Spoken-for Sequoia

The spoken-for, in-progress Sequoia painting jumped to the top of the queue. Here you can see it in steps to completion.

The light was wrong in the afternoon so I moved the easel to the opposite side of the table. When the painting was finished, I had to flip it upside down to paint the bottom edge.

Because it will be leaving before it is dry enough to scan, I photographed it carefully while upside down in the painting workshop in various lighting. Then I went to work on making the color correct on the computer screen while studying the wet painting in front of me.

I have 2 versions, neither of which really do the painting justice. However, remember that everything looks better in real life (except celebrities).

Sequoia Gigantea IXX, 6×18”, sold

Now it is time to start another one, because my local representatives need me to keep them supplied. This is classic Tulare County art; it is a privilege to be able to see these trees in person and paint them for the visitors (and former residents) of Three Rivers, the true gateway to Sequoia National Park.

A Cover-up

Shall we call this Paint-gate? I bet people under 50 years of age don’t understand why every political scandal and cover-up has “gate” attached to the end.

This cover-up isn’t scandalous. A friend gave me a 24×30” canvas with an unfinished painting that her daughter did in college. Out of respect for my friend, I haven’t shown you the painting.

It is a dark painting, literally, in terms of colors. I can’t tell if the subject matter is dark, figuratively speaking. It IS weird, one of those nebulous assignments that college art teachers love to hand out, hoping to stimulate creativity.

Sorry Teach, those assignments only incite panic and bizarreness. Why don’t you focus on teaching your students some useful skills? Creativity comes with time and life experience, not with vague, ludicrous prompts like, “Design a container for air” or “depict transparency”. Stop the unhelpful weirdness and just show people HOW TO PAINT.

Ahem. Where were we?

Placement first.

I couldn’t reach the sky and Sawtooth so I flipped the canvas.

I worked forward, and then dropped down to the trail.

Just a little here and a little there while watching the clock because I had to be somewhere. It’s hard to do good work when thinking about time; the part of our brains that recognizes shapes and colors doesn’t know how to tell time. Sounds ridiculous, but I know this because all my drawing students tell me that the one hour that they are drawing is the fastest hour of the week.

The trail looks as if it is made from crushed oyster shells, not something you’d find in Mineral King.

Clearly, this cover-up will be a long project. I’m not used to painting this large. I have to keep squeezing out more paint. Duh. I also have to remember to use the largest brushes possible for each area, because this needs to be finished and dry in time for the solo show in August. Sure, there is time, but the workshop is not a pleasant place to paint when it is hot.

An Unusual Job in Three Rivers

Some folks in Three Rivers with a horse-breeding ranch asked me to turn their hand-scratched map into a thing of beauty. It doesn’t need to be to-scale, but all the pastures, corrals, gates, arenas, barns, ponds, and various buildings need to be in proper relation to one another.

This necessitated a walk around the place, which was very appealing in spite of the green turning to yellow.

I pulled out my inferior phone camera to gather a sense of the place and to see if inspiration and ideas would emerge.

Hmmm, this is an unusual assignment, perhaps even an odd job, for some folks who are very delightful and easy to work with. I’m thinking of drawing the map lightly in pencil, getting it okayed by the customers, then inking in the lines. After that, I might add some pencil drawings around the edges, because as you know, I love to draw. I’ll do it twice the size of 8-1/2 x 11”, and then they can print out as many maps as they need to direct customers and workers around the property.

This will be a fun job, no real rules, just freedom to turn this into whatever I want. If the customers like it, they’ll get it framed. (The walls in their house are full of art, so they might have to put it in a barn!)

Mineral King Road

For many years, there has been talk of repairing the Mineral King road. Talk talk talk, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah. Surveys, public meetings, emails. Fires, floods, emergency repairs, road closures.

Finally, the work has begun. The road won’t be open to the public until the Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend, and there is a very rigid schedule about when you can pass through the work zone and when you will have to just wait.

I was happy to see all the green and the wildflowers, along with the reassurance that the temporary bridge made it through the winter. (I’m always relieved to see the sign on the way back home too, because if it is temporary, maybe it will vanish while we are up the hill.)

Here’s my old friend the Oak Grove Bridge. During all the public meetings about the road, it was voted to simply repair the bridge. Then Those Who Know More determined that it isn’t repairable and there is talk of converting this bridge to a foot bridge and putting a new driving bridge upstream. I don’t expect this to happen in my lifetime. This is on the county portion of the road, and the construction is only on Sequoia National Park’s portion, ending about 4 miles below the end of the road. Yeppers, the very rough upper dirt portions will remain and the threatened fancy-pants parking lots aren’t part of the plan.

That’s Case Mountain over there. It is very green, and there are new roads carved in because of the wildfire last fall.

This is Squirrel Creek, just above the Sweet Ranch and below the park boundary, now with a mysterious road-construction-generated load of rocks by the turnout.

We pulled over to wait for the pilot car, and enjoyed some wildflowers and a view.

This is looking back at the road, still green. The wildfires (in 2020, 2021, 2024) required much brush clearing so it is a lot easier to see traffic ahead now. (Looking for a silver lining. . .)

