Three Drawings

Over the last few months I've been working on some drawings for a friend. As you know, most of the commissioned work I've done over the last four or five years were portraits. Not my most favorite thing to work on, but it's good practice and what lots of people like. This time I was actually doing illustration...you know, what I majored in? It was an interesting experience, and it reminded me how much harder it is to create what someone else has in their head, rather than just interpreting a portrait of a little kid. I was also reminded that I really need to work on my planning stage when it comes to art...something I was told in school but often chose to ignore.

My friend wanted me to do some drawings of some of his family's stories, which he was then including in a binder of said stories that he had written up himself. I wasn't actually given a copy of the stories to read over, just a lined piece of paper with some rough drawings of what he wanted, with the idea that I would ask for specific details as I needed them.

The first drawing I completed allowed for the widest interpretation on my part. The family had lost a cat during a tornado, then several days later the cat reappeared a little bedraggled but okay. From that day on, the cat was terrified of the tornado siren in town, and would scramble for cover every time he heard it. So the idea was to draw the cat visiting Oz during the tornado; he wanted the cat in a tree, and the quartet from the movie, but the composition and background were pretty much up to me.

The hardest part was portraying the cat, because my friend just wasn't very specific about what it looked like. All I knew was that it was short haired, gray, white, and mostly black. I figured it was a cat something like this (after searching for cats on google with those colors). Since I had no idea what kind of facial marks it had, I chose to draw it facing away from the viewer, so it was more likely the family would see it as their cat.

The biggest things I don't like about the drawing is the apples (they were an unplanned last minute addition that I could have placed better and drawn better) and the tree in front of the cats face. The whole reason I wanted a sunset sky was to highlight the cat, and then I put a stupid tree right in front of it. Yeah...bad planning. Also, the colors in its ear are the same as the sky, so where the tree meets the ear is visually confusing. If I were to draw this again, I would move the tree far to the left (so the cat's head was completely in the sun) or far to the right so the whole cat was silhouetted. Ah well.
The sky, cat, and some of the details are colored pencil, the rest is markers; 11x14".




11x14" Prismacolor marker and pencil



The next drawing is of a real place the client remembers from childhood, and there were a few elements that were important to get right, like the relative ages and coloring of the kids, the fishtank, and the bird in the cage. Everytime I thought I hd all the details I needed, I'd realize some other part that I didn't know (what hair colors? Did the girl have short or long hair? Would she be wearing a dress back then?) and I'd have to contact them again.

 This memory involved my friend (the youngest boy in this picture) and some of his siblings visiting a pet store in their youth, where they would relentlessly tap the fishtank, even though it had a prominent sticker that expressly forbid that practice. They also fondly recalled the minabird that would greet them every time they came.

For this drawing, I had to look up pictures of fish, snakes, dogs, mina birds, and cages. Even though they look fairly simple in the drawing, I haven't had much practice drawing animals and having a visual reference of somekind helped my drawing greatly!I already knew how to draw turtles, as I'd owned a few in my youth and drew them all the time.

I also looked at a lot of Norman Rockwell drawings of kids, becuase I was thinking of that tall gawky style for the kids in this drawing, especially the big ear part. In my head I was picturing a dimly-lit, dusty petstore, and everything was in shades of brown and yellow, like an old photo. At the same time I wanted the fish to be bright and colorful. So to compromise these two ideas, I ended up doin the warm light coming in the window wit the warm yellows and browns, then of course the color in the foreground. I tried to tie the two together buy having the same colors in the shirt to the far left, so it didn't look like two seperate drawings.

For the most part, I like how this one turned out. The shirts, back wall, floor and window are pencil, the rest is marker.



11x14 Prismacolor Pencil and Marker



The final drawing is the one that took the longest. This is mostly because I was unsure of what exactly it was supposed to look like, and instead of people or animals this was solely about the specific place: a roadside park in South Datkota. The actual place is no longer in existence, so there were no pictures to look at, and the little sketch I was given wasn't that exact either:

Everytime I thought I could start drawing, I'd realize I needed more information. What kind of trees are there? (No pine trees, unlike what the drawing would indicate..)Are they young or old?(Mature but not huge) Sparse or thick? (sparse). What kind of landscaping is there? (just natural grass). How many picnic benches were there? What did the outhouses look like?(they were important to the story.)
Originally, I was planning on wooden outhouses with a crescent moon, but no, they were to be metal with a man and woman icon on them. All the metal outhouse photos I found online had flat roofs, but they were supposed to be peaked. I was going to draw them white, but they were metalic colored too.

