Beach Birds or Shore Birds?

I got to know someone from New Jersey when I attended college in San Diego. Most of us said “beach”, but our New Jersey suite mate said “shore”. Actually I think she said “sho-ah”.

The owners of my pier drawing asked me to draw some “shore birds”, but I think they are both native Californians. That’s okay, I knew what they meant.

I got ahead of myself, and stopped drawing to ask this question: “Do you want me to make them exactly the same as in the one you saw on my blog, or may I have freedom to move the birds around and add some more?”

The answer came back thus: “I didn’t save the picture from the blog, so I can’t answer you precisely- however I think the artist’s choice would be most satisfactory. Just not too busy – the wave action in the pier drawing is kind of serene, so the shore birds might reflect the same.”

So, I changed my drawing a bit by erasing a few birds from this first version:

Then I darkened a few things, added some rocks, and finished the wet sand.

This will look excellent with the pier. Let me demonstrate here for you to admire.

I sure have a hankering to go to the beach. Or the shore. Even the sho-ah would be amazing.

Eager to Draw

Last year some fine folks of impeccable taste bought this pencil drawing. A few months later, they saw this drawing on my blog and decided it would be a nice companion to the pier.

It would, but whoever owns it would likely disagree. Fortunately for these fine folks of impeccable taste, I accept commissions; fortunately for me, they would like a new drawing, this time in the same shape and size as the pier.

They sent the dimensions, said “no rush”, and I started immediately. I love the beach and by drawing this, it feels somewhat as if I am spending time there. Besides, another two commissions are stuck in Waiting Customer Approval or Waiting for a Deposit mode.

I laid out the size, and determined where the horizon belongs. I think that the 2 photos on the left were what I worked from last time. Those were taken with a film camera, so it’s been awhile…

I now have many more and better quality beach bird photos, so i started experimenting with placement and sizes. This time I carried it outside into the hot bright sun to photograph.

Unsure of bird placement other than that one Jonathan Livingston, I jumped to the sky and water. S’posed to be working top to bottom, left to right so I don’t smear, so shading the birds would have been premature.

It was too hot outside, so now the photos will be a little crummier for you.

Quite an assortment of birds.

That drawing is a lousy print of a lousy photograph of the earlier drawing. You can see I’ve got quite a stack of photos to refer to

Suddenly I got nervous. I forgot to ask my customers a very important question before beginning: Do you want the same birds as in the previous drawing, or can I do a new assortment?

Hmmm, I might end up with a beach bird drawing to store in my flat files and then need to start over.

Every single custom job I do has all sorts of ways I can mess up. You’d think that after this many years, I’d know of all the possible ways to avoid this sort of hazardous situation. You might need to have another think.

I really like the assortment, the big crashing waves, the flock in the sky. If it doesn’t suit my customers, maybe I’ll frame it and keep it anyway. I miss the pier drawing, because it hung by my drawing table for several years before I finally took it to the gallery where it sold.

In the Think Tank and Other Work Thoughts

Sort of Working

Having finished the oil painting commission, priced paintings and cards to sell at Silver City, all this while believing that I have finished enough paintings for the entire summer (possibly delusional about that), it was time to consider how to next spend my work time.

I pulled weeds at church (not work), oiled the siding on the front of the studio (sort of work), learned to use the new scanner at a minimal level (work requiring enormous patience), worked on art for the 2027 calendar (the best kind of work), and went to a county supervisor candidate meet-up where I had a conversation that led to a pencil commission (marketing work).

The requested subject, Reimer’s, to be redrawn in pencil, is here in Three Rivers. Iit will take a few photo sessions to find the right light without the parking lot full of scene-blocking cars. The customer has granted permission to show progress on the blog.

Too many generations of reproduction have severely compromised the quality of this drawing.

The original drawing is in a frame somewhere in someone’s home (I hope it isn’t stashed in a storage unit), the printshop that originally printed this on cards is out of business, and the store is under new ownership with some changes. Hence, it is time for a new drawing.

Preparing to Work

In addition, someone who hired me to edit a very long paper/potential book/article/essay something sent me photos of his garden at its peak and requested a collage type oil painting. I’ve only done collages with pencil, but I am willing to try this design approach in oil paint.

A collage in pencil, designed to combine scenes that seem disparate to the viewer unless you are the customer to whom all these places make sense.

After studying the 10 or so photos that he sent, it became apparent that my laptop screen isn’t up for the task—it’s just too small. So, I put them all on a document, turned it black and white (because my printer isn’t really capable of printing in color without cleaning the heads, running test patterns, and then replacing ink that got used up doing those tasks) and printed it out.

