Category: drawing

Art Emergencies

You’ve learned about odd art jobs such as quilt patches and umbrellas (and NO, I DON’T WANT TO PAINT ON AN OLD SAW!) Now, I bring you Art Emergencies. This is where someone comes to you and says “I know this is short notice but. . .” Generally speaking, 30% of the work that comes to me is an emergency. Granted, there are no true emergencies outside of birth and death, and “poor planning on your part does not create an emergency on mine”. However, poor planning on the part of a customer often creates nice jobs for me. And, to be fair, sometimes Art Emergencies are not a result of poor planning but the result of a surprise as in “Joe Bag-of-Doughnuts just announced his retirement and we need a nice personalized gift for him right away!” Here is one from a couple of years ago:

If you are wondering about it, it was for a retiring Visalia City Council member and all the elements of this collage mean something to him. And no, he isn’t Joe Bag-of-Doughnuts; he is more akin to Joe Box-of-Oranges!

Getting there

Remember this? On overcast days, I draw in the studio rather than paint in the workshop. Have I mentioned how much I love to draw? 😎 Now that my seasonal shows are behind me, I can finish this so the customer will have it in hand before Christmas.

In progress

When it is overcast, the light is too low for painting. So, I draw instead! Here is the chosen sketch for this comissioned collage piece:

Looks like a scribbly mess unless you know the photos. I showed the customers 4 options and they chose A with a few minor changes. Here is the beginning of the drawing:

Growth, part five (Facing Faces)

After about 9 years and on the fourth address for cabinart, it became apparent that notecards were fading fast, and the local market for house and cabin commissioned drawings was getting saturated. The next step? Portraits! I had skirted around this subject for years, refusing commissions, terrified of not being able to capture a likeness. This was and is a reasonable fear. If someone pays you to draw Steve, they expect you to draw Steve, not his cousin! Faces are so subtly different; we all have the same components, and yet we most definitely do not look like one another. (However, I do tend to get all the cookie-cutter blondies on The O’Reilly Factor mixed up. . . )

What to do? This was a brick wall on which I had been bashing my head for years. A wise friend said, “Why don’t you pray about it?” Duh. So, I did. Within the year, the CPSA offered 2 separate workshops on colored pencil portraiture, and the principles definitely crossed over to graphite. I was on my way in portraits! However, this will always be a difficult subject for me; unless I pray through each and every portrait, I do tend to draw the guy’s cousin. The subtle differences can just divert a face from the intended person to a stranger or a distance relative with a slight mis-stroke of the pencil.

cabinart drawing pencil portraits

Growth, part four (Venturing into color)

Just Picked – colored pencil – 18 x 21″ – $550

Just when I thought I “had it made” and was settling in to The One Way To Do An Art Business, several of my students wanted to learn colored pencil. In high school, my friend Lisa thought watercolors were for babies, and I had the same opinion of colored pencils. First, I had to find a new attitude toward colored pencils; second I had to learn to use them correctly. This happened through books and the Colored Pencil Society of America. They offer seminars and workshops that are phenomenal in their variety and scope – this is a wonderful organization. http://www.cpsa.org/

Orange Juice – colored pencil – 11 x 14″ – $200

citrus art colored pencil oranges

Growth, part three (Learning to teach)

The next step in the saga of growing an art business was teaching people how to draw. It has always been a very rewarding challenge to help people learn to see, to break down the process into manageable steps and to spend time with wonderful people that I might never have gotten the chance to know. That grew, and eventually I had to move somewhere that gave me the flexibility to teach more classes. Over time, the list of people wanting to take lessons expanded to 85 people! I had as many as 50 students at one time in classes of 4-5 per hour.

Pencil drawing by S. Brown – private collection

pencil drawing

Growth, part two (Cards & Commissions)

I used to draw pictures that fit nicely into sets of notecards, which then sold very well both retail and wholesale. I still do a few cards, but the market just isn’t as big. In fact, it is microscopic. Tell me, how many cards, thank yous and little notes do you send a year? How many do you receive? Hmmmm, really have to think about that one. Cards do sell, but not very many anymore. (Despite the handiness of communicating via computer, the truth is, no one ever cherished an email, so there.)

