Recently, I had to leave Three Rivers at 10 a.m. This presented two choices: A. waste time until 10, or B. paint for an hour or two before leaving. Being the responsible mature adult that I am (oh hush, you!), I wisely chose B. Creating Tulare County-based paintings is what I do; wasting time is normally not what I do (or want to admit to doing here on the world wide web.)
After viewing this on my screen while it was still wet, I decided it needed some leaves.
It looks better in this photo because the previous photo was taken at the end of the day. Morning light makes better photography conditions in the painting workshop.
That’s better. When it is dry, I’ll scan it and maybe remember to show you.
There was paint left on my palette and time left on the clock. It is prudent to always have a 6×18” sequoia painting ready for Kaweah Arts to sell to the thousands of visitors who pass through our town on their way to see Sequoia National Park’s sequoia trees AKA redwoods AKA the Big Trees. (These are sequoia gigantea, not to be confused with sequoia sempervirens, which are coastal redwoods.)
Yeppers, I worked from a black and white photo and began the painting upside down. I can fake these trees, so I can certainly guess how this snowy scene might look in summertime.
I started this one differently than usual. I “drew” it on the canvas rather than completely covering the canvas with thin sloppy paint.
It’s a little sloppy, but this was as far as it got when my internal chronometer said to make like a tree and leaf. Or was that to make like a cowpie and hit the trail. . . such colorful images and language from that internal chronometer.
Let’s review. I really liked this painting, but no one was willing to give me green pieces of paper with dead presidents’ faces on it in exchange. So, after going through some photos and thinking about my current inventory, I decided to grow a big oak tree on the canvas.
Jackson required some attention. He had a lot to say, but he wasn’t commenting on the painting.
A friend of mine sells agriculture real estate. When I used to waste time on LinkedIn*, occasionally I’d see a photo of his and ask to paint from it. That’s where I got this painting, Springville Ranch.
Apparently, no one else shared my interest in this subject or my happiness with the colors.
Bye-bye, Springville Ranch.
This got worked on flat on a table because the easels were all occupied with other wet paintings. Large ones.
This painting session was to cover the old paint and get the shapes mostly drawn in. When this layer dries, I’ll mix more accurate colors and DRAW WITH MY PAINTBRUSH (because that’s how I like to paint, you ArtSnobs, so there.)
The painting will go to Kaweah Arts, where Nancy steadily sells my paintings that pertain to Three Rivers and Sequoia.
*A few years ago, I quit LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. I read a few blogs and am getting to know people from all over the country that way, and have even had a few sales from it, which is more than I can say for those social media sites. Much more enjoyable, and less time wasted. I tried and quit Facebook in a three-week time span in 2012.
I have some new friends, acquaintances really, because we haven’t met in real life, but we are learning to know each other. They are bloggers like me, but with much bigger audiences, so I feel honored that they show up here from time to time. They don’t know about Mineral King so here is a little introductory information.
Heading to Eagle Lake, 16×20”, $650
Mineral King is an area of Sequoia National Park, accessible by a gnarly dead-end road. It is the most beautiful part of Sequoia and only open seasonally—Memorial Day through the end of October, weather depending. There is a community of private cabins, and I am fortunate enough to have married in 39 years ago.
Sawtooth #65, 24×30”, $2000
Cabin communities are a real treasure, with their own unique culture. Because I have lived most of my life at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, I have had the privilege of spending time in four different cabin communities in the mountains. My business is called Cabin Art because when I started, I lived in a cabin and I drew people’s cabins. I have published two books of of pencil drawings on two different cabin communities—one sold out a long time ago and the other still available.
Honeymoon Cabin, sold
Because Mineral King is such a beloved place, I write about it frequently during cabin season. I try to incorporate some art**, because this blog is supposed to be about my business. Frankly speaking, people are more interested in cabin life, the trails, wildflowers, the road, and Mineral King in general than in my art.
Sawtooth #66, 12×24, $650
*I won’t be writing about Mineral King every Friday at the beginning of this summer because I have a handful of situations that will prevent me from going quite as often as normal.
**Yes, this time a lot of art. I came here to earn a living.
P.S. I’ve included links to the first four “chapters” (posts) that I wrote about cabin life back in 2023. If you want more, you can follow the prompts at the bottom of each “chapter” (in quotes because it is more like a picture book than a chapter book) that will lead you to the next posts. There are twenty-two.
When a painting doesn’t sell, I study it to discern what can be improved.
This painting has been with me for awhile, so I gave it some thought and then made a few subtle changes.
I don’t expect you to be able to discern what I did to it, but maybe after it is dry and scanned, I’ll show you the before and after scans.
This painting has also been with me for awhile. It took about 4 years to complete because of not having a clear vision of what it ought to be. The photos meant something to me, but just didn’t translate into a nice scene. While I thought it was finished, it hasn’t rung anyone else’s bell
More thought, more study, and some useful input from Trail Guy resulted in this version.
Again, I don’t expect you to be able to discern what has been improved, but now I am hopeful that the right customer will come along.
Next week I’ll show you a more drastic do-over as we contemplate those finishing tasks in the painting workshop.
The reason I refer to “the painting workshop” instead of “the studio” is because I paint in a different building than where I draw. The drawing studio came first, and when I began oil painting on March 8, 2006, it was imperative to keep that mess away from my pencil drawings. It still is imperative; the operative word here is “mess”.
After spending several weeks working on large-ish (large for me means it won’t fit on my flatbed scanner) paintings, there were many little tasks to complete. Each painting needed a title and inventory # on the back, hardware for hanging, a signature, the edges to be painted, and a good photograph.
