There are many seasoned artists who freely share their experience with other artists. One of the nuggets I’ve gleaned through the years is “Get rid of your junk”. There is no reason to keep things around that do not sell or do not represent your best work. The Cabins of Mineral King represented my best […]
Tough Decision, Part One
As a full time professional artist since 1993, I have accumulated a pile of work. It is overwhelming at times for several reasons. If I am looking for something in particular, I have to sift through many other things. If the flat file drawers get too crowded, some of the paper folds, squishes, migrates to […]
Drawing Architecture in Pencil
Drawing architecture in pencil is my favorite thing. Since this drawing is gone, I get to redraw it. Second chances, opportunities to improve, do-overs–all good things. This is how it looks after about three short sessions with my pencils. Cabin closing, oil painting, teaching drawing lessons, taking inventory and planning for shows, editing, book design, blogging, […]
Do-Over
I get another chance at a do-over! A customer asked to buy three of the original pencil drawings from The Cabins of Wilsonia. One of them is gone, so I offered to redraw it for him. He agreed. The one he wants redrawn isn’t one I felt very proud of. Maybe I got sloppy in the midst of […]
Cabin Drawing Flag Adjustment
A flag seems like an appropriate topic for today. The customers were sort of happy with their Mineral King cabin drawing, but not overjoyed. “Sort of happy” is not good enough. After a bit of conversation, they said the flag was too bright and drew too much attention. My dad liked to quote a Latin […]
Cabin Drawing in Pencil
My business and website is called Cabin Art or Cabinart. This is because when I began, I lived in a cabin and I drew cabins. I still live in a cabin (part time) and still draw them. Here is the latest commissioned pencil drawing of a Mineral King cabin: After seeing the Hume Lake cabin drawing from 1995 […]
Proof That I Draw Better Now
It just occurred to me that perhaps you might disagree with my evaluation of what “drawing better” actually looks like. Bummer. Having a blog often means taking a risk, so here goes. This is the little Hume Lake cabin as I drew it from the customer’s photos in 1995. (I didn’t draw the bug spot, […]
I Draw Better Now
In 1995, I drew a Hume Lake cabin from the customer’s photos. Last week I had the pleasure of staying in that cabin and seeing it for the first time. The customer’s daughter and I grew up together and have recently reconnected. She brought the drawing to Hume Lake, and I was dismayed to see […]
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 […]
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 […]