Tag Archives: pencil drawing

Incompetence and Awkwardness Corrected

I kept emailing the Wilsonia cabin owner to inquire if the Post Office had forwarded my incorrectly addressed card.

Nope.

Finally, I asked if she’d like me to copy the sketch and email it to her. Being a gracious and understanding customer, she was agreeable.

Well, oops.

I drew the wrong side of the cabin. She wanted the front, I drew the back. I didn’t look at the photos she sent me, only looked at the ones I had taken. Knowing that more living happens on the back side than the front, I just wasn’t really paying attention.

Holy cow.

What a gracious and forgiving customer, who kindly let me know that wasn’t the view she had asked for.

That’s the reason I do sketches! Let’s get it all figured out at the small scribbly stage before I pour hours into the precision and detail that make up my pencil commissions.

Quickly, I did 2 more sketches for her. Fast. Immediately. Scanned. Emailed. Red-faced. Git-er-dun. Giddy-up. Hubba, hubba, hubba.

She preferred the extra width showing in version B, and you can believe I got on it, immediately without delay!

Incompetence and Awkwardness

Last winter, a Wilsonia cabin owner contacted me about drawing her cabin. It was to be a gift for her sweet mama. Getting photos wasn’t going to be easy, in spite of the lack of snow. Cabins are closed in the winter, which means there are shutters on the windows which makes them look quite uninviting.

No hurry, said she.

No worry, summer’s coming, said me.

Suddenly, Sweet Mama’s birthday was almost here. Customer said, “Oops”, maybe you can do a quick sketch or something and send it to Sweet Mama in time for her birthday and here is the down payment on the drawing and here are a few photos.

No problem. I did the sketch, turned it into a birthday card, and sent it off.

TO THE WRONG ADDRESS!

Yes, they had moved and I didn’t make note of which address was correct – from the check or from the envelope.

THE CARD NEVER ARRIVED!

What is an incompetent artist to do in this awkward situation?

Tune in on Monday, August 17 to see what happened next.

While We Are Waiting

I got word on the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia, but until I see it, I don’t feel confident about it. As it gets closer or if there is confirmation of something, then I will let you know.

Meanwhile, back at the drawing board, a cabin owner wasn’t thrilled with the way her cabin will appear in the book. She timidly asked a few questions, because she is kind that way, and I told her that I can redraw it for her any way she would like. Being sweet, she said, “I don’t want to add to your work.” I said, “That’s how I earn my living!!” We laughed, and then she said she would like me to redraw the cabin for her. (This is called a “commission”.)

I took many photos, we had some conversations to clarify details, and here is both the first and the second drawing of her cabin.

As it appears in the book

As she requested it

I completely understand. People like to see their cabins as they envision them. For the book, I showed cabins in part, occasionally in whole, and with many details. This involved cropping. If every page showed one cabin in its entirety, the book would be boring.

Trust me on this. I am a professional. 😎

Waiting for Wilsonia Wearing Worrying Wondering

This cabin looks worn out. I thought it belonged to the Park Service, because many of the neglected cabins do. It doesn’t. It is in some sort of family dispute.

I am in some sort of delivery dispute. The book The Cabins of Wilsonia WILL be delivered, but no one can say when.

Here is what I’ve been told:

1. It went on the press on the night of September 11. (Don’t know how long on the press)

2. It will go to an outside binder, but no one can say how long that company will take. No one is saying where that company is, so there is no information about shipping to and from them either.

3. There will be work done to finish up the cover back at the printer. No one is saying how long that will take.

4. It will take about 5 days in a truck after that.

I spent 3 years making something, and then turned it over to strangers far away who will turn it over to other strangers even further away. I don’t remember the stress, angst, and flat out anxiety of this part from my other book. But, my other book was printed in California, it only took a year to do, and I had a partner to share the burden with.

Am I beginning to look like the cabin in the drawing above? Don’t answer that, please!

Nothing to See Here, Folks

Several cabin folks in Wilsonia have asked me to draw their cabins. One wasn’t built yet, one is very plain, and one is almost impossible to photograph or see.

Today I’ll show you the one that is almost impossible to see because of the wall of cedar trees. I tried and tried to find the right view for the book and finally said to myself, “Never mind! This is too hard, you cannot include every cabin anyway, so just move on.”

Just move on, folks. There’s nothing to see here.

But wait! There must be something. I did several sketches from different angles, scanned them, and wrote to the cabin owner. No word back yet.

You can see these are just sketches as opposed to drawings. Scribbly, loose, lots of trees pruned or removed, missing detail. . . good thing the owner knows I can draw.

Now, I just need to hear from him so I can begin the actual drawing.

There is one I like the best and hope he picks. Do you have a favorite angle?

What It Is and What it Isn’t

What it is:

The upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia is an album. It is a collection of pictures designed to show the overview of a cabin community. It is pictures of the typical, pictures of the unique, word pictures of cabin life expressed in stories from cabin folks. It is designed to show the many architectural styles within the community. It is a medley of little details, such as the way the sun lands on something ordinary and makes it beautiful. It shows things that are ordinary to cabin life that may be unusual in “normal” life. It is a picture of cabin life in the 20th century. It is pencil drawings made from photos that I spent days and days shooting, editing, cropping, choosing, and three years putting together. It is the celebration of a very special treasure of Tulare County and Kings Canyon National Park.

