Irresistible Subject

Ever painted a circle? I have. It was a heavy saw blade with sharp teeth. Sawteeth? Yeppers, Sawtooth with sawteeth.

This one is much kinder to work with. It isn’t heavy, the surface is very smooth, the top is clearly marked, and it fits on an easel.

The paper photograph hadn’t arrived, but I couldn’t wait a moment longer to begin. A scene with citrus and mountains, a true source of inspiration, is just irresistible to this Central California artist!

Good thing my customers have faith in my ability, because as always, things start out looking rough.

HURRY UP, PRINTED PHOTO!!

 

New Commissioned Oil Painting

I stopped by the Silver City Store to check my paintings and encountered an old friend on the deck. He said how much he liked my bridge painting in the store. I went inside to do inventory and couldn’t find the bridge, so came back out and asked, “Did you say you ‘like’ the bridge or that you ‘bought’ it?”

He said that he “liked” it, and I told him it had sold. He was disappointed, so I offered to paint it again for him, and he said yes.

Wow. If only every sale was that easy. I went home and immediately began painting, because the Oak Grove Bridge is my favorite subject. (If you have been following this blog for awhile, then you already knew that. If you would like to see more, put “Oak Grove Bridge” in the search bar of the blog and it will give you a stack of old posts to read or to just look at photos, paintings and drawings of the bridge.)

Ooh. As soon as I saw the bottom photo here, I saw some things to correct on the painting.

 

 

More Green Tunnel

I’ve been painting the Green Tunnel from looking at the photo on my laptop. The progress left me unsure of my abilities and of the results. Sometimes commissions cause this sort of insecurity. (But I’d rather paint than go to counseling).

When the print finally arrived, I was surprised by how helpful it was, in a different way than painting from the screen. I can enlarge details on the screen, but there is something more tangible (duh!) about ink on paper.

The difference here is a photo taken with a phone (above) and a photo taken with a camera (lower). Neither one does the real painting any justice.

Now, let’s see what happened when I had the printed photo to work from.

The goal is not to match the photo exactly but to make the painting be as appealing or more so. I don’t think it is finished yet, but I already like it better.

More Mineral King

As promised on Friday, here is a little more about Mineral King. Tomorrow we will return to watching paint dry.

Great Whorled Penstemon in my cabin neighbors’ yard. (“Great” meaning lots of them, not that “great” is part of their name.)
Our young neighbor believes that Mr. Botkin knows everything.
One of this year’s batch of baby marmots beneath our cabin.

We walked down the road and back up the Nature Trail, which also did not have near the number of  wildflowers that we have become accustomed to.

At the upper end of the Nature Trail, this is what people used to see. If it was their first time on the trail, they were confused.
Now, first-time Nature Trail walkers can see that they are in the right place, in spite of it appearing to be a private road (which it is).

I love the morning light coming into the cabin.

Mineral King over the Fourth

We didn’t need fireworks because we had friends with flags.

We took a walk to the Franklin/Farewell Gap junction, a place that usually has the best wildflowers, almost always at the beginning of July. Not so this year. We’ve been spoiled by several great wildflower years, lulled into thinking that was normal.

It was fun anyway, because there is always good scenery and interesting things to see, even if you walk with your head toward the ground so you don’t fall.

The circle is around a bear track.
I’ve never seen such short Mariposa Lilies, and saw quite a few like this, just popping up right on the trail.
Striped rock
COOKIE?? Nope. It’s a rock.

I did look up, don’t worry.

This last picture is my favorite one of the day. We were off trail (of course), following a little loop-ette, devised by Off Trail Guy. After recrossing the stream, The Farmer offered to pull me up on a bank of snow which was the next step. Before accepting his kind offer, I said, “Thank you – first I need to take a picture!”

More about Mineral King on Monday. 

 

 

Resting Coat of Arms

Whole lotta resting going on ’round here.

We chose silver gray for the customer’s name to match Helmet Dude. Now the coat of arms oil painting commission is drying. Sometimes when a painting is drying, I keep thinking of ways to improve it.

With this one, I am just trying not to look any more.

When it is dry, I’ll scan it for a better look. That’s for you to have a better look. I am FINISHED. (Please, please, may I be excused?)

Resting in the Green Tunnel

You last saw the commissioned Mineral King oil painting when it looked this way.

I spent a few more hours on it, and can’t decide if it is finished or not. So, it is resting.

The color is better in real life. 

I think the grasses need to be messier in order to be more believable.

Not sure. 

Keep resting, Green Tunnel.

Coat of Arms, Again

The saga continues. You last saw Revisions #1-4, and I speculated that the customer and I would continue on to Revision #5 or #6.

We met at her cabin in Mineral King for a pleasant time of friendship and revision. There are two things I like to do best with friends: take a walk, or work on a project. 

A wet painting on the very rough Mineral King road? Yeppers. Transported it without incident in the trunk of Fernando.

In the interest of privacy, I didn’t photograph the process or our time at her cabin. I did photograph the wet revision with a first layer only in the trunk of my car. You can see that we agreed on dark green, and together we rearranged ribbons. This was a great exercise for a crocheter (my friend) and a Knitter (me). (Yes, I am a Knitter, instead of one who knits, or even a knitter).

I brought it home and began the relayering process.

Neither one of us was satisfied with this solution to keep her name visible.
Rotating the painting allowed me to see the exact tip of the brush because I did NOT want to mess up the parts that we saved.
The 2nd layer of dark green needs to dry. Next, the blue and yellow ribbons will get a second coat.

But what about her name?

Stay tuned.

Second New Commission (or The Green Tunnel)

There is a section of trail in the Mineral King valley that I think of as the Yellow Tunnel in the fall. It is also the Green Tunnel in the summer, and I showed a photo of it on my blog last month. Here, have another look:

A faithful blog reader asked if I would be willing to paint that for her, and of course I said yes. We chose 11×14″, and then while I was waiting for a printed version of the photo (and a deposit on the painting because I have learned the hard way that if a customer doesn’t make a monetary commitment, it is only a conversation, not a commission), where was I, oh yeah, while I was waiting, I looked at the Green Tunnel from another perspective.

Doesn’t really say Green Tunnel from this view, eh? But fun to consider, if you are a fairly simple person with plain tastes in what constitutes fun.

The check came, and I couldn’t wait for the printed photo but began painting from my laptop. This has benefits and disadvantages, but when one is eager to begin a job, one does what is necessary.

This is not my normal way of painting, but when something feels right and is working, I just go with it. I turned off the voices of all my previous instructors and said to my self, “Self,” I said, “I’ll be me and they can be them and it will all work out just fine.”

Tucker and Pippin were also fine with that, and I had to be very careful of where I stepped when standing back to view my progress. (Jackson was out working or something.)

Call me “Butter” – I’m on a roll!

Now it needs to dry before I continue or the sky will turn green.