Big Old Country House, Done!

Done? That word brings biscuits to mind, or perhaps a tri-tip. “Completed” is probably a better word for a custom pencil drawing.

Because of the influence of my drawing students, I decided to put clouds in the sky rather than oranges or walnuts. (Oranges in the sky? Walnuts in the sky? Riders in the sky?)

Because I love our flag and love to add color, Jane and I decided to add a flag to the drawing that wasn’t there in person.

Because I want the colors to be right on the flag, I experimented on a piece of scrap paper on the drawing table.

Because it is a huge drawing, I decided to sign with my huge name. (When I paint, all I can manage with that uncontrollable paintbrush is “J. Botkin”.) I don’t know why I got into the habit of not capitalizing, but now it is an established habit.

And because it is so vulnerable, just a piece of paper, until Jane and I decide a retrieval/transfer date and method, it has to remain flat on the table, covered by tissue paper. (The drawing has [t]issues?)

The most difficult part of the entire drawing was getting a good photo. It was too bright outside, too dark in the studio, and so no matter what I tried, it had to be photoshopped to be worthy of showing to Jane. It is just too big for the scanner, so all that fiddling around had to be done.

Enough teasing. Here is the Big Old Country House custom pencil drawing, 16×20″:

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that people can understand of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Better Sequoia

From 2012:

2012
Thought it was finished and changed my mind.
Best Sequoia painting, titled “Sandy’s Sequoia”.

Since everything looks measurably better in person, I am wondering if the differences are just due to camera variations. I don’t know where the original painting from 2012 is, nor can I find the photo that I used, so this is a mystery to be lived with. Not everything has an answer (Uncle Google may be omnipresent but he is not omniscient.)

This is custom art, Gentle Blog Reader. Custom art works like this:

Using pencils, oil paints, and murals, I make art that people can understand of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

P.S. My business manager made me put that in the blog. She is mean like that.

I Can Do Better

I thought the commissioned oil painting of a Giant Sequoia was finished. I photographed it, fixed the photo on Photoshop Junior (because there is no way to hold the camera perfectly aligned with the painting), and even varnished it.

Then I decided to compare it to the one that my customer saw and liked, painted back in 2012.

2012

The darks are darker in this one, and it just looks better. 

Back to the easel with my newest Big Tree oil painting, since I can do better, because. . .

. . .I make art that people can understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Hot Mineral King Time

When it is hot down the hill, we also think it is hot in Mineral King. “Hot” is a relative term, but when one is in the sun, with mosquitos and biting flies, one is uncomfortable on several whiny levels.

Here is a brief summary:

  1. The bottom mile of the road has been repaved; the upper sections continue to worsen.
  2. The biting flies and mosquitos are out in full force.
  3. People are still wrapping up their cars since the marmots are still feeding their young; theory (or perhaps it is “settled science”) has it that the lactating females are the ones who damage cars.
  4. The wildflowers are decent this year and many varieties are appearing earlier than usual.
Very green in spite of low water (that blue spot is a tarped car).
See? GREEN!
A single iris in bloom across the creek from us incites envy – in 30+ years I have only had one iris bloom.
A cabin neighbor has the most interesting door handle with a spoon for a latch (is that the latch? or is it a trigger?)
The fire crews left many piles like this around the cabins. They look as if they are waiting for a match – how’s that for irony?
The crimson columbine are early with a few profuse patches along the Nature Trail.
No biting flies or mosquitos show in the photo and you can’t feel the heat and humidity either; I braved both to bring you this photo.
This little weird flower is everywhere around Mineral King and nowhere in my wildflower books.
It is also almost impossible to get a clear photo – I deleted about 10 blurry versions.
The Mariposa lilies are thick along the last 1/4 miles of the road, looking like polka dots among the sage and ferns.

 

New Paintings Completed. . .

. . . and one that was, but then I changed my mind. I’ll tell you about that another day.

Giant Sequoia II, 6×18″, oil on wrapped canvas, $165 (plus too much sales tax in California)
Oak Grove Bridge #34, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×10″, $125 (plus tax, yadda yadda yadda)
Mineral King Alpenglow, 6×18″, oil on wrapped canvas, $165 (plus you-know-what in California)
Honeymoon Cabin at Dusk, 8×8″, oil on wrapped canvas, $108 (includes the tax but if you are out of California it is bargain at $100)
Classic Mineral King, 18×35″, oil on wrapped canvas, $1200 (more in California but I won’t do the math now because it will make me break out in hives)

 

Cranking them out

Doesn’t that sound careless? It is meant to convey a sense of methodically completing oil paintings, standing in front of the easels without mercy, focusing relentlessly on the job at hand in order to have time in Mineral King, or to work on some pencil drawings, or maybe just park my tookus and read.

Here are some in progress photos:

These are now completed, signed, with painted edges, all drying in the workshop.

These weren’t hard because they had base coats, with all the shapes and darks and lights blocked in. All I had to do was mix the right colors, find obedient brushes, and systematically make them the best they could become without getting caught up in unnecessary extraneous details (as I define “unnecessary detail”, not as the folks who tell me to stop drawing with my paintbrushes). Pencils require tight details; oils require great color; both require great contrast.

Now I have 3 more to paint: a commission (although it is still in the conversation stage I feel fairly confident that it will become a real job), something for a friend in trade for some iris rhizomes to share, and one more small Mineral King painting, because I ran out of daylight on my marathon painting day.

 

Jibber-jabber about blogging

“Blog” is a clunky word. It means an online journal, or a “web log”, condensed into the word “blog.

My first web designer showed me how to post to a blog. This was on April 15, 2008, and for awhile, I posted any time that an idea came to me. It was way more fun than I ever expected to have with a computer.