The hardest thing to figure out was the waterpump. He kept trying to describe it to me, how it had a drinking fountain integrated into the design, but I just couldn't picture it. And for some reason I couldn't find one on google images either...for weeks! Until one day I must have entered it differently in my search , because suddenly there were a handful of photos right at the top of the page! The best ones were copyrighted flikr pictures, so I just drew some sketches while looking at the screen, though I did find a couple I could print out. They all looked pretty much like the same thing, so I felt safe in thinking this was what he meant. This is what they look like, if you are as confused as I was:

Thse photos alll were taken in Minnessota, so I wonder if this was a regional thing? Hmm.

 Finally I thought I had enough info to finish the picture, but I was still hesitant about a lot of things (my source was out of town for a family emergency while I was working on this, so I didn't want to call them a bunch about it.) I didn't know what style of picnic benches to draw, so I was kind of making them up (which I shouldn't have done; they'd have looked so much better with a photo reference.) I wasn't sure if the background went off into the distance like it does around here, or if there was a town nearby, or even hills.

So I started out planning three layers to the drawing: the park itself, then a slight hill behind that, then a vague background layer which I would fill in later. I did the grass the way I see it around here; not manicured, full of clover, bushes, and weeds, etc. As I was working on the drawing, I got impatient to see how it was going to look, so I colored in the background yellow just to see what it would look like. I'm always stupid when I'm impatient.

Almost immediately after I colored it in, I realized I would rather have the sky come down further, eliminating that third layer completely. Mostly this was because I'd pictured a sunny day with a bright blue sky (because the other two drawings did not have blue skies) and the strip of sky being so narrow made the scene seem claustrophobic to me.



first version with a yellow background



I finished everything else in the drawing while I thought about what to do to change the background. On a seperate paper I practiced covering up the yellow with different things, and finally decided I could maybe cover it with a combination of my blue sky marker and some colored pencils. I was annoyed because I had wanted to do this drawing completely in marker and pen with no pencil, but it wasn't going to happen.

At first it seemed to be working. First, I'd cover the yellow with blue marker, then white pencil, then blue pencil. It seemed okay, if a little dark. I was sad about it looking dark, becuase that meant it wasn't going to be the bright blue midday sky I had been planning on.



fixing the yellow hill, trying to make it like sky



However, when I had completed this technique all the way across the drawing, I could see that it actually hadn't worked that well at all! there was a very obvious line between the blue and the "fixed" part, even though I had attempted to kind of blend them together with another color. I started adding some purple to the scenery at this point, since the bright colors in the grass and trees wouldn't look right with this darker sky:

The easiest thing to do right now would be to just color the rest of the sky with all those same colors to make the rest grayish, but I really didn't want the sky the same color as the two main elements of the drawing: the pump and the outhouses. The most complicated fix (that I was hoping I wouldn't have to do) would be to completely cut off the sky and put a different paper behind it. Way too much trouble.

About this time I looked outside and saw some pretty pink clouds in the eastern sky, stretched at an angle over a bruised blue and purple backdrop. Maybe this would work for my drawing? I figured with the pink and blue it was a different color than the other sunset in the Oz drawing, plus the angle might disguise the line where the edge of the yellow had been. So on the spur of the moment, I scribbled some clouds over the sky. In the dim evening light it looked pretty good, but iin the morning I could see that it looked like what it was: last minute and sloppy. But I knew I could use this begining idea to finish the drawing.

In the end, I used the pink and blue, adding the colors to the other things in the drawing (like the buildings, the pump, the table, etc) so that it looked more put together. I also decided to quite trying to just hide the yellow; instead I actually added some so it would look deliberate. This miraculously trasformed the sky from looking sloppy, dark,  and half finished, to looking bright and mysterious. I finally liked it! This was the final drawing I gave my friend:



11x14" pen, marker, and colored pencil.



In the end, this last drawing that I had worried and stewed over so much, really turned out nice! It was fun to have something to work on.

Purple Autumn

When it comes to fall colors, I think of orange first and foremost. With the range from nearly-brown rust to bright and festive Halloween decor, there are orange leaves, orange pumpkins, and orange cableknit sweaters. (I need one of those.) This is followed by the brown of bare trees and dead plants, exposed earth and crushed leaves. To a lesser degree there is red in the season; I've not lived many places where there is an abundance of red in the fall foliage. Then there is the yellow of harvested wheat and faded corn stalks, a color which is the most prominent seasonal marker here in the midwest.
But there are other colors that go with fall that I frequently fail to consider. The steel gray and sleet blue of a cloudy drizzle on the horizon. The misty white that becomes of our breath as the weather starts to crisp and pale the world. And there is purple, which up until now I had only considered a Halloween color. I've seen it paired with flurescent green on costumes, or with black for Elementary school bulletin boards, but I had never acknowledged this royal hue was to be found in nature this time of year as well.
I first noticed it in our little garden. All of the summer flowers were beginning to fade, but this great big flowering plant was just beginning to flourish come September. I don't know what kind of flower this is, (do you?) but I think it is one of my favorites now. Purple has never been one of my favorite colors, but after seeing these flowers everyday as I sent the kids off to school, I have become a fan.



yay pretty flowers

 Then we have our commute to Faith for church on Sunday, and the grocery store once a week. In the past, I've mostly kept my eyes peeled for the occasional bunches of trees we pass, which are made more beautiful for their scarcity.





