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?