Remember
Ready to Sell
These paintings are finished: detailed, varnished, scanned, priced, and ready to sell. The goal was to get them into Kaweah Arts before Labor Day. Well, oops, they were ready to deliver on Wednesday, but KA is closed on Wednesdays. Thursday before I headed to the Land of No Electricity, Phones, or Internet Unless you Have StarLink? Nope. Closed Thursdays too.
Oh well. The river in these paintings is unrecognizable as the Kaweah River in September. Not very picturesque at this time of year. HOWEVER, the big trees are always picturesque, unless wrapped in foil and shrouded in smoke. But no fires yet at the time of this posting, thank you, Lord.
P.S. “Big Tree” is a euphemism for Sequoia Gigantea, AKA Redwood.
Painting Three Rivers Paintings in Three Rivers*
“Painting” can be a noun or a verb. In this case, it is both.
After 3 wifi-less days, there were many little tasks** to attend to, and when I finally got into the workshop to paint, it was a real treat.
Made a couple more adjustments on the barn, then moved it into the sunshine to dry.
These two 8×8″ river scenes, “Upstream” and “Downstream”, got some new detailing. Yes, I drew with my paintbrushes.
Next, the sycamore along the road.
Finally, I began detailing the 11×14″ painting of the oak tree with the river in the distance.
That was a satisfying afternoon following a fairly unpleasant morning. Those tech troubles are no fun.
*Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Dept.
**Trail Guy’s iPad went into a coma and I showed him how to use my old iPhone for checking weather, listening to the radio; it took awhile to make a decision and then buy a new iPad (he will be graduating from 4th to 11th generation); the subscribe button on the blog took about an hour of puttering to get one in place (does it work??); my ATM card expired and the bank had a “glitch” in sending out replacements, so Apple is threatening that I will lose information if I don’t provide a substitute to pay for The Cloud this month. And the day before I locked my keys in the car for the first time in my life and couldn’t call Trail Guy for help because without internet, we had no landline. On and on and on it goes.
Finished and Scanned
The new scanner is a real bugger to figure out. Lots of trial and error, and no instruction manual. It’s pretty tricky to use the laptop for scanning while searching out instructions at the same time, particularly when the internet is down, so I just keep pushing buttons, trying various things, and when something actually works, I hope like crazy that I’ll remember how I got there.
At this little scale, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the before and after version. OF COURSE IT LOOKS BETTER IN PERSON!!
Fixing Someone Else’s Work
Doesn’t that sound arrogant?
While helping my friend set up her grandpa’s house as a vacation rental, we encountered a barn painting that made us both groan. It had no signature, so I offered to take it home and give it a makeover. I was practically itching to tackle this, to put it out of its misery, or more accurately, out of our misery.
The first photo shows some perspective correction on the top of the barn roof. I couldn’t restrain myself and neglected to take an actual Before photo.
After viewing it here, I saw two more improvements to make. Maybe three.
My best guess is that someone painted this in a workshop where everyone was painting the same scene and the instructor was encouraging and positive, but ran out of time.
I’m not sure of the ethics of signing this. Is it “my” painting? It was no one else’s who had courage enough to sign it.
The plan was to paint the edges, but the canvas is too ragged, so my friend will pick up a frame for it. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if this one sold before the others we put in the rental?
Helping a Friend in Three Rivers
There is a house above us on the hill that has been empty for a little over a year. The residents got old and went the way of all flesh, but the family can’t stand the idea of letting the house go. So, it is becoming a vacation rental, and granddaughter of the residents is whipping it into shape. She is a very dear friend, and I had the joy of helping her arrange the furniture and hang the art. I love doing this.
We rejected quite a few pieces with faded prints, irrelevant subject matter, or just not up to snuff for a variety of reasons. This left gaps that needed filling, so we went down to my studio (used to be a trail but hasn’t been used for many years and probably is snakey, so we drove) and selected four paintings.
I would do anything for this friend and had no intention of turning it into a business arrangement, but then she pointed out that vacationers might possibly be interested in buying the paintings. They are all too large for the shops in town that sell for me, so with no upcoming shows, might as well put them in a place where they’ll get seen. This arrangement hasn’t worked for me in the past, but it does work for the rental across the street, owned by the brother of a local artist (and managed by my friend’s mom).
The house wasn’t ready for photos, so I can’t show the pictures in place. But I can show them to you here, and we can feel happy and hopeful that they will sell.
It was a fun afternoon, because doing a project with friends is always a great way to spend time, getting to be with this very special friend (now 32, friends since she was 9) and getting to gussy up a house—a most totally excellent way to pass an afternoon! Her grandpa used to use the term “most totally excellent”. (°±°)
We ended our time together enjoying this sunset on G’pa and G’ma’s deck.
The house is listed on AirBnB, called The Gathering Place. It is big, two story, roomy, with a big deck looking at the Sierra Nevada (opposite direction of the sunset photo.), in case anyone is interested.
Painting Differently
Sometimes when I oil paint, I try to finish in one layer. It seldom works, and requires another layer of better detailing.
Other times, I plan on finishing in two layers.
Still others, I expect to keep repainting the scene, over and over and over. In ArtSpeak, this is called “glazing”, and it is the method taught when I endured 1/2 a semester at the localish junior college in 2008.