A few years into it, I started chasing down “experts” to learn how to “grow my platform”. I searched for interesting blogs, commented, wrote a few guest posts for other blogs, and even made a few virtual friends. There were formulas to follow about how often to post, how to arrange things, title things, and always end with a question to engage your readers. It took up time that may have been better spent painting or drawing or finding customers and new students. After a few years of this without any noticeable growth in my subscribers, I decided to forget about growing a “platform”. I’d rather grow thyme, rhododendrons, poppies, and maybe a few cucumbers or pumpkins. (Perhaps I am a rogue blogger, along with being a rogue knitter, baker, and painter.) 

Now with over 12 years of posting five days a week, mostly about making art and earning a living with unnecessary products in an unlikely place, it is automatic. A handful of people subscribe, mostly friends and relatives, and even a few strangers who have become real friends through the blog over the years. I don’t remember how to check my subscriber list, and it doesn’t really matter. I have no illusions (or delusions) that I will become either the Yarn Harlot or the Pioneer Woman of art. This is just a place for a solo working artist to stay accountable, to write because I seem to have lots to say about what I do, to keep track of what I have accomplished, to gather feedback when working alone threatens to make me even weirder than my sisters think I am, and maybe even to get a commission or a few sales.

I appreciate every single reader of this blog and am particularly thrilled when someone comments. I wish I knew how to thank my readers in a tangible way, but the best way I know is to keep posting, stay quiet about the stuff that divides people, be polite, don’t cuss and resist the pressure to “monetize”. I hate it when people cuss on their blogs, and I hate it when people whose writing I like get rude or political, have pop-up windows that interrupt my reading, have advertising or a begging button, so I will not to go down those dark alleys here.

Thank you for being here with me!

This is how my painting workshop and studio looked when I first started the blog. It was thrilling to have space at home to work and blank places to practice painting murals.

 

We’ve come a long way.

Classic Mineral King 3

Stunningly mild summer weather made it a pleasure to paint this large classic Mineral King scene. Normally it is uncomfortable to paint in the summer with the swamp cooler roaring and blowing things around while doing its best to help me focus on work.

For some reason I found it easier to work from the bottom up, from front to back, the opposite of my usual path across a canvas.

Because it was so nice out, the big doors were open, and some vacationers across the street came up the driveway to see what I was doing. Wow, what a fun visit with this family from Ventura! Questions, so much interest and curiosity, lots of questions. Young Landon wanted to know the “very hardest thing in art – how do you draw a nose?” I said, “You don’t draw it, you shade it, because it doesn’t have any hard edges”. By then we were all in the studio, Landon, parents Christine and Lawrence, and granddad John. I “drew” Landon’s nose for him. (It might have been awful because I wasn’t wearing my cheater glasses, but he thought it was fantastic.) We all had an enjoyable visit, and I sent them to Mineral King for the next day’s excursion, because it is the best part of Sequoia front country. 

When one works in solitude day in and day out, it is a thrill to meet people who are both interested and interesting. If you are reading this, thank you for coming up my driveway, Ventura family!

Remember, I use pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art people understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Classic Mineral King, oil on wrapped canvas, 18×36″, $1200 (Yes there is tax, there is always tax in California)

P.S. They didn’t make it to Mineral King but will aim for that in a return visit this fall. We had further conversation and learned that we have many important things in common, which might explain our immediate comfort with one another.

Mineral King and Somewhere Else

Fridays may be for Mineral King around here, but my last trip to the mountains was somewhere else. However, Trail Guy took a trip up to a spot above Timber Gap to have lunch with our friend Ted. He isn’t there, but some of his ashes might be. They enjoyed this view. ( I don’t know the laws about ashes, and I didn’t participate, so let’s say that they are allegedly in that location.)

A dear friend asked if I have painted this view. Sometimes, nay, often, it is brighter than this. No, I haven’t painted it. It doesn’t strike me as something that people care enough about. However, if you are interested, I can paint it for you, because I paint things and places that people love for prices that won’t scare them.

This is where I was on my last trip to the Sierra Nevada (mistakenly called “the sierras” – to use the familiar correctly, please say “The Sierra” – my dad taught me this, so I know it is correct.)

Hume Lake is a much different experience than Mineral King. Fancy road, comparatively fancy cabin (electricity, and even a microwave, and now the internet too), many many people, many cabins (most quite fancy), lots of flat miles to cover around and around the lake, various boats to rent (the canoe leaked, I returned to the boat house and found another one, which also leaked but more slowly), church services (both indoors and out), and much commerce. It was a retreat for me with 3 outstanding women from the Sacramento area, now a strong tradition for our little group.

The flowers are a little different because the elevation is lower. There are good wild iris, which surprises me each year. I’ve only found one in Mineral King, and I am not telling the location. You can also see them on the lower 5 miles of the road in early May, in the north facing wet drainages. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. 

Classic Mineral King 2

Because of the short summer season at the Silver City Resort, I need to get the new 18×36″ classic Mineral King painting done quickly. These other paintings can wait a week or two, because I have a big ‘un to git dun.

There were some fabulous days weatherwise, and I knew it was a golden opportunity to paint in comfort.

Hey Tucker! Look at the painting, will you?Thanks, Buddy. I appreciate your opinion and that you took a break with me.

Remaining to be detailed: the 2 large trees, the stream, willows on the right, and rocks. Then I can return to painting the commissioned big tree and other Mineral King paintings. Oh, and finishing the big old country house pencil drawing too. There is also a potential 18×24″ commissioned oil painting, along with FIVE Christmas ornaments in the works. None of those have close deadlines, but it is good to always be ready for the next job that appears.