Mooney Grove Tour I

This is a virtual tour. Enjoy it from the comfort of your easy chair. No viruses to be spread this way.

Mooney Grove Park is 100 acres of about 50 types of trees. The Valley Oaks (quercus lobata) make up about half of the tree population. The land was sold to Tulare County in 1909, with the agreement that only dead or dying Valley Oaks could be removed. Meanwhile, many new trees have been planted, a few of which I recognized, some that I learned about, some that surprised me, and all of which contributed to the specialness of this interesting and beautiful place.

It helped that I was working there during March, my second most favorite month. The grounds were green and many trees were in bloom.

Stop talking, Central Calif. artist, because we want to see some photos.

Okay. Photos. No more talk. Just pictures of a beautiful park in spring.

Any questions? To be continued Monday.

Wild Goose Chase

Canada geese were everywhere in Mooney Grove Park while painting the murals on the Tulare County Museum. E V E R Y W H E R E.

Nope, not chasing the same wild goose and photographing him over and over. The man who knows the most about the park estimates there are about 300 Canada geese there, and there will be more since this is the season for nesting and mating.

Canada geese EVERYWHERE.

If you can’t beat ’em. . .

Tomorrow we will begin our tour of this wonderful park.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 7B

Really it is Day 6B, but there was that careless numbering incident. Let’s not dwell on that. Instead, have a look at the finishing touches for Day 6, my final day on the mural on the Tulare County Museum in Mooney Grove Park, Visalia, California, the county seat of Tulare County, where I was born.

Shut up, Central California Artist, and just show us some pictures.

I painted the inner rim to match the wall color so it would be lighter in there. This scrub jay landed atop the circle. Obnoxious birds, but such a pretty color.

That’s not a real bird!

Okay, it didn’t land. It got painted on.

I signed it in two places. Never had to figure out how to do this before, because this is the first 4 part mural I’ve painted.

Here is the final look. I finished earlier than usual, so the light wasn’t that great for photography.

I’ll miss working here. The people are great, the museum is interesting, and the grounds are beautiful.

Tomorrow I will show you one more interesting thing about these murals. 

Thanks for following my mural project!

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 7A

Not really. It wasn’t Day 7; it was Day 6, but I seem to have trouble counting accurately on occasion. (You may have noticed that the mural saga jumped from Day #3 to Day #5.)

My goal on Day 7 (6) was to finish basket #2, along with some finishing touches to all the other murals.

This is the basket design I chose for the second circle.

This time I painted the inside rim in addition to the circle itself. I learned from the other one that there was no point to making it look as if it was in shadow, because it truly is in shadow, due to the rim.Next, I drew on some guidelines. This was easier than the first time. That’s how practice is supposed to work.

Here is a photo to help you see where basket #2 will go.
The paint colors were already mixed, so I was able to dive in.But wait, what is this??Sometimes I like to just have a little fun.

Allll-righty-then! Tomorrow I’ll show you the finishing touches. Stay tuned. 

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 6B

The first thing I did on Day #6 (after admiring the view, thinking, peeling the old paint off my palette) was to realize that in order to move ahead on the first basket in the circle, it needed a base coat of paint so it could dry so I could draw on it so I could paint the design.

That was an action packed sentence. It was an action-packed day.

Yokuts were known for their baskets, and this museum is known for them too.

I went inside to mix an appropriate and believable main basket color.

Got it – let’s go!

Oh boy. That is one rough surface.

Next, I drew on the guidelines with blue chalk. (They don’t show much in this photo.)

After the base coat of basket color was on, and the lines were drawn, I did all the things I showed you on Day 6A.

Then, it was time to stop for lunch. It is hard to stop, but I’ve found that if I don’t stop for at least 15 minutes, I get confused, indecisive, and a little bit stupid after about 6 hours of painting.Okay, that’s a long enough break, Central California Artist. Get back to work.

I mixed up a very dark brown and a lighter reddish brown to duplicate the other colors in the basket. Then I just dove in.

On mural painting Day #7, I’ll tighten up the triangles and try to put in a hint of basket coils. A paintbrush is NOT a pencil and acrylic paints are NOT oils. Instead of looking like a basket as I had hoped, it is simply a depiction of a Yokuts basket design.

