And Another Commissioned Pencil Drawing

Same customers, similar approach, different state.

This new pencil commission is looking across a driveway at a vineyard with the Sierra* in the distance.

The customers provided current photos of the view, but now the vineyard is gone and almond (or peach? plum? nectarine?) trees are in their place.

So, I went exploring on the interwebs, and I took photos while driving to Tulare to retrieve my art from “Around Here”. (solo show in August—I’ll tell you more about it later.)

Looking at the provided photos and emailed conversations, I did a first draft sketch.

The customers (who communicate VERY WELL!) asked that I move our viewpoint to the left, include a redwood (probably coastal, AKA sequoia sempervirens), and the brick planter/mailbox, while deleting the California flag and leaving out the color in the freesias.

Sketch #2

More will be revealed (and drawn) in the fullness of time.

*My very wise dad taught me that the proper title of our mountains is “the Sierra”, NOT “the Sierras”. Now you know.

P.S. Yes, I know what today is. Sigh. Tryna just pretend that all is well here in the world, not tryna be disrespectful.

Instruct me, Please

When working on custom art, which involves combining multiple photos and verbal or written instructions, there must be much communication.

My customers for the Texas drawing said to lower the bluebonnets to keep them inside the fence, since if they are outside the fencing, the cattle eat them.

I keep accidentally thinking of the bluebonnets as lupine, and I made them inside the fence, outside the fence, and too tall, because I didn’t know how to fill the space. My answer to most empty space questions is wildflowers.*

In response to their helpful information about those voracious cattle, I lowered the lupine bluebonnets and added some fencing wire.

Then I photographed each corner and emailed the customers with this request: Instruct me, please!

Colored pencil doesn’t erase (some does, but not well), so until I learn what the fencing actually looks like in real life, this drawing will have to wait.

*Remember this?

More From the Drawing Table

When we last looked at this challenging pencil commission of a Texas scene, it looked like this.

When I don’t know where to begin, I just pick something that is somewhat concrete, something with a photo to follow, rather than work on the things I have to make up. So, distant trees, grass, and tractor. Yeppers, I can draw those.

Next, the Texas state flag in color. This was fun. Luckily, I was somewhat obsessed by that flag while in Texas last year so I had several photos. I had to flip the photo horizontally so that it flies into the scene rather than the more conventional left-to-right orientation.

Next, I tackled the close fence and gate, and then looked up Texas bluebonnets online. (I was in Texas too late for the bluebonnets; guess I’ll have to go in April next time.)

Because this is a bit of a made up subject in the drawing, I took it only this far, outlining them for the customers to approve or make suggestions. It’s too risky to put the color in until I know the size and placements are what the customers like. In commissioned pieces, I am simply a hired pencil.

While waiting to hear back, I put in the sky, tightened up edges, lightened some parts, and darkened others. You can see that I left the lower right corner empty. If the left corner is approved, I’ll be able to somewhat duplicate the sizes on the right side.

This last drawing is scanned. . . the paper is a little too big for my scanner, but I might be able to make it work if the customers want to reproduce it as cards or prints. (I hope they don’t, but I am willing. It will mean a lot of time messing with the scanner and Photoshop Junior.)

P.S. Just heard from the customers, asking that the deer be erased, which I am more than happy to do. They also instructed me about the flowers, which we’ll discuss tomorrow.

Back at the Drawing Table

I told you that I have a very challenging drawing commission. Well yippee skippee, I finally had a pair of minutes to concentrate on the project. It is almost more of a design problem than an is-this-even-possible problem, like those tiny faces back in the winter. (Visible as Item #10 on Ten New Things Learned in February)

This is one of several many photos provided by the customers.

Nothing to do but just pull out some pencils, a sheet of 14×17 “ paper, and see if I can lay out the basics. (Crying or pulling out my hair would have been unhelpful.)

This commission would not be possible without the extensive communication with the customers. I am combining about a dozen photos, adding and moving all sorts of things, figuring out sizes and placements that are believable and pleasing and make sense to the customers.

