Odd Job on Rusty Corrugated Metal

My friend G is building a pool or pond or something for some people in Three Rivers. He has a vision of a corrugated metal wall with the shape of the mountains cut at the top of the wall. He said the wall would be about 8 feet, and asked if I could draw the mountains at the top so that someone else could use a plasma cutter on the metal.

I said yes.

Then the someone else, let’s call him Jimmy because that is his name, brought over 4 sheets of rusty corrugated metal, each one 12’ in length.

Umm, G, you will need to instruct me. Are these sheets going to stack on one another horizontally? Will they be placed side-by-side vertically? Do you want the same thing drawn on each one in case Jimmy makes a mistake? Or are we working with a 48’ wall?

G sent me some instructions that could be interpreted multiple ways. I suggested that he come to my studio so we could iron out the important details.

Besides, I have four different options for mountain shapes.

Interesting that the most difficult part of the job might be getting clear instructions! The good news is that there is no deadline.

Art from Hume Lake

The first time I drew a Hume Lake cabin, it was for my friend’s parents. Her mom commissioned a pencil drawing.

Wait, not true. The first time I drew a Hume Lake cabin, it was the boys staff cabin across the street from the girls staff cabin, in 1978. It was a present for my roommate, and I didn’t save a picture of the drawing.

Here is my friend’s cabin the first time I drew it (1995), and again after my friend allowed me to improve it (2017).

A few things have changed over the years, but none significantly alter the look. (Two trees in the foreground are history and now the room is metal.)

My friend’s cousins have become my friends too, and one year we were there for a birthday party for three of the cousins. I did three tiny paintings for birthday gifts.

My friend commissioned me to paint some ornaments for some of her cousins. They look awful here—wet, shiny, perhaps even incomplete.

One of the cousins sent me this photo the next year.

My most recent iteration of Hume Lake is in pencil, used in the 2026 calendar. This is the view from the footbridge over Ten Mile Creek, looking toward the Forest Service beach called Sandy Cove. (It doesn’t show—it’s behind the trees on the right.)

I have so many beautiful photos of the lake. . . I could paint it. Maybe I will someday. I know, “someday is not a day”, and “sometime is not on the schedule.”

Very Large, Very Detailed Pencil Drawing

Yeppers, still working on and talking about Reimer’s Candies and Gifts.

I was stuck due to a lack of visual information, considering resorting to some hoodwinkery and bamboozlement.

Instead, I stopped by one morning, climbed up some rocks and took several photos, this one being the most useful.

Alrighty, then, let’s git-‘er-dun!

There was a bit of trickonometry involved here, but remember, the goal is believability. People remember what they thought they saw, without thinking exactly about placements and proportions.

I sent this one to the owner because he likes seeing the progress. I also like to reassure customers that I am working on their project.

Getting there, but holy guacamole, these window panes are window pains.

To be continued. . . I’ll finish shading, figure out how to deal with the parking area, then take some time to make sure there are no outlines, no strokemarks that don’t belong, that there is enough contrast in the right places, that there is no smearing, and finally sign it. After that, I get to figure out how to scan the drawing on my new complicated scanner, probably in 2 parts and then put them together with Photoshop Junior.

I could use some chocolate about now after writing that list. Hmmm, wonder if anyone knows where to find some in Three Rivers. . .

Needing a Master’s Degree…

…or perhaps a PhD. The topic? Trickinology. Visual trickinology.

I’m drawing Reimers Candies and Gifts from a straight-on view, something that isn’t really possible to see in real life. Well, maybe it is, but it would take a wide-angle lens, and the resultant drawing would be an entirely unwieldy shape for reproducing as cards.

Here is a progression of a day’s work (with many interruptions—lots of moving parts in my life during this project). I moved that giant oak tree to the right because it was blocking the gift shop and patio.

Instead of 4 chairs, the table only gets 2. Even this artist has her limits on microscopic furniture depictions.

Here’s a substandard photo for you to admire the distance I’ve covered in this monumental, underpriced, over-engineered pencil drawing. (Yeah, I know, I always say that.)

