Do you remember when advertisers used to try to get our attention with that little descriptive phrase? Did it work? It created some cynicism in me, even as a kid who wasn’t paying much attention.
HOWEVER, I think I have improved the walnut orchard painting.
before
after
Never mind. You probably can’t even see what I did.
Let’s look at the blooming peach orchard.
before
I remembered to work from left to right so that I didn’t rest my hand on wet paint.
This is getting close to being finished. But who knows? I could continue to fix little things that nag at me each time I see the painting.
The Oak Grove Bridge is still my favorite bridge, although it has moved into second place in the Favorite Subjects to Paint category. I worked on it flat on the table, turning it upside down as needed to position my brush where I could watch the tip. Architectural subjects are not very forgiving, and when painted at this tiny scale (6×12″), there is even less room for wobble.
Much of the water and cliffs has to be invented and interpreted through the lens of experience. When it comes to those precise shapes and details, I have to remind myself No One Actually Cares. (It is with restraint that I didn’t fully capitalize that phrase.)
The bridge painting has to dry before I get into the microscopic details on the bridge and begin to polish the water.
Yeppers, I think these three paintings are New & Improved!
I had a morning available to paint but it took awhile to get to it. First, I had to admire Pippin in the window.
Next I varnished three paintings, and then had to figure out where to put them. So I went into the studio to see if there were any available hooks.
While contemplating my space limitations, I remembered this painting. I’ve had it awhile and don’t understand why it hasn’t sold. I love this bridge! So, I texted this photo to my artist friend Krista for her input, and then we talked for awhile about all manner of the business of art. (It is SO GOOD to have someone to bounce ideas off of!) More on this in a later post. . . I have some thinking to do.
As I was doing laps between the studio, house, and painting workshop, TRYING TO GET TO THE EASELS TO PAINT, I looked at the end of the driveway and saw 2 friends with dogs on tangled leashes. The sunshine, the colors they were wearing, the envy that they can go on walks and I can’t just now. . . sigh. I just decided to commemorate the moment with a photo.
FINALLY AT THE EASELS.
Remember this? Duh. The scene has appeared many times on this blog. As long as it keeps selling, I will keep painting it. It is a little different every time, even if I use the same photos.
Oops, gotta go! Weird colors here are due to the somewhat unstable light in the painting workshop. The final piece will be closer to the colors in the top two photos here.
My drawing students are used to hearing me tell them, “You can be fast or you can be good; I get to be both.” Everyone still laughs, in spite of the obnoxiousness of the second part.
This is an indisputable truth, when it comes to the highly detailed, accurate type of drawing that I teach.
Alice worked on a drawing of her Desert Painted Sheep, nicknamed “Oughtie”, for several years. (Hey Alice, I didn’t mean THAT S L O W!) But things take as long as they take*. She was very meticulous about every shape, every texture, every value, and she did a fantabulous job.
I didn’t take any photos of the process, or more accurately, I don’t remember if I took any photos of the process. We discussed various background ideas, tried some different textures, and ultimately, she decided that the drawing is finished.
During the process, I learned that goats’ tails go up and sheeps’ tails go down. She made some good friends to play pickleball with. (My drawing students have varied interests and are some of the nicest people you could ever spend time with.)
Here is the final outcome, scanned, but not yet scrubbed up with Photoshop (the junior version).
The artist forgot to sign the drawing before she sent it home with me to scan, so she emailed me a few signatures. I chose one and placed it on the scrubbed-up scan.
My classes are full but you are welcome to get on a waiting list. If there are four people waiting who can all meet at 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons, I will add that 1 p.m. class.
. . .I walked into the painting workshop, looked at all the paintings in their various stages, and just wanted to walk back out.
Why?
Because it was so beautiful outside and because I couldn’t figure out where to start.
Wet and finished
Wet and finished, wet and unfinished
Which to begin on?
The simplest solution was to start where I stopped the day before.
Wet, obviously unfinished
So, I did.
Some friends brought us lunch and we sat together in the front yard, then took a walk. YEA! I got to enjoy the perfect spring day with excellent people!
After lunch, I just dove into those embryonic Mineral King paintings. Knowing my heart wasn’t in it, I just took a handful of the paintings a short distance. When it required too much concentration, I stopped, and began another.
That’s enough on this one.
This used to be my favorite subject to draw and paint before I got completely enamored by orange groves with hills and mountains in the distance.
That’s enough on this. It is just as hard as I remember.
Suddenly the day was finished. None of the paintings were, but four new Mineral King paintings are closer to being finished than they were when I arrived in the morning.
For some reasons, I couldn’t scrape up appropriate photos for this month’s Learned List. So, let’s enjoy a few photos that Trail Guy took on a recent walk.
John Bray Estates is a website for luxury coastal property in Cornwall, England. If you like to look at homes, both inside and outside, this site is like See’s Candy to a sugar addict.
Skills Millennials Won’t Use is quite entertaining. There are things I’ve thought about for awhile, such as the ability to drive a three pedal car, reading a face clock, dialing a telephone, reading a map. There are other things that I agree with—not liking meatloaf or jello, not using paper napkins. There are things that surprised me—not wearing Crocs was the largest. Enjoythis list! It is very long—almost 200 items!
I read this quote in the memoir Driving Hungry by Layne Mosler: “A rich man isn’t the one who has the most; he is the one who needs the least”. By that definition, I am very wealthy!
The two most common reasons for neuropathy are unmanaged diabetes and back trouble. I have neither, so the mystery and saga of my feet continues. . . (what I learned is that my back is fine).
