After working on the White Chief painting for awhile, the brushes and paint weren’t cooperating with me. I actually tossed a brush in the trash! It is so annoying to load a brush with paint and then have none come out when I place it on the canvas. I don’t have time for this baloney, so […]
Large Painting Situation
What is a “large painting situation”? In the life of your Central California artist, this means that all my large paintings are gone. They are now gracing my dentist’s office in Three Rivers. It was time to dive into the largish painting of White Chief that I began back in October, working to git-‘er-dun so […]
11 Things I Learned in December
By the Book is a fun podcast by two women friends who pick a self-help book, read it, follow it for 2 weeks, and report about it in 2 episodes. They either do or do not recommend the book to their listeners. Then they tell what the next book will be. WARNING: They cuss a lot!! Did […]
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, dear blog readers. I will be silent for awhile. Nothing to worry about – I’ll be back, and hope you will join me. Meanwhile, have a lovely week of holidays! P.S. I have been and will continue to busy through December 24. See?
Oil Painting Workshop Day 2
On Day 2 of the oil painting workshop, we didn’t spend too much time mixing colors. Everyone took her palette home, covered in plastic wrap, and stored it in the freezer until the 2nd class. We dove right into painting, beginning with recoating the green, but this time we added details to resemble grasses and […]
Oil Painting Workshop
In the 24 years I’ve been teaching drawing lessons, I’ve never given lessons in December. But, some of my advanced students beg, plead and cajole until I cave in and give oil painting workshops during my “time off”. We start off with a little lesson in color, using the double primary palette. This means 2 yellows, […]
Growing a Poinsettia
Someone bought some cards of a poinsettia painting that I did about 8 or 9 years ago. (It looked fine as a 4×6″ image, back when I was first learning to paint. Be polite, okay?) She liked it so much that she asked me to paint the same picture for her as an 8×10″ oil […]
Merchandise and Marketing Sense
Christmas is coming, and if I had any marketing sense, I would have been telling you about merchandise that is available all through the month. I do have sense, and I sense that it would be irritating for me to keep pounding the sales drum. However, if you need a reminder or an easy idea […]
December Oranges
Did you know that navel oranges are harvested in December? If you are from Tulare County where the world’s best (and most) navel oranges are grown, you probably knew that. My grandfather and dad were both orange growers. I am an orange painter. A friend/neighbor called to say that her sister-in-law wanted an oil painting […]
Incremental Studio Improvements
I am a big believer in incremental improvements, little changes adding up over time. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to draw in pencil, paint in oil, or even be a knitter. My Three Rivers studio was just a little storage shed on our property until it got gussied up in December 2001. It […]