Whatcha doing, Central California Artist?

Messy beginnings

All my paintings begin this way. It no longer causes me distress, that continual uncertainty about my skills. With approximately 1300 paintings (not counting murals) completed since 2006 and most of those sold, I am learning to just flow with the mess. 

Planning

With the Holiday Bazaar happening soon (Saturday, November 19, Three Rivers Veterans Memorial Building, 9-4), I needed to take inventory and plan. I counted up the number of available paintings by subject, tallied them by size, and came up with a plan. 

Three Rivers subjects are in the shortest supply. 8×10 and similar sizes are the most likely to sell at a one day bazaar here in town. So, two 8×10″s, one 8×8″, and a 6×18″. (Priced at $125, $100, and $165)

Chop chop and hubba hubba

I went quickly through my photos, going on “gut instinct” rather than evaluating to the same degree that I evaluated sizes and subjects, and without hesitating, assigned inventory numbers and titles, wired the backs for hanging, and started painting.

Cover that canvas

Take a break for drying

These will turn out just fine. Most paintings do. If not, I will just add more layers or turn them into Sequoia tree oil paintings. It’s just the business of art.

Round-up of Randoms

This post is a round-up of random thoughts that I’ve been gathering, thoughts that don’t fit any category, sprinkled with irrelevant and random photos.

  1. The last time Michael and I drove up the Mineral King Road together, a car with two young women caught up to us. Michael pulled into the next turnout, rolling slowly as he does, wishing the driver would get on it so he didn’t have to stop. Instead, the car stopped, the window went down, and the driver said, “You two are so adorable!” Excuse me? “Adorable” is what young people say to old people! I wasn’t even knitting at the time. (At least she didn’t say “adorbs”, a word that affects me like nails on a chalkboard.)
  2. The largest Catholic church in all of North America has been under construction in Visalia for two years. Visalia?? Central California, huge number of Catholic families, not a lot of priests available for multiple congregations (or however they refer to their separate churches).
  3. The bears are very active in Three Rivers this year, but not as many as in 2015 during and after the Rough Fire.
  4. Three Rivers population has dropped from 2200 to 1800, and there are only 80 children enrolled in the school. Seems like a good place to enroll your children if you want the teacher:student ratio of private school without the expense. WAIT! One week later, the population part of the sign was missing. What is happening??
  5. An old customer/friend called with an art emergency. This means that she needs some custom art and needs it fast. My prices haven’t changed in many years, but the smallest size I draw is now 9×12″ instead of 8×10″, and I tacked on a rush charge. I was a little embarrassed to tell her the price, feeling as if I was gouging her (but come on!), and her response was: “You don’t charge enough”. Oooph. Just oooph.
  6. I bid on a large mural project, and the waiting to hear if my design and prices were accepted, not knowing the competition, not knowing if it is even feasible to the (potential) customer is Not Fun. This is where faith comes in: “Okay, God, I trust you and your plan for me”. (If I say it enough, maybe eventually I will just relax about the uncertainty).

7 Things Learned in October

These month-end learned posts are for people with curious minds, but not necessarily short attention spans. Welcome to my world. 

  1. Do you live in “a bubble“? A friend (Joy Cromwell) had something about this on her website. I took the PBS quiz and scored 44. This means I am very insulated from mainstream American culture. Wish the score was even lower.
  2. Knapheide is a word and a brand completely foreign to me. I saw this on the back of a utility truck.When I looked it up, this is what I learned: “Knapheide is North America’s most popular manufacturer of work truck bodies and truck beds”. They started out building wagons in 1848! Their mailing address is a P.O. Box in Quincy, Illinois. This is a town along the Mississippi River where a lifelong friend of mine lives. How did I never hear about this company??
  3. Some friends told us they are having solar panels installed for their home electricity. This led to quite a discussion where we all confirmed that we are probably too old to recoup the costs of the panels and installation in SCE savings. However, they are tired of trying to conserve, getting hammered by large bills anyway, and being uncomfortable in the summers. Our conclusion is that solar is a luxury item that is being misrepresented in advertising, not only as a way to save money, but as a way to “save the environment”. Those panels take an enormous amount of resources to build, and that is not necessarily “environmentally friendly”. (Truth is very hard to come by, but I do my best for you here.)
  4. Feijoa is a green fruit that I found at a farmers market in Morro Bay.  After peeling and slicing one, I tasted it. It ended up in my compost bucket because it is just weird. I read about it here (#25) and contrary to the seller at the market, this article says it isn’t usually eaten raw. I can’t remember how to pronounce it, but it doesn’t matter since I won’t be buying it again. It is also called “pineapple guava”, which I think might be a plant in my yard. Wait, that might be “strawberry guava”. Doesn’t matter, because my shrubs don’t make fruits, and if they did, the deer would eat them.
  5. A “malthusian” is a person who believes there are too many people in the world. (Is there a word for people who think there are too many people in California? in cities? visiting Three Rivers on a weekend?)
  6. This is something I knew but hadn’t followed through: I don’t like social media. It is a grind to stay current, and very little (if any) business or true friendships result. A. LinkedIn is helpful if a stranger contacts you about business and you need a clue before returning a phone call. B. Facebook is a sewer and Twitter is for birdbrains. C. I have neither posted nor looked at Instagram for several (6?) months, so I deleted it from my phone. So there.
  7. When asked which brand of colored pencils is the best, I usually say that Polychromos are the best quality, Prismacolor have the best colors, and never waste your money on Crayola. I think they don’t have enough pigment; besides, art supplies easily found at a grocery store probably aren’t professional quality. Here is a helpful comparison of Crayola and Prismacolor.