Next, I made a list of everything that is important to the customer. (He is very good at communicating—hence, the successful editing project.)

As I tiptoed ahead on this challenging project, I realized that this is my chance to not be stupidly unbusinesslike. Often I get so caught up in a challenge that I don’t charge for all the extra work, and I rarely remember to get a deposit. This time I let the customer know that the job is in the Think Tank and that I was attaching an invoice for $100 nonrefundable deposit for the design work. It will be applied to the painting, size to be determined.

After work I came home and cleaned up the tail and guts of a squirrel that Tucker caught, nibbled on, and left for Jackson and Pippin to finish. It was seriously disgusting, so instead of showing you that, let’s look at a pencil drawing of a completely intact squirrel.

A Difficult Drawing | But I Have Experience

During my most recent pencil drawing commission, I contemplated how this would have been difficult in the past. There was great satisfaction in putting this together with confidence, knowing that I was exceeding the customer’s expectations while meeting a tight deadline.

Not bragging, just relaxing into the sense of work done well because of many years of experience.

Remember the chosen sketch?

In the past, just the oval shape alone would have had me puzzling over how to make a perfect one that fit the shape and size of the image. That was before Photoshop Jr. and I made friends. Definitely not besties, because Adobe is NOT Apple and therefore not intuitive AND keeps getting updated and complicated, requiring learning it all over again.

But I digress. Jr. was able to make an oval for me to transfer to my drawing paper. Thanks, Buddy.

Here is a little bit more of the progression. As usual, mostly working top to bottom, and left to right, to prevent smearing. The hot press watercolor paper I chose for the drawing is smearier than my usual Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Smooth. I chose it because the entire pad of the Strathmore was trimmed crooked. What?? Yeppers. Weird.

I sent this to Mrs. Customer to reassure her that I was back on schedule.

Then I worked on the oranges in the upper corners. Oranges are almost always my fallback position for decor in art.

There was a gap between the houses, larger than anticipated in the sketch, so I asked her for photos of flowers that mean something to her and she sent this:

In the past I might have suggested something more distinct instead of a mass of small flowers. But, I tapped into the confidence reservoir that experience brings and dove in.

Mrs. Customer was pleased, and so was I. The above photo is good enough to get approval, but not adequate should she request a reproduction of any sort. As the artist, I hold the copyright, and want to be sure that all reproductions are of the highest possible quality.

So back to my “frenemy” Photoshop Jr., because my scanner isn’t large enough for this 14×17” drawing. That meant I scanned it in 2 parts and then patched them together. I may have figured out a better way to make this happen. The learning never stops around here, accumulating experience with every new job.

And now that I am showing you here, I can see there is a bit more work to be done on Photoshop Jr.

Apparently the work never stops, along with the learning. Guess I got a little cocky. . .

Finally Back to the Drawing Board | Actually a Table

After I finished formatting, photo editing and captioning, cover designing, bar code ordering and finally ordering the Springville book, I went back to the drawing board, which is actually a “drawing table”, I think.

Remember this sketch?

The upper house is mostly finished, and I was able to begin the lower one.

Jackson came into the studio, announcing his presence or perhaps expressing his dissatisfaction with life. He sat behind me in my chair so he could bite the back of my arms.

I hissed at him to make him stop, so he climbed onto the table.

That felt risky, so I was glad he decided to move on. He seemed interested in taking a nap in this basket, and as soon as I pulled out the inferior phone to take a photo, he changed his mind. Notice the wooden palette hanging on the wall. This was a gift from my thoughtful and comical Intern.

Despite the feline disruptions, I was able to make progress. As much as I enjoy editing and book design, it is never as restful as simply operating a pencil on paper. I was able to have a couple of phone calls and still be productive, something that is not possible when banging along on a keyboard, trying to make Photoshop, InDesign, or Word cooperate.

New Commission Pencil Drawing

My favorite form of art is pencil drawing. My favorite subjects to draw are architectural. It is fun to tackle subjects that really require thought, careful design, and a bit of artistic license. It is highly satisfying to turn a vague idea from customers into something better than they envisioned.

A customer presented me with one of those challenges: draw her home and the adjoining “granny flat”. She sent me two photos, one of each.

My first thought was, “Nope, these two together will make a really strange shape for framing.” I tried it anyway, and realized that I’d need to go see the two homes in person to figure out how they are attached.

My inner lazy chick thought that maybe I could convince the customer to skip the granny flat and only choose the main house.

Then I decided to go for the big challenge: a collage type drawing. It’s been while since I did one of these (an entire year—remember this job? And this one?) The two houses don’t fill a standard framing proportion, so I went to my default space filler: oranges.

The customer chose the collage, approved the oranges, and I started the very next day.

This is 14×17”, and even at that size, the upper house (granny flat) has teensy little details. I also complicated the job by choosing hot press watercolor paper, something I used to use exclusively. It is a little bit fuzzy, so details are even more challenging to achieve.

“How long does it take to do a drawing?”

“I dunno. How long is a string?”

I spent about an hour designing, and then it took about 15 minutes for the customer to decide. This one day’s progress was about 6-7 hours of drawing.

I know, I know, I don’t charge enough.

I just raised my prices again, so hush up about that!

Drawing with Pencils

I guess you could draw with chalk or a paintbrush or your finger on a fogged up window, but drawing with pencils is what I do.

Student work

It’s also what I teach. A returning drawing student had one month free for lessons before embarking on a new chapter of life. We dove right in, and she stayed for several hours each time rather than the normal one hour weekly lesson. The final one took place in my studio, which is where we started about 12 years ago when she was a wee fourth grader. I made an exception to my usual 6th grade minimum age requirement because she was an exceptional child and private lessons meant much more help and attention.

Here’s a drawing she did in about 5th grade.

Here is the drawing she just completed.

She has become an exceptional adult. To quote another one of my drawing students who has known her through the years, “She’s all that AND a bag of chips!”

Protecting identity, because this IS the World Wide Web.

Central Calif. Artist Work

This is a commissioned pencil drawing I finished in July. I haven’t posted it because I didn’t know if the intended recipient reads my blog. (If you recognize yourself, please pretend to be surprised when you receive the drawing!)

Cats in the house

HEY! WHY DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WEASEL YOUR WAY INTO OUR HOUSE??

Sold in Summer—Pencil Drawings

Five of these pencil drawings sold at my solo show in Tulare, “Around Here (and Sometimes a Little Farther)”. The others were pencil commissions, which I showed you with all the slow developments in painstaking detail.

I almost didn’t include this one in the show because I forgot. I may have forgotten subconsciously on purpose, due to my inordinate love of ocean scenes.
I drew this one specifically for the show, and although sales are thrilling, I was sort of hoping to keep it. (What kind of a business person am I with this attitude?)
This is too big for my scanner, so the photograph isn’t the quality of those shown above. HOWEVER, the drawing was quite excellent, if I do say so myself, which I just did say.
Same disclaimer on quality as above.

I love pencil. Did you know that?

Thus we conclude another post about the business of art, because. . .

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that you can understand of places and things you love for prices that won’t scare you.

Too Dark For Painting

We had an overcast day, with the typical over-promise-and-underdeliver weather forecast of rain. Oh well, at least we didn’t have lightning to worry about.

Since it was too dark to paint, I spent my working hours in the studio, drawing this pencil commission piece.

The approved sketch
The beginning

Sometimes this feels as if I am racing along at a good pace; other times it seems that I sit and stare without a clue as to how to proceed. The difficulty is the same as the Texas drawing: combining many photos into one (hopefully) coherent and believable scene.

I’ve been drawing agriculture subjects for so many years that I have forgotten many of them. I didn’t used to be diligent in photographing my work, back in the days of film cameras, weak copy machines, no home scanners or computers, and certainly no Photoshop.

An old friend sent me this card, which I wrote to her and her husband in 2001 (along with a sweet note because that is just how she is). When I flipped the card over, I saw that I titled the drawing “Tulare Cownty” and included a completely unfamiliar phone number with a 703 area code.

That was many studio locations ago. I’ve been working from home since 2002, and life has changed significantly in many ways.

One constant is still drawing agricultural scenes with pencils. Glad we can count on something to hold steady.

Will the Fat Lady Sing?

Who is the fat lady? Sometimes I sing for my drawing students, not well, and we all laugh.

What am I yammering on about?

The drawing of Texas, which is too large for my scanner, so the upper edge is nipped off and the lower edge is blurry. But first, let’s look at the scratchy beginnings, because it is kind of impressive that my customers trusted me to get from that scribble of bare bones to the finished piece. (Mr. Customer said he’d have recognized it even if he hadn’t commissioned the piece!)

I was just dragging it out before showing you the scan. . . wanting a drumroll or something. . . padding the post so it isn’t so brief.

Is it finished?

The customers just responded:

We love it Jana! This will be so special to the family, for generations. Thank you so much! We wouldn’t add or take away anything—we say it’s finished!

Maybe I ought to sing to myself a little. . .