In addition, I drew cabins and homes on a commission basis. (still do!) That was the sum total of my abilities in the early years, and it kept me quite busy.

local notecards pencil commissions Sequoia

Growth, part one

Ever read the book Who Moved My Cheese? If I remember it correctly, it is about the necessity of changing and keeping up. Way way way back when I first started selling art, I drew a picture of the Kaweah Post Office. It was not very good, but I was too dumb to know the difference between good and not good and too excited to calm down and study it and repair the not-so-good parts. Instead, I had 100 reproductions made and began selling them. If you have one of those and would like to trade it for a better version, please let me know – it will be FREE. This offer is good for the first 9 8 people who respond and PHYSICALLY HAND ME THE OLD PRINT!! Of course, if you’d like to just buy one, you may do so here: https://www.cabinart.net/reproductions_new.shtml There are only 2 remaining prints of the Post Office, so the offer is now officially expired.

Kaweah Post Office

Inner Slob

You have probably heard it said that inside each fat person is a thin one screaming to be set free.

I am the converse of that statement.

Don’t think that I think I am thin; I’m not, but I’m certainly not obese.(or “obeast” as I heard an acquaintance once pronounce it. I’m guessing she isn’t much of a reader.)

However, each day as I march out the door to take a power walk (4-8 miles at a 15 minute mile pace), I am leaving coffee, a comfortable armchair, the woodstove in the winter, knitting, my Bible, a library book or two, my cats, and many other lovely sedentary preoccupations.

Each day as I resolutely march out to my studio to paint, draw, plan, return phone calls or any other task necessary to keeping my business going, I pass numerous Adirondack chairs strategically placed around my yard for the purpose of taunting me.

They call out, they whisper, they cajole, they plead.

What are they saying? “Sit and knit!

Enjoy life from a stationary viewpoint!

Relax!

LEAVE THE INNER FAT GIRL ALONE!”

One time I finally sat down and this is what happened to the chair. A girl could get a fat complex. . .

Drawing versus art

In college, I had an art teacher in a design class or some other esoteric subject who said to me, “Just because you can draw doesn’t make you an artist”. I was devastated, insulted, dismayed, shocked, and any other adjective you can think of for the situation—how dare he say that to me!! Now that I have the advantage of 35+ years life experience and wisdom, I know he was right, even if it was an insensitive and snotty remark.

Drawing is a skill that can be taught, learned, developed and is sometimes just innate. Art has to be something that one learns about, develops over time, and comes about because of a love for the subject. Art can encompass many skills, forms and be useful in many careers.

Drawing is a skill that is useful regardless of one’s career, and it definitely is useful in any art career. One can become an artist without the ability to draw, particularly in this age of multiple tools. A number of years ago, I had an interesting conversation with an art teacher friend. She was teaching her junior high students more than any of my college professors ever taught me—principles, elements, styles and history.

My college professors may have had their Master’s of Fine Arts degrees, but mostly they walked around the room while taking a break from their own work, and offered criticism and snide remarks (“Just because you can draw. . .” or “You need to work on composition”) without ever bothering to actually teach, to demonstrate or share information.

I have been teaching people how to draw for over 30 years. (and that is without an MFA – imagine that!) It is a skill, and in teaching the skill, many other things about art can be shared. We talk about different styles, ways to set up a drawing from the beginning, ways of arranging the elements in a drawing, and lots of technique. (The main thing I ever want to learn is HOW and the second is WHY, so that is what I share with my students.)

Through the years, only a small handful of my students (that I know of) of have pursued art as a career. Everyone that has stayed long enough has learned to draw, and they each have drawings they can proudly show off to prove that they know how to draw.

I couldn’t draw this well in college; growth is the goal of many years of practice.

Drawing lessons were not a waste of time for any of my former or present students. They learn to draw (duh), learn to communicate with people of all ages (that is the way my classes are), explore a type of art in a comfortable environment, develop a bit more confidence, and make new friends.

I enjoy every moment spent with each of my students. We have easy friendships that transcends age and last through time and all its changes. In conclusion, I can draw AND am an artist, so there, you Snotty Professor who are now probably just a retired teacher! But I’m not bitter.