Those windows and the patio look mighty fine, if I do say so myself. And I do. Just tryna not break my arm patting myself on the back.

After admiring my progress, I was temporarily flummoxed. The section on the far right is the ice cream shop. It has many windows and doors, a sign, two stories, a porch overhang, and a very cantilevered second story roof with a severe angle, which doesn’t show in this photo.

See what I mean about the roofline?

All of it is hidden behind that giant sycamore tree when viewed from a straight on angle.

When my drawing students encounter difficulties (because no one listens to me when I tell them a particular subject is too hard), I advise them to put tissue paper over the top and then try to solve the problems that way. (Usually I end up scribbling a solution on the tissue paper while they sit there either frozen in fear or babbling about how they should have listened to me.)

The sycamore tree is barely coming forward from the far right edge.

That’s about all I can manage before I get frozen in fear or start babbling about how I should have listened to my own advice.

Wait, I didn’t give myself any advice except to make this the very very best depiction that I can possibly do of an iconic Three Rivers business.

More Quarter-Inching

This might put you to sleep. It almost did me, in combination with getting up at 5:30 AM, 103°, and the droning hum of the barely adequate AC.

Can you even tell the difference from the first photo to the second one?

Prolly not because my T-square was over the unfinished lower rocks of the sign.

The owner said he’d like to see it in progress, so I sent him the upper photo. His response: “That’s good” was encouraging. I have had a very small handful of customers through the years who kept making changes, and I was too stupid (or chicken) to say “That change order will cost extra”. Now I make sure that customers see a sketch and approve before diving into the final piece, and if they wish, I show them progression photos.

In case you are interested, this one is 14” x 17”.

In spite of my case of the yawns, it is fun, challenging, and really quite a privilege to have been chosen to draw this iconic Three Rivers business.

Iconic Business Drawing, Quarter-Inching Along

An old friend used to stop by my studio at my first public location in Exeter, just to spend time together chatting, and to offer encouragement. He often said (in admiration, I think), “How do you do that??”

I always answered, “One quarter inch at a time.”

Oooo-weee, this is S L O W. But considering that the last time I drew it was in 1995, this is a worthwhile investment of time. The previous drawing was useful to the Reimers and then to Owners #3 for 30+ years.

I’m glad I mentioned the idea of a new drawing to Owner #4.

Reimer’s Candies and Ice Cream HEY! I JUST LOOKED AT THEIR SITE AND MY PHOTO IS ON IT! Two years ago I went to the grand reopening of the store with my neighbor Robin, and there we are with our friends Benny and Rita!

Enough chit-chat. Back to the drawing board. Do you know anyone else who can say this and mean it literally? And by “literally”, I do NOT mean “figuratively”, which is often how people abuse the word. “That literally blew my mind!” Oh really? Your head looks intact to me, but your brain might be damaged.

Sorry.

Not really. Editors are guardians of the language.

But I digress. . . back to the drawing board, really!

Made the Deadline With Time to Spare

Moving left to right, top to bottom, identifying words whited out, dark photo taken with phone at the end of a day of drawing as the light was getting low.

Still working top to bottom, left to right.

Almost finished, except what should be done about the lower sections of nothingness?

How about some lupine? Good idea!

Here it is scanned and photoshopped into how it looks if you see the drawing in real life.

“Fast or Good”? Not fast this time. This drawing took me over twice as long as a picture of this size normally takes. A combination of three factors really slowed me down:

  • There were many many many photos to sort through and organize and study in order to make a cohesive and accurate drawing. This doesn’t take nearly as long when I am the photographer because I take the photos in a methodical fashion and am familiar with them.
  • There were no photos that showed the cabin clear in its entirety.
  • Many details were missing because there was a ton of stuff on the deck and in front, blocking the much of the cabin.

I relied on old photos, figured out guessed how things might look from a straight-on view, kept asking questions, and relied on 40+ years of experience drawing cabins.

