It feels as if I am finding my way back home in my art pursuits. Sales are encouraging, commissions are energizing, rain and snow is reassuring, and all of those things reignite my desire to paint, draw, and tell you about it.
We recently saw this oil painting:
It didn’t look right to me. The colors were wrong, and it needed orange blossoms. Back on the easel with you!
Better.
Painting oranges feels like coming home.
The poppies below Comb Rocks recovered from last week’s snow.
I don’t have a Learned List for you this month. I learned some things, but they don’t belong here. Instead, here is a list of things for which I am grateful in February.
Now, let’s just enjoy some spring time in the foothills of Central California.
The poppies are barely visible below Comb Rocks but I know those are poppies and not fiddlenecks. (In case you care about such details).
I accidentally took black and white photos on a day full of beautiful bright natural colors. This became an opportunity to learn how to use the colorize tool on Photoshop Junior (actually Photoshop Elements).
I am not impressed.
Let’s try it with another photo.
Better, but still nothing to get excited about.
Now I will use the tool to adjust color.
This isn’t very good either.
What did I learn? That if I mess up and accidentally take black and white photos, it is a waste of time to try to make them look natural.
How about if I just stop messing up when the pictures are important?
Good idea.
Remember in the olden days when we took photos and didn’t see them until our film got developed?
We have gotten used to looking at them instantly, which is great in theory, but what happens when you are outside in the bright sun and cannot see the screen? Cameras rarely have eyeholes, and the ones that do are small, blurry, inadequate, scratched, or just dirty.
Additionally, if you cannot see the screen, you cannot see the controls on the screen. Sometimes this creates accidents.
A little over a week ago after a storm (not the snowstorm), everything was so beautiful that I laid down my paintbrushes and headed out with Trail Guy to see some natural beauty. The wildflowers!!
THEN, without knowing it, I had a camera accident. 
How would I know? I couldn’t see the screen. When I put on some glasses and moved into the shade, I realized that the color was absent, so I randomly pushed the controls until color appeared again.
This flowering pear is the first to bloom in the neighborhood (mid-February) and the last to lose its color in the fall (sometimes late November). This photo might have looked okay in black and white.
It took quite a bit of button pushing when I got home to restore the normal settings. I don’t know how it switched to black and white and doubt if I could make it do that again, at least not on purpose.
Now I am going to experiment with something called “colorize” on Photoshop Junior. This is an opportunity to learn.
These seven oil paintings are now finished, dry, scanned, and available for purchase.
“Purchase” sounds so fancy; these paintings are ready to buy. (Is that better? Don’t want to get above my raising here.)
Any questions? Maybe the comment feature is working on this blog post. If not, we are probably friends in real life so you can email or call or lean out the door and yell or wave me over on the road or talk to me after church on Sunday. Lots of options for connecting.
Doesn’t that sound uncomfortable? What if you also had your shoulder to the wheel, put your back into it, and were toeing the line? How would you get anything done?
Fortunately, I only have to plant my feet in front of the easels. None of these photos do justice to either painting, but when they are finished, dry, and scanned, they will look better. Then when you see them in person, you will really like them.
How’s that for an abundance of confidence?
Finally finished this 8×10″ of the Craig Ranch. It is shiny and wet, not a good look.
Then I began a painting of a subject that I really love to see in person and to paint.
The base coat colors are wrong, but I did begin building the mountains correctly. White dries the slowest of all the paint colors, so this will need to rest awhile before I continue with the mountains.
Recently I have been enjoying the green, wildflowers, and daffodils, sharing them with you all.
Wednesday morning, February 23, this was how our yard looked.
I heard a radio announcer say, “The Sierra is celebrating much needed snow”. I’m unsure how a mountain range “celebrates”, but I know we are very very thankful for any and all precipitation here in Three Rivers. Probably in all of California other than the upper north end of our bizarrely diverse state.
It is too dark to photograph snow around here. It only looks great when the sun comes out, but the snow disappears almost immediately.
Trail Guy has such a soft spot for Pippin.
My flowering pear is in bloom at the same time we get snow? THIS is why I love February!
The yard doesn’t look quite as sittable as usual. I’ll just stand—thanks for asking.
Due to an unfortunate series of events, I cancelled drawing lessons the first two weeks in February. The third week, my first class of the day cancelled me. Well, not really. Out of 7 members (in theory/on paper) only one student could attend.
Hmmm, are drawing lessons becoming irrelevant? Am I?
I love helping people learn to draw. I used to give lessons 3 afternoons a week, with 3-4 classes, each one containing 4 members, along with a long waiting list.
It isn’t that way anymore.
Everything changes. Figuring out how to make an art business viable means continually adapting to the changes.
Eventually, it will cost me more to go down the hill ($5/gallon for gas, rent and insurance at the gallery, and my time, which is a squishy thing to place monetary value on) than I earn from my students. But how can I justify raising my prices if there is no waiting list?
Meanwhile, I will keep helping the people who show up.
Here is an irrelevant photo of a cat whose name* I have forgotten because it was only semi-civilized and disappeared before we were able to get to know it.
*Was this Butch (abbreviated tail)? Or O’Reilly (bold and fresh)?
Please forgive me if you do not live in Central California, for having the gall to refer to February as “spring”.
The deer are fine as long as they are mowing the “lawn”. (This used to be a real lawn, but we stopped watering it quite a few years ago so now it is only “lawn” if we have rain.)
Here’s Tucker, the narcissus smasher.
I am thankful for the rain that we have received while still enjoying the sunshine.