I CANNOT Attend

This time of year is all about events. All the events are about raising money. That seems to be the normal reason for a party/dinner/anything in Tulare County. Everybody needs money. The causes are endless, and they are all good.

The latest event that I am involved in is an auction at the Courthouse Gallery in Exeter. “Involved” means I support the gallery and donate to their auction each year. This year I have given them this drawing.

I don’t normally give away original art, but the Courthouse Gallery is special. They provide a fabulous place for me to teach drawing lessons and have done so since January of 2002.

HOWEVER, I CANNOT attend auctions where my work is for sale. The stress is too much for my little sensitive self. What is no one bids? What if no one likes it? What if a board member of the gallery has to buy it and donate it back because no one wanted it? What if it only sells for $10? (The price on this original pencil drawing of Sequoias, professionally framed and matted, approximately 11×14″, is $350.)

You can go to the auction. It is a fun afternoon/evening, whatever it is called at this time of day. They always have good hors d’oeuvres and wine (so I’m told).

P.S. I don’t know why my name isn’t on the flyer. Maybe they know I am too chicken to attend. Maybe they weren’t sure I would donate something. Maybe they don’t know how much I appreciate them. But don’t let this little oversight stop you from attending!

Today’s Anne Lang’s Emporium featured painting 

Sequoia Gigantea II, 6×18″, oil on wrapped canvas, $150

Lucky on Amazon?

On Friday’s post I said that the only way to get a copy of The Cabins of Mineral King, by Jane Coughran and me, published by Cabinart Books in 1998, is to get lucky on eBay or on Amazon.

Then I decided to look for myself. Nothing on eBay, and this is what was on Amazon. Whoa. Here is a screen shot of the first listings:

$85 is the lowest price for a book that sold for $50 as a hardcover, and this one says it is paperback??

Then I went down to the more expensive books. Check this out:

Now that is what I would call a Peculiar Sight.

I contacted the last 2 sellers on the listing to ask them if they really and truly meant to list the book for that price. I’ll let you know if I hear back. . . (and yes, I signed my name and told them I thought I did a nice job on the illustrations but their prices seemed a bit high.)

P.S.The seller called FastShip replied:

Jana, Thank-you for bringing this to my attention. We have about 70K books.

They went on with a lengthy explanation of how books are priced and how some fall through the cracks, but they didn’t say if they were planning to reprice the book.

Finishing a Drawing 20 Years Later

In 1998, Jane Coughran and I published The Cabins of Mineral King*. Some of the drawings crossed over the center seam of the book to cover 2 pages. Some of the drawings were an odd shape to accommodate words.

This is one of those drawings (only photographed, not scanned and touched up for the web, so the background looks gray instead of white):

A member of this cabin family asked me if there were any drawings of the cabin remaining. I remembered this very large drawing with its odd shape. He and I looked at it together to see if it could be completed, and how he’d like it to be completed.

This is the result of that conversation. Highly satisfying! (but that little rude voice asks, “Yes, but is it creative?”)

*The only way to get a copy of The Cabins of Mineral King is to get lucky on Amazon or eBay. Good luck! 

 

Final Final Cabin Thoughts, Maybe

Someone’s Colorado cabin –definitely not small, rustic or rude

There are three distinct parts to cabin-ness:

  1. The building itself – small, rustic, basic, simple, often without electronic amenities. (But wait! What about the cabin pictured above?)
  2. The setting – rural, semi-secluded, in the mountains, taking an effort to get to (But wait! Have you ever been up Highway 180 to Wilsonia? And do these cabins look semi-secluded to you?)
    A Wilsonia road

    A Wilsonia neighborhood
  3. The culture – slower, focused on people instead of technology; a place to play, recreate and relax, mostly outside; a place where meals and fireplaces become events in and of themselves; returning to nostalgic pastimes either of our youth or of some idealized youth of our parents and grandparents.
Outdoor dining is a big part of cabin life.
Napping is a big part of relaxing at a cabin
See? Outdoor dining
Even outdoor cooking!
Fireplaces are a huge part of cabin culture.
Eat and run??

It seems that the culture part is the strongest determining factor of cabin life. Some of our cabin neighbors gathered in another location for several summers, due to illness of one of their group. One of them told me, “We do Mineral King things in Seattle, and Mineral King is present with us there.” (I probably paraphrased it beyond all recognition – Forgive me, Sawtooth Six!)

P.S. Most of the drawings in this post are part of the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, available here.

Two Gas Pumps

“Two Pencil and Colored Pencil Drawings of One Old Gas Pump” is too long of a title for a blog post, but it is more accurate than “Two Gas Pumps”.

Let’s review:

Two sketches
Drawing #1 of the Silver City gas pump under way.
Drawing #2 under way.

Now, new pictures for you.

Pump drawing #1 before color added.
Pump #1 with color added.
Gas Pump #2 before color added.
Gas Pump #2 with color added.

I can do a tiny bit better. #1 needs more separation between the closer and the more distant trees. Pump #2 needs to be a bit smoother. Both could be a bit brighter in the color department.

A bit more distinction to push the farther trees back.
A smoother surface on the pump.

Phew. I’m outta gas. . .

In Progress, Pencil and Oil

It was still hot last week. I painted awhile in the workshop but didn’t turn on the swamp cooler. Probably should have. Painted slowly, quit early.

