All three of these paintings were done plein air. I finally completed them in the painting workshop at home.
Three Improved Beach Paintings
Many Aspects to the Business of Art
Maintenance
Tony finished my steps. That man is an artist, in addition to knowing how to make these the most comfortable for the situation while incorporating existing elements.
Framing
I will be showing some pencil drawings in Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther. Pencil drawings require framing. Although I prefer drawing over painting, that framing business is not fun.
Spray-painting mini-easels for little paintings on panels
Remember when I painted a bunch of 5×7” beach scenes on panels? Some will be displayed (and sold, one always hopes, “one” being me in this case) on natural colored easels and some on blue easels.
Improving paintings
My dear friend Louise is so helpfully honest when I think there is trouble with a painting. (She helped me with my first mural here at home!) She encouraged me to shrink that stack of haybales, so I did it first with Photoshop and sent it to her. It passed inspection by her excellent eye, so I fixed it on the painting. When it is dry again, I’ll scan it again. (This version is before I finished fiddling around with several parts.)
Painting new things
A friend sent me a photo of his country property. I thought it was so beautiful that I painted it on one of those little 5×7” panels. It’s too wet to scan.
Appreciating the ability to work while at home
I love working at home. Jackson and Pippin like it too. (Tucker prefers to play hide-and-seek in the lawn.)
Your Central California Artist Walked to White Chief
Walked? Hiked! I carried a daypack with water and lunch, so I’m calling it a hike. So what, who cares? I went 7 miles on my numb feet, that’s what. Yea! I can still hike (maybe not far, but I’ll take what I can get here.)
Let’s just have photos, with minimal commentary and zero whining.
Since this is my business blog, here is my painting of Entering White Chief. It is the picture I chose for the publicity of my upcoming show Around Here, and Sometimes a Little Farther, opening August 7 at the Tulare Historical Museum and Heritage Gallery, 5-7 p.m.
Just Three Photos Today
I had a stack of 8×10” paintings from my various plein air sessions last fall. It’s taken awhile, but I am finally accepting that my plein air attempts will probably always require several touch-up sessions in the painting workshop. When people who know me or my work see my unretouched plein air paintings, they say things like, “That doesn’t look like your work,” or “Are you finished with that painting?”
Therefore, I studied each of these paintings without looking at the photos of the scenes. What could be improved?
The answer was usually more color, brighter color, more detail, and/or cleaner edges. Only one had a signature.
This is the most satisfying aspect of painting to me. Those tiny little changes take a painting from “meh” to “nice!” (I hope that ’s what they do.)
The day was great for drying outside by the wood stack on those hot-from-the-sun metal panels. (old roofing?)
They are fairly light-weight and tend to blow off the adirondack chairs. Those chairs work just fine for the wrapped canvas, larger canvas panels, and masonite panels.
Looks as if you’ll have to wait for the scans or come to my show opening (August 7, Tulare Historical Museum, 5-7 PM) to see them right-side-up. Well, not Sawtooth or the Sequoia tree, because those are for stores to sell to visitors passing through.
Looks as if Tony is almost finished with the steps. I went spelunking in a box of found and saved random treasures to locate something to make the steps a little more special.
That Tony does great work! He is going to add another step at the bottom, where the concrete is sloped and gets slippery and treacherous. It is always wise to listen to an expert tradesman and consider his ideas.
Everyone is Focused
TONY WAS FOCUSED
While I was focused on painting, Tony (you don’t know him but you may remember when I painted a goose for someone—that was Tony) was focused on replacing the worn wooden steps to my studio. Trail Guy originally built them for me, not once, but twice. I’ve been in this studio since January of 2002, so it is time to have something more permanent.
JACKSON WAS FOCUSED
Jackson has been focused on getting my attention lately. He meows quite a bit, occasionally bites me, and one day he carried a squirrel into the workshop for me to praise him, and then, thankfully, he carried it back out.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA ARTIST WAS FOCUSED
With my painting days rather limited in the summer, I have to focus on using time wisely and getting paintingsdry quickly.
Having finished the most urgently required paintings, I pulled out several that have been languishing, or perhaps just mulling for several months. That sequoia was recent, but the balance of foliage wasn’t right, so it joined up with all the Focus/Fix/Finish crowd.
I was so focused that I didn’t take any “After” pictures; when they are scanned, I’ll show you a couple of them.
Time for another Sawtooth. This is #67, an 8×10” since one recently sold in that size.
These all got finished, and will have their turn outside to dry so that I can scan, show you, and deliver. But I must remind you that EVERYTHING looks better in person (except celebrities.)
Painting With Focus
With the upcoming show (opening August 7), with many days and nights away from home, with a little stretch of mild summer weather, I have shifted into overdrive when it comes to cranking out paintings. I am focused on getting some inventory ahead for the local shops that sell for me, along with finishing things that previously didn’t feel very important.
