring day, accompanied by the desire to just be outside and pull weeds.

Nope. It’s a workday, chica.

But wait! There’s an eclipse! I joined Trail Guy for a brief look at the weirdness of shadows and light, with the help of a colander and a piece of white paper.

Back to work.

Two paintings now drying, so that tighter detail can be applied in the next session.

How about another break to enjoy the wildflowers?

Back to work.

In spite of succumbing to a few temptations, it was a very productive day. So, here is our final reward of the day.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Stroben!

Finished Pencil Drawing of a Cabin

I sure do know how to stretch a story out. . . have you noticed how many people use the cliché “long story short”, and then proceed to make a short story even longer? I am sort of doing that here, except I break it into chapters for you, because of another cliché that applies to many blog posts: TLDR (Too long, didn’t read).

Here is scanned Minnesota cabin drawing before I scrubbed it up on Photoshop Junior.

Here it is converted to gray scale with all the chuds erased and the paper color also erased. Chuds are marks on the scanning bed—this word came from the days when I worked in a frame shop. Sometimes after you’d get a piece of art all sealed up under the mat and frame and backing, with paper secured over the back, you’d flip it over and there would be a little something under the glass. My co-workers called these little somethings “chuds”.

A few more thoughts. It was a thrill to have a stranger find me over the interwebs, because people are always contacting me to say that my Google ratings are too low and that they can help me. (No thanks, you creepy Stalking Strangers; how did you find me on Google if my ratings are too low??)

The customer was a pleasure to deal with. She mailed a check when I told her that PayPal takes a bite, she replied quickly when I asked for more information, and she even marked up the photos so I would know who was on first and what was on second.

Alas, I learned something the hard way. A few months ago, I raised my prices for pencil drawings. It had been years (decades??), and it just seemed like a wise move. BUT I DIDN’T RAISE THEM ON MY WEBSITE. Sigh.

Someone could use a business manager, an administrative assistant, a Girl Friday, a right-hand man. Hmm, I guess that’s the problem: my man is left-handed!

P.S. If you are curious about my prices, you can see them here: Pencil Drawing Prices. I only show the smallest and the largest, because sometimes it is all just too much information and too much work. (I’d rather be drawing.)

Drawing a Cabin in Pencil, 2

The Minnesota customer replied quickly and thoroughly to my inquiry about the two different versions of the cabin. I couldn’t tell if there were actually two gable ends, slightly different, or if some changes had been made. She said the cabin has been a work in progress and changes get made regularly. The three rows of shingles beneath the upper gable window is the most current. She also sent this helpful set of color coded photos.

We had a rainy day, which is perfect for drawing. I went to the studio where the distractions are limited and the heater works well, and was psyched for a day of pencil, my favorite art medium, drawing a cabin, my favorite type of subject.

See the edge of my laptop? There is NO WAY I could have done this almost impossible drawing with this degree of detail without viewing the photos on my laptop. I lightened the shadows of the very dark places, enlarged the photos enormously, and even flipped the summer view of the gable end horizontally so I didn’t have to guess how all the angles would look. You can see the potential for tying one’s brain in a knot here:

This view points right.
This view points left.

I worked from top to bottom, left to right. This is the best method for a right-hander to not smear. (Left handers can work top to bottom, right to left.) Actually, smearing happens anyway, but it is less of a problem when the paper is covered in this systematic method.

And, I finished the drawing!

Come back tomorrow if you want to see it. Same Bat time, same Bat channel. (I never actually watched Batman because we only got 2 channels, not the third one that had Batman on.)

Drawing a Cabin in Pencil

Which of the three sketches of a Minnesota cabin did the two sisters choose?

They chose A! (The exclamation mark is because that was the one I was hoping for.)

I cropped all the extraneous cold stuff. The sisters asked if I could show a bit more porch, and the best I could say was, “I’ll try.” There just wasn’t much to work with.

I spent an entire hour struggling to place the cabin so that there would be room for part of the wings on either side of the gable, in order to squeeze in a hint of the porch. It took a very long time to get the angles exactly right. This sounds excessive, but architectural subjects are not forgiving, and if you don’t get the skeleton down correctly, the parts don’t fit.

Finally, I was able to begin. (The picture of the drawing below is accidentally cropped—it actually has a 1″ margin around the image on this sheet of 9×12″ archival smooth expensive paper.)

Oh no! When I look at the photo I am using, the window size in the winter photo doesn’t quite match the summer photo that shows the gable end. Further, on the summer view of the gable end, there are 3 rows of shingles beneath the upper window.

Time out. I need some instructions, please!

So, I emailed the sisters.

What happened next??

Tune in tomorrow. . .

Cabinart = Art of a Cabin

Drawing cabins in pencil is the way I started my art business. Now I spend 90% of my artmaking time as an oil painter, so when I get asked to draw a cabin, I am really happy about it!

Someone from Minnesota found me on the internet and asked if I could draw her parents’ cabin in spite of not having clear photos of the entire structure. I told her to send them to me, and I’d see if I could make sense of the photos.

Want to see the pictures she sent?

I knew you’d be interested.

(Pay no attention to the purple lines)

These presented a real challenge. I did three little sketches and emailed the potential customer. She was delighted, and asked me to wait for an answer (yep, dealing with a deadline here) because she needed to consult with her sister.

Which one did they choose?*

Tune in tomorrow. . .

*If you read my blog on April 11, you know the answer to this question.

Another Big Tree

Tall narrow canvases with oil paintings of Sequoia trees sell steadily, so I paint them steadily.

Sentinel Tree, 6×18″, $165

This one is modeled after the Sentinel Tree, in front of the Giant Forest Market, now a museum. I say “modeled after”, because I no longer feel the need to duplicate every branch as it appears in the photos. I don’t charge enough to paint that slowly, and frankly, no one cares. This painting is destined for Kaweah Arts, which sells sequoia tree paintings very steadily for me.

Speedy Quick Like Lightning

After spending most of the winter working on difficult subjects that took much thought, revision, and enormous amounts of time, painting familiar small Mineral King oil paintings to sell in the upcoming summer months feels speedy quick like lightning.

I think Hiking Buddy took the reference photo with her superior iPhone, generously sent it to me, and I phoofed up the colors, making them more vivid than the real life scene. Still, it was better in real life, because everything is.

This is Farewell Gap Alpenglow, 6×12″, $125, and it will be available at the Silver City Store this summer, unless it sells before that.

Happy Birthday, Hiking Buddy! (2 days early because I don’t post on Sundays.)