Mineral King—the Season has Begun
For those new to my blog, Mineral King is an area of Sequoia National Park where I spend copious amounts of time in the summer. Next Friday I will provide a more in depth explanation.
Today’s post is a long one. You’ve been warned. . .
The road is under construction, so it is a mess, and there is a schedule to follow. This is what we saw at the bottom of the road.
We stopped by Silver City to deliver paintings and cards.
I’m given quite a bit of leeway in placing the pieces and actually took my own nails, easels, and hammer.
Shortly after arriving at the cabin, we headed back to a friend’s cabin with an enormous tree blocking her driveway. The men didn’t have big enough chainsaws but eliminated some parts to create a path around, carried some of her gear up to the cabin for her, and supplied a hand-truck so she could get things back down to her car later. “Did you see Tracy’s tree?” was a question we heard many times over our stay.
She had some good flowers in her driveway.
Hiking Buddy and I hoofed it back up the road to our cabins.
I had a nice afternoon of watching the daffodils and untangling yarn from a sweater that fit me wrong.
Our after-dinner walk was beautiful, but my camera is fairly inadequate for this sort of lighting.
However, it is perfectly fine for this sort.
The next day was busy for the men as they assisted cabin neighbors in various opening tasks. However, I had time to continue watching daffodils bloom.
Hiking Buddy and I ventured up to Spring Creek to see if the bridge had been installed yet. Nope.
When the men were available, we took a walk together.
Some of the cottonwoods had quite a few broken branches, and one was swinging precariously. The guys tried to dislodge the widow-maker, but it survived (and so did the guys—no widows were made.)
Crystal Creek is running well, very wide and shallow (sort of like Facebook).
There was more time in the afternoon for unraveling that sweater and watching the daffodils.
More walks (I am unsure about hiking with my peripheral neuropathy this year. . . more will be revealed, but for now, walks are fine with me.)
These are the tiniest blue lips I’ve ever seen! All I had so that you can appreciate the size is this chapstick (okay, Carmex, but who knows what that is?) in my pocket.
It was chilly in the evenings so we gathered with friends around this ring of fire. (Someone besides me was wearing Crocs—mine show at the bottom).
Look at the daffodils just 3 days later. Yellow wildflowers are a little bit boring to me, but daffodils are neither wild nor boring.
It wasn’t a hot weekend, and the drive down was quite beautiful. Almost all the wildflowers were yellow, and I wasn’t bored. Bush poppy, flannel bush, blazing star, monkey flowers—all yellow. The bush poppies are prolific and abundant. I didn’t photograph the areas where they cover the hillside, because it isn’t prudent to stop the Botmobile on steep slopes or blind corners or when the road is just one lane or if someone is on our six and there is no turnout.
The lupine are hanging on too.
Thus we conclude our very long post about Mineral King. Next week I will show some Mineral King art (because this is my business blog and I came here to earn a living—any questions?) and explain for my new far-away friends a little bit about this place we locals love so dearly.
READ MOREFinishing Two More Oil Paintings
This painting has been on hold for many months. Finally, I felt able to finish it. After working on Sawtooth #66 with the water, and Sawtooth #65 with all the made up things, this suddenly felt quite manageable.
Success breeds confidence. Let’s paint a sunset at the beach.
First, I mixed a bunch of sunset colors, trying to be close to the colors on the several photos while knowing that the sunset had changed continually while we sat and watched (and photographed) it.
The 16×20” canvas had a basic first layer but needed refinement on the rock shape on the left. That’s Morro Rock in Morro Bay, in case you are curious.
I actually finished this painting of a sunset at Morro Rock, but the mosquitoes were buzzing and I was hungry too. So I didn’t take a final photo for you. After it dries, I’ll try to remember to show you the finished product. Or, you might have to come to the solo show in Tulare in August (if I forget to show you, or even if I do, because remember, everything looks better in person except celebrities.)
READ MOREGittin’ ‘er dun at the Easel
This painting had the tightest deadline of all the paintings in progress. After a day of doing many non-painting projects, I got a day to paint uninterrupted (except for Jackson).
The edges are painted. It needed to dry, be signed, get photographed, varnished and get rewired from its previous iteration as a horizontal painting.
This is Sawtooth #66, 12×24”, oil on wrapped canvas, $650, located at the Silver City Resort, 4 miles below Mineral King.