What it Isn’t

It is not a directory of cabins. It is not a comprehensive, all-inclusive list of every cabin. It is not a history book. It is not a complete representation of every one of the 214 cabins in Wilsonia. It isn’t photos. It isn’t a list of cabins that used to be there. It isn’t a collection of cabins that currently belong to the Park. It isn’t a hastily thrown together piece of work.

And it isn’t yet in our hands.

Doug, I Lost Your Email!

pencil drawing from the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia

This is a personal note to a friend, but you are welcome to read it. Duh. I posted it on the internet!

Dear Doug,

Thank you for using the Contact button on my blog. I was delighted to hear from you, and meant to set your email aside for a thoughtful response later. Instead, I deleted it. My excuses are that it was at the end of a long weekend away from the computer so there were many emails to read and sort AND in spite of continually changing my password, my email is being messed with by some unknown entity which causes me to manically delete messages (or maybe the unknown entity is deleting them. . .?)

Excuses aside, thank you for contacting me! I have been so curious about that little A-frame – is it Doug’s family cabin? Does he ever go there? Will he be up here when I am? Will he be disappointed that I only drew the funny lounge chair? Will he be pleased that anything from the cabin appears in the book?

My choices about what appears and what doesn’t are not based on historical significance. The book is about cabin life today in pictures (276 of them) and quotes by cabin owners and visitors. Not all cabins are included, because the goal is to show an overview album rather than a cabin-by-cabin directory. It is meant to show a balance of the typical and the unique.

I chose your chair, void of cushions, because it tells me a story about cabin life.

In other news, thank you for sending me a customer named Roger. He is gathering photos of a barn in Michigan for me to draw. (I’d rather he gather me a round-trip airfare, but no one does that.) Receiving a recommendation from such a fine artist as yourself really does my heart (and ego!) good.

Blessings to you, my old (as in long-time, not aged) friend,

Jana

A Proof Copy

What’s a proof copy??

It’s an unbound copy of the book (The Cabins of Wilsonia) on paper. The pictures and type are the correct size but it is on oversized paper with trim lines.

I asked what I am looking for, since I provided camera ready copy. The answer was this:

“In the proofs, you should be looking to see if all elements at printing per your expectations. Are the running heads aligning correctly? Are the margins correct? Are the images in place correctly? Watch for font issues. Sometimes they do weird things and throw a symbol or wrong font in there. Otherwise, just make sure it looks good and meets your expectations. If you’re not sure of something be sure to ask. Once it’s printed it will be expensive to fix.”

Teeheehee – “Once it’s printed it will be expensive to fix.” (And did you notice the typo in the quote from the printer?)

No kidding! I’d have to pay to have it reprinted!

I found one little thing – there were 2 spaces between a couple of words. I thought about leaving it and then having a contest to see if anyone could find it. I changed my mind. It is now fixed.

I also noticed that the type is sort of biggish-looking. Since I know more folks who use reading glasses than those who do not, this is fine. It was intentional, but I didn’t know it would be sort of like an easy-reader look. Still, this is fine.

I thought it was going to be here by the end of September. Now I am not sure.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

The Next Challenge

The cover design has given me fits.

It took awhile to decide on the picture for the front of the book. Nope, not telling!

Then, I had to design the cover in my head. That wasn’t too hard – title, drawing, my name.

Then, this is where it gets hairy. Adobe InDesign is not an easy thing to use, and the world of covers is not a place where I have a map.

The printing company sent a diagram for the cover design with confusing dimensions and terms like “cloth size” and “board size” and all sorts of fractions that didn’t translate into clean decimals.

Then I saw that it was for a vertical book. Oops. My book is horizontal.

I requested and received a new diagram, which was just lines and measurements. Still no clarification on “cloth size” versus “board size”, and don’t even get me started on the whole issue of the spine dimensions!

It took the better part of an afternoon with InDesign, Googling for instructions, sending out an SOS to Carol in Seattle who was on a ferry returning from the San Juan Islands, which is where I want to live when I grow up, more googling, experimenting, and gritting my teeth with the effort of not screaming or slamming the laptop shut and picking up some nice soothing knitting.

I thought I got it. I sent it off. Then, the design department at the printing company sent me an email with a real template to use with InDesign so I redid it.

The person in the design department is named Jana. Why does that matter? Because I may be temporarily insane from the frustration of InDesign, which means everything takes on a new significance.

Perhaps it is time for a break. How about a nice cuppa?

So worked up here I forgot to mention the title of the book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, in case Google is listening.

Did I Make a Mistake?

While in Wilsonia, a cabin owner asked me if I could fix or change things on the original cabin drawings. I said a very confident and certain, “It depends”.

It depends on what it is, where it happens in the drawing, and if the drawing has been spray fixed so that it won’t erase or smear.

She told me I made a mistake on her cabin.

Really? I work from photos, so I think she meant that I didn’t portray her cabin as she sees it. I drew it as it appeared in the photos, and other than making me look fatter and more wrinkled than I already am, we know that cameras don’t lie.

See the white thing? It is an out-of-place shutter. It isn’t covering a window, because you can’t see a window from this angle. It is just there. It was in the photo and it is in the drawing. Did I make a mistake??

You can see a bit of a window on that back section of cabin in this photo without any visible shutters. It doesn’t show in the angle I drew for The Cabins of Wilsonia, an upcoming book of drawings of Wilsonia Cabins. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)

I can draw out that white shutter and I will!