The last post of this blog showed the beginnings of a mural on the neighborhood water treatment plant doors. I put some blue in the sky and knew there was only one direction – forward.
It is time to figure out where all the other pieces and parts belong.
This is the mural at the end of Day One. On Tuesday, I’ll show you the next steps of the process to create a Christmas present for my neighborhood.
For about 12 years, I was on our neighborhood water board. Volunteers are how things work when you live in a rural unincorporated town. I got on the board as the recording secretary because I can type fast and spell, but ended up helping to make decisions about things that I knew almost nothing about, standing in the middle of the street watching water leak away and having no idea what to do about it, taking phone calls from people who were mad about their water bills or wondered why there was no water AGAIN, reading water meters, attending way too many meetings, driving around the neighborhood knocking on doors to hand out Boil Water Notices, calculating distances between wells and the road, measuring tanks and figuring out the volume of water, helping to tear down the old treatment plant, writing articles for the newsletter that no one read, putting locks on the meters of people who wouldn’t pay their water bill, removing the locks when they decided to pay.
It was hard. I learned a lot and made friends with the other board members, 2 benefits from the experience.
Two years ago I resigned. Meanwhile, I would walk past the treatment plant and think about how nice it would be to have a mural on the doors.
Now that I have recovered from being water boarded, I want to give the gift of a mural to the current water board members and the entire neighborhood.
It took two years to decide what to paint. I used a card I drew back in 2001 of a made-up river scene, complete with Alta Peak and Moro Rock. This meant guessing the colors, and stretching things a bit.
To Be continued. . .
While I was in Georgia last spring, when people asked me where I was from, I was very specific and replied, “CENTRAL California; no one knows about us, no one cares, but we feed the world.” The unspoken part was “I am NOT from Los Angeles or The Bay Area, so assume nothing about me”.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (just a euphemism, don’t worry, I haven’t moved), I am thinking about what to paint on those large canvases.
As I think about my self-ascribed descriptor, “The Central California Artist”, I want to be painting things that truly represent Central California, specifically Tulare County.
Not only does Tulare County have the largest trees by volume (Sequoia Gigantea), we also have the largest of the American oak trees, our valley oaks (quercus lobata).
All-righty then!
Don’t be afraid. I can do this!!
P.S. Did you get my 2019 calendar, “A Touch of Color”? This tree was Miss February. It was a horizontal rectangle, but the painting will be a square. I untangled the branches in the drawing so it will serve as a helpful guide in the painting.
The customer allowed me to put color in the flag, a technique that I am very partial to. I added smoke, scanned it, and did the Photoshop clean-up.
As I was adding the grassy meadow to the foreground, I was thinking about the first time I drew the Hockett Meadow Ranger Station. It was part of a notecard set called “Backcountry Structures”.
Back in the olden days (in the 1980s), people used pens to handwrite notes in cursive, put them in envelopes, address them, LICK a stamp to put on the envelope, and then place into a real mailbox for people in other parts of the country to receive.
How quaint. Those were definitely kinder, gentler, slower, more personal times.
Now, hold onto your hats, Dear Blog Readers, because I am going to show you something frightening.
Your Central California artist needs to keep reminding herself that it is good to be humble.
Growth is good.
People were very kind in the olden days and hadn’t learned all that anonymous internet rude behavior yet.
If you bought art from me back then, THANK YOU!!
How “secret” is something on the World Wide Web?
The one who isn’t supposed to see the drawing doesn’t know about my blog, so we’re safe. (also true for the drawing shown on this post) 
I put in the grass, thought it was finished, scanned it, did the Photoshop clean-up, emailed it to the customer, and then I remembered that he asked me to have smoke coming out of the chimney.
Well, oops.
Tomorrow I’ll show you the finished drawing, along with something that might drop your jaw.
These giant oil paintings aren’t really too hard for me, but I do run into difficulties when my reference photos are smoky, blurry, from different angles, in differing light, or too small. A tiny blur in a picture becomes a large blur in a larger painting, so I NEED to know what I am painting in order for it to be believable.
Now I have to figure out what to put in the various ridges that will pass as believable texture.
I’ll keep dabbing, layering, and searching for this scene in real life. There is no deadline on this painting.
All the information you need about fun in Exeter on Sunday afternoon is on the postcard below EXCEPT these things:
A friend/customer requested an 8×8″ oil painting of the juniper tree on the trail to White Chief in Mineral King. Everyone* loves this tree. I even talked to someone who said she performed a wedding beneath the tree several years ago. I’ve painted this tree several times, different sizes and different shapes.
This is not the same one but it is on the same trail. It doesn’t have quite the same visual impact. Besides, it is on a steeper section of the trail and not quite as visible.
Here is the sixth time in steps:
Every time I paint this, I am determined that it will be The Best Juniper Painting I Have Ever Done.
*I know not “everyone” loves it; not “everyone” has seen it. Besides, maybe we love it because it gives us an excuse to stop on the the steepest trail in Mineral King.
A customer/friend bought a painting off my website. She requested that I paint in an animal so the size of the trees is truly evident.
OH NO! It already sold, and I didn’t take it off my website!
I can’t find the original photo so have to work off the photo of the sold painting. It is always best to start with the original, but sometimes stuff just can’t be helped.
Dry enough, scanned, heading to the Post Office today!
Yesterday I doubted whether anyone would be interested in oil paintings of Kaweah Lake, which led to an email correspondence with a friend who has a friend who just might be interested. I sent this photo to her of the most recent (and only) painting I have of Lake Kaweah, Kaweah Lake, or as we say around here, “The Lake”.
While looking for my photo of The Lake, I realized that I’ve painted it quite a few times. Why didn’t I remember? Because I have so many other subjects crowding it out of the limited space in my top-of-mind memory.
P. S. It’s official – Lake Kaweah, not Kaweah Lake. Thank you SD!