Thoughts on Success in Art

I have 3 nephews. 2 of them are “creatives”, one an accomplished graphic artist supporting a wife and 2 children, and the other about to start his junior year in college as a music major. Might be performing arts, might be music theory. . . can’t remember exactly and embarrassed by asking him too often.

Music Nephew and I have been having an email conversation about “the arts”, and he mentioned how a musician friend of his gets in the way of his own success. I responded with something that I think you might enjoy, Oh Blog Readers (all 4 of you or so. . . maybe 6 or 7, but I still don’t know how to access or read the blog stats).

Most of us trying to make it in the arts are usually in the way of our own success. I’m gradually learning to redefine success. I know I don’t want to spend hours and hours on social media trying to build up a following, so I’m not – that’s success. I’d rather have real people that I know just happily following my blog and thinking of me when they have an art need – they do, so that’s success. I also don’t want to do the crazy hard work of building up a body of work that might appeal to galleries, which I’m not, so that’s success.

My life’s work is to discover and display the good things of Tulare County, a place I love to hate and hate to love. Sigh. Thus, the mixed ideas about success – I am portraying this place, but sometimes I want to live somewhere with a less hostile climate, cleaner air, and richer more educated populace.

If you made it to the end of this bloviation, you deserve a reward. Here, have a look at a successful pencil drawing of a bridge.

Marblefork Bridge, pencil on paper, 11x14 framed, currently hanging at the Courthouse Gallery in Exeter.
Marblefork Bridge, pencil on paper, 11×14 framed, currently hanging at the Courthouse Gallery in Exeter.

Framing on Short Notice

I have many unframed pencil drawings. It costs a lot of money to frame a picture. I have a lot of frames, and a big box of mats. Matching drawings with mats and frames is a process.

“Process” is a nice businessy word that actually means ‘BIG FAT HASSLE”.

This is how I frame on short notice.

  1. Here is a frame that might work.
  2. Here is another one.
  3. Just grab them all.
  4. Where are the mats? Get the whole box!
  5. Hold a picture up to a frame with another picture in it to see if it is vaguely the same size. Don’t worry too much about the best color, because time and supplies are limited. Besides, they are all grays because they are pencil.
  6. Yep, that might work. Unframe the drawing.
  7. Oops, this one is a little short on the top and bottom. Better extend the drawing.
  8. Okay, that’ll work. Get it in the mat.
  9. Looks fine, get it in the frame.
  10. Dang, is that a hair under the glass? Better unframe it.
  11. Put it back.
  12. Dang, it’s crooked. Better unframe it again.
  13. Straighten it and put it back.
  14. I FORGOT TO SCAN IT! Better unframe it.
  15. Scanned, put it back.
  16. WHAT’S UNDER THE GLASS THIS TIME? Better unframe it.
  17. Put it back. Yeppers, that’ll do.
  18. NEXT!!!?
Generals Highway
Ahem. The bottom of this is a little crooked. “Unfinished” is a better word. It’s not wrong, it just isn’t done yet. So there.

Show on Short Notice

Told you it was a busy week! So busy that I forgot to post.

I received a “Call to Artists”. This is ArtSpeak for “Hey, wanna put your art in a show?”

The point of the show is to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service.

The duration of the show is August 1 – September 30.

The location is the Courthouse Gallery in Exeter.

The deadline for entry is JULY 14!! Tomorrow!

The entry process was a little vague and somewhat complex, and with the short notice, I was scrambling. I have plenty of art of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, probably enough to fill the entire Courthouse Gallery all by my lonesome, but it has to be framed, the size determined, a price set, titles assigned, and photos or scans taken. This is part of the business of art.

Suddenly instead of working on the Exeter coloring book, I was pulling drawings from drawers, taking frames from storage and off the walls, digging through a box of mats, retouching drawings and occasionally reshaping them so they will fit in available mats and frames.

Bridge at Lodgepole2 Roaring River Falls2

Tomorrow I will describe my framing process. Prepare to either laugh or start snatching yourself bald in frustration.

Drawing Lessons

Since 1994 I have been teaching people how to draw. We don’t go outside and sketch. We sit inside and work from photos. We learn to break a complex photo into its basic shapes, how to start a drawing, to get all the shapes  and proportions right, how to shade so that it appears 3 dimensional and how to finish it off to be the best possible.

I have about 20 students, ranging in age from 13 to Too-Polite-To-Ask.

Everyone works at his own pace on the subject of his own choosing. We generally don’t doggedly copy photos but do some well-thought-out cropping, and in general just clean up the mess that real life consists of.

I encourage everyone to work from her own photos rather than things from calendars, magazines and the internet. Not everyone has a good camera or a backlog of photos, and often I will lend photos to my students.

Usually each person has an idea of what he wants to draw.

The main thing is this: PICK SOMETHING YOU LOVE BECAUSE YOU WILL BE STARING AT IT FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

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This is a grandson with a stuffed lion. Definitely a much loved subject!
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We have spent a great deal of time evaluating exactly what we are seeing here. That is one of the drawbacks of working from a photo taken by someone else.
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I warned him and warned him about the slowness of colored pencil, but he proceeded anyway. Just getting the gradation of blues, and getting it smooth, is taking F O R E V E R. That’s okay – we don’t have any deadlines.
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A perfectionistic animal lover is doing a fabulous job on this challenging conglomerate of squishy shapes and elusive textures.
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Stunning! Simply stunning. This is by a woman who began lessons about 9 years ago so that her watercolor paintings would be more accurate. She mastered graphite quickly and has been showing off with colored pencil ever since. She doesn’t need lessons any more, but I am ever so grateful that she continues to show up each week.
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No faces smaller than an egg! Sometimes my students are determined. So, I help them the best I can and we all learn. Those who are looking on in horror become determined to never draw a face smaller than an egg. What a challenge!
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Turned my back to help the other students for awhile and BOOM! FInal leaf, done. There’s a very dark background coming. . . that ought to slow her down a bit. Or not.
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The idea with this is to do one of the blossoms in color. That is one of my favorite ways to use color, and this is turning out beautifully.

Commissioned Pencil Drawing Ready for Color

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!LB#3

Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.

Commissioned Pencil Drawing Gets Fun

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.

LB#2

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.

Commissioned Pencil Drawing Begun

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.LB #1

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.

Sketches for Commissioned Pencil Drawing

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.

LB sketches

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.

A Found Friend Commissions A Pencil Drawing

“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.

Small chapel at St. Anthony's
Small chapel at St. Anthony’s
Alta Peak
Alta Peak

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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.