This means that I sometimes set up paintings assembly-line-style.
Does this make you wonder where the creativity comes in?
It takes thought to decide what subjects and sizes will best meet the “demand”*, to prioritize, to organize, and to be highly efficient with my limited time. Then it takes focus to be sure that each painting is the best it can be. I don’t go for perfection, which is basically driven by anxiety. Instead, I view each painting as if I am a critical customer unwilling to part with my hard-earned green pieces of paper with dead presidents’ faces unless something really speaks to me. (Because I have been that person many times.)
Oops. Sometimes I flip my canvas upside down to paint and forget to see if the hanging hardware is going the correct direction. That’s easy to fix once the painting is dry.
*No one I work for is demanding—every last one is wonderful to work with.
Somewhere in Oregon
These paintings of rural Oregon scenes were high on my list of Want To Paint, but rather than go to a retail establishment that caters to visitors to Sequoia National Park, they will get framed and then be part of my upcoming show, Around Here, and Sometime a Little Farther, in August at the Tulare Historical Museum and Gallery.
I wonder if I should title it “Somewhere in Oregon”.
Then this one could be called “Somewhere Else in Oregon”.
Hanging Out in Mineral King
Because yesterday was Independence Day, today’s post is a bonus. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on a weekly Mineral King update!
“Hanging out” has ceased to be slang; what terminology did people use before this?
We don’t hike a lot anymore. Bum knee, numb feet. Walking is good enough for now. We headed toward the upper valley on this trail which was a road during Trail Guy’s childhood.
There were a few stray carrots lying on the ground, which Trail Guy retrieved to feed the stock.
A mule or two usually get out of the corrals. This causes many questions: 1. How? 2. Why? 3. Why just one? 4. Can’t some Park Packer Person make the fence tighter? (I’ve learned mules can leap pretty high, but I’m not convinced.)
We encountered some friends at Crystal Creek WITH A DOG. Everyone knows this is against National Park rules, or do they?? These fine folks were being very careful about it all, but if other people see them, they’ll assume dogs are okay if they are on a leash. Nope. It might be okay in the National Forest, but Mineral King is in Sequoia National Park, where dogs are not allowed on trails.
If you don’t want to get your feet wet crossing Crystal Creek, go a little above the trail and balance on those sticks. (I just walked through, as usual.)
My destination was Franklin Falls; Trail Guy’s knee along with his dislike of straight up-and-backs caused him to turn off the trail while I powered upward.
If you want to cross Franklin Creek, this is how the dry boulders arranged as stepping stones look.
I turned around and met up with Trail Guy just above Crystal Creek. The flowers were excellent, as one expects during late June, early July in Mineral King.
The rest of the photos are from meandering around, nothing noteworthy other than peak season in Mineral King.
So many shades of green.
This is sort of interesting: like beachcombers, we find all sorts of things while meandering around. This time it was a Benadryl Itch Relief stick, a blue carabiner, a fork, 3 grommets from tarps, and a large bottle of water sitting by the road.
INDEPENDENCE!
P.S. I highly recommend reading the Declaration of Independence today.
Because I Wanted To
When I began oil painting with only the primary colors (“double primary palette” means 2 each of the 3 primary colors + white), I wondered why I thought that 2 different sets of 120 colored pencils were necessary. Colored pencil is not a main part of my art-making life: De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and extremely slow production combined with low sales sent me to oil paints.
If one can paint using only the double primary palette, doesn’t it stand to reason that one could use a box of just 12 colored pencils?
In the last handful of years, my favorite brand of graphite drawing pencils is Tombow. This is a Japanese word which means “dragonfly”, for some unknown reason. (A country that names its companies things like “Google” or “Yahoo” isn’t allowed to poke fun at something as straightforward as “Dragonfly”.)
When ordering some art supplies recently, I saw that Tombow has colored pencils. I bought their box of 12. They aren’t available any longer, although I only bought them a week or two ago. Life is full of mysteries.
This stellar jay caught my attention (they are fairly demanding birds) in Mineral King a few weeks ago, and I chose it for my trial use of Tombow colored pencils.
This is small—5×7” piece of paper with about 1/2” margin—so it didn’t ignite any wrist troubles. You can see that I made up the background, and the colors aren’t exacatacally* right on the bird. Trying to do exact matches is good learning practice, but I am a little past that in my career now, and besides, no one cares. I loved the challenge of trying to force the right colors from a box of only 12.
If you are really into colored pencils and want to know a bit more, these are very soft, possibly even softer than Prismacolor. I prefer the Blackwing brand of colors, but they include a white and a silver pencil, which I find to be almost useless; this causes their overpriced box of twelve to only contain 10 useful pencils.
*My blog, my spelling, my pronunciations.