After giving up on a tiny portrait in pencil, I returned to something that I can succeed at drawing.
Then I added color.
Next, I started the second commissioned pencil drawing for the same customer.
If you need a little pencil drawing of a face and it happens to look just like an orange grove, I can do this for you.
The orange grove commissioner (doesn’t that sound like a job title?) chose view A.
She would like 2 drawings of the same scene, sort of.
I asked if she wanted the mountains visible toward the north end of her view—Alta Peak, Moro Rock, Castle Rocks—or the mountains toward the south end of her view—Sawtooth, Homer’s Nose.
She said one of each, beginning with the south end, so that if she changes her mind and decides on sketch B, C, or D, then she still has her first choice mountains.
Let ‘er rip, tater chip. (Or perhaps, “Gentlemen, start your engines”.)
First, the layout. What height for the distant mountains, where do the rows belong, get the hills right for Pete’s Sake!, where shall the main wind machine go…? Many little decisions, but not too much fussy detail in this landscape.
I looked at several photos of the mountains and foothills, enlarged Sawtooth from how it appeared in the photos provided by the customer, and tried to get in enough texture in the hills to be recognizable without actually counting boulders.
This is a combination of believable scribbling and very close scrutiny underneath a magnifying glass to make sure that no scribbling is actually noticeable… no loop-dee-loops or Ms & Ws (ems and double-yous look like rick-rack) or scritchy-scratchy lines are allowed to show. So the scribbling isn’t as random or casual as it sounds.
Never mind. This is how my drawing students and I talk about drawing. You might need to be present for a demonstration, or more likely, you wouldn’t care. Just be polite, ‘kay?
The bottom right corner will have closer leaves and oranges, with a touch of color.
I love these types of pictures—orange groves, foothills, mountains.
My current favorite subject for painting is classic Tulare County—citrus and mountains, two things I consider to be the best parts of living here.
Today I am asking for a little help. My most current painting is nameless, and I am out of ideas.
Would you like to name this painting for me?
Thanks! (You know it looks better in person, don’t you?)
Here are some ideas that were submitted in response to my emailed newsletter:
Here and There
The Elephant and the Orange
Beyond the Trees
Foothill Bounty
Sierra Oranges
Orange View
Oh Beautiful!
Before 50/50 bars
California’s Peaks and Navels
Spruce Road, East
On a Clear Day
Citrus and the Sierra
Classic Tulare County
The Best of California
Last minute update: the painting was spoken for, the buyer chose the name, and then she measured her wall. Oops. It won’t fit. It is my fault for not publishing the size, 10×20″. It is now available, $375 (this includes sales tax if you live in California or shipping if you don’t), here on my website, or in all the usual ways such as seeing me in person, calling, emailing, etc.
Poppies and oranges and orange groves and poppy fields: that’s what I paint in the winter and spring. (Unless I am painting Sawtooth).
Remember this? It was on the easel until the poppies started selling like hotcakes.
I finished 6 new small oil paintings of poppies, and was so pleased to have paint in the right colors left on the palette to finish this painting.
It is signed, but you can’t really tell in the last photo. After it dries, I will photograph it in good light for you (and my website and portfolio and records, etc.)
This type of painting really says Tulare County to me. Now it needs a title.
I have two new pencil commissions, both of orange groves with foothills and mountains in the distance.
I love this stuff! (Big happy face emoji could fit here but this is a blog, not a text, and we speak English here, not hieroglyphics).
Here are 4 ideas for the customer to choose from or develop into something else. Good thing she knows that I can draw.
She didn’t specify whether she prefers horizontal or vertical, nor did we establish which part of the mountains she prefers: Alta Peak with Castle Rocks or a bit farther south to show Sawtooth and Homer’s Nose.
She did say that she wanted a little bit of color.
You probably have a clear favorite but it is the customer’s opinion that will prevail.
There has been a request for a print of this drawing. I will order 2, unless other people tell me that they would like them too. I don’t know the price, but it should be lin the neighborhood of $35-50 apiece. After I hear how many people are interested, I will ask the printer for a price. The original is 11×14″, but I could get them printed as 8×10″ instead.
Interested?
Mr. and Mrs. Customer requested a few more leaves and oranges to extend into the margins. I did a bit of subtle extensions, then sprayed, colored, and signed it.
This is the closest I am able to get to perfect.
It is time for me to really study this pencil commission. The pencil drawing needs to be perfect, because the next step is to spray it with a fixative, to prevent smearing when I add colored pencil to a few areas.
Mr. Customer asked for clouds, so I decided some wispy types would add texture, variety, and interest without becoming too busy. Everything else is highly detailed, so the sky needs to be somewhat visually restful.
All this remains to be inspected:
After I addressed all those items, I scanned the drawing, cleaned up the scanner messes (it ALWAYS leaves spots, and the paper color scans as gray), and emailed it to Mr. and Mrs. Customer for their final approval.
More will be revealed in the fullness of time, or as my dad used to say, “Time will tell”. Meanwhile, I will continue to. . .
What’s my point? Not the point of my pencil. The point of all this careful drawing and explaining is to make everything in this custom pencil drawing believable.
I have added a ladder to the wind machine, smoothed the sky, and begun the lower leaves and oranges on the bottom left.
Have a look at the 2 little girls, the way I see them under the giant lighted magnifying glass. They truly are almost impossible to draw and hardly show up. But they will have color on them at the end, so they will be more visually significant.
Building up the foliage is tedious; some might say “restful”; others might call it “zen”. The tedium is alleviated by the continual need to check the sizes of the leaves and fruit, thinking about where they are landing on the rows of diminishing sizes. 
I also worked on the ground a bit. I want it to look real and as always, believable. Usually within an orchard, there are many dead leaves, broken sticks, and dropped fruit. So, I will put some of this in but be careful to not have it too noticeable, because it isn’t the point. What is the point??
Believability!
The custom pencil drawing of 2 little girls in an orange grove is going to take awhile. I can quickly scribble in the distant orange trees and have them be believable, but everything up close needs to be carefully drawn.
In order for the snow-covered mountains and the wind machine to show up, it needs sky. This is because you cannot draw white; you have to put shading around a white thing for it to appear.
You can see that the leaves on the trees are getting added to, and the distant hills and mountains are too. One side of the wind machine is darker than the other; this will require some attention. 
I think this drawing will have quite a bit of “put some on, take some off, put some on, take some off”. Sounds like a middle-aged woman trying to get comfortable, but I am talking about pencil here. I keep adjusting darks and lights in the distance, looking for the best way to make it look the most believable.