Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
I’ve added colored pencil to the commissioned pencil (graphite?) drawing that commemorates a beautiful place on a beautiful day with a beautiful friend.
Ahhhhh. . . .
Outstanding idea, my creative Found Friend!
The commissioned pencil drawing will have a touch of color, but first I have to spray fix it so that the graphite doesn’t smear into the colors.
Here’s a thought-provoking question for you: Why do I say I work in pencil instead of saying I work in graphite? I don’t say that I paint in “brush” – I say I paint in “oil”. A pencil is a tool as is a brush; graphite is the medium as is oil paint.
Clarity is probably the answer. I’m talking to regular people who say “picher” for “picture”, “prolly” for “probably”, “hite” for “height”, and “gotta” for “got to”. Regular people most likely won’t understand “graphite” as the medium in a pencil. They prolly think it is something to unstick a lock.
Here is the commissioned pencil drawing in graphite, minus the color.
There is a bit of graphite where I’ll put color because it will serve to deepen and darken the color.
Clarity: what’s the difference between “deepen” and “darken” when discussing color? I dunno. I’m a regular person who prolly doesn’t always get stuff. Gotta go, see ya!
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
Of course a commissioned pencil drawing is fun for me. I LOVE to draw in pencil.
When I draw, there are several steps. First, I choose the size and location on the paper. Second, I lay out all the shapes in a light outline. Third, oh boy, this is the party, I shade.
Shading is how things go from a 2 dimensional piece of paper with height and width (in case you were wondering, the word “height” is pronounced “hite”, not “hithe” ) to an apparent 3 dimensional scene. Shading adds distance, texture and depth.
I don’t expect you to be all chills and thrills about this, but you’ve got to admit it is starting to “look just like a picher” as people often say to me when I do art events. Those folks probably say “hite” and “gotta” too. Prolly.
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
I began the commissioned pencil drawing for Found Friend of a view out of the window of a chapel at St. Anthony Retreat Center in Three Rivers. It was pure pleasure to draw in pencil after months of book designing, coloring book drawing in ink and oil painting.
I LOVE to draw in pencil, particularly to draw architectural subjects. A friend and customer once told me that he thinks I am an art-chitect. 😎
This is the beginnings of the drawing for Found Friend.
It was fairly simply to lay out and begin the shading.
To be continued. . .
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
A commissioned pencil drawing is a drawing someone pays you to draw specifically for her. Found Friend asked me to draw a view out the windows of the small chapel at St. Anthony Retreat Center in Three Rivers.
First, I took photos.
Second, I did 2 sketches to see if either one fit her vision.
Found Friend chose A.
Tomorrow I’ll show the beginning of the commissioned pencil drawing.
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
“Commissioned Pencil Drawing” is a straightforward title for a nice story of friendship and inspiration.
I have a friend from summer camp when we were in grade school. We cannot remember the summer we met. We lost touch. She and my older sister became friends as adults.
Last summer I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Happier by Gretchen Rubin. Love her writing, her podcast, her way of thinking. . . for some reason that particular post was so interesting to me that I took time to read the comments. I recognized the married name of my old friend in one of the comments! Her name was clickable, so I followed links, found a picture and recognized her! She had her own blog and a contact button, so I emailed her and she REMEMBERED ME!
But wait. It gets weirder. Would you believe that is the only time she has EVER commented on a national blog?? And it was the only time I have ever taken the time to read the comments on Gretchen’s blog?
We now have a great email correspondence and have gotten together several times. She is a fabulous human, a deep thinker, a thoughtful and kind person, and a Major Blessing in my life. To protect her privacy, I will call her “Found Friend”.
What does this have to do with a commissioned pencil drawing?
Found Friend spent a bit of time at St. Anthony Retreat Center in Three Rivers several years ago, and was struck by a view out the windows of one of the chapels. When she visited me this spring, we went there and sat inside that chapel so she could show me the view because she wanted to commission me to draw that view in pencil.
She insisted that we conduct business in my normal way, no special friend discounts or freebies. This always feels weird to me, but I remember something a wise friend told me years ago: “If your friends won’t do business with you, who will?”
Here are a few photos I took that day.
Tomorrow I will show you the 2 sketches I did for my Found Friend to consider and choose.
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.
What do I mean “early summer”? It isn’t summer until June 21!
Oh yeah? It’s been in the high 90s and low 100s for a couple of weeks around here. That qualifies as summer, despite the calendar’s report.
Trail Guy is back out on the trails in Mineral King. I’ll get there, just hang on. Meanwhile, please enjoy his photos with my photo editing and explanations.
“Done” designing a book? Stick a fork in me, I’m done.
When did we start substituting the word “done” for “finished”?
Who cares? I’m almost done!
Here is what remains on my book design project for Louise.
That’s it? Maybe. Louise and I found a chapter with the final paragraph missing, and some weird computer business on the table of contents. Always something more to deal with in this business of book designing.
We, that is Louise, the 3 people who commissioned her to write their story and I, will receive one copy from the printer before we have the whole batch printed. We’ll pass it around, and each one of us will mark it with a different color, if there is anything to mark. Then, we’ll get it printed.
When I have permission, I will tell you the title, a summary of the story, and show you the cover.
Now I need to find a quiet place to contemplate matters of consequence such as being almost done with designing a book.
I offered to design a book for an author friend. Let’s call her “Louise”, because that is her name.
Louise discussed it with the 3 people who commissioned her to write their story, and they gratefully accepted my offer.
I read up on book design, learning most of what I needed from The Book Designer‘s website. I had paid him for consultation to be sure I wasn’t messing up The Cabins of Wilsonia. He charged more for one hour than I often earn in a week, but he was worth every dollar. He is a fount of helpful information.
I bought a template from him to use with InDesign, thinking this would be simple and easy and fast and how awesome to just slam this thing out with all my previous experience and knowledge.
Fall down laughing. . .
Look at some of the work:
Fall down laughing with exhaustion. . .
I thought I knew what was necessary about designing a book, because I designed my book The Cabins of Wilsonia.
That book involved preparing pencil drawings using Photoshop Elements, a few pages of text, all the frontmatter (that’s Book Speak for the pages of a book that are not the main part that normal people read), the backmatter (bet you can figure this one out yourself), the cover, captions and quotations. Oh, and chapter titles, page numbering, and all the little adjustments and details that no one notices in a book unless they are wrong.
A dear friend and author needed help with some photo editing on a book she was writing. I volunteered. It was very fun. Together we improved about 200 photos. This morphed into the actual copyediting of the book. It is pure pleasure to work with my friend.
As we got deeper into the project, I learned that the author and the 3 people who commissioned her to write their story were planning on using an assisted self-publishing company to get the book print-ready.
When I learned how much that would cost them, how many unnecessary extras they had to buy along with the book design, and that price did NOT even include any books, I was appalled.
So, I offered to do it.
Fall down laughing. . .
I’ll carry on tomorrow. For now, I need to take some deep calming breaths, and contemplate matters of peacefulness.