I moved from my drafting table to the desk behind me because the morning light coming in the window made it impossible to see my laptop screen. Yeppers, this techno-resister now draws more from her screen than from paper photos. (I even drive an automatic car now, but still prefer manual and do NOT own a microwave, so there.)

In figuring out how to make sense of the tractor size and placement, I outlined it on tracing paper and then started moving it around the drawing to see where the size and placement made the most sense.

A friend used to visit me regularly in my studio and ask, “How in the world do you do that?” My answer was usually, “One quarter inch at a time.” This drawing might be more like an eighth inch at a time.

Yep. Those are Wilsonia books on the desk. Want one?

Because all my art was in Tulare while I was working on this commission, I was able to stick it on the wall for taking photos to send to the customers with each new batch of questions.

The gate in the foreground looked too small so I did the tissue thing, making it bigger, and then sending it to the customers for their approval. I also asked about the flags because they had asked for the American flag on top and the Texas flag below. While in Texas last year, I learned that Texas is the only state that flies its flag at the same height as the American flag because they used to be a sovereign nation. Texans are very proud of their state, and I posted about how that lone star appears in all sorts of unexpected places.

The bigger gate was better (because this is Texas? Nope, because it looked correct). And the American flag got ditched for just the lone star flag, now flapping into the scene.

This was the result of a long uninterrupted (HALLELUJAH!) day at the drawing table.

Who knows when I’ll have another day like this? Looking forward to it. . . there are trees, a tractor, grass, a flag, and Texas bluebonnets waiting for my attention, but these lovely customers are not pressuring me at all. And after drawing for about 8 hours straight, (okay, a couple of breaks, and a lot of staring and questioning), it was time to stop before I got careless and did something stupid. (You are shocked?? Sorry to disappoint you, but I do stupid things sometimes.)

Because I Wanted To

When I began oil painting with only the primary colors (“double primary palette” means 2 each of the 3 primary colors + white), I wondered why I thought that 2 different sets of 120 colored pencils were necessary. Colored pencil is not a main part of my art-making life: De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and extremely slow production combined with low sales sent me to oil paints.

If one can paint using only the double primary palette, doesn’t it stand to reason that one could use a box of just 12 colored pencils?

In the last handful of years, my favorite brand of graphite drawing pencils is Tombow. This is a Japanese word which means “dragonfly”, for some unknown reason. (A country that names its companies things like “Google” or “Yahoo” isn’t allowed to poke fun at something as straightforward as “Dragonfly”.)

When ordering some art supplies recently, I saw that Tombow has colored pencils. I bought their box of 12. They aren’t available any longer, although I only bought them a week or two ago. Life is full of mysteries.

This stellar jay caught my attention (they are fairly demanding birds) in Mineral King a few weeks ago, and I chose it for my trial use of Tombow colored pencils.

This is small—5×7” piece of paper with about 1/2” margin—so it didn’t ignite any wrist troubles. You can see that I made up the background, and the colors aren’t exacatacally* right on the bird. Trying to do exact matches is good learning practice, but I am a little past that in my career now, and besides, no one cares. I loved the challenge of trying to force the right colors from a box of only 12.

If you are really into colored pencils and want to know a bit more, these are very soft, possibly even softer than Prismacolor. I prefer the Blackwing brand of colors, but they include a white and a silver pencil, which I find to be almost useless; this causes their overpriced box of twelve to only contain 10 useful pencils.

*My blog, my spelling, my pronunciations.

Custom Art Job—A Map

The owners of a ranch used a hand drawn map to show visitors (for various reasons) how to find the right pastures, and they decided that a pretty map would better serve their purposes. They brought the hand drawn map along with a county map showing property lines and buildings.

Think, think, think. How do I do this? I started by tracing the country map and transferring it to a large sheet of drawing paper. Then we went over it together to determine property lines, fence lines, troughs, internal roads, gates, and to list what else would be helpful to add.

When all those things were figured out, the lanes were named, the pastures were numbered, and all the gates and water troughs were located, I walked the property a second time for a sense of what belonged in the margins to prettify the map.