READ MOREToo Busy to Paint
In the mornings I meet my friend and her cat so we can power up a steep road in the neighborhood.
Some mornings there are turkeys yelling in the middle of the road.
None of this keeps me too busy to paint. I just wanted you to see these pictures.
There is a large project at my church right now. It has been occupying a lot of space in my mind, figuring out what to do and how to do it.
This needs plants, many many many plants. How many? I don’t know.
Fortunately, I know someone who knows. Melanie Keeley has a native plant nursery in Three Rivers and she is a genius expert botanist. (Her nursery is Alta Vista—call or email for an appointment.)
First I had to make gopher baskets. It wasn’t easy, but I had help. We only bled a little bit.
Six or seven friends met Melanie at church one morning. She chose and brought 35 plants, placed them, and instructed us in the planting requirements. Some didn’t need gopher baskets, and some that did needed a hole snipped in the center of the bottom. Weird. Maybe gophers don’t bite tap roots.
After we finished planting and hand watering, we returned in the afternoon to cover it all with mulch. There wasn’t enough, but whatever got spread was an improvement.
Then two guys set up a watering system. Seeing them (lower right side of the landscaped area) in this poorly photoshopped shot gives you an idea of the scale of the project.
In addition to working on the planting project, I repainted a cabin sign.
Then I started on a design for embroidered caps for my friend to sell at her store, Stem & Stone in Three Rivers. (The link is a Facebook page, so I can’t open it, but maybe you can.)
There are two versions here because the embroiderer charges by the stitch count, and we don’t know what the different prices might turn out to be, so we want options.
After she approved these two arrangements, I used colored pencils and Photoshop to turn these into useful designs. (The one on the left isn’t showing completely here.)
She’s not in a big rush. That’s good, because I need to design a ranch map and get some paintings finished.
I love the variety in my job and life!
READ MORERemember
Back to the Sawtooths
The tall narrow (12×24”) oil painting of Sawtooth has a deadline. There is a narrow but visible spot in the Silver City Store where I hang a tall narrow Mineral King painting each summer. Last summer I took up a tall and narrow painting of that classic Mineral King view on Memorial Day weekend. Somewhat flippantly I told the manager the price, adding “just on the off chance that it sells”, because usually only the suitcase-sized paintings sell.
It sold that weekend.
So, let’s not shilly-shally, hmmm?
The river and rocks are kind of too small to see in the 4×6” snapshot. I make up a lot of stuff too, which sometimes is easy and other times requires great thought.
“Make stuff up”?? Make up a lot of stuff! The idea is believability.
The great cover-up almost got finished on the day that the above progress was achieved.
I want to mull it over for a while. It is destined for the solo show at the Heritage Gallery in Tulare, the show titled “Around Here. . . and Sometimes a Little Farther”. Unless you want to buy it first.
READ MOREReady for Summer, Professionally Speaking
The store, no, the employees at the Silver City Resort do their best to sell my paintings every summer. Sometimes they are closed due to pandemics, fires, floods, ultra heavy winters, or ruined roads. But we nevah nevah nevah give up.
There are about five Mineral King paintings at the Mural Gallery and Gift Shop in Exeter which I will retrieve today to take up the hill for Memorial Day weekend, which is early this year. Historically Memorial Day was May 31 until most holidays got Mondayized to become 3-day weekends when people would be the least interrupted and have chunks of time to do things that rarely have anything to do with the date which gave the privilege of time off.
I looked over the paintings, evaluating sizes and subjects, and figured out that five more would probably be adequate until August. Meanwhile I need to concentrate on getting a few more large paintings ready for the solo show, also August.
Stop talking, Central California Artist, and show us your paintings!
Every year it is a by-guess-and-by-golly to figure out which subjects in which shapes and sizes to paint. Lots of artists would have just figured out a way to reproduce the paintings as prints, but I want people to own originals. Besides, I don’t want the unsold inventory hanging around.
As my dad used to say, “You pays your money and you takes your choice”. I have no idea where he got that saying. His main piece of business advice was, “You kiss their fanny and you take their money.” He had a lot of sayings, most kind of funny, and all full of wisdom.
READ MOREDay #3 of Painting Sawtooth*
Nope, don’t wanna paint this.