AND, I hope to mix up a color like the original wall color to paint the inner part of the circle.

The end of Day 6. Stay tuned.

(And if you know my Sandy Eggo sister, wish her a happy birthday today. She doesn’t read my blog, so no need for me to say anything to her here.)

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 6A

This is how Mooney Grove looked on the morning of Day #6. There was a lot of work ahead, so I have divided that day into 2 blog posts – one today, one for Monday.

First I spent some time studying the Sequoia mural to find all the things that weren’t quite good enough. While I was thinking, I peeled the old paint off my palette.

There are many things that are bothering me about these areas, including the close oranges not being bright enough on the first mural.

Below are some of the fixes.

Several folks have said, “I hope that shrub in front of the Sequoias gets removed”. I think it is pretty, especially when the light hits the new reddish growth, which matches the Sequoia trees.

Look – Flat Stanley paid a visit to the mural! (It’s a thing that school kids do that I don’t really understand.) I appreciated the laugh, and they appreciated the tape. The orange grove now has a hidden item.The Big Trees now have a hidden item.

To be continued on Monday. . .

 

Short Mural Break

Two workdays per week are already scheduled to the point that working on the mural at Mooney Grove cannot happen.

One of those days involved taking a walk around a park in Exeter. It was a little bit boring (I am ruined by Mooney Grove for big empty-ish grassy lots masquerading as parks). To keep my interest, I listened to a fabulous interview on Donald Miller’s Storybrand podcast.

I also photographed wildflowers in the lawn, along with other items (non-volunteer) of natural color. These are weeds within a lawn but it doesn’t really matter. They get watered and mowed, and they add green to the landscape. This appears to be a squirrel and gopher-free park, so the grass is quite well-maintained.

First, the “weeds”:

Now, the planted colors:

And one weird little imposter: I thought this might be an aberrant red leaf even though there were several. When I enlarged the photo, I saw it is a piece of woven fabric, such as a petal to a silk rose. Ha ha, fooled me. A peculiar sight indeed!

Later that day during drawing lessons, we had an event worth sharing: a student finished a drawing and signed it! Way to go, Jane!

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 5

Day 5 of painting the mural on the Tulare County Museum in Mooney Grove was actually Day #2 on the Giant Sequoia trees.I thought I might be able to finish it that day.Then I thought I couldn’t.Then I thought maybe I could.Then I didn’t think it would be possible.Got it covered, but it needs better detail, some corrections, the usual adjustments.Nice new awnings over the entry door on the left and the office door on the right.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3B

After I finished the mural on the left side panel, I moved over to the right side panel to begin painting redwood trees, AKA sequoia gigantea, AKA Big Trees.

After looking through a small stack of pretty good photos of redwoods in sunlight, I chose one. Then I looked down at my scattering of business cards and got a laugh.Clearly, I like this particular view.

For once in my muralizing life, I wasn’t paralyzed by indecision. This felt easy to begin.There is no pattern to how I move around this wall – just a little here, a little there, maybe I can do this, if I do that it might help me see the proportions more correctly, up the ladder, down the ladder, step back, try this color. No matter what part I work on, the wall is getting covered.

I decided to put in sky colored background to define the edges of the trees, (including some smaller trees).Then I decided to get a bit more systematic, and work left to right.Then I didn’t want to work from the ladder any more, so I hunkered down in the mud to work on the bases of the trees.Not bad for a day’s work, eh? What makes this so pleasant and makes all this roaming around the wall in a random method possible is the fact that the wall is north-facing, and I never have to worry about protecting my palette or brush from the direct sun.

 

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3A

First, the name of the museum is Tulare County Museum, and it is in Mooney Grove. This is a county park. Just wanted to clarify, because the title of my blog posts about this mural make it sound as if the museum is called the “Mooney Museum”. I just like alliteration.

This is how the mural looked when I arrived on Day #3.

The brighter orange is poppies, the lighter orange is fiddleneck, and the lightest yellow is mustard. (You’re welcome – I know you were wondering.)

There were a few details left to add to finish this one.Better.Best.

There is too much to show you on today’s post, so Day 3B will appear tomorrow.