Learned in March

Juniper IV, oil, 6×6″, $60

It is possible that I didn’t learn much in March. Perhaps I spent too much time on hold with both Huge & Rude and Small & Bumbling. But now we have faster internet, so that’s a good thing.

  1. FWIW means For What It’s Worth. (Thank you, SD!)
  2. Donald Miller has a podcast and is a delight to listen to. I’ve always liked his writing (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Scary Close), and now he has a business called Storybrand, where he helps people market their products by telling their stories.
  3. I figured out a new tool for teaching people to draw. (Why did it take 25 years? I didn’t have the tech skills and equipment until a few years ago – there’s one excuse.)
  4. One of my new students taught me a little trick for seeing things when you don’t have your cheater magnifying glasses. Make a mini telescope with your fist, put it to your best eye, and look through it at the thing you are trying to read. It helps a little.
  5. I relearned that everything is harder than one expects it to be. We have Spectrum, finally, sort of. It took 5 days of visits by 6 different installers, and another visit by some sort of technician (or more–I’ve lost track). I still have no phone in the studio, but finally bought enough gizmos to bounce the internet signal to the outbuildings. The sales boy sold this to us on February 7, and now it is April 1. Am I a fool? Nope, but I’ve been fooled by Small & Bumbling into thinking the switchover would be easy.
  6. Posts about walks I take garner more comments than posts about drying paint (unless it is the progress of a mural).
  7. Getting a new book is fun fun fun! (I already knew that, but just wanted to push Mineral King Wildflowers a little bit.)
My new teaching tool shows 4 versions of the same image. The students in my most recent workshop really took it and ran with it. They were very quick to pick up the techniques of drawing.
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $19.78 including tax (unless you pay cash because I’m not making change or unless my website charges you, and I can’t figure out why it does that sometimes and not others.)

Sort of Empty

One morning this week as I set up to paint, I looked at several of the paintings that I formerly thought were finished. They looked sort of empty.

Nice, but something is missing.
Why did I think the tree was unnecessary? I begin painting all conifer trees with a vertical line to locate them and to build the foliage in an upright pattern.
Better!
‘Twas empty, now better.

These next two look almost the same. I used the same photo, but one is 8×8″ and the other is 6×6″. I don’t have enough skill to do two identical paintings, only two that are very similar. Are you shocked?

More Heart Rock Walk

Should that be “Rock Wock” or “Ralk Walk”? Isn’t English weird?

This is the first one I ever noticed. It is the only pink one and appears to be a broken heart.
When the sun is finally up, oh wow.
But the sun makes the hills in sunshine look weird and washed out. This is another beautiful decorative gate (remember yesterday’s? Probably the same mason.) We seem to live in a gated community.
Doesn’t this make you wish you got up in the dark to go walking in Three Rivers?

Heart Rock Walk

My walking partner and I walk several roads in our neighborhood, often so early in the a.m. that we need flashlights. (We’ve learned the traffic patterns, cross the highway carefully and listen for cars–thank you for your concern.) A few years ago we began noticing heart rocks in the asphalt on one particular road. On Sunday, I took my camera and we found 10 heart rocks! Today I’ll show you five, along with a little bit of scenery (yep, trespassing again.) The rock photos were taken after the scenery ones, on the way back home when the light was better. They are all about an inch high in real life.

The blurry photo caused me to keep this one small for you. We debated on whether or not it qualified.
This is early in the morning, so the light is not very conducive to great photography. But oh my, what a beautiful fence and entry gate!
At least with the poor light, you won’t know where I was trespassing and turn me in!
Look at this fence!

Tomorrow I’ll show you the rest of the heart rocks and the rest of the walk in better light.

Watching Paint Dry

When I show paintings in progress on my blog, they don’t cause people to comment. Comments are fun for a blogger, show that people are reading and care enough to say something, and provide a way for a bit of interaction. When I talk about places I walk or hike and show photos, the comments come in more often.

Funny how that works – it is more enjoyable for my readers to see where I walk and what I see than to watch paint dry.

So, today there will be a little bit of drying paint, and a little bit of scenery.

2 in progress
3 drying

Since switching to Spectrum, there is no longer a telephone in the painting workshop (or in my studio, but that is a very long, annoying and boring tale). So maybe it is time to erase the phone #s on the chalkboard. But this is long and boring and annoying, and I’ve promised you other photos.

The top of Blossom Peak as seen from a friend’s driveway. I want to go there but don’t know a good route. Besides, I have waited a bit too long. The grasses are tall so they hide the footing, and the snakes might be out. Next January, perhaps?

The 2 left points of Blossom. It has 3 parts as you can see in the next photo.
Like the power lines? Phone lines? Whatevs, the point is to see the 3 points.
Looking upstream on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
Looking downstream from the same bridge.
Just loving the green with the fiddlenecks and popcorn flowers.

That was just a regular Three Rivers walk on a popular road for walkers. A friend who lives below Blossom Peak had neck surgery and has to walk a certain distance each day in a flat place. She got tired of circling her house, so I brought her to a flat place near my house to get in her steps. The pace was much slower than my regular morning walks, the light was much brighter, and it made everything look even prettier than normal.

