cabinart | Cabin Art

What Did I Decide?

Not talking audibly to myself anymore, decisions made, work begun on the oil painting commission of Homer’s Nose with the Oak Grove Bridge.

Scary Scribble State mitigated by nice sky

Madame Customer stopped by my studio to retrieve her photos and saw the scary version. She made another change to our plan, and I was eager to try it. Her suggestion was to forget about the green hills below Homer’s Nose and extend the greenery above the bridge up closer to Snozz Rock.

Some rock shape with some lower foliage, extended upward toward the snozz.

This painting might turn out well – Madame Customer, once again I salute you for your good ideas and suggestions! (and good thing I’m not a contractor who charges for those dreaded things called “change orders”)

Today’s oil painting for sale:

This is a sweet little 4×6″ oil painting of Sawtooth, on a board, sitting on an easel, $45.

commission oil painting Oak Grove Bridge

What Are You Doing??

Happy Birthday, Deanne!!

“What are you doing?” is a question directed to me, not to you. Some days I don’t know what to do. It results in talking to myself, occasionally in an audible voice. This isn’t because there isn’t anything pressing; it is because I can’t figure out how to prioritize.

What would you do first? What am I doing??

Begin painting the oil commission of Homer’s Nose with the Oak Grove Bridge
Work on the oil painting of the South Fork of the Kaweah
Begin a pencil commission that is too hard for me
Work on the 2019 calendar drawings
Package up note cards and reproduction prints for the upcoming show at Silver City (just below Mineral King) on June 30 called Art: Inspired by Mineral King
Work on my bookkeeping to be ready to pay quarterly sales tax
Work on “populating” my web site renovation
Scan a drawing for a student and do the photoshop prep
Photograph a completed painting and do all the computery things necessary to make it good for the website

Sometimes the business of art is just a quagmire of decision making. There is some study somewhere out there in some book that explains “decision fatigue”, how the more decisions we have to make in a day causes us to be less able to make good decisions.

When I am figuring out what to work on next, I factor in weather (is it too hot in the painting workshop room?), deadlines (what is coming up next?) and finances (what activity will generate income when it is finished?).

#1 will generate income; #2 is just a speculation painting; #3 will generate income; #4 has an October deadline; #5 has a June 30 deadline; #6 has a deadline that I have forgotten about and ignore until an email reminder comes; #7 has been dragging along since January, my blog subscription button is gone, there are paintings listed for sale that have already sold and new paintings and cards that aren’t listed. Finally, #8 and #9 are just meh.

What did I decide to do?

Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you.

Today’s painting for sale:

Never mind. Can’t decide. Decision fatigue, you know. . .?

Instruct Me, Please

Thirty-three years ago some friends and I tried rock climbing, that rappelling thing with ropes and harnesses. My friend was suspended over space and she looked up at the guy (with barely contained fear) who was supposedly teaching us and said quite calmly, “Instruct me, please!”

Today I want to instruct you a bit about subscribing to my blog, except I can’t!

News Flash: at 7:36 a.m. the Blog Subscription button reappeared! You may now subscribe (or resubscribe) to the blog!

For some reason, the dealio to subscribe to the blog has vanished. This means that you can no longer subscribe to the blog, until and unless I figure out what went wrong. You know that the word “update” is a euphemism for “complication”, yes? Well, something got “updated”, and in the process, the blog subscription dealio went away.

All I know to do is to advise you to go to the World Wide Web (might be Safari, might be Chrome–I hope you know what it is on your own computer or device), look up my website, and when you get to cabinart.net, then click on the word blog in the menu bar at the top.

All I wanted was to draw, paint, tell you about it, and sell some art. But, my life got updated.

So, to make up for my ignorance, confusion, chaos, and general ambiguity, please enjoy a picture of quiet and calm, something that I could use right about now.

Do You Love To Read?

No Mineral King today – I haven’t been for a couple of weeks because I went to Hume Lake.

I love to read. Do you?

Some of my favorite podcasts are about books and reading: What Should I Read Next, By the Book (the one with all the cussing), Just the Right Book, From the Front Porch. While listening to several podcasts recently, I learned of a PBS thing called The Great American Read. It is a book popularity contest, seeking America’s favorite novel. You can watch the 2 hours of the program about the books, and if you love books and reading, you will enjoy this program. Then you can vote for your favorite novel, which any reader knows is an impossible task. No problem – you get to vote once a day until the contest ends in the fall.

I didn’t vote because it requires a sign-up, either through FaceBook (not happening for this little gray duck) or via email, and I don’t want to put myself on another list. However, you might. Or maybe you want to do what I did after watching the program: read the list and count how many of the books you have read. I have read 36 of the 100, and a few of them are on my To-Be-Read list.

What does this have to do with being an artist in the Central Valley of California?

Nothing.

Will you tell me 2 things? 1. Which ones you would vote for and 2. how many you have read off the list. Inquiring minds need to know. (I am an Enneagram #5 and a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies – you may need to do some reading to understand this stuff.)

Here is today’s painting: Reading Rabbit, AKA “Salt & Light”, an oil painting on board. It isn’t for sale, because I like it too much to sell.

Salt & Light, or Reading Rabbit, oil on board, 11×14″, Not for sale

Random Information

Sometimes I have a head full of random facts to tell you that don’t want to wait for the end of the month round-up of things learned in the month.

