We usually choose a weekend in the middle of October to close our cabin for the season. The date is not weather based, but instead it is based on what fits our schedule, that of our neighbors, and how badly we just want to put away our duffle bags for the year and STAY HOME.
The weekend of Oct. 12-14 was our last weekend up the hill for the year. The road isn’t closed yet, and there may even still be water in the campgrounds. Silver City’s last day is October 27. The autumn colors were still present during our final stay, and the air was clear and nippy in the shade.
P.S. Remember the Harvest Festival tomorrow at the Lemon Cove Womans Club from 10-4!
Since 2010, the Silver City Store has been selling my oil paintings. It began as a tentative experiment, with no confidence that visitors up that rough road would want to spend their hard-earned dollars on original oil paintings rather than (or in addition to) tee shirts and post cards.
The highest number of paintings that sold in the past summers was 16.
In 2018, the store was remodeled to a brighter more spacious place with a new elegance, and the economy is doing quite well. These two reasons together might be why THIRTY-ONE paintings sold this year! (The gracious store manager says it is also because people like my work. Aw shucks, thank you, Hannah!)
When painting the same subjects over and over, naming becomes a problem, and I rely on my inventory numbering system to keep the paintings straight. But sometimes I don’t include those numbers when I bill the store, so my records are a teensy bit wobbly. So, I won’t show you all thirty-one paintings, but here are half of the ones I was able to track down a photo of. The other half will come later.
The sizes they appear here on the blog are not accurate in terms of how they look against one another. For example, the painting of Eagle Lake was 6×18″, and the one directly above this paragraph was 4×6″.
I gathered a few ideas of what to paint in which quantities and sizes for next year, and hope I don’t lose my notes.
P.S.(If you click/tap on the link to the store website, which will open in a new tab, you may notice some similarities between our websites – I used the same web designer as they did)
The Lemon Cove Womans Club’s Harvest Boutique will be on Saturday. This coming Saturday, October 20, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Gotta get some things ready to sell!
These fruit and blossom paintings are on 5×7″ boards, to be displayed on mini easels. This is how they looked after the first pass over the boards.
Then, I decided there weren’t enough oils on canvas, so I quickly finished the 4×6″ pomegranate and added the pumpkins and Redwood with Dogwood. These are all forgiving subjects, so I can paint them a bit faster than architectural subjects, or Mineral King scenes with recognizable peaks.
Ever been to Lemon Cove? If you’ve gone to Sequoia from Visalia, you’ve passed through it. I think of it as Lemon Curve. . . a few curves on the highway, and you are outta there.
There’s a little boutique at the Lemon Cove Womans Club (yep, that’s the real spelling) on Saturday, October 20, called the Harvest Boutique, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The Womans Club is on Highway 198, and it looks like this (if you first vacuum all the color out of life):
For the boutique, I’ve painted some new small citrus oil paintings, 4×6″ and 6×6″ (priced at $50 and $60 plus 8% California sales tax). Although this is LEMON Cove, there is more than one type of citrus art here, and please take note of the highly creative titles.
Trail Guy and I had plans for 2 more stays in Mineral King before closing the cabin. Then he got a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract so we adjusted our plans. Then I got it. Well, bummer, but I still had to make a trip up the hill to photograph a Silver City cabin for a commissioned pencil drawing.
(Not gonna show you the photos because it will be a surprise for the recipient, who may or may not read this blog.)
I got the photos, and we tootled on up the hill. It was overcast, only very briefly conducive to good photos. Here is my one feeble attempt.
We stayed about an hour, split some firewood, loaded up the large redwood Adirondack chair, and headed back home. There is such a melancholy feel to the place when it is minus sunshine and friends.
I tried one more shot through the window of the Botmobile but was a little slow on the draw. (Yes, there is some snow on Farewell Gap and Bearskin is looking like itself once again.)
The melancholy was lifted by a long nap and a visit with these creatures when we got home.
TuckerScout
And getting some rain was quite a boost, along with the aftermath of the storm.
This view from our front yard is one reason why we choose to live in the rural and somewhat inconvenient (bear break-ins, rattlesnakes, scorpions, coyotes eating our cats, no yarn store, et cetera. . .) location of Three Rivers.
“Two Pencil and Colored Pencil Drawings of One Old Gas Pump” is too long of a title for a blog post, but it is more accurate than “Two Gas Pumps”.
Let’s review:
Two sketchesDrawing #1 of the Silver City gas pump under way.Drawing #2 under way.
Now, new pictures for you.
Pump drawing #1 before color added.Pump #1 with color added.Gas Pump #2 before color added.Gas Pump #2 with color added.
I can do a tiny bit better. #1 needs more separation between the closer and the more distant trees. Pump #2 needs to be a bit smoother. Both could be a bit brighter in the color department.
A bit more distinction to push the farther trees back.A smoother surface on the pump.
I can’t find the photo that I used to paint any of these, so I have to rely on my experience of painting Sequoia trees to just improve the painting.
Here it is wet on the easel; is it improved? I think so. Will SS? I like it much better. The questions are still unanswered, but the painting is now finished (until someone else brings it to me from another antique store in another 10 years?)
Sequoia trees are one of my biggest subjects to paint. Well, duh, they are the biggest trees in the world. But that’s not what I mean – I paint Sequoias over and over and over.
A few weeks ago a girl whom I will call SS called to say she found a Sequoia oil painting by me at an antique store. (Here in Tulare County, “antique store” can sometimes be a euphemism for “junk store”, or if you are a bit more refined, a “thrift shop”; only the truly hip think of “repurposing outlet”, and probably no one in Tulare County.) SS just wanted to know if it truly was mine, if it had been altered in any way, and what I thought.
She read me the inventory # on the back, and I found it in my extensive files of oil painting photos.
Sunny Sequoias IXX, 8×10″, sold
First thought: ‘How embarrassing!” Second thought: “I paint better now, so may I borrow it back and improve it?”
I spent too much time trying to find the photo I used to paint this, but it has vanished. Why?? Where?? Who knows?
As I was composing this blog post, I discovered that in my extensive photo records, I have the wrong title on the photo. The painting is this one:
Sunny Sequoias XI, 8×10″, sold (twice)
Or is it??
This is what SS brought to me:
It’s not the same either! When did I paint this? Where is the photo? Did I decide that after using it 3 times, it was time to retire the photo? Did I lend it to someone? What happened to the photo of the painting?
The inventory # on the back does not match the inventory # in the files of photos! And, it was a paint-over from another oil painting that did not meet my standards. The edges were not painted because I framed it. I never frame them any more and haven’t for years.
“Years”, she says, as if she’s been painting for decades instead of since March 8, 2006.
In progress on my drawing table and on the easels:
This is a little tedious to draw because all the background foliage is just organized scribbling with lots of layers. I’ve been listening to things on the internet to keep myself from falling asleep.There’s a story here. . . I’ll tell you later when I figure out the ending.Oil paintings of 4×6″ pomegranate and 6×18″ Sequoia Gigantea/Redwood/Big Tree are now begun. What a mess, but each layer will bring improvement and renewed confidence in my skill. (I don’t paint well when it is hot out, and it was when I began these.)Ever draw a gas pump? (Ever use one??) After the customer approves the pencil (graphite) part, I’ll spray fix it and then use some red colored pencils. The proportions were wrong – was I sleep-drawing? No worries – I corrected things and the finished product will be fine.And on the chair behind me were these little hooligans, resting from their shenanigans.