For these larger paintings, I put them outside on an easel in the sunshine, and then do my level best to take photos with my PHD* camera, which has a screen that doesn’t show up in bright sunshine. Operative word here is “level” —try to hold a tiny camera perfectly parallel with a painting when you can’t see the screen.
Someday I might buy a grownup camera again, but one of my guiding principles in life is “The more stuff I own, the more stuff breaks” (and needs maintenance, storage, cleaning, battery charging, and for Pete’s sake and for crying out loud, STOP GETTING LOST ALREADY!) My PHD is doing fine for now, so I’ll just push onward. Thanks to Photoshop Jr., I can make this work.
Trail Guy came into the workshop with a maintenance-man sort of aura, so I told him that it was time to reupholster my chair again. The duct tape from the last reupholstery session was no longer satisfactory, so he used gorilla tape this time. Classy, eh? The stool came from an abandoned artist studio where some jerk refinanced his place, then took the money and ran. Some friends of mine bought the property from the bank, and I had the good fortune to comb through and claim what I needed. Back then I stood to paint, but thought it would be a useful stool in the workshop. Now I sit more often (stupid peripheral neuropathy).
Tomorrow I’ll show you a few more finishing tasks.
Learned in May? Who had time to learn anything when I was painting like a machine and paintings were selling at warp speed. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It only felt like warp speed (nope, no idea what that actually means) compared to a s l o w s l o w s l o w winter.
That was really fun. People love to ask where artists get their inspiration. I get mine from real life, the beautiful things and moments. People don’t often ask where artists get their motivation. Mine comes from sales. It validates me, gives me the oompf to keep painting when people give me green pieces of paper with dead presidents faces on them. Those pieces of paper are hard to come by, so I feel very honored when someone thinks my work is worth it.
In the lengthy month of May (why does 31 days feel so much longer than 30?) I spent time finding interesting things to ponder on the interwebs along with painting, planting native plants at my church, drawing a map, and getting used to the two-home rhythms of summer. I also took in the last wildflowers of spring in my neighborhood of Three Rivers.
1. Have you heard of the Scottish term “hurkle durkle”? It is explained here in this blog post on Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist. (Hi, Elisabeth!) It’s a verb that means to lie in bed in the morning until you feel like getting up.
2. My internet friend Elisabeth posted a list of the Five Best Beaches in Nova Scotia. Holy guacamole, good thing it is far away or the entire world would want to live there. Her photos! The beaches! (Thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet…)
3. A friend offered use of his car when he learned of Fernando’s terminal diagnosis. LOOK AT THIS BABY!! (I know it’s not a Honda Accord.) I declined, because Fernando is still running just fine for the shortish distances in my life. What a generous and fabulous friend. . . who gets to have people like this in their lives??
4. Doing hard things and all the varieties of ways to incorporate this into everyday life, along with the reasons for doing these—great food for thought from the blog This Evergreen Home. It follows the same line of thinking as the book The Comfort Crisis, which I bought and read a year or two ago (and promptly gave away or lost). Still not interested in jumping into cold water or taking cold showers.
5. While we are talking about websites, there is an enormous quantity of wisdom on This Evergreen Life. Great fodder for introspection and conversation. . . shhhh, I need to think. Here is an example: “[Minimalism] insists that the cheapest item is the one you never purchase, the most efficient storage system is deletion, and the best bargain is time reclaimed when you no longer have to manage mountains of things.”
6. A dear friend has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (Who was Parkinson? Poor guy. . .) Her Movement Specialist Neurologist (that’s a medical specialty?) told her, “exercise is your medicine.” People with PD who exercise daily for 30 minutes at 80% of their maximum heart rate have significantly fewer symptoms and thus need less pharmaceuticals.
7. Ever heard of “money dials”? Ramit Sethi is a money guy who has coined this term. He lists the 10 most common “money dials” to help you find where you are most likely to spend any extra money; when you figure it out, you can turn the dial all the way up. (Why??)
8. I had a one-year follow-up appointment in Santa Barbara for this dadgum peripheral neuropathy. After some thought, I realized that the doc would confirm that yes, I still have it (well, duh, that is why my feet are still numb, I can’t comfortably wear any shoes except Crocs, and they really start hurting if I walk farther than 4 miles), and she’d remind me that there is no cure but to watch the prediabetes, which she says can cause neuropathy (to which my local doc says baloney). I emailed the SB doc to see if an appointment was necessary, she confirmed my line of thinking. and I cancelled the appointment. (SHE REPLIED TO THE MESSAGE!!) The learning there is to THINK and ASK.
9. One final realization came to me in May: people begin a physical decline in their 60s. Look at the list of things happening to my friends in first decade of the esses: cancer, diabetes, prediabetes, prolapsed body parts, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, early onset Alzheimer’s, bad knees, ruined shoulders, DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis, and yes, peripheral neuropathy. On top of that, we all have friends in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who need help but often won’t admit it. The ones that do admit it make it easier on those around them and have an easier time themselves.
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.
That’s my design on the tee shirt in the background.This is that tall narrow space for which I paint something tall and narrow each season.The most popular subject—sold a 6×6” version of it on the weekend.
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.
Very very tiny unknowns.Five spot is the name of these cuties. Those leaves in the center look like a cactus. What in the world??
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.
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.
Marble Fork Bridge, 16×20, needs to dry, be photographed and varnished, all for the solo show in Tulare in August.
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.)