The Oak Grove Bridge, my favorite subject for drawing and painting, will be “retrofitted”, a fancy term that means reinforced to make it safe while keeping it as its same beautiful self. This is a huge relief to me; I was picturing myself chained to the bridge to prevent its destruction, wondering if anyone would bring me dinner or mosquito repellent, and wondering how much it would cost to be bailed out of jail.
I visited Hume Lake for a few days with a friend from childhood at her cabin. Still the Sierra Nevada, but very very different from Mineral King.
Hume Lake, from on the water
There were wild iris blooming there – what?? They bloom in early May along the lower part of the Mineral King Road in the shady drainages. Hume is around 5000′ in elevation and they were in hot dry places. My friend thought it was a bit odd to keep photographing them. Perhaps it was. . .
Her cabin kitchen was retro and charming.
The dam on the lake is historic and impressive.
Dam creating Hume Lake.
I missed my kitties and continue to wonder how I will tell Piper from Tucker when Tucker is grown.
Piper is tired from rolling in the dirt, and Tucker thinks his tail is a toy.
Before I left, I began a new pencil drawing.
Pencil drawing with a touch of color for the upcoming 2019 calendar.
I love to row a boat and was tickled that neither of my friends wanted to take over the oars.
These are kayaks; my friends and I were the oldest people on the lake and the only ones in a rowboat. We were also the only ones singing.
The painting studio is a mess, but a recovered couch and chair will happen soon.
Is this mess a place??

And thus we conclude a list of random information.

Today’s painting for sale:

Sunflower, oil on 8×8″ wrapped canvas ready for hanging without a frame, $108 includes sales tax

Starting Over Again

That is the name of a country song by Dolly Parton. Only the title applies to this post.

If my record keeping is correct (and it rarely is, but closies count here), then I am beginning oil painting #75 in 2018.

I didn’t mean to begin another oil painting, because hot weather is here and the swamp cooler is barely adequate for the really hot days. But I was flipping through some photos, looking for something now forgotten, and I saw a photo of the South Fork of the Kaweah River (here in Three Rivers, pronounced “kuh-WEE-uh”). It has been awhile since I painted water; last year I obsessively drew water in pencil, but this year only painted it when it appeared beneath a bridge or in a Mineral King painting.

The photo is upside down. So is the canvas. Can you tell? Nope, you can’t. The way I know is by the hanging wire, which you cannot see.

Basic shapes and sort of the right colors, just smeared on, is the way I begin paintings sometimes.

Right side up, does this resemble a river scene?

Why did I begin this when I have the large commissioned oil painting of Homer’s Nose with the Oak Grove Bridge?

Because I am 58 and I can do what I want. . . OR
Because the 18×24″ painting was too intimidating. . . OR
Because sometimes I just drift and flail and fly by the seat of my pants. . .OR
I dunno; your guess is as good as mine.

Someone around here needs to parent herself a little better. Or boss herself. Or not.

Today’s oil painting for sale:

North Fork of the Kaweah IX, 10×10″, $150 plus Calif. sales tax.

Three Rivers Three rivers oil paintings

Please May I Be Excused?

Do you remember being required to say that when you were done with dinner as a kid? (We might not have had to say “please”. . . it isn’t sounding familiar to me, but with that degree of rudeness, why was permission even required? Never mind.)

The Redwood & Dogwood painting might be finished.

The Oak Grove Bridge might be finished.

Please, may I be excused?

Today’s painting for sale:

Sunny Sequoias XXX, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60 plus California sales tax of 8% (you may do the math for us)

Do you think it is “sellsy” and push to show you a painting for sale at the end of each blog post? That’s the last thing I want to be! (or maybe being sellsy and pushy would be better than being rude and not asking politely to be excused from the table. . .)

Oak Grove Bridge oil paintings Sequoia painting

Tricky Business on the Oak Grove Bridge

The Oak Grove Bridge on the Mineral King Road is my favorite subject to draw and paint, except when it isn’t.

I’ve been inching along on this painting for months. The angle is unusual, the details are hard to see, and the colors are somewhat difficult to discern, all of it making for tricky business.

However, I’m FINALLY getting close to finishing.

This is how it appeared when I began on this, the umpteenth day.

Not sure where to begin, I charted out where the posts would go on the railing. I know there are 7 little ones between the larger ones, because I’ve done this a few (dozen) times.

But what goes between those little posts? Some places it is the posts on the opposite side of the bridge, and some places it is the space beyond.

Is this photo of the painting any more advanced than the previous one? Welcome to my world of the Treadmill Bridge Painting.

Here I have begun to tighten up the edges on the horizontal pieces, using a yardstick while the painting is lying flat. (How do Real Artists do this?? How do plein air painters handle these challenges??)

Time to begin the landscaping on the lower section.

Too wet to continue. . . in the next painting session I will add lots of little green speckles in various shades.

When the ~~little green speckles~~ leaves are in place, I’ll sign it, photograph it, and call the lady who expressed an interest in this painting during the Redbud Festival.

Then I’ll move back to the collage commissioned oil painting of the Oak Grove Bridge with Homer’s Nose. That bridge will be a straightforward angle, no tricky business.

Today’s painting is a pencil drawing of another bridge, also associated with Mineral King:

Mineral King Bridge, pencil, matted and framed to approx. 12×16, $400

Oak Grove Bridge oil paintings

Early Season in White Chief Canyon

Trail Guy’s favorite place to hike is White Chief. Mine too. I wasn’t there for this hike, but he graciously and eagerly shared his photos with me to share with you.