…or perhaps a PhD. The topic? Trickinology. Visual trickinology.

I’m drawing Reimers Candies and Gifts from a straight-on view, something that isn’t really possible to see in real life. Well, maybe it is, but it would take a wide-angle lens, and the resultant drawing would be an entirely unwieldy shape for reproducing as cards.

Here is a progression of a day’s work (with many interruptions—lots of moving parts in my life during this project). I moved that giant oak tree to the right because it was blocking the gift shop and patio.

Instead of 4 chairs, the table only gets 2. Even this artist has her limits on microscopic furniture depictions.

Here’s a substandard photo for you to admire the distance I’ve covered in this monumental, underpriced, over-engineered pencil drawing. (Yeah, I know, I always say that.)

Those windows and the patio look mighty fine, if I do say so myself. And I do. Just tryna not break my arm patting myself on the back.

After admiring my progress, I was temporarily flummoxed. The section on the far right is the ice cream shop. It has many windows and doors, a sign, two stories, a porch overhang, and a very cantilevered second story roof with a severe angle, which doesn’t show in this photo.

See what I mean about the roofline?

All of it is hidden behind that giant sycamore tree when viewed from a straight on angle.

When my drawing students encounter difficulties (because no one listens to me when I tell them a particular subject is too hard), I advise them to put tissue paper over the top and then try to solve the problems that way. (Usually I end up scribbling a solution on the tissue paper while they sit there either frozen in fear or babbling about how they should have listened to me.)

The sycamore tree is barely coming forward from the far right edge.

That’s about all I can manage before I get frozen in fear or start babbling about how I should have listened to my own advice.

Wait, I didn’t give myself any advice except to make this the very very best depiction that I can possibly do of an iconic Three Rivers business.