There. Aren’t you glad you made it through the paint drying session?

New Oil Paintings

Here are a few of the most recently completed oil paintings, mostly of Mineral King subjects. They are all oil on wrapped canvas, ready to hang without a frame, and the price doesn’t include sales tax. Each one is now listed on my oil painting page.

Oak Grove Bridge XVII, 6×18″, $150
Alpenglow on Alta, 6×18″, $150.
Eagle Lake I, 6×18″, $150 (This isn’t the first time I’ve painted Eagle Lake, but it is the first time this year.)
Juniper I, 8×10″, $125 (Not the first time I’ve painted this juniper, just the first time this year.)
Honeymoon Cabin I, 8×8″, $100 Not the first time I’ve painted the Honeymoon Cabin, just the first time this year. (Is there an echo in this room??)

More Spring Walking

I looked through the rest of my photos from our afternoon of trespassing in Lemon Cove and came up with more pictures and more thoughts for you.

The pinkish flowers are Owl’s Clover, another wildflower that we don’t have in Mineral King.
These guys thought we might be coming to feed them.
There were lots of fiddlenecks (the yellow flower) in addition to the brodaeia.
Sawtooth barely shows on the far right of the row of white peaks.
Here is an unknown pale yellow flower. It has feathery leaves that don’t show in this picture. I don’t have to know the name because I am not working on a wildflower book anymore.
This is looking toward Terminum Dam and Kaweah Lake. The bright patches of orange on the distant hills are poppies, and from across the lake, they appear as if someone spray painted florescent orange on the hills. Also showing in the distance is Castle Rocks, the granite formations visible from the top of Moro Rock.
This is the Kaweah River in Lemon Cove. I wondered if I was looking at the very same molecules of water that I walked past earlier that a.m. in Three Rivers.
What is this magnificent shrub of red flowers?? I’m so curious, even if I am not writing another book on wildflowers. I’ve never seen this before!
We wanted to see the field of bush lupine, but most have been replaced by lemon trees. I don’t know what the trees are in the background that haven’t yet leafed out.
Hiking Buddy took this photo of me while I was taking photos for you. I just wanted you to appreciate the efforts I go to in order to provide pictures for you all to enjoy! (Thank you, Hiking Buddy!)

Next week I will get back to work and show you some completed oil paintings.

Spring Walking

It is so beautiful and green out! Trail Guy and I went for a walk in Lemon Cove with our Mineral King hiking buddies. Have a look at Sunday’s stroll.

Looking down on the town where we used to live. Our old house doesn’t show, but I refuse to look at it anyway since the 2 huge maples in the front yard got removed.
That is McKay’s Point on the west side of Wutchumna Hill, where the Kaweah River splits off into the St. Johns River.
Lots of these flowers, a brodiaea called Blue Dick. We don’t have them in Mineral King – they are in the flatlands and the foothills.
Aw shucks, look at those hiking buddies together. I need a name for Trail Guy’s hiking buddy. How about The Farmer?
There’s Sawtooth – the white peak farthest to the right.
The bumps off in the distance are Venice Hills. I lived across the road from the north side of this landmark until the end of 6th grade but I never climbed up and checked out the wildflowers.

I didn’t specify exactly where this walk was because it isn’t open to the public. We were trespassing with permission.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a few more photos from the walk, because almost all I am doing with work these days is mailing out Mineral King Wildflower books.

Paint On, O Painter

I recently read O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Can you tell by the title of this post? I’m glad I finally read it, enjoyed it, but wouldn’t gush about it to others or call it a “must read”.

With all the spring beauty, it is a little bit hard to keep my feet planted in front of the easel, but I press onward. Currently I’m listening for the second time to The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg while I paint, and that helps keep me working. (Very good book)

The trees in the foreground look as if a fire has gone through the neighborhood, so I added detail.
These are all finished. Trail Guy still thought the top painting of Alta Alpenglow looked fire-ravaged, so I added more fuzzy things to resemble some foliage. Probably just looks like mistletoe now.
These are also finished. That makes 16 of 32 finished, mostly Mineral King oil paintings, halfway through my stack (in case you didn’t want to do the math).
I like this – Trail Guy and Young Trail Girl, releasing a fish back into the stream.
So very tiny. . . I’ll need to work on it further, if the 2-hair brush and my magnifying glasses hold up.
This is a relief after the tee-niny-eensy people.
None of these are finished, but they are close. Maybe I’ll be faster on my next painting day so that my mean painting boss will let me go outside.

Mineral King Wildflowers Book

Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names arrived yesterday!

The cover photo is by Jessica Barr. All the interior photos are by me and Trail Guy.

A sample page from the blue and purple chapter
Every chapter has a few flowers at the end without names.

The price is $19.78, which includes sales tax. The odd number is because 1978 is the year that Mineral King became part of Sequoia National Park. If you order from my website, I’ll pay the shipping. If you order from Amazon, they will charge an additional $3.99.