And thus we conclude another month-end Learned List, in which your Central California takes you down various side roads of often irrelevant and vaguely amusing topics.

(This is Charles-Eugene, a cat I have not met yet.) Clearly, he didn’t find this list vaguely amusing.

 

 

Sold in August, September, and October

Sequoia, citrus, Mineral King. . . all the usual subjects one would expect from an artist in Tulare County. However, I have heard Morro Bay referred to as “Visalia West”, so maybe the beach scene is Tulare Countyish. (I wish). The pomegranate is colored pencil, something I haven’t tried or sold in many years.

I try to show this in sizes that are proportionately relative to one another here; closies count.

Just because, here are links to previous posts of Sold art.

Sold in Summer

Sold in April and May

Sold in February and March

New and Improved

NEW

Here are three new oil paintings of oranges (thank you, Captain Obvious). Each one is 5×7″, on a board or panel, and comes with an easel for easy display on a shelf, $60, and available through the Mural Gallery in Exeter. (Actually, only two are available because one is spoken for, but I don’t know yet which one.)

IMPROVED

These two oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office have been reworked, lighting corrected, detail added, fuss, fiddle, fix. The top one will go with me to the Holiday Bazaar (scroll down) at the Three Rivers Memorial Building on November 19 (unless it sells first, 6×12″, $125). The second one will return to Kaweah Arts for sale there: 8×10″, $125.

P.S. They always look better in person. I’ve decided to not embarrass myself again by showing you the “Before” version against the “After” version. 

Painting in Order to Sell

Farewell at Dusk, 10×30″, oil on wrapped canvas, $500

There is an ongoing topic among artists about whether or not it is right to paint in order to sell. In general, the two schools of thought are:

  1. Do Your Own Thing And Express Yourself And If Nothing Sells At Least You Haven’t Sold Your Soul
  2. You Are In Business So You Had Best Please The Customers And Be Grateful They Like Your Work Enough To Part With Their Hard-Earned Dollars

It is clear that I belong in School #2.

Paint it out

Sometimes I paint something because I love it, and then I have to paint it out because no one in the local market of buyers agrees. The recent conversion of a river scene to sequoia trees is a prime example.

Paint it again

Sometimes I paint something that sells, so I paint it again and it sells again, and so on and so forth. Here is a recent example of that situation. Six times? Seven? I lost count. Because it was so popular, I painted the most recent version in hopes of selling it at the Silver City Store this summer. (Nope. . . is it waiting for you?)

Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint IX, 12×24″, oil on wrapped canvas, $550

Paint what I love

And the best of all is when I paint something just because I want to, and then it sells. But sometimes that feels disappointing because I wanted to keep it. (So what’s the problem? Just paint it again!)

Paint it better

Sometimes I paint something, it doesn’t sell, and then I have to figure out why not. I did that with this painting of redwood and dogwood, and it sold very quickly after the do-over. (I was tempted to name it Red Dog but knew that was a loser from a marketing standpoint.)

The challenge with every scene, but particularly those I’ve painted many times is to make it the absolute best I can every time. No auto-pilot, no “phoning it in”, no sleep-painting. Focus, focus, focus. 

As I often tell Nancy of Kaweah Arts, “I came here to earn a living, and I’d rather repaint a scene that bores me than be a waitress.” 

