. . .I walked into the painting