When all the drawings were in place, I scanned it in 2 parts, because OF COURSE it was too big for my flatbed scanner. Then hours and hours using Photoshop began. (I seriously underbid this job. . . so what’s new?) When it seemed finished, I emailed the owners to see how it would print for them, since they often need to hand one to a visitor. (Duh. That’s why they had me do this job.)

The owners thought it was great, but needed to make a few corrections and changes

We decided that the heron looked weird, the word “faucet” on the legend needed to be replaced with “trough”, a fence line was missing, the map and words needed to be darker without changing the drawings, and, get this, I drew the wrong horse at the bottom left corner.

What?? Seen one, seen ‘em all (and I think most yellow flowers and most babies look alike too.)

So with coaching from these horse experts, I turned Mr. White Nose into Hopper, a black horse (yes, I can tell the difference in horse colors, just not features).

There were many layers of tissue paper, sketches to figure out what might fit where, copies to correct, piles and piles of papers when the job was finished.

Here is the final map of the Bar-O Ranch. Really challenging job, very satisfying results, lots of new experience in problem solving and design that I probably won’t get another chance to use. However, if you know of anyone who wants a pretty map, I’m the one to call.

New Notecards Coming Soon

Notecards have been a mainstay of my art business since 1987 (maybe you weren’t born yet). There used to be many stores throughout Tulare County that sold these steadily, and I spent copious amounts of time packaging cards, sometimes with the help of my parents or my friend Gnat.

The packages had two each of five designs and retailed for $5.00. It was possible to make a profit because I worked at a print shop and received a discount, but had to order large quantities to make this work. “Large” means 1000 or more of each design, instead of the 100 or so I now order. Since this was before email, most of polite society used cards. (Impolite society didn’t send thank you notes.)

Now notecards can be ordered online, and if I wait for a discount sale from the company who prints the cards, I can make a small profit selling four cards (all same design in a package) for $10.

Have you picked yourself back up off the floor? Okey dokey, let’s see the new designs coming soon. These were chosen to please my higher selling stores’ customers, many of whom are visitors to the area in the summer. The pencil drawings aren’t new; the paintings were completed recently (within the last year).

Kaweah River
Generals Highway
General Sherman Tree
Lake Kaweah
Sawtooth #65 (such an elegant title!)

These are all scenes drawn or painted from my* photos, sometimes embellished and made up from several photos and my memory, all specific to eastern Tulare County: Three Rivers, Sequoia National Park, and Mineral King.

The notecards will be available at Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers and on this page of my website.

*Except Lake Kaweah, generously supplied by my friend Rachel.

An Unusual Job in Three Rivers

Some folks in Three Rivers with a horse-breeding ranch asked me to turn their hand-scratched map into a thing of beauty. It doesn’t need to be to-scale, but all the pastures, corrals, gates, arenas, barns, ponds, and various buildings need to be in proper relation to one another.

This necessitated a walk around the place, which was very appealing in spite of the green turning to yellow.

I pulled out my inferior phone camera to gather a sense of the place and to see if inspiration and ideas would emerge.

Hmmm, this is an unusual assignment, perhaps even an odd job, for some folks who are very delightful and easy to work with. I’m thinking of drawing the map lightly in pencil, getting it okayed by the customers, then inking in the lines. After that, I might add some pencil drawings around the edges, because as you know, I love to draw. I’ll do it twice the size of 8-1/2 x 11”, and then they can print out as many maps as they need to direct customers and workers around the property.

This will be a fun job, no real rules, just freedom to turn this into whatever I want. If the customers like it, they’ll get it framed. (The walls in their house are full of art, so they might have to put it in a barn!)

An Old Drawing Reappears

Someone I’ve never met called and actually left a message. I returned the call to learn about someone (Let’s call her AF) who bought an old home and had seen a pencil drawing of the house. The seller was supposed to leave it behind, but took it away. AF had the foresight to take a photo of the drawing, and then she sleuthed around until she found me.

