Are You Drawing With Your Paintbrush Again?

If you read this blog through an email subscription on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Yes, I am drawing with my paintbrush again. Paintbrushes, and the smallest I can find, treating them as if they are pencils. Wet flexible pencils are not as effective as graphite pencils, but I think this painting is getting better as a result of all this teensy work.

Remember this?

The first item of business was to complete the distant hills and grove.

Next, instead of painting around the children, I dove into the minutiae, “minutiae” in terms of size, not in terms of importance.

Boy first, because as a righthanded artist, working from left to right lessens the risk of smearing wet paint.

Since the photo of the children was taken in a parking lot, it will be tricky to manage the light in a believable manner, and tricky to make believable shadows. First, though, we need believable children.

These kids are just so cute, both in person and on canvas.

Much work remains, and it will be thoroughly enjoyable as I pursue art of Tulare County, combining my favorite subject of citrus and the mountains with the challenge of believable little people.

Trail Guy Hikes For Us

Who is “us”? 

You, me, anyone who reads the blog but isn’t retired or on vacation in Mineral King. While I was painting walls inside Three Rivers buildings, Trail Guy went hiking in Mineral King.

He went up toward Timber Gap, and then to Empire, but not to the top, just a loop that gives good views.

While he was there looking at the mountains, I was painting the very same peaks in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum.

This is Ranger’s Roost, AKA Mather Point, looking through the timber of Timber Gap. When you are looking at Timber Gap, it is the bump to the left/west. The Mather Party came over Timber and saw Mineral King. I drew the cover in pencil and colored pencil for a book about it, but I haven’t read it. I just look at the pictures. (This was a second edition—the original drawing on the first edition went missing so the publisher commissioned me.)

There were a few flowers: shooting star, Western wallflower, phlox.

This is the rock outcropping on Empire that gives the false impression of being the actual peak. It is a favorite for enjoying alpenglow in the evening light.

Sold in April and May

It has been awhile since I did a Brag List. Perhaps it could be called a Reassurance List, because when my business hits a lull, it reassures me to see that work has sold recently.

Variety in the Working Life of a Central California Artist

There you go, Search Engines. Hope you like that ridiculously long title.

I had a day of great variety, all of it interesting, all of it productive

  1. This book, Adventures in Boy Scouting, will soon be available as an ebook through Bookbaby. It took a lot of learning, and a lot of proofreading. The print version is available at the Three Rivers Mercantile, Three Rivers Historical Museum, and BookBaby.com. 
  2. After enjoying the nice fire in the house (in the wood stove—no need to be concerned) while proofreading (we had a few cold days), I moved to the painting workshop to do a bit of polishing on the Fiftieth Bouquet oil painting. “Polishing” here means making some small corrections. The roses, red bow, vase, coaster and background are not finished.
  3. I detailed the mountains and put a second layer on my favorite scene.

  4. Then I left the painting workshop and moved into the studio to finish a drawing. After scanning it, I sent it to the customer to get her approval before spray-fixing it and then adding color.

It was a good day of working on projects that are all presold. While it is fun to just paint and draw what I want, it is more satisfying to paint and draw for other people, particularly when they choose subjects that float my boat.

In case you have forgotten because I haven’t shouted this at you for awhile:

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

 

A Special Commission

If you have followed this blog for awhile, you may have noticed that I have a slight touch of a Cat Disorder. Nothing crazy. Trail Guy brings sensibility into my life, so we only have 3 cats. (We’ve had as many as 8, but that was short lived.)

Some dear friends who live far away have an unusually personable cat named Zelda. They sent a few photos, and I put all jobs aside to work on this one.

Everything else had to wait.

 

ONE MORE THING:

BOOK SIGNING SUNDAY, APRIL 24, THREE RIVERS HISTORICAL MUSEUM, NOON-4 PM. I will be joining Bob Kellogg as he signs his book “Adventures in Boy Scouting: Tales by the Old Scoutmaster”.

Crying “Uncle” and Throwing in the Towel

The agreement with my customer M was that I would try to capture a likeness in her Dad’s face. If I was unable to do that, we would understand and accept that this job is beyond my ability. It is EXACTLY the kind of drawing job that I have struggled with for many years, and finally decided to stop accepting commissions for.

BUT, M is my friend and a great communicator, and I want to please her. I also like testing myself from time to time to see if I have improved.

Attempt # 3 was a reject.

Attempt #4 was a reject.

Attempt #5 was sent to M with this: “If this one isn’t right, then I am crying “uncle”, accepting the fact that this is beyond my ability, and throwing in the towel. (Jeopardy music in the background as the drawing awaits its fate. . .)”

I recognized that I was falling into the trap of trying to do the impossible. I thought that I had chosen a large enough piece of paper to include the whole scene with faces large enough to draw, but I was wrong. The most minute change, a slight dab of the eraser, half a pencil point width change, using HB instead H or H instead of 3H (those are pencil hardness/darkness indicators), a vague variation in paper texture. . . all I am doing is tickling the paper and hoping something works. 