Because Mineral King isn’t open to the public just yet, I didn’t want to rub it in that cabin folks can go. Right now it is rather colorless, because the green is barely beginning and there is a lot of snow. Here is the classic view from the bridge on the way out, which was a bit of a hustle in order to meet the pilot car*.

We got to the waiting area (just above Slapjack) with enough time to see some harlequin lupine.

It is going to be a summer of disruption, waits in the sun, and a much longer drive to Mineral King. (We left home at 8:30 and arrived at the cabin at 11:30. . . sing with me “a three hour tour, a three hour tour”)

*Someone reported being 10 minutes late to the pilot car area and he had to wait 3 hours for the next pass-through time. Do not mess with these construction workers and their schedule!

What a Week!

I finally had a couple of hours to put my paintings back after surveying them for the upcoming solo show, “Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther” in August.

Once again, I was so pleased with my little studio where I draw and display art that I took some more photos.

A friend/former neighbor was staying in the vacation rental across the street and requested a look into my studio. Since he reads my blog, he knew that it was in disarray so he waited until I let him know that order had been restored. He walked over for a visit (with Mabel, a Pembroke Welsh corgi), and I first showed him the workshop where I paint. He asked a few questions, and then wondered if I would paint a giant Sequoia for him.

But of course!

I told him he could have the incomplete one on the easel, and I’d even box it up and send it home with him wet. He agreed (with the understanding that I’d finish it first).

We moved into the studio, where he selected 3 more paintings.

I told him that isn’t why I invited him to see the studio and he responded that it is why he wanted to see it.

So I carried the 3 paintings over to his place because he needed to keep Mabel on her leash (she was getting used to the turkeys so he needed to be ready for who knew what might happen.) I propped them on the sofa table and photographed them to show you.

What a week! A visit with my longtime friend, finding a print for someone, selling some paintings, two dogs visiting my workplace. . . but wait! There’s more!

Tell you next time. . .

An Old Drawing Reappears

Someone I’ve never met called and actually left a message. I returned the call to learn about someone (Let’s call her AF) who bought an old home and had seen a pencil drawing of the house. The seller was supposed to leave it behind, but took it away. AF had the foresight to take a photo of the drawing, and then she sleuthed around until she found me.

It took a bit of conversation until I figured out what house she was speaking of. She was hoping to be able to buy a print of the house, but when she told me it had the date of 1995, I told her that I didn’t even own a computer back then, much less a scanner.

However, sometimes when I have prints made, I keep one in my flat files. I told AF that there was a possibility that I had one.

The bottom drawer of my flat files is very hard to open, so I rarely fight it and as a result, don’t know what it contains. But the label indicated it might contain the desired print, so I wrestled it open.

AHA!! EUREKA!! Here it is!!

I couldn’t get the drawer to go back in so I made like a snake and bellied up to peek inside. Look what was shoved behind that bottom drawer! I had occasionally wondered where these drawings were, but as someone who loses things regularly, I had other missing things to occupy me.

I called AF to let her know I found the print. She was quite excited, as was I. Before packaging it up for her, I scanned it for you.

I remembered that the customer had only the bottom portion turned into notecards, and just two weeks prior, one of my drawing students brought one to me that he found in his mother-in-law’s stacks of stuff. (Weird.)

Turns out, that card was the drawing that AF had seen at the house, and she had no idea that the drawing was an intricate collage of many parts. She has connected with my original customer and will get an explanation of everything included. (Obviously I drew this before instigating the rule of No Faces Smaller Than An Egg.)

I love it when things turn out like this, with the added bonus of finding missing items for myself too. (Who cares if I talked myself out of a drawing commission? That’s not as important as actually helping someone.)

Back to Work, Party’s Over

What party? Glad you asked! The party of one and sometimes two—goofing off, yardening, exploring, and basically not producing any art.

When we got home from exploring up South Fork, there was a serious distraction. Our neighbor’s beagle followed her nose and found her way to our cat feeding area in the workshop (same room where I paint). Apparently old beagles don’t lose their instinct to follow their noses even when they haven’t had the opportunity to do so in many years. I carried her toward her home and was grateful that one of her humans met me part way because she is solid, very heavy and wiggly too.

Finally, I started working.

First, two new large (for me) Sawtooth paintings. One is the scene from the door of my studio. I tried to start it outside, but Pippin kept wanting to participate, so I took a photo of the door to work from. (It wasn’t helpful.) The color is weird because I used my inferior camera phone, since my camera battery was on the charger.

I realize that the proportions are different on the recycled 24×30” canvas, but it doesn’t matter. I can make up this scene, but I will refer to a handful of photos. This will take many layers to cover the previous painting, done by a friend’s daughter as a college assignment.

Might as well begin the horizontal version (12×24”? 10×20”?)

Ultimately, I finished one, started two, and puttered around on four.

Well, I WAS Going to Work…

On a recent weekend, I said to Trail Guy, “I MUST paint on Monday! Do not distract me, and please, please, if you see me messing around in the yard or the house, remind me that I must paint because I messed around all week, postponing painting!”

