Painting the Sequoias

Sequoias, AKA “big trees”, are something I really love to paint (and draw). On my doors, on canvas, (or on paper.)

I liked the painting on my door so much that I decided to do the same scene on canvas.

First step – draw it vaguely with a paintbrush.

Second step, get the base coat on.

Third step, begin the background and add layers to everything else.

Fourth step, photograph it inside the painting workshop with the sequoia doors open.

Fifth step, photograph it with the other two doors of redwoods.

Seventh step, photograph it while it is drying.

(Sixth step was to finish painting it. Did you think I messed up on counting? Wouldn’t have been the first time!)

Building Bridges In Drawing Lessons

For the past 20 years I’ve been teaching people how to draw. One hour per week, 4 people at a time, each working on her own project (and sometimes his), $55/month – drawing lessons! Here is the link if you want to learn more: Drawing Lessons.

Everyone learns in a different way and at a different pace. Some people slam through drawing after drawing, finishing them by themselves at home and bringing them in for fine tuning. Some people spend weeks on the beginning exercises. Some people want me to show them one step at a time how to shade each element in their drawings. Some people practice on scratch paper before putting a pencil on their real drawing. These are just a few examples of learning styles. I could write an entire week of posts about this!

One of my drawing students is working on a bridge picture. She has gotten all the shapes down on paper and now we are working on the various textures. There was a weird spot under the bridge that I saw as one thing and she saw as another.

I go to great lengths to help my students understand. In this case, I built a wonky paper bridge so we could see a three dimensional version and understand what we were seeing in the two dimensional photo.

There is the bridge, the photo, the drawing in progress, and three different practice sheets of ways to shade the part under the bridge.

She got it!

 

 

Fridays are for Mineral King

Fridays are for Mineral King when I actually have something to tell or show about Mineral King.

Trail Guy took a day trip up to MK on March 5. He was able to drive to Silver City, and then took the trackster the rest of the way. He looked at most of the cabins, checking for damage after the one storm we had (please God, send more snow and rain!). And, he skied up to Soda Springs.

Me? I was painting that day. He is retired, I am not. Thanks for asking. 😎

Hello, Farewell.

This gives a false idea of deep snow. This sign is only about 2 feet high!

This is Soda Springs, a popular easy walk in the summer time, and a fairly easy cross-country ski in the winter, if you can cross Crystal Creek.

The view back toward Timber Gap. That is Betsy’s tree, the large red fir on the right. (I call it that – not an official name.)

The classic view of Farewell Gap and the Crowley cabin.

Keep praying for snow and rain – winter isn’t over yet!

A Few Thoughts About Pinterest

Have you discovered Pinterest?

I love pictures, always have. Albums, shoeboxes, and 22,000 on my laptop. . . pictures on my walls, making pictures, taking pictures, and now looking at pictures.

Pinterest is pictures.

It is also words, and some of those words really gobsmack me upside the head. (Gobsmack is the same sort of word as “gadzooks”, in case you were wondering.)

I have picture boards on Pinterest of these categories:

  1. Mineral King
  2. Blue Makes Me Happy
  3. Knitting and Yarn
  4. My Favorite Bridge
  5. Adirondack Chairs
  6. Pencil
  7. Other People’s Fantastic Art
  8. Photos I Wish I Had Taken (because I wish I was there to see it in person)
  9. My Best Oil Paintings
  10. Sequoia Trees
  11. Cool Stuff
  12. Words of Truth
  13. Rooms
  14. Houses (oh don’t you just love Craftsman Style architecture??)
  15. Beach
  16. Rural
  17. Naturally Beautiful
  18. Books

If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, none of those categories probably surprise you (except maybe Rooms, Cool Stuff or Houses, because I don’t address those topics here).

Recently I learned how to make one of those things that has nice looking words with photos that I often see on Pinterest. I’ve included a few on this post. I sure wish the comments worked, because i’d love to know your view of Pinterest, if you are on it, why you like it, what categories float your boat, and anything else you’d care to tell me about it.

(The answer to this question is NO! I WANT TO BE PAINTING BUT IT IS TOO DARK TO SEE TODAY AND THE POWER KEEPS GOING OUT!)

Lots of people use it to market their work. Can’t say I really know how to do that or want to spend my time being sellsy about it. Besides, I WANT TO PAINT!!

If I could get the comments to work, I would probably be able to get the Pin It button to work on this blog again. Sure wish I had more control over this blog. . .

Turning Away Work

Really? Turn away work? Who would do that?

Me, that’s who.

Why?

Because I know my limitations.

The story: 

An acquaintance called me to take a look at an old photo of a pilot posing on the wing of his aircraft in the 1940s. It was an 8×10 black and white photo, the man was about 1-1/2″ high (he was in a squat) and his face may have been about 1/2″ high.

If I can’t see it, I can’t draw it.

I could see the man’s face with really strong magnifying lenses, but to reproduce it accurately and in color (that was the point of him calling me), it would have been extremely time consuming. A dot here, erase, move the dot slightly left, erase, move the dot slightly higher, oops now he looks like a Cyclops. . . that is how those tiny portraits go.

I speak from hard-won experience. No faces smaller than an egg.