After a moment’s thought, I remembered a made-up somewhat embellished view that sold twice last summer as a 6×12”, the same proportions as this 12×24” canvas. I dug out the relevant photos, and flipped the canvas.
Then what happened? So glad you asked! First, upside down so the proportions would be correct and believable. Sometimes I just need that extra method of seeing correctly (another reason against plein air painting for me.)
It was not dry from the previous day’s painting, so it was a little challenging to keep the paintbrushes from digging up yesterday’s wet colors. I didn’t paint the sky first because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the blue pure. It got this far along, and then it needed some drying time. You can see an outline of Sawtooth, so in spite of not wanting to paint that thing again, here it is, because it sells.
It seemed like an easy task to finish the little canvas of the classic view of Mineral King. I barely need photos anymore and have stopped trying to keep track of how many times I’ve painted this scene. I’ve titled the scene “Farewell Gap”, “Classic Mineral King”, “Crowley Cabin”, and “Mineral King Family Cabin”, and probably a few other names too. It’s good to have one handy, but I pick and choose which elements and which colors. Sometimes the tree on the left is tall, sometimes it is gone. Sometimes the stream lines up with Farewell Gap, sometimes not. The water and snow on the peaks also change from painting to painting. Every time I stand on the bridge to view the scene, I am POSITIVE it has NEVER looked so good. So, I take another photo.
Done!
I’m feeling the pressure to complete all the Mineral King paintings because it is time for the Silver City Resort (4 miles below Mineral King) to open for the season.
*Only one Sawtooth today.
READ MOREAnother Day of Painting Sawtooths*
I thought this would be easy to finish, forgetting that it is much faster to cover large areas with a wide brush than little bittty dots of color with a tiny brush. Feeling bold, I messed up the sky with aspen leaves.
See the photo in my hand? Many aspens. This photo carries more weight than the stack of Sawtooth photos I’ve been using so far because it has the best aspens.
The leaf mess in the sky is now aspen trees.
I’m tired of green now.
That yellow and white were so fun that it is time for red.
After I got these wildflowers done, I stopped for lunch. While I was downing something fast and boring but nutritious (thank you for your concern), I faced the fact that I just didn’t want to work on the 12×24” horizontal painting of Sawtooth. If I didn’t want to paint it, why would anyone want to buy it?
Time for a new thought. Come back tomorrow if you are curious.
*We discussed this yesterday.
READ MOREA Day of Painting Sawtooths*
Two Sawtooth paintings on my easels, yellow-lidded palette thawing from its overnight storage in the freezer. Next a decision to begin with the skies, so the tall painting needed to be flipped. And since sky was the first color, I added in the tiny (6×6”) classic Mineral King painting to the day’s tasks.
I flipped it over because otherwise I’d need to stand on a ladder to reach the upper parts of this 24×30” painting. While it was accessible, I worked on Sawtooth.
And since the right colors were on the palette, I painted Sawtooth on the 12×24” canvas.
Then since the colors of Sawtooth were a good blend for trail dust, I flipped the painting and hit the trail.
Moving forward on the painting, I mixed up distant forest colors and got those trees covered.
Obviously the next step was to take care of the distant evergreens on the larger painting, which I was able to reach right-side-up.
Next, I photographed my studio door for reference. It is a little unusual for me to be using a mural instead of photographs. However, I used this door, a stack of photos, and mostly just painted from my mind. This is a new approach, but after painting Sawtooth a minimum of 64 times, I should be able to figure out how to paint it from memory. (I am not exaggerating the number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth.)
It’s a little tricky to see any changes among the first three photos, but I was very diligent about photographing the progression. By the end of the day, I was sitting down (because my feet told me to) and began “drawing with my paintbrush”. (That’s what the ArtWorld snobs call it when a painter gets obsessed with detail—maybe because they don’t have that skill. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. They’re just jealous. So there.)
You can tell that I sort of forgot about the 12×24” canvas. These are both quite challenging, because I am not following a specific photo to create a specific view. Instead, I’m wanting to create paintings that summarize the feeling and memories that someone has after walking up the Nature Trail in Mineral King. I’m painting two different shapes so there are choices for customers.
*Sawtooth is a mountain that is visible from Visalia. Two paintings of Sawtooth would be “Sawtooths”, not “Sawteeth”. Any questions?
READ MORE