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.

Perilously Emotional See-Saw

For the past several summers, I have sold oil paintings of Mineral King scenes at the Silver City Store.

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This summer I took up 3 6×6″ and 3 8×10″. Each time I go to Mineral King, I stop by the store (we think of it as “The Store”) to see how the paintings are selling. I missed a weekend, and then stopped by again.

Oak Grove Bridge XVIII

THEY WERE ALL SOLD!

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The reason I stopped by was that I met some great folks who wanted to talk about Israel. Then the woman asked my last name (weird, I know, but someone introduced us by first name and mentioned I had been to Israel) and was all excited to meet me.

Hunh?

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Turns out she buys a painting by me each year when she comes to her Mineral King cabin.

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It is quite a thrill to meet a stranger who buys my art, because often I wonder if it is just my friends and relatives who feel sorry for me that buy my work.

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The business of art is a perilously emotional see-saw.

Please excuse me while I go find a chill-pill and then start painting again.

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.

Busy Week Ahead

Today I want you to see the list of things I hope to take care of this week. It will relieve you of any illusions of an artist just happily creating under amazing peaceful inspiration. (That’ll teach me to run off to Israel for 2 weeks when there is work to be done!)

Illusions of peaceful inspiration from Israel
Illusions of peaceful inspiration from Israel
  1. Finish preparing the manuscript of Trail of Promises (final edits) and email to the printer. (Remember that I am now also an editor and dabbling in book shepherding due to my “vast experience” with The Cabins of Wilsonia.)
  2. Wait for the paper proof of the cover and hustle it to the author for approval.
  3. Package up an order of notecards and hustle them to the post office.
  4. Prepare a deposit and hustle it to the bank.
  5. Scramble around to find mats and frames for pencil drawings that pertain to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for a last minute exhibit.
  6. Spend time writing a few sentences to accompany every piece.
  7. Email the images and the prices, sizes and “paragraphs of inspiration” (WHAT?? I thought it would make a nice card or print to sell in the parks!! Is that “inspiration”??)
  8. Finish the Exeter coloring book designs – title page, front cover, inside front cover, inside back cover, and back cover, color the covers, scan everything, email it to the printer (hence the reason for the hustle to the bank – gotta pay for these things in advance)

No painting or pencil drawing this week. Just lots of hustling around. Anyone want to order a coloring book? Some notecards? I’ll be going to the post office.

mineral king coloring book

Odd Job

As an artist in business since 1987 in Tulare County (full time since 1993), I occasionally get asked to do odd jobs. It is challenging and usually fun. If an artist is established and available, it is one of the many parts of the business of art.

A giclee is a reproduction on canvas done with some sort of special printer, often coated with something so it looks like a painting.

Some friends have a giclee of a blue jay, and they had a painting accident while changing the color of their living room.

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See those drips? Here, look a little more closely.

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First I tried a bit of turpentine. Nope. The drips are dry.

Next, I’ll see if oil paint will stick to the surface. This will involve mixing a bunch of different shades of gray. (Too bad I can’t use pencil.)

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Woohoo! That was easy and fun. I really like this painting, which is odd, because my own style is much tighter.
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Hmmm, look how good it looks on a blue background. I’m tempted to copy this painting for myself, but must maintain professional business ethics. Phooey.

Almost Done Designing a Book

“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.

  1. Learn how to design the back cover.
  2. Design the back cover, making sure it is prepared properly for the printer.
  3. Figure out how to get a bar code, and how to place it on the book.
  4. Figure out how to send the book to the printer.

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.

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Pencil drawing from The Cabins of Wilsonia – a woodshed? an outhouse? a toolshed?

And More 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:

  1. Learn how to change the template so the chapter titles appear as running heads instead of the author’s name by emailing the Book Designer for help, several times because, well, because it is complicated.
  2. Change the master template page things to have chapter titles in the space where Louise’s name would have appeared.
  3. Find that in normal books, the chapter titles are on the right page, not the left. If you have the author’s name on every spread, the title goes on the right. If you have the chapter titles on each spread, the title goes on the left.
  4. Change the master template page things again to accommodate this new information.
  5. Realize I have the power to eliminate many of the hyphenated words at the end of lines, and go through all 300 pages to fix as many as possible.
  6. See that changing the hyphenation caused some of the photos to land in the middle of paragraphs, so go back through the 300 pages to scoot them.
  7. Louise and I decide that a plain divider line looked too plain, so design a fancier, but not too fancy divider line.
  8. Replace the divider line with the pretty one.
  9. Go back through the 300 pages and see that I missed some.
  10. Find that there is a spell check on InDesign and decide it can’t hurt to run it in spite of the facts that I used spellcheck on Word,  Louise and I have proofed it many many times, as have the 3 people
  11. Find a few typos.

Fall down laughing with exhaustion. . .

This pencil drawing of a Wilsonia cabin invites me to sit on the porch and contemplate a life without InDesign.
This pencil drawing of a Wilsonia cabin invites me to sit on the porch and contemplate a life without InDesign.

More Designing a Book

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.

Pencil drawing of cabin door from The Cabins of Wilsonia.
Pencil drawing of cabin door from The Cabins of Wilsonia.

Designing a Book

What is book design? That’s a question I asked back in 1998 when Jane Coughran and I published The Cabins of Mineral King.

The answer was too complex and computerish for me to comprehend. We paid someone to prepare our book for printing, and I had no understanding whatsoever of what was involved.

When I published The Cabins of Wilsonia, I figured I could do that stuff myself, being the owner of a Macbook and having written this blog for 5 years (at that time).

Holy guacamole. I had no pickin’ idea. It involved buying InDesign and learning to use it. This necessitated 2 trips to Seattle for training and many desperate calls for help. It also involved a huge number of uncharitable and unChristian thoughts towards Adobe, the makers of InDesign and Photoshop Elements, the latter of which is supposed to be simple to use.

Fall down laughing. . .

In spite of the difficulties, I got ‘er dun.

This gave me a false sense of confidence in believing I could do the book design for someone else, 2 years of forgetting later.

Oh my. This calls for a calming picture, and I’ll have to continue this little saga tomorrow.

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Pencil drawing of cabin porch from The Cabins of Wilsonia. This is a good place to sit and contemplate the peacefulness of no computers.