On this particular painting day, the method of layering over and over and over held some appeal. I haven’t evaluated why I approach each painting differently, but knew this current batch of paintings wouldn’t be good enough if I tried the 2-layer approach.
By the way, finishing in one session is called “ala prima” in ArtSpeak. Yes, it is probably Italian, not what I term ArtSpeak.
I digress.
This was a bit of a mess with barely a single layer.
So, I began again, putting in the beginning layers of background.
I’m hoping that the original layers are either not going to show through or that they will so I don’t have to figure it all out from scratch again. (You can tell that I am still a bit discombobulated with trying to choose the best method to paint.)
Moving right along. . . see the larger square? Let’s tackle that one next.
Are you beginning to doubt either my artistic judgement or my abilities? Fret not.
I spent a bit of time on the laptop trying to find something among my 37,000 photos and stumbled across this forgotten plein air painting (ArtSpeak for “painted on location”, probably French)
If I put a bit more effort into this, I bet it would sell. It is called Airport Bridge, because just across the North Fork of the Kaweah River here in Three Rivers, there used to be a little airstrip. My dad used to land there, and then we’d walk to his uncle’s house.
When it is dry again, I’ll rescan it with the new scanner and then possibly put it in a frame, because it is on that canvas wrapped board, which isn’t suitable on its own.
While I was digging around for that painting after seeing it on the laptop, I found another one, this one clearly incomplete. I began painting it to help one of my drawing students who wanted to learn oil. As I explained and demonstrated each step, she followed along. After a couple of hours, we were only this far and she was fed up. I put it on a shelf and forgot about it until now.
One pomegranate by itself left too much background for my tastes, so I proceeded to dig through my photos and come up with something believable to add.
This was so fun that I forgot to take any more pictures until it was done.
This will need a frame. Phooey. I’ll scan it first. Maybe even decide to put another layer on it. It was fun to paint something in a rarely used color, something that both had specific shapes (unlike scenery) but was forgiving (unlike portraiture.)
Painting differently keeps my interest up. (So do sales, but that’s not what we’re talking about here unless you’d like to make an offer on any of these works in progress.(*>*)
Sort of Finished
Whoda thunk we’d get rain in Three Rivers in August? It came on a day I had planned to paint, but I didn’t let the low light stop me. However, I held back on thinking any of these paintings were finished. When the sun comes out, I’ll have another think about the state of their completion. You know me—more detail is always better, and of course there will be color corrections to make.
First, I retrieved a painting from Kaweah Arts after seeing it in the store, surrounded by other art. Nope, not good enough.
It will look better when it is color-corrected for the low light, dried, and scanned. If I remember, I’ll show you a 1st edition and then the 2nd edition. If not, and you care to see it, please remind me.*
Next, since I had Alta Peak on the brain, and because I wanted to ease into this painting day since it had been so long, I picked the 6×6″ canvas with Alta Peak already somewhat begun. With about 6 photos for reference, I did an amalgamation, just looking at a variety of shadows and colors. Fall is almost here, so why not use some bright shades of autumn?
From there, I went to the river. Both of these are views from the North Fork Bridge, although the view is of the middle or main fork of the Kaweah River. It’s called the North Fork Bridge because after it crosses the main fork, it follows up the canyon of the north fork.
The one on the left is looking upstream and the one on the right is looking downstream.
Finally, I tackled this 7×14″ canvas of a pair of redwood trees, AKA Big Trees, AKA sequoia gigantea.
The light was really getting low, so this one definitely needs more work. I’ve painted this pair several times, usually quite a bit larger. Since these are to sell in a gift shop, a large size isn’t appropriate, either for the shop or for someone’s suitcase.
P.S. I signed some of them despite not being convinced that they are finished.
*It really bugs me when people tell me to remind them to do stuff. Write it down—I’m not your secretary!! Heh-heh, now I’ve told you to remind me of something.
Trying to Explain the Inexplicable
Our internet is working again. The three-day crash coincided with my blog having some mysterious troubles. It will take awhile for me to untangle this and make it work for you.
Many of you subscribe to my blog. (THANK YOU!) Many of my subscribers don’t understand that you can go to the internet, to cabinart.net, and read my blog on my website on the internet.
EVEN IF YOU DON’T GET AN EMAIL WITH THE BLOG POST, IT IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE ON MY WEBSITE. Go to the website, look for the word “Blog” on whatever menu you are able to access. (Menus look different on different devices… sometimes 3 dots, sometimes 3 bars, sometimes the word “Menu”, sometimes just the words from the menu… )
I really want you to understand this, because for whatever unknown reason, the blog no longer has a Subscribe to the Blog button. And it seems to have erased all the subscribers.
I don’t know how to fix it, so give me a pair of minutes (or a week or two because you know how phone “support” works…)
Thank you for your concern and your patience. Not having any fun here, but trusting this is a temporary situation.
Try to Remember. . .
“. . . the time of September. . .”
OR
“See you, in September. . .”
Never mind. September is a little weird this year, because Labor Day is on the latest possible date, September 7.
Have a look at the September pencil drawing in my 2026 calendar.
This is a meadow near Crescent Meadow in Sequoia National Park. I don’t remember the name. Might be Long Meadow. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t really have anything to do with September other than it happens to be the page for that month.
Sometimes I just draw things because I want to.