Once in awhile I get lucky and succeed with these tiny tiny faces, but it is after a serious and honest conversation with the customer about their expectations and my abilities. Remember this?

(Well, oops, the link broke and I don’t know what it was.)

So I recommended that the potential customer find someone who is very skilled with Adobe Photoshop to take the crud out and put some color in.

However, if would like to have it drawn large, perhaps 16×20, some sort of size that would bring the man’s face up to the size of an egg, then yes, I am the artist he wants!

Nice man. I think it will be good to do work for him in the future. He appreciated my honesty, and he said that he just hadn’t allowed enough in his budget for a larger drawing.

In my experience, people rarely allow enough in their budgets for art. Oh well, got a good blog post out of it. Waste not, want not. (Stop thinking “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – I can hear you out there!)

Another Mural in the Works?

I might have another mural coming. Possibly possible. Right now it is in the conversation stage. I’ve taken photos, looked through the customer’s photos, and figured out a way to show them how a mural might possibly look.

All my artwork begins with conversations. But, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll be quiet now and let the photos speak. It is possible.

I hope a painting isn’t a disappointment after the brilliance and perfection of seeing photos there!

Sequoia Mural Complete

Doesn’t that sound like a terse newspaper heading?

The Sequoia tree mural of a section of the Parker Group on one of my ridgey garage doors is now completed. Maybe. I signed it, but when I live with a piece of art, little corrections ask to be made. So, is it finished?

I spent 18 hours painting this in about 7 different sessions, the longest of which was 4 hours. Of course, I might keep fiddling with it, so there may be more.

If a customer wanted this exact mural on this exact surface and this exact size and I didn’t have to drive more than 1 mile to paint it (definitely rounding up because I drove no where to paint this), I’d charge $700.

I knew you were dying to ask, but there is this weirdness about art prices. . . the old “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.”

No worries. The truth is what is spoken and written here and no one has any reason for embarrassment when he doesn’t know something. This California artist who paints Sequoia trees just wants to help you.

Beautiful Images from the Pacific Northwest

These are not necessarily things indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, but they are beautiful things I encountered while there. Beautiful things, views, places, all here for you to enjoy.

Puget Sound (AKA “The Sound”) as seen from Mukilteo, Washington.

The Mukilteo light house in what passes for sunshine in February in Washington.

An old architectural detail salvaged from a torn-down building and reused in a sign in Mukilteo, Washington.

Carol loves sea glass. I like it, she LOVES it. We took a little trip together for that purpose a few years ago. You can click here to see it on another page.

It isn’t very uncommon to see people decorate with lights in the Pacific Northwest. Helps alleviate depression. That, and coffee of course.

Overly Excited in the Pacific Northwest

Yesterday I left you at the cliffhanger of Better Living Through Coffee in the Pacific Northwest.

Carol and I visited Port Townsend. It is a beautiful little town on the water with very stately architecture and art galleries and shops full of unnecessary items to enhance life and coffee and restaurants.

 

As the daughter of a citrus grower from Ivanhoe and the wife of a Trail Guy from Mineral King, cities and towns and beautiful buildings just THRILL me. It is a little embarrassing to take me anywhere because I am just THRILLED. THRILLED, I say.

Excuse me while I calm myself here.

There is a yarn shop in this building. With great restraint I did not go inside. I was already a bit overstimulated by the ferry ride and the beautiful buildings and the fantastic coffee.

No more caffeine for you Young Lady.

Get to the point already.

The point was to see Bob, my former drawing student! He and his wife and their horse (RIP, Porky Doc) and dogs (one less now, RIP Rose) moved there 4 years ago. Mrs. Bob loves it. Bob misses the sunshine and the drawing lessons. I miss Bob.

We had a wonderful visit. He drove us around town a bit, and treated us to a wonderful lunch at a very nice restaurant in a very old building. I could hardly eat from the excitement of it all. (Yeah, I know, I don’t get around and out much.)

We visited several art galleries, and the highlight was dropping by Don Tiller’s studio. Who is Don Tiller? I’m glad you asked. He paints what he calls “contemporary acrylic landscapes”. His work is whimsical and colorful and unusual. Bob took private lessons from him, and Carol took a workshp from him last month. Here, click on this to open his website in another page.

Tomorrow I’ll share some photos of beautiful things I saw while in Washington, the beautiful (and wet cold and rainy) Pacific Northwest.

2008 Wasn’t All Bad

You know how everyone refers to 2008 as the year that the economy went south? (How insulting to our Southern friends that “going south” is a euphemism for going bad – it means going downward, oh Gentle Southern Reader.)

In Three Rivers, California, 2008 was the Year The Poppies Were Incredibly Abundant and Shockingly Beautiful.

Great Poppy Year, 16×20″, oil on wrapped canvas, $375, available here

A new show, Sierra Wonders, opens today at Arts Visalia, 214 East Oak Street in Visalia, California. It features the art and writing in the book Sierra Wonders. That means this painting and one other of mine.

Join me at the reception, Friday, March 7, 6-8 p.m. 214 East Oak Street, Visalia, California. I might even bring Trail Guy with me, maybe my Mom too! Feels really important. It is important to me and to all the artists in Sierra Wonders.