On Monday, he said, “Want to drive up South Fork? I haven’t been there in a long time and I want to see how the repairs from the ’23 flood and the fires look.”

NO! NONONO!

Then I gave it another thought and remembered that spring does not last forever. (Yes, thank you Gnat, I know it is always spring somewhere in the world, but I am only here, not anywhere else.)

So I said yes.

He said it would only be an hour; I said it would probably be three hours.

It was very green but nothing looked photo-worthy until we saw Homer’s Nose.

This is looking back at the new bridge, built in 2021.

The road ended about 1/4 to 1/2 mile below the campground. About a dozen cars were parked along the road. I wondered where all the people went, and Trail Guy wondered how they would get turned around on such a narrow road. (We turned around with about a 5-point turn.)

There were three women walking along the road, and Trail Guy stopped to talk to them. Two are sisters from LA who have owned a home near the South Fork Campground since 1974 (well, the property—I don’t know what year the house was built). They were very interesting and told us to stop by to view the lupine from their deck. They were convinced that lupine seeds were scattered during fire fighting operations, when “ping-pongs” were dropped from the air to start back-fires. (Scary!)

They had great wildflowers in their yard.

One last photo as we headed down the road. If I hadn’t felt the need to do some painting, if my camera battery hadn’t croaked, if we had brought lunch, I would have taken another 2 hours or so for photography. Doesn’t matter, it clouded up, and we headed home.

I painted all afternoon. I’ll show you tomorrow.

P.S. We were gone 3 hours.

More Spring in Three Rivers—a Month Late

I wrote this post at the end of March and forgot to publish it. Will any of these photos translate into paintings? Maybe. No decisions yet. Just grabbing beauty when it is available.

The Lake isn’t actually in Three Rivers. The upper end is close; the dam end is closer to Lemon Cove. The lake level is even higher now, and the hills are mostly brown.

Some years there are fabulous lupine in great swaths at the water’s edge; they show in person, but not so well in these photos.

A popular turnout near the middle of The Lake (not out on the water—along the road 1/2 way between the intake and the dam) often has people pulled over taking photos. Me too. It is almost impossible to find a place to take the photo which includes Alta Peak and poppies. The poppies are excellent in the roadcuts where there is no shoulder, and the slopes are steep.

One day we were down the hill, we stopped by a friend’s orange grove and were probably 2-3 days early in terms of the blossoms being out. The oranges are fabulous. We expected to glean, but the grove hadn’t been picked yet. I gathered more photos for potential paintings.

Now get back to painting, Central California Artist!!

Thoughts on Casseroles

Today’s post has one token photo, and it has nothing to do with my normal topics. It is just me, expressing myself. Next week I’ll get back to business.

Trail Guy is the dinner cook around here—BBQ meat, giant salad. Simple, plain, really good. I fix dinner about once a week, normally just something I call Slop in a Skillet, recognizable plain food, mostly vegetables and meat, no recipe, no muss, no fuss.

Last week I decided to try a recipe called Husband’s Delight from an online acquaintance. It used ingredients that I am familiar with and seemed fairly straightforward. (Sometimes I am just adventuresome like that.)

I tried to follow the recipe, but WHY did it require a tablespoon of sugar? Nope, not this little gray duck. I didn’t have the right noodles, so I used a variety of whole wheat pasta shapes that are in my pantry, mostly going to waste because we are being careful to not become diabetic, and apparently carbohydrates are The Enemy. (All those lies about eating whole wheat pasta. . . who knows what “healthy” means anymore??)

I didn’t eat or cook ground beef for a couple of decades, so I was slightly revolted by the process. It was frozen in a tube that was hard to open and it bled on the counter. Ick.

Onions are also something I rarely use. I don’t like how they smell raw or during cooking or how sometimes they make my eyes water. I hacked off the amount called for, more or less, and put the rest in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I wonder if it will be useless later? Probably should have chopped it first, but I wanted to finish up.

And why did the recipe call a mix of sour cream and cream cheese “cheese sauce”? Nope, it was gloppy and got layered as plops, not sauce.

What happened to the grated mozzarella on the top?? It vanished into the 9×13” pan of “layers” once the thing was baked.

What an enormous output of energy! It took a long time, fumbling around with packages of this and that, oops, need another bowl, another pan, grab the colander, where is the grater, my hands are a mess, wash them for the umpteenth time, open another package of something—where are the scissors, nope, my hands are a mess again.

The thing about casseroles that seems so wasteful is that they have to be cooked in various steps on top of the stove and then baked in the oven. No wonder all those ‘50s housewives were on Valium.

Finally got the concoction in the oven and realized there were no vegetables for dinner. I was fed up with all that prep, so instead of making a salad, I chopped up a few fresh veggies and called it good.

So Trail Guy, AKA The Husband, was pleased with the casserole. I told him to be sure to thoroughly enjoy Husband’s Delight, because I am never making it again. I would have been a terrible housewife in the ‘50s. Probably would have taken up smoking.

If you made it to the end, here is a painting for you of a red pepper. Seems appropriate.