The customer is happy, so I am too. We are assuming the recipient of the drawing will also be happy.

Now, back to Reimer’s.

Fast or Good?

My drawing students are used to me telling them, “You can be fast or you can be good; I get to be both.”

The braggadocio recently got tested. Someone had an art emergency, and gave me about 5 drawing days to complete a commissioned pencil drawing. There were more calendar days than just five, but I can no longer do detailed work in Mineral King (eyes too old and no drawing table or electricity for the magnifying light or to recharge the computer when using photos from it), and I had a funeral to attend, groceries to buy, and some sprinklers to keep running (the landscaping project at church, can’t find the link but you prolly* don’t need to see it anyway, and who cares about “SEO” and all the internet hoops to increase visitation, mostly by scammers and robots? Not this little gray duck.)

First steps

The customer had to get to the cabin, sneak photos when the intended recipient of the drawing was gone, and text them to me. Then I had to transfer them to the laptop and sort through, finding duplicates, organizing by potential usefulness. There were many important questions to be answered: Is the garage important? Is the fire ring important? May I move the sign? Where is the name of the cabin? Is the fairy house important? How many umbrellas are usually on the porch? May I leave off some of those lounge chairs?

Second step

Slammed out a sketch for approval. (I’ve whited out the cabin name and address because after all, this IS the World Wide Web, and we respect privacy in this corner.)

Good thing the customer has faith in my ability to draw. This sketch was fast, but it wadn’t* good by any stretch other than it shows what will be in the drawing.

Starting

I started laying it out, and then got a little tired of that. Shading is the funnest* part, so I started in the upper left so that my right handedness doesn’t smear as I work across.

At the end of the work day (nope, not using the tiresome cliche “at the end of the day”), I was this far along.

I love to draw!

*Wadn’t” is right there with “tryna”, “prolly”, “liberry”, and “Remorial Building”. You may recall that I attended high school in Visalia, the least (second least according to another article) educated city in the entire United States. Let’s just have some fun with that fact.

P.S. If you happen to recognize this cabin, stay quiet about it, PLEASE!

Drawing an Iconic Business in Three Rivers

Reimer’s Candies and Ice Cream is a destination and a landmark in Three Rivers, California. It is now on its fourth owner in my lifetime, and it is just as busy as ever, just as popular, just as magnetic.

I drew it for the second owners, people with the name of Reimer, who bought it from the Huffakers, the folks who started the business. The Reimers commissioned me and then used my drawing on a thank you card to include in every box of candy that they shipped out. Owners #3 did the same.

By the time owner #4 came along, the drawing was too many generations away from the original to look good any more, and the printer I used to use is most likely out of business.

We tried to foof it up, to make it good enough to use, but alas, not even Photoshop was up to the pixelation and moray patterns that resulted in printing from a print that had been printed from a print. . .

When owner #4 asked me how to get more cards printed, I suggested that he hire me to draw it again. He agreed, saying that some changes have been made to the property, so I took photos from as many angles as I could manage, trying to arrive when the light was decent but before the crowds.

After studying the photos, I decided a new angle would give it a new look, and did this sketch.

The owner understood that it was just a rough sketch and knows that I can actually draw, so once he approved the sketch, I began.

First, I figured out the main dimensions, which is lots of math and measuring.

Then I moved into getting it laid out on the paper. (This is 14×17”.)

Finally, I began shading in the upper left hand corner so that my hand won’t drag the graphite all over the paper.

Then I schlepped my self back to the house to collapse in a chair and wait for the most totally excellent husband, AKA Trail Guy, to tell me that dinner was ready. As is often the case, I spent the evening questioning my ability to accomplish this drawing, to capture all the detail, to do as good a job as when I could see without a magnifying glass over the table.

As is often the case, I also questioned my pricing, but this is Tulare County, and I’m not about to “gouge” my customers! What constitutes gouging? I dunno. Locals say my prices are high; people from far away say they are low.

Maybe owner #4 will provide some dark chocolate with the final payment.