Surgery is very stressful; I had the privilege of sitting with a dear friend while waiting for a delicate surgery on her husband. We simply chatted about this and that, nothing too heavy or scary or formal. She hadn’t asked me to be with her, but I insisted, because I knew in my gut that this was scarier than they made it out to be. We both learned that the presence of a friend is a valuable comfort even when it wasn’t requested. I also learned how much I truly care about these friends.
A thymoma is a tumor on the thymus gland; it is better than thymic carcinoma. I would like to not know this, but a dear friend is now experiencing it, so here we are, learning about unwelcome health troubles.
Have you ever had rutabaga? We got a couple and didn’t know what they were. A friend enlightened us, and I cooked them without any idea of how they would be, figuring anything is good if you add enough butter. Turns out they are actually quite good for you, sort of a mashed potato substitute with fewer carbohydrates and lots of good nutrients.
There is a website which summarizes non-fiction books in 5 bullet points. It is free, because they make their money by people ordering off Amazon through their site. It has the weird name of BookPecker.My hope is that it will speed up my journey through my To-Be-Read towers of book.
Goodbye, March! You are the Most Beautiful Month, and we will miss your weather and your colors.
One day I had a bunch of things to juggle, beginning with a “telehealth” appointment. I stared at the landline off and on for 2 hours before giving up.* Rural clinics run by large corporations are bastions of bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence.
I called a friend who knows people and how to get stuff done. Within an hour, I was at another doctor’s office, and within another hour, I had the promise of a referral that I was seeking. (my feet. . . sigh.) It was a quaint old building with interesting details.
Then I raced to a place where I could get cuttings of myoporum, an easy-to-transplant groundcover. Next, I met the piano tuner at church, and planted some greenery while I waited for Mr. Tuner to do his magic. The two redbud trees that Trail Guy and I planted last fall are in bloom now!
I also fielded a few phone calls and texts. FOUR close friends are dealing with difficult situations right now, and it is good to check in with them (a newly deceased parent, a husband with delicate surgery, a friend with a disruptive cancer diagnosis, a husband with a substance problem). I didn’t talk to all of them, but was alert for any incoming requests for a listening ear or a praying heart. At the same time, I was coordinating with Kaweah Arts Nancy, to deliver merchandise for her opening at the new location. PLUS, I was helping her connect with the piano tuner, because she is also responsible for the Remorial** Building here in town and has an event coming soon that requires a tuned instrument.
The piano got tuned, the calls made, the paintings delivered, and I came home. There was time to admire this dragon arum calla lily. (It seems early this year.)
Too jeezled up to paint any serious details, I sat with lists, canvases, hanging hardware, tools, and stacks of photos, making decisions about what to paint for the Silver City Store in the summer. This is how that process looks. (The jar contains those little moisture absorbing packets that come with each canvas, saved because someone told me they are handy if a cell phone gets wet—may I never need to know this experientially.)
I had made a list of subjects and sizes and ordered canvases for the missing sizes. I pulled out the canvases that were available, and began choosing the right photos, adding hardware and inventory numbers. It was a rough-ish day, so I didn’t trust myself with titles other than the obvious, such as “Sawtooth #49”. I had no idea if that is the right number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth, so I made it up; later I went through my list of Sawtooth paintings and learned there have been 57 other paintings of this iconic Mineral King landmark. (Yes, I changed this one to “Sawtooth #58”.)
I thought the decisions were good ones, but then started doubting some of the sizes and some of the subjects. How many people actually hike to White Chief and then patronize the Silver City Store? Not as many as those who walk on the Nature Trail! So why was I planning two paintings of White Chief and none of the Nature Trail? Recalculating. . .
The next day without time wasted staring at the phone waiting for a phone call that never comes, racing down the hill to a clinic, meeting a piano tuner, transplanting, or coordinating merchandise drop off (but not a day where I don’t check in with dear friends who are on the struggle bus), I hope to finish the details on 3 paintings for the fall show at CACHE, and then begin the first layer on nine new paintings of Mineral King.
Lord willing, the creek, etc. (Read James 4:13-15, if you are so inclined. . .)
*The doc NEVER CALLED, and then the clinic had the audacity to send me a reprimanding letter titled “Missed Appointment Letter”. Believe me, they will be receiving a reply, and I had better not receive a bill!!
**The way our neighbor taught us to say “Memorial” when she was about 9 years old.
A few weeks ago, I went to Tulare. As usual, I chose back roads. There were orchards in bloom, greenery everywhere, and snow on the Sierra Nevada. There is often snow there but it isn’t always so visible from the flatlands. (Smog comes down the Altamont Pass from the Bay Area and collects in the Central Valley.)
Agriculture is the biggest industry in Tulare County, and there is more to ag than citrus, although you might not know that if you look at my art. I don’t get out very often, so when I saw this field of some kind of grain (prolly for cattle to eat or perhaps for dairy cows) with the silos and the mountains beyond, I pulled over.
The base coat, easy stuff.
It looked easy, so I started with the sky, corrected the mountain blue/lavender, and then decided to try the grains. Then, I just kept going.
It was a little tricky to paint into wet paint, but the practice is good for me.
The end of the day has low light, so I took it outside to get a better photo. The color is weird on the silos and buildings, not just because of the low light, but because the mountain blue/lavender paint got mixed in. That is a risk of painting wet into wet. (Sometimes I live out on the edge, painting wet into wet or pulling over on the side of the road for photographs.)
All that remains is to get those mountains right and correct the color on the silos and buildings. I left off a giant house because it didn’t seem important. I’m the boss of my painting, not the photographs or reality (unless it is a commissioned piece).
