A Break From Painting to Enjoy Autumn

I had a job about 100 years ago at a vocational school. It was a terrible job, because one of my duties was to collect on unpaid student loans. One of my few good memories of working there was meeting a student named “Autumn Eve”. I didn’t get to know her very well (fraternization was discouraged between students and hired help), but I never forgot her name.

But I digress.

Let’s take a look at some autumn pictures in Three Rivers.

The flowering pear tree outside my studio is The Champion. (Not interested in hearing about native and non-native trees during Autumn, but thank you for your concern.) Chinese Pistache trees are also stunning this time of year. So there.

That was fun. Let’s do this again in a couple of days.

A New Mural

Three years ago, the county allowed elected supervisors to have a bit of free rein on things like murals in their districts. My supervisor asked me to paint a mural on the Ivanhoe library, the beloved library of my youth. You can read about it here, here, here, and here.

If you don’t want to go back and read those posts from 2 years ago, here is the short version. The county reined in the Wild West approach, a committee was formed, and a call to artists went out to submit designs and compete for MY MURAL!

Eventually I got chosen, but they forgot to find the money first. Another 2 years passed, until this summer I was given permission to begin. First I needed to wait for the heat to abate and then for my unbloggable situation to resolve.

Meanwhile, the committee gathered money, and decided to only have one mural on the West wall, probably because they didn’t have enough money to pay for two murals because the original payment offered wasn’t high enough to entice many muralists (only guessing this from a few conversations I had with some muralist colleagues).

They requested that I make a change on the orange packing label from “Venice Cove” to “Venice Hill”. I was willing to do this, but only with permission from Klink, the packing house. What a surprise—it has merged with 2 or 3 other packing houses and is now called California Citrus or something similar. Not “Klink” anymore?? This hurts my little Ivanhoe heart, but I’ll soldier on.

Today I thought I would be working on the mural. However, there is now red tape and bureaucracy to navigate, with many opinions, an anonymous committee, and a college student who wants to intern with me. My hope is to be given access to the building on days when the library is closed. Otherwise, I will only be painting on Fridays, and this could take a very long time to complete.

I am REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to finally painting this mural!

Meanwhile, I continue to work on a couple of commissions, one of which I have been showing to you and one which is still in the design and decision phase.

(And I’ve actually begun working on the 2027 calendar. The 2026 is available here or anywhere you run into me if I remembered to put some in Mom’s Car* or whichever pick-‘em-up I happen to be driving.)

*It is a really nice car, and I really miss Fernando. Really. Sigh.

New Oil Commission, Chapter 3

On Monday, you saw this version of the custom oil painting of a Mineral King scene.

Next, I put more paint on the sky and worked more carefully on West Florence. (The humanoid is still a mess.)

Time to rescue the humanoid from embarrassing me. Wait, time to rescue me from the embarrassment of the humanoid. Something. . .

What’s different here? A little more background spots, using dark green and the grayish blue/bluish gray of West Florence.

Let’s make like a tree and leaf.

More color and texture on the tree trunks.

Something… Oh. I moved the tree on the left closer to the viewer.

In spite of using Trail Guy as a human-size model in the scene, I’ve decided to make the human larger in the painting.

Many more leaves, branches, trunks, grasses, and trail work to go before getting into the nitty-gritty of putting the correct human in the painting. That is going to stretch my skill to the nth degree.

New Oil Commission, Chapter 2

Here is my usual collection of thoughts about custom art: This is too hard, I’m a washed-up has-been, why does anyone think I am qualified? And: These people are counting on me and I’d better get started because it is going to be hard and take a very long time. Finally: Just paint, you Goober! You know how to do this!

This is what you saw at the end of Monday’s post:

I started with sky because it is the farthest away, then put another layer on West Florence.

Sometimes I turn the canvas sideways because I can better control the brush and see it better for certain areas.

Here I started putting more paint on the trees. I’m also just planting them where they look right to me. The actual tunnel is kind of a mess, hard to find individual trees. If I painted more loosely, I could just slap on spots of various shades of green and then put in hints of blue sky beyond along with hints of tree trunks. But then I wouldn’t have gotten this job, because Mister likes my style of painting, not that loosey-goosey style.

This must have something changed for me to have taken another photo. Oh, I see that I tried to take some of the ridiculousness away from the humanoid-like figure.

More tomorrow. . .

Thank You, Veterans

(Including you, Cousin Bruce. . . You did what you had to do because that is how we were raised, came home to national disrespect, married a wonderful woman, made great kids, and built a good life. I always looked up to you, both literally and figuratively. We will miss you.)

New Oil Painting Commission

“Commission” means someone is paying me to paint custom art for him. Them. Her. Shhhh, I think it will be a Christmas present.

Let’s call the customer Mister. You can decide if it is a man, a woman, or several humans. Mister decided on 20×20”, a square format. The canvas arrived, and I put a very thin coat of paint on it.

This is the version of the requested scene. Yes, it is Mineral King, and that is Trail Guy for size reference.

No wonder my laptop gets splatters on the screen.

Here is the beginning. The photo says “Yellow Tunnel” but Mister is requesting the tunnel to be green.

That’s as far as I got. When it dries, I’ll put in a better sky and a better West Florence (that’s the peak on the left side of Farewell Gap.)

In case you are curious, I painted the tunnel in the green season several years ago. (If it feels like three years, it was probably six.)

Heh-heh, it was actually just five years ago. I think I paint better now. Sure hope so, otherwise I am One Stuck Central California artist. Gotta keep improving. . . always. And don’t give me this “your own worst critic” stuff either, because if I’m not, how will I get better?

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. For now.

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAURIE!

And One More Walking in Visalia* Post

This is an enormous empty lot in Visalia, and I took the photo because I am astonished that it is green! It rained in September and October, something that doesn’t always happen around here. See those enormous trees in the distance? Valley oaks, quercus lobata, the largest oaks in the country (or the world? I forget). They follow waterways through town, just like they do in Three Rivers; that is Mill Creek over there.

I even spotted wildflowers in the lot—morning glories are actually an invasive weed.

Those car places aren’t always boring.

Are buildings ever built with rounded corners any more?

An alley full of succulents? Yeppers. I wonder if it is profitable. I saw it there about 6 years ago, so maybe it is.

I saw the sign for Component Coffee Lab, a place I have heard about but never knew where it was. Looks as if they rent one place to do their roasting, in another, not far away, tucked into a walking alley, is their very cool coffee shop. It was full of people on devices, with plugs available by every seat. Their logo of 3 circles is too subtle for me to understand, and their back entrance could use some landscaping, but everything else was excellent.

What is this?? I didn’t walk right up to it, but saw it when I was in the back of the coffee place on a street parallel to Main Street. What is the significance? That is where Foreign Auto Works was when I first discovered them in 1983. (More oaks along Mill Creek).

*Visalia, population 146,000, is the county seat of Tulare County, about halfway between Bakersfield and Fresno, California’s flyover country. No one knows about it, no one cares, but we feed the world. Might be more helpful to know it is about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, each about 200 miles away. But really, no one cares, and I like it that way.

More Walking in Visalia

If you’ve been hanging around here on the internet for awhile, you know that Trail Guy and I drive old vehicles. The reason that we are able to keep them running is due to Mark at Foreign Auto Works. Mark just sold his business to Frank, and we will continue going there. However, before Mark vamooses in retirement, we had him do final oil changes for us. I’m his longest customer and I will really miss him.

I dusted the odometer so you can read it more clearly.

Hence, time-kill in Visalia, which I used to go walking and exploring downtown. The first part of the walk is full of auto places: repair shops, tires, transmissions, detailing, used car lots, new car lots, smog checks. When I got through those parts, I paid attention to architecture and other details.

Remember when buildings were made pretty, just because? Compared to buildings in older cities, particularly in the East, this is probably considered a nothing-burger. But I happen to think it is classic.

This part of Main Street connects all the automotive shops to the retail shops and restaurants. For awhile, it was full of antique malls; now there are empty buildings, a gym or two, and some mysterious unknowns (I didn’t linger). Visalia has tried to keep the trees going along Main Street, and as you get closer to the retail part, there are speakers up high on the lights, playing a variety of music. I heard some classical, I heard some Neil Diamond. I wonder why they think music is important walking along the sidewalks.

I stopped in Pacific Treasures, a business that was new when I worked in downtown, 30+ years ago. Now it is one of the few I recognize, and it was a real treat to have a visit with an old friend from elementary school who has worked there for many years. Great store, full of merchandise, so full that I almost developed a twitch. Got it under control, and bought some basil olive oil. My friend said they stock it because I asked for some. Ahem. I asked 9 years ago, and haven’t stopped by since asking. (They could have called, but they probably haven’t had any trouble selling it.)

There’s an old sign. Really old, older than me, prolly older than Trail Guy. The restaurant is no longer functional. Maybe the downtown Visalia organization wants them to leave the sign for nostalgia’s sake.

I love this sort of tile detail. This would prolly cost a mint to have done on a new building.

One more walking in Visalia post ahead.

2026 Calendar

(SHARON, I moved the picture of the calendar back to lower on this post so you can skip it.)

Around Here—and Sometimes a Little Farther, 2026 is a collection of new pencil drawings by your Central California artist.

The drawings are mostly rural scenes, mostly from this often overlooked location in the heart of California. As a life-long resident of Tulare County, I continually seek out what it is that keeps me here. Pencil remains my favorite medium.

The price of $25 includes tax in California (unless Paypal goes rogue and adds it in, something over which I have no control and some angst). Cabinart will also pay for postage within the USA, because I know you could easily skip buying a calendar, and I wish to express my gratitude to you for liking my art.

I also wish to let you know that I only have 100 for sale this year, and when they are gone, it’s hasta la vista, baby!

All the drawings with the exception of the pier are for sale.

P.S. The calendar is printed in the USA.

Available on my website here: 2026 CALENDAR

Want to learn to draw?

Check out work by two of my drawing students. The first one is finished, and the second one is in progress.

I teach people how to put on paper exactly what they see. It is the beginning of all art, in my opinion. (If a person can only see it in his mind, I cannot help with that.)

Lessons are $60/month, one hour per week with other people, all of whom are learning too, all at different levels of skill. I don’t know where you’ll ever find a better group of people to spend an hour with each week—the friendships grow, the encouragement flows, and we laugh a lot too.

We don’t draw together in December, July, or August. You are welcome to stop by and see what it is like!

Tuesday afternoons, 2-5:30, CACHE, 125 South B Street, Exeter