It took a bit of conversation until I figured out what house she was speaking of. She was hoping to be able to buy a print of the house, but when she told me it had the date of 1995, I told her that I didn’t even own a computer back then, much less a scanner.

However, sometimes when I have prints made, I keep one in my flat files. I told AF that there was a possibility that I had one.

The bottom drawer of my flat files is very hard to open, so I rarely fight it and as a result, don’t know what it contains. But the label indicated it might contain the desired print, so I wrestled it open.

AHA!! EUREKA!! Here it is!!

I couldn’t get the drawer to go back in so I made like a snake and bellied up to peek inside. Look what was shoved behind that bottom drawer! I had occasionally wondered where these drawings were, but as someone who loses things regularly, I had other missing things to occupy me.

I called AF to let her know I found the print. She was quite excited, as was I. Before packaging it up for her, I scanned it for you.

I remembered that the customer had only the bottom portion turned into notecards, and just two weeks prior, one of my drawing students brought one to me that he found in his mother-in-law’s stacks of stuff. (Weird.)

Turns out, that card was the drawing that AF had seen at the house, and she had no idea that the drawing was an intricate collage of many parts. She has connected with my original customer and will get an explanation of everything included. (Obviously I drew this before instigating the rule of No Faces Smaller Than An Egg.)

I love it when things turn out like this, with the added bonus of finding missing items for myself too. (Who cares if I talked myself out of a drawing commission? That’s not as important as actually helping someone.)

Working Toward a Solo Show

In August, “Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther” will open in Tulare at the Tulare Historical Museum’s Heritage Gallery.

What is this? So glad you asked! It is another solo show of my art.

Pieces have sold since the show last fall in Exeter at CACHE, new pieces have been painted, and it is time to assess the collection. Do I have enough paintings? Is there enough of a spread of sizes, shapes, and subjects?

How do I figure this out? So glad you asked! (Have you noticed how many times an interviewee responds to a question with “great question”? I try to avoid clichés, so I made my own clichéd response.)

Trail Guy and I set up my display screens in the painting workshop and hung all the larger paintings. I made lists: how many of which subjects, how many vertical, how many horizontal, which ones need to be touched up or improved or finished, and what shall I paint next?

The two blank canvases will become Sawtooth paintings, one horizontal, and the other vertical. The vertical canvas is turned around because it has a painting on the other side, done many years ago by a friend’s daughter. She passed the canvas along to me, rightly discerning that my frugal self would say a hearty “THANK YOU!” and turn it into something else.

These look rather undignified, all squished together, crooked, some on the floor. Doesn’t matter for purposes of this evaluation session.

I wanted to go lie down, eat some chocolate, read a book, pull a few weeds, knit something, or just rock while staring out the window, but instead we schlepped all the paintings to the studio and replaced them with pencil drawings. Sometimes I can find my inner warrior and soldier through.

Are there enough? Are any too tired to show? What pieces need to be added? Do I have frames that will work or will I need to fork out money for more framing? (My framer is wonderful, in case you are interested. I take him pieces, tell him my budget, sometimes indicate a mood such as “formal” or “rustic”, tell him to make it look good and call me when it is finished. His name is Ed, and his business is Express Framing in Visalia. Tell him I sent you.)

This list is shorter than the oil list because I have many many many pencil drawings. How many? Glad you asked! A LOT!! (I don’t want to count.)

Currently I have 24 larger paintings, about 15 smaller ones, and 9 tiny (5×7”) ocean scenes that will sit on easels. That is 48 paintings, but there is a chance some of them will sell at Silver City this summer. There are two new large ones to paint (maybe more if the asphalt paver coming to repair our driveway decides he would like to barter), three to improve, and one to finish.

I will probably add about four more to the current batch of pencil drawings: another pier, another portrait, and two with some color in them.

What was so tough? It was a lot of schlepping, but that’s no biggie. Sometimes it is just hard to face reality: is my work good enough? How much work remains? Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Can I do better? Am I promoting my work enough? Does anyone care? Should I just go get a real job?

All of this thinking and planning is simply part of the business of art.