The whole time we've lived here I have also noted that the grass and shrubbery has it's own fall transformation, as it turns various shades of yellow and brown. But it seems this year there is a wider variety than ever in the colors as we drive, most of it concentrated along the roadways.
And you guessed it: much of this autumn growth is appearing in shades of purple! There are many magenta varieties, in the form of grass and sagebrush-like bushes (in my mind, magenta is much closer to purple than red):


Yep, this road is always this busy.




Doesn't this look like those plants they grow in the newer version of War of the Worlds?




And every once in a while you can come across a bush that is a true, rich purple! (I had the hardest time finding one somewhere that I could pull over to take a picture.)



too bad the camera couldn't capture the exact hues of these plants

These unexpected bursts of violet are sometimes complimented by equally surprising pops of orange and brown, randomly distributed through the sea of yellow grass:


These are the husks of flowers that were previously bright yellow




These were a lot more orange than they look here



moooooo



when I got out of my car to take this picture, all the cows turned to look at me in unison. Funniest thing ever.


On those occasions when one can view these colors standing together, perhaps with the rare form of a colorful tree in the midst of it all, then autumn in the grasslands can be a uniquely breathtaking experience.


yeah, those bushes in the front should be more gray than blue, but at least the other colors look right here!



In which I make my pants longer because I didn't buy talls

(and yes, my spellcheck still isn't working. Sorry.)

This last year I've developed an interest in Pinterest. For those who don't know, Pinterest is a website where you can publicly bookmark things you find interesting. These "pins" are organized into boards for easy retrieval, and they are visible to those who "follow" you, as well as others who may be searching for similar items. So it's kind of social, like Facebook, except you can't control who can see things, and it's all visual.
Yeah, I know, when I first heard of it I didn't think I'd be interested either.
You are automatically given the option of following people who are already your friends on facebook, then you can find other people to follow who may have similar interests to you. I've found that of those people I follow whom I actually know, most of them pin craft projects, recipes, home design, and tips on cleaning or child rearing.
I these were okay, but I found it a little boring until I realized I could also enjoy following a bunch of art boards, photography boards, "geek" (since when did this become so cool?), and a few other random interests from people whom I don't know in real life, but who have similar tastes to mine.
Yes, it's a great time waster, but I also find that I actually use the recipes I pin, I feel motivated to make more art, and I even feel popular sometimes when sixty people repin something I posted. I haven't figured out the method behind it, but I think the website randomly picks pins to show on its main pages, so everyone on the site will see it briefly.
Aannyway, this was leading up to clothes. I have a clothing board too. I mostly started it because I realized I disliked most of the clothes other people were pinning, at least other people I knew. I don't mean they were ugly clothes, they were cute, but just so not me. More...preppy Utah housewife, which bill I have never quite fit. As a result, I felt a need to explore that category, mostly to figure out what I did really like, as clothing isn't something I've spent a ton of time contemplating in the past. As I've looked through my clothing board, I've noticed that of all the varieties of clothes I admire or would like to own, the clothes I DO actually have, don't resemble those images at all!
Mostly, this is because I'm a cheapskate, and I care more about saving money than avoiding the fashion faux pas of buying all my clothes at Wal-mart. When I was single, I admit I ocassionally did splurge, buying some jeans at the "Tall Girl" store in Seattle, or ordering an occasional item from a catalog. But with a family to think of, I just can't justify that kind of luxury. Also, sometimes (but not always) the clothes I like are a little bit eccentric, which works in a big city, but I'm aware it may attract the wrong kind of attention in a very small conservative town in South Dakota. Especially now that I'm (gulp) over thirty. For instance, something like this probably wouldn't go over well here, but I think it's cute:

Well, on vacation this summer, we had lunch in a few malls. And I saw lots of pretty clothes that I liked. And one store had a sale, and while I didn't buy anything there, the mall in the next town had the same store, which was also having a sale. And Joseph encouraged me to get something, so why not?
So I bought three pairs of nice jeans, at least nicer than the Walmart ones I usually get. And I wear jeans all the time, unlike some of the other random outfits I could have purchased, so I felt good about it.
The problem is, only one pair was on sale, and my size. The other two I loved ,but they were just a tad too small. As in waist size and length too small.Yeah, this was one of those stores where after a certain size, they inexplicably changed the pocket pattern, because apparently bigger people wouldn't want the same design?
But because Joseph was waiting with the kids and I felt rushed, I decided to get them anyway, figuring it would be motivation for me to get in shape. But. But they were regular size, not talls, which I usually buy. And they looked okay while I was standing in the mirror of the dressing room, but I didn't realize until weeks later that I looked silly walking in these pants that didn't quite touch the tops of my shoes when I walked. (Oh the mortification in when I walked toward the full-length mirror in the Wal-mart bathroom! I was looking like one of those people.)
After that realization, my cute jeans were sadly abandoned, until just recently. I was really sad about it too, mostly because of the waste of money. Then I realized, I actually could make my pants even more awesome, as well as longer! Well, some people might think I ruined them...but I don't know about that.

This first pair of the two jeans had several interesting features that convinced me to buy them. First was the unique pattern to the fading on the front. The way it looked as if it had been scrunched during the fading process was reminiscent of tie-dye designs. I don't wear tie-dye much these days, but this felt like a nice classy tribute to my younger years ;)

don't you hate it when people take pictures of themselves in their bathroom mirror and post them? Me too.

The second thing I loved was the pockets, oh the pockets. I don't know what the big style is where you live, and am often surprised to see things that are popular other places (like what was up with all the women wearing giant flowers on their jackets when they spoke at General Conference? Seriously, I'd never seen that before.) Anyway, out here in the midwest, it's very popular for ones back pockets to sport lots of bling, as in shiny metal and rhinestones. I don't hate it, but it's definitely NOT for me. In the context of where we live, it makes me think of rodeo queens and cowgirls.

No.

I do, however, like the idea of decorated pockets to distinguish one pair of jeans from another (though I could see some might argue this draws too much attention to a womans posterior...I do hate those sweatpants with words across the bum. So distasteful. But these don't seem the same to me at all, so to each their own.)

So, I don't like the bling pockets, but I was delighted with these, which involved thick contrast white and cream stitching in various stitch patterns, combined with the frayed edges of jean material. Again, a slight lean toward a hippy-like style with a refined twist to it. Or not. I just liked it. They also have an off-center flap pocket (you can't tell that in this picture, but trust me.)

As you may have guessed by the title of this post, what I needed to fix on these pants was the length. After the first few times of wearing them, the waist fits fine, but the lenth wasn't something that would fix itself over time. So I decided to take out the bottom hem to add some legth, and hopefully it wouldn't ruin them too much! I was hoping for a little more, but taking out the hem did give me a good inch or so. I put a stitch around so that it wouldn't fray too much, but a little fraying was okay.

The darker color where the fabric was folded over, and the resulting stripes where the original hem was, actually works well with the fading across the top of the jeans, making it look like they were deliberately designed that way!



Now I can love my pants again. Yay!

So now for the other pair of jeans. These too had thick stitching in fun patterns, with lots of detailing around the pockets. These have three colors of thread: cream, light blue, and a light brown...though it's hard to see the different shades in the photo.

The stitch patterns and colors remind me of those light and airy peasant blouses with poofy three-quarters sleeves. I love those kind of shirts. In high school I had this favorite pair of pants that used to be my mom's, which had white stitching down the sides and fading on the front. Both pairs of pants definitely remind me of those favorites too.





the middle row on this coin pocket is the light blue, though you can't tell.

These back pockets aren't quite as fancy as the first with the different textures and shapes, but they are still pretty fun, with creme and white all over.

As with the first, these jeans are also a mite too short. But I am hesitating on giving them the same treatment as the first, for various reasons. For one, these don't have all the linear fading as the first ones do, so I'm not sure the lines that will result from removing the stitches will really go with the rest of the pants.These are also straight legged instead of bootcut, so the frayed edge might look weird. Or it might not, I don't know.
Also, I love the thick stitch around the bottom, and I don't want to ruin it; that was the one thing I was sad about when I changed the first ones as well.

So what do you think? Go for it, and possibly enjoy another cute pair of pants, (or be sad that I ruined them). Or just give them away to someone and just be sad for the wasted money. Not that I know anyone whom these would fit...

UPDATE: This is silly. I got these second jeans out and was considering how to take care of them. They actually still had the tags on, because when I had discovered how silly the other pair looked, I never went out of the house with these. So I had this suddent thought to get out the pair I had unhemmed, and to compare the two lengths...and it looked like these were longer, even though they're the same size and the same brand. So I tried on the second pair, and it was true! These are over an inch longer on me, and they look fine without modification. Yay! (And I bought these in July, so it's even funnier that I didn't know this before then.)