This is the traditional opening weekend for many people in Mineral King. While the gates will be unlocked, the road is still blocked by snow from about Highbridge on up. If you are up for a walk, you can go into the valley. Here are a few more pictures from my show at the Tulare Historical Museum, this time of Mineral King in the summer to just whet your appetite. If you are planning a visit to the area, stop by the show!
Vandever V, 8×10, $90
Mineral King Morning, 14 x 11″, $175
It has been almost a month since the show opened. Is that long enough to have waited before showing you the pieces created specifically for the show? Hope so, because here goes!
Autumn Sycamore, sold
Farewell Gap Afternoon, 16×12″, $225
The wage-earning husband found himself with the afternoon off. The self-employed artist wife has a hard time saying no to fun interruptions when there are no pressing deadlines. We took a bikeride.
We stopped on the bridge. Looking upstream, the eagle-eyed husband noticed a raft coming; see it?
Looks downright scary to me!
We continued uphill for about 2-1/2 miles until there was a gate. Sometimes I will climb them and go trespassing. Michael is more law-abiding than I am. Besides it is a pain to toss a bike over a gate. When it was time for us to head back down the road, Michael said he was in sight-seeing mode. Me? I hate to waste a good gravitational pull, so I flew down, stopped, went back, flew down, stopped, went back, etc. My sight-seeing-eagle-eyed husband spotted this next, probably a red-tail hawk’s. No one was home.
The man who made my throne also makes lovely granite benches. We sat on one for awhile, and this is the view:
How is a self-employed artist supposed to get any work done with all this lovely diversion? Perhaps Three Rivers isn’t such a good place to be an artist after all!
I hate to say it but “Here I go again”. The window looked brighter with the paint side toward the wall, but of course it hid the detail of the poppies. Now I am repainting it on the side that will be out. Live and learn, live and learn. (If I’m going to repeat the window, I need to repeat the maxim.) Ahem. (I am a California artist, painting California poppies – are you listening, Google?)
Rose-colored glasses, everything’s coming up roses, bed of roses, roses and lollipops, a rose by any other name. run for the roses, looking rosy – wow, that flower has really captured our language! Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here are 18000 words worth for you to feast your eyes on today. Because of the great quantity, I made them smaller than the usual photos. I’d love to hear which are your favorites!
BTW, Happy Birthday, Bert!
Kind of handy to be able to combine exercise with gathering inspiration for new work, wouldn’t you say? Here are some of my usual scenes and thoughts (although I’ve been told my thoughts are rather unusual, and occasionally downright weird.)
The beautiful wooden garage doors, the arched gate and the odd coincidence of star jasmine blooming next to a star always catches my attention – one day I will see how to turn it into a painting or drawing.
Pink Lady Banks roses in the sunshine! We had yellow on our shed at our old house – it might be all that keeps the shed from collapsing. We have white in the herb garden. They grow super fast. Just telling you that in case you have a shed that is about to collapse.
Did you know that new grape leaves have brownish-red in them? Apparently some do. If I painted it this way, it would look as if I am trying to force in a color that isn’t really there. Other artists can get away with stuff like that. I am known for authenticity (or just being literal).
This one little piece of river brings to mind the beach. I miss the ocean. When I lived there, I missed the mountains. It would be WONDERFUL to find a place to sell my work on the coast. I have a place, but the work isn’t selling very well. I hate that. Time for happier thoughts.
I just love the red and white with the blue car in the background. Roses have been spectacular this year. Tomorrow’s post – roses!
There are many many more flowers in bloom besides roses. These were particularly stunning today.
Mr. Burns used to be a regular on this walking route. He had binoculars and knew all the birds. All of them. He died last week and now his gate is closed. Sniff.
Mid-May and the sycamores are only now leafing out!
Brian and Cheryl planted a new Japanese maple. Their old one seen in the background has caused great admiration, many photos and a little envy in me. Maybe I should just get the name of the variety and try NOT TO KILL ANOTHER ONE!!
The welcoming committee. And thus, we conclude our morning walk in Three Rivers. Am I inspired? More will be revealed. Back to the easel. p.s. This is a California artist’s thoughts. Just sayin’. . .
Some days are completely full of random tasks. Wednesday was just such a day – there was a long list of unrelated items that needed completing, and it rained. (random, see?) One of the list items was to paint a sign that says Pet Clinic. I spent a ridiculous amount of time messing around with typestyles, looking for little images of cats and dogs, realizing that I have a ton of cat photos from which to work. trying to design something, deciding it wasn’t really worth all the time because it is just a favor, and finally just doing this:
That is little Butch on the left and Dancer the Jack Russell terrier on the right. There wasn’t enough paint to coat the entire background, and I just couldn’t figure out what I was trying to do. It’s sort of obvious.
Then I did a few more errands, kept running into friends and then a friend/customer that I’d been trying to connect with. Ended up delivering 8 paintings to her house, so that worked out well. But, when I got home, I looked down and discovered this:
First layer continued/completed
Second layer on flowers, first on leaves and stems
Ooh, ooh, am I finished? More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
This is a post on how to layer with drawing pencils. I used to only use a 6B; you can read about it here. Then, I met someone who drew beautifully using the full range. I had no idea how to use them and figured they must layered lightest to darkest. Or maybe they were meant to be used one at a time, depending on how you wanted things to look. Kind of weird that as an art major I never learned these techniques. Anyway, I never could quite achieve the kind of blacks that my drawings needed. After joining the Colored Pencil Society of America, I began applying things learned from their workshops to my graphite pencil drawings. Look at what I learned about layering graphite pencils:
Defies logic! But the evidence is right here. If you have paper and pencils, try it for yourself! I’d love to read your comments once you have experimented with this sort of layering.