Layering the background.
More layers on the store and foreground.
The camellia is coming along nicely, and when this layer is dry, I’ll add the tiny details.

The lemons might be finished.

I retreated to the studio and turned on the air conditioner. While listening to interviews with the very smart and entertaining Mike Rowe, I began this pencil commission.

I love to draw.

Drawing #1 of the Silver City gas pump is now under way.

Pencil Drawing Commissions

My commissioning customer/old family friend told me in our correspondence that she was interested in a pencil drawing of the gas pump at the Silver City Store. If you have seen it, you might understand. If you haven’t, you might consider this peculiar.

What I consider peculiar is that earlier this summer, while delivering some more oil paintings to this popular place near Mineral King, I was struck by a particular view and angle of the gas pump; I took some photos without having any idea that Ms. Customer would make such a request.

We discussed these photos. I referred to the peak in the distance as Hengst Peak; she told me she grew up calling it Mosquito Peak because it is above Mosquito Lakes. I thought it was over Mineral Lakes, but there is already a Mineral Peak in Mineral King (well, duh). It is the one that looks like Sawtooth’s shadow, but I digress. And I defer to her greater history in Silver City, so for purposes of this discussion, it will be Mosquito Peak. Not that we are talking about the peak–we are talking about the gas pump.

Sorry.

But then she requested a photo showing the road too, so on my next trip up the hill, I took these photos.

More discussion ensued. More clarification. This is normal. . . these things take time to figure out on my end and to decide on the customer’s end.

Finally, it was time to do some little sketches to be sure that I am understanding her wishes.

Good thing she knows that I know how to draw. We’ll see if I caught her vision for the gas pump in pencil. Stay tuned, for as you know, more will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Just heard from Ms. Customer: “Yay! Keep going!”

A Good Idea

C and Friends, pencil drawing, 11×14, unframed, $200

About 2 weeks ago, I took the brave leap into admitting that I have unsold drawings and that it bothers me. I also admitted publicly that those drawings were heading to the shredder if unsold for another month. This is not something many artists are willing to discuss, but I am not normal. (Thank you for playing along with me as if I am normal – you are very kind.)

Apparently, that was a good idea because almost all of those drawings sold! And there is still time. . . as of the date that I am writing this post, there are a few left that someone is pondering. (Those are labeled “Sale Pending”, as if I am selling real estate.)

Sometimes I go through those flat files and look at the unsold drawings, wonder if I could do any better, alternate between dark thoughts such as “Why bother?” and “But these are good!”. Then I go around and around: Could I have drawn it from another angle? Should it have been cropped differently? Should it not have been cropped? Is the subject irrelevant to my “collectors”? (Why does that word sound so pretentious to me?) Did I not show it to the right people? Who are the right people? Where are they and how do I find them?

Then I shut the drawers and move on.

Telling The Blog about the situation was a good idea. Thank you for listening.

P.S. There are more. Maybe in the future I will have the courage to put them on the auction block (The Blog) or the chopping block (The Shredder).

Cabin Thoughts, Part 2

Mineral King, pencil, framed approximately 14 x 18″, $400 plus tax.

I looked up “cabin” on my Mac. The dictionary on my computer has fairly useless definitions as far as our discussion is concerned.

Cabin may refer to:

  • Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach

  • Log cabin, a house built from logs

  • Cottage, a small house

  • Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof

  • Small, remote, mansion (Western Canada)

  • Small, free-standing structures that serve as individual lodging spaces of a motel

Forget that. Where’s my real Webster’s dictionary?? Mine was published in 2004 rather than 1935. Oh good grief, look at this:

A small, simple, one-story house.

Willow Window, pencil. Is this a cabin? Nope, it is a bungalow. But it is a small, simple, one-story house. How do I know? Because I used to live there.
Kitchen Corner, pencil, framed, $150. Is this a cabin? Yep. How do I know? I live there in the summer. But wait! It has 2 stories!

A few folks checked in with their thoughts on what a cabin is. One suggested “primitive”; another said a place to get away from every day life; a third (and someone else I talked to in person) suggests that a cabin is a state of mind, “non-fancy” is a good description, and someone else added in a description of an ideal cabin. She used the word “spare”, which could mean an extra home or it could mean without clutter. (I’ve seen some pretty cluttered cabins, and I have lived in a cabin when it was my only place of residence.)

Come back tomorrow for more thoughts on cabins and cabin life; clearly, there is no clear definition of cabin, but there are many ideas about it. Clearly.

Tough Decision, Part Two

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 work in 1998. I draw better now, which is good; I would better have improved over the last 20 years or that would be a sorry situation. (That was an awkward sentence – anyone know a good editor?)

Still, the unsold drawings haunt me, take up space and just need to go away, either through a sale or through a shredder.

Before they go into the shredder, here is a chance for you to own an original pencil drawing for a peanut butter sandwich, as my dad used to say. I will consider offers, as long as they are not insulting.

One month from today, October 7, is the deadline on this batch of drawings.

4-1/2 x 5″, $20, SOLD
6-1/2 x 4″, $25, SOLD
7 x 10″, $90
4-1/2 x 5″, $25, SOLD
4-1/2 x 6-1/2″, $35, SOLD
5 x 7″, $40. SOLD