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Odd Job, Day 4

Yesterday I showed you the not-so-good green on the background of the odd job, a Coat of Arms for my customer/friend. (Remember, “odd” means “unusual” – I am NOT insulting my friend or her job here!)

Since beginning to oil paint, I have met up with two new yellows and one new blue. It is time to get a grasp on how they all interact to make greens.

My friend said, and I agree, “More Kelly than lime”. Photoshop Junior used Kelly green, but I wasn’t very careful with mixing in the first pass over the canvas.

Clearly we need the second green down in the middle row.

Better, but too wet to continue.

Tomorrow is the end of the month listicle.

This coat of arms will have to wait. Another odd job awaits! (How’s that for an exciting cliff-hanger?)

Odd Job, Day 3

After making all our design decisions about my friend’s coat of arms, I started painting.

But first, I had to draw and trace it onto the canvas. This is too precise a design to be just sloppy-slapping it down.

This needs to dry for a day or two before I continue. It needs a more vivid green, a golden type color instead of the yellow, and new layers on everything.

oil painting oil painting commission

After my customer sent me a chart of colors to include, it was time to try it with Photoshop Junior to see how it would look. Looking at her list of colors within the Coat of Arms, I saw that green was missing, so that became the background.

This is actually the 2nd or 3rd iteration from many conversations and adjustments as we worked out the design together.

The pointy-pokey waving arms didn’t please her, so she sent many other design to consider. I developed a more ribbon-like look on the left side.

The symbolic Farewell Gap needed simplification too.

We had a few more discussions about black outlines, smoothing out some of the bends in the purple ribbon.

Everything is now ironed out, so it time to move to canvas.

Tomorrow. . .

P.S. I am guest posting once a week on the Mineral King Preservation Society website, under the topic of “An Artist’s Inspiration”. The first post went live yesterday. www.mineralking.org

oil painting oil painting commission

New Odd Job

“Odd” means “unusual”, as in I’ve never done this before.

I’ll give you a break from Mineral King wildflower oil paintings and show you my new project. This is a commission, which is a fancy word for custom art work.

A customer/friend sent me this and asked if I could do an oil painting of her family’s coat of arms.

I said something like, “Sure, but first we’ll have to decide on some color.” She then sent me this.

So I looked up meanings to the parts of Coats of Arms. We learned even the colors have meanings.

Next she sent me this.

Time for some Photoshopping (I use Photoshop Elements, which is really just Photoshop Junior).

Come back tomorrow to see how this developed.

commissioned oil painting odd job

Sunday Good Things

Today I am going to overwhelm you with good things. It takes many postives to outweigh the negatives in Normal Times. Right now we are not in Normal Times. Duh.

I sat by the river with a friend in chairs spaced far apart. First time we’ve seen each other in 6 weeks, and she lives 1/4 mile away.

The weeds that pass for a lawn in spring are still green.

I love spring. Love green. Love being in Three Rivers in spring.

Another friend stopped by with roses (in a BLUE bottle!) and strawberries.

The Botmobile is back home, and Tucker is pleased with the return to normal.

I found the tag for these! *Osteospermum,* “Zion copper amethyst”. (Thank you Joyce, for sharing yours with me too!)

The bank behind the house has a fabulous variety of foothill wildflowers.

A morning walk with yet another friend. . .

. . . who marveled with me about the light. . .

. . . and gave me some grapes. (We all seem to be feeding one another whenever we have the opportunity.)

The snowball bush (a spirea) with pink roses in front is a joy in the spring.

Because it is Sunday, here is the ultimate good thing.

You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11

More Thoughts on the Shut-Down

People who work in grocery stores, post offices and are delivery drivers are the salt of the earth.
I am more of a hugger than I realized. Gotta stop that impulse!
Why are different organizations raising money for healthcare workers when it seems that the newly unemployed waiters and waitresses and restaurant cooks are the ones who need the money?
It is impossible to ever finish either yard work or housework.
Everyone responds differently to a crisis, particularly a crisis no one has experienced before and with all sorts of conflicting instructions.
I have everything I need and much of what I want, including music, books, and yarn, and yet it is so much fun to order new things.
Fiction is a great escape.
Any excuse for ice cream or chocolate will do.
There are so many ways to reach out to other people, and so many people are using them to say, “How are you doing?” as a real question instead of just a standard line of greeting.
People who are in separate locations but can make music as if they are all in the same place just boggle my mind.
I love oranges, orange groves, and orange blossoms.

Thoughts on the Shut-Down

Lots of thoughts have come to me as we are shut down. Some are new, some are just a reinforcement of something I’ve already known or suspected.

Life has handed us lemons; let’s make lemonade.

News exists to alarm, excite, upset, and capture attention. This is more important to news channels than to inform.
Everything can be politicized, even something as universal as a virus.
The library is a bigger part of my life than I realized. I have BOUGHT 3, no, 4 BOOKS in the past several weeks, something I usually refrain from doing because I don’t like to own too much stuff. (All non-fiction, so they will be underlined and referred to for awhile.)
Growing food is very difficult. I thought I had figured out how to grow broccoli by protecting it underneath from gophers, around from deer, and above from birds. The aphids snuck in the remaining holes.
Rural living has lots of advantages over urban life.
Staying stocked up on essentials is a good way to live at all times. Not hoarding, but simply stocked up.
Neighbors are a hugely helpful part of life. These are conversations I’ve participated in or overheard: “Do you have room in your green can?” “I made some hand sanitizer – do you want some?” “We picked more oranges than we can use – would you like some?” “I made too much soup so I am bringing you dinner!” “May I borrow your pole saw?” “I’m going grocery shopping – do you need anything?” “Want to go for a walk?” “Here is a CD of encouraging music that I made.” “I made bread, and there is a loaf with your name on it.”
It is wise to limit one’s consumption of “news”.
My face is the itchiest location on the planet.
Focusing on what we have, the blessings in our homes, yards and neighborhoods keeps away the fear and frustrations.

This got too long. It will be continued tomorrow.

Mineral King Wildflowers 4

Are you tired of these posts yet?

In rethinking these paintings, I realized that this view is probably from White Chief. Or it could be from the Eagle/Mosquito trail. So, not all of the little Mineral King wildflower paintings are from the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail after all!