So, for once in my career of accepting challenges that are beyond my ability to execute well in a manner that pleases the customer, I am willing to quit on this one and STOP SAYING YES TO THESE TYPES OF COMMISSIONS.

Nope. Didn’t look like M’s dad. Bye-bye, drawing.

P.S. M, it is not your fault. It is mine for saying yes when I knew better. Thank you for your patience and for the opportunity to try one more time and then finally accept reality.

See? I have tried and tried and tried with these tiny faces in the past:

More Can’t See ‘Ems  This one worked because the customer didn’t know the people personally.

Custom Pencil Drawings Another one where the customer said a likeness wasn’t necessary.

P.S. I didn’t cry. It is just a figure of speech. Thank you for your concern.

 

 

Eensy Forward Motion

As I struggle along on this pencil drawing commission of faces that are too small for me to capture a likeness, you get to see the progress.

This is the original photo.

This is my first attempt at capturing M’s Dad accurately.

This is a scanned and enlarged version of the faces.

Here is the second version of my drawing.

And finally, so you will understand what I am working with, here is the drawing with a ruler.

Phooey. The inch marks don’t show.  M’s dad’s face is 1-3/4″ high. That’s all.

That’s all I can stand of this today. I will go pull some weeds, because that doesn’t require perfection.

Never Learn, or Never Give Up?

For years I thought that I was hopeless at capturing a likeness in a portrait. After taking a workshop from a premier colored pencil portrait artist (Ann Kullberg), I learned the all important principle, “Never draw a face smaller than an egg”. (not talking quail egg or hummingbird egg, preferably a goose egg)

This information helped, but I have never gotten comfortable or confident about capturing a likeness. I can spend hours making tiny adjustments, and in the end, I still have just drawn the guy’s cousin. 

When I asked a friend/blog reader/customer, let’s call her M, if she would like a print of the Sisters in the Orchard (2 girls drawn from the back, no faces involved), she declined, but then sent me a photo of a photo that she would like me to draw.

The original photo is about 3×3″. This version is blurry. I said that it was too hard because it was too small and too blurry.

She sent me the original so I could scan it, sharpen things, lighten and brighten and enlarge and SEE!

I really really like this person and never want to disappoint a friend. So, rather than sticking to my conviction that this is really too hard for me, I went with the principle of It Never Hurts To Try.

I scanned the photo and worked it over on the computer. Then I employed every tool that I have (not going to bore you with technicalities or give away any secrets—I save those for my drawing students).

The plan was to do Dad’s face first, because if I couldn’t make him look right, there would be no reason to continue.

I am more of a “precrastinator” than a procrastinator; in other words, do the hard thing before there is time to fret, backpedal, renege, or chicken out. 

I sent this to M, and now we will see if the drawing passes the recognition test.

I am incapable of perfection, but I can see right now a few adjustments that need to be made. When the face is only the size of an average chicken egg, every adjustment is the barest little pencil stroke, a gentle tap-tap with an eraser, a teensy blur and a smudge, all done under a huge lit magnifying lens.

Will I ever learn to say no to these types of jobs?

Prolly not. . . eternally optimistic in the growth of my skills, the continual triumph of hope over experience.

Commissioned Pencil Drawing Begun

The orange grove commissioner (doesn’t that sound like a job title?) chose view A. 

She would like 2 drawings of the same scene, sort of. 

I asked if she wanted the mountains visible toward the north end of her view—Alta Peak, Moro Rock, Castle Rocks—or the mountains toward the south end of her view—Sawtooth, Homer’s Nose. 

She said one of each, beginning with the south end, so that if she changes her mind and decides on sketch B, C, or D, then she still has her first choice mountains.

Let ‘er rip, tater chip. (Or perhaps, “Gentlemen, start your engines”.)

First, the layout. What height for the distant mountains, where do the rows belong, get the hills right for Pete’s Sake!, where shall the main wind machine go…? Many little decisions, but not too much fussy detail in this landscape.

I looked at several photos of the mountains and foothills, enlarged Sawtooth from how it appeared in the photos provided by the customer, and tried to get in enough texture in the hills to be recognizable without actually counting boulders.

 

This is a combination of believable scribbling and very close scrutiny underneath a magnifying glass to make sure that no scribbling is actually noticeable… no loop-dee-loops or Ms & Ws (ems and double-yous look like rick-rack) or scritchy-scratchy lines are allowed to show. So the scribbling isn’t as random or casual as it sounds.

Never mind. This is how my drawing students and I talk about drawing. You might need to be present for a demonstration, or more likely, you wouldn’t care. Just be polite, ‘kay?

The bottom right corner will have closer leaves and oranges, with a touch of color.

I love these types of pictures—orange groves, foothills, mountains.