It is said that the best way to learn something is by teaching it to someone else. Hard to do that if you don’t understand the process yourself.
Because my students get to know one another in group lessons, they often help each other. This thrills me, because I eavesdrop and get to witness that they are really and truly learning.
Finished! This was an ENORMOUSLY challenging drawing.
Next, it goes home with me to be scanned and Photoshopped for possible reproductions, either as prints or cards. All the color has to be removed before the printing will look right.
Speaking of ENORMOUSLY CHALLENGING, look at this little guy (also photoshopped for the purpose of good quality reproduction )
There is a one-day beginning drawing workshop planned for January 11, in Three Rivers. You can register at Stem & Stone. (Stemandstone.3r@gmail.com or 559-731-4881.) Class size is limited to ten people.
We don’t meet in December, so students try to get their work finished by the end of November. Some do, some don’t. Some need to finish by Christmas, so I’ve had them come to my studio for help. I’ve gone to their homes to help when we are off during summer, and I’ve had students scan or photograph their work and send it to me for help. They are wonderful people and I love helping them.
Obviously, this is a very experienced student. She came to me initially because she was a watercolorist who wanted more realism in her paintings. After a few graphite drawings, she moved into colored pencil. That was about 20 years ago!
This student picks Very Hard Very Detailed photos to work with, and she NEVER gives up! If we weren’t lifetime friends, I’d be sure that she just chooses these subjects to test my ability!
This student fights with perfectionism. Perfectionism is winning, for sure! She is never in a hurry and thoroughly enjoys the process. Every so often she will announce that she isn’t going to take quite so long or strive quite so hard for perfection. It makes us laugh.
This is work by my newest student. She joined lessons to learn how to paint better. Drawing is the basis for all art, and if you learn to see things realistically and learn the “tricks” of drawing, your other art will improve. This is her second or maybe 3rd drawing with me; I think she is close to finished with this perfect little face (yes, she has captured a likeness!)
I have room in a couple of classes, and if enough people (four) want lessons and can come from 1-2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons, I will add another class.
Did I mention that my students are wonderful people?
You prolly know that Boxing Day is a British tradition. In the olden days, the rich people boxed up their excesses the day after Christmas to give to the po’ folk. I don’t know what they do now, except I do know that one friend in Nova Scotia chooses to make a really nice dinner on Boxing Day rather than on overloaded Christmas.
2. After the Yellow Tunnel oil painting dries again, I will put the finishing touches on it. I can print and write more neatly, sometimes it is just unimportant, such as when I am slamming out the notes as fast as they pop into my mind.
3. This is the best article and idea I have ever read about Christmas. It was in the Wall Street Journal in 1997, and my Dad cut it out to give to me. I never forgot its wisdom, and it was very good to find it on the internet a few years ago.Iin case it gets deleted, I printed a copy.
4. Sometimes I draw in church. It helps me listen, because keeping my hands busy occupies the right side of my brain so it doesn’t hijack the other side. If I am drawing and listening, I’m not making a list of things to do in the coming week, writing reminder notes to myself, or other things that actually prevent listening.
P.S. Calendars are still available because IT ISN’T 2026 YET! Look here for the info. Or email me here: cabinart [at] cabinart [dot] net. (Written that way because of internet gremlins.) Or call me if you have my number (oh nonono, not putting it here for those gremlins to find!)
P.P.S. The Beginning Drawing Workshop is still open for registration. Look at this blog post from Monday for the details.
(SHARON, I moved the picture of the calendar back to lower on this post so you can skip it.)
Around Here—and Sometimes a Little Farther, 2026 is a collection of new pencil drawings by your Central California artist.
The drawings are mostly rural scenes, mostly from this often overlooked location in the heart of California. As a life-long resident of Tulare County, I continually seek out what it is that keeps me here. Pencil remains my favorite medium.
The price of $25 includes tax in California (unless Paypal goes rogue and adds it in, something over which I have no control and some angst). Cabinart will also pay for postage within the USA, because I know you could easily skip buying a calendar, and I wish to express my gratitude to you for liking my art.
I also wish to let you know that I only have 100 for sale this year, and when they are gone, it’s hasta la vista, baby!
All the drawings with the exception of the pier are for sale.
Check out work by two of my drawing students. The first one is finished, and the second one is in progress.
I teach people how to put on paper exactly what they see. It is the beginning of all art, in my opinion. (If a person can only see it in his mind, I cannot help with that.)
Lessons are $60/month, one hour per week with other people, all of whom are learning too, all at different levels of skill. I don’t know where you’ll ever find a better group of people to spend an hour with each week—the friendships grow, the encouragement flows, and we laugh a lot too.
We don’t draw together in December, July, or August. You are welcome to stop by and see what it is like!
Tuesday afternoons, 2-5:30, CACHE, 125 South B Street, Exeter
I’ve been getting my art printed on notecards since 1987. In the olden days, a package consisted of 2 each of 5 designs. In the olden days, people communicated on cards and mailed them with a stamp rather than talking into a little machine and tapping something. This meant that I had 1000s of cards printed at a time. Some of those pressruns produced uneven amounts of cards in a set, which meant leftovers.
What if I make packages of those old designs and sell them at a discount? There are six different designs, all in random amounts in a box, collecting dust on a shelf.
The ones circled in red are what is available. (For the curious reader*, the sets from left to right are Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Tulare County Landmarks.)
These were printed a long time ago. If someone had told me back then that I would become a blogger (a what??), an oil painter, a painter of murals, a knitter, a resident of Three Rivers, and that I would drive an automatic transmission car, I would have laughed out loud in disbelief. (And if someone would have said “LOL”, I would have looked at them with puzzlement. It used to mean “Little Old Lady”.)
Okay, decision made, packages compiled. Each package contains 4 different cards (and envelopes), mostly chosen at random with the exception of the first one on the upper left below. I have more of that drawing than any other, so every package contains one of those. They will be $5 a package, as opposed to my current cards. (The current ones are $10 a package and are all the same design within a single package.) These will be potluck.
It will cost too much to mail them, so they will only be available in person at the upcoming Holiday Bazaar.
*For the Very Curious Reader, the drawings from left to right, top to bottom: Kings Canyon overlook, General Sherman Tree, Four Guardsmen, Clover Creek Bridge, Exeter Woman’s Club (yeppers, that is the correct spelling), the Hilliard House (burned down in 1983 but never forgotten around here.)
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??
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.
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.
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!