The best way to not be bored while repainting a popular scene is to continually challenge myself to find a way to make it the best I can. Because. . .

I use pencil, oil paint, and murals to make art that people can understand of places and things they (not me) love, for prices that won’t scare them (but allow me to continue eating).

Oranges in Oil

We are in fall, and oranges are a winter crop. But I have to keep a little ahead of the seasons with my paintings so that I am ready when the customers are.

The aloof Jackson jumped down after briefly inspecting my work. 

After finishing the two Kaweah Post Office do-overs, I returned to some oranges.

A customer/friend (If your friends won’t do business with you, who will?) bought a 5×7″ oil painting of oranges that sat on a mini easel, then emailed me to ask for a second one. These will be gifts for two of his family members at Christmas, so I could paint the same scene again or make something compatible.

I painted a new scene twice, then did a third one. All of these will go to the Mural Gallery in Exeter, and my customer/friend can choose the one he prefers. I hope he chooses one of the ones I painted twice (“one of the ones”?? Someone find me an editor!) or else there will be twin paintings at the Mural Gallery.

Started one on a board.

Started two more on canvas panels.

Finished all three, now drying, waiting to be scanned.Done, done, and done. (except for the scanning part)

Oranges are a HUGE crop in Tulare County and a great seller for me. At one time I thought I wanted to grow them; now I am quite happy to simply paint them.

 

Cool Enough To Paint the Kaweah Post Office

(I don’t mean that I painted the building.) I am referring to the weather in my painting workshop, equipped with a fairly adequate swamp cooler, unless it is over 95 and/or humid.

Every year people say, “It has been such a hot summer!” as if that is news. Every summer in Tulare County is a hot one. My theory is that if it starts mild, you pay in September and October. This is the real world, muchachos, and you are in it.

Kaweah Arts had two oil painting versions of the Kaweah Post Office for sale. This is a quaint little old building three miles up the North Fork of the Kaweah River, which, until recently, was the smallest operating post office in the United States. Alas, it sold, and the new owner closed it. It is still cute and quaint, so I didn’t paint out the images on those canvases.

However, I decided that I could do a better job.

BEFORE:

One would think that I could just make this up without a photo after painting it about 20 times (if you count the do-overs, it is probably more). One might be right, but one isn’t going to know, because I won’t be attempting it AND I might not need to paint it any more. 

DURING:

BEFORE:

 

DURING:

These are hard to photograph while on the easels. When they are dry, I’ll scan them for you (and for my records, of course.)

This is a first for the aloof Jackson. He has never inspected my work before.

 

Closing the Cabin in Mineral King

The privilege of having a cabin comes with missing home often in order to truly enjoy the cabin. After spending 4-1/2 months living in 2 places, it is a bit of a relief to close the cabin. This year we are so thankful to have had autumn in Mineral King, and it is sad to leave, but also good to be leaving on our terms rather than the terms of a wildfire.

Driving up the hill, we spotted a plume of smoke across the canyon. This is how last year’s wildfire began, so we didn’t like seeing this.

Atwell Mill Campground was closed, but there was a government rig there, so we stopped to make sure someone was aware of the fire.

While Trail Guy was talking to Campground Guy, I amused myself by taking a photo of some strange markings on the road. It has to do with Federal Highways and their plan to upgrade the Mineral King Road. The markings look as if they were made by a seventh grade girl, and I have my doubts as to whether road improvements will be made in the next decade, based on clues such as seeing only about 6 potholes get patched this summer (actually not until early October) while the number and size of potholes increased steadily.

Enough road blather. Time to get up the hill and see the fall colors.

The weather is still good, the colors weren’t finished on the cottonwoods, aspens, willows, and other unknown foliage, but the daylight hours are getting quite short, and we are ready to stop living a bungee lifestyle for awhile. (Up and down the hill)

The Honeymoon Cabin (a mini museum), the ranger station, and the two campgrounds are closed now. The road officially closes on Wednesday, October 26. The plume of smoke across the canyon was dealt with swiftly.

Mineral King is one of my main sources of inspiration; in non-Artspeak, this means I draw and paint Mineral King possibly more than any other subject. Thus, I will continue reporting to you on this important topic whenever there are items that might interest you.

Finished and Begun, New and Improved

Finished

(Improved) North Fork of the Kaweah, 10×10″, $150


(New) Two Big, 6×12″, $125

(New) Giant Tree, 10×10″, $150

Begun:

 

The oranges are sold; the pumpkins are on standby, because if the other pumpkin painting doesn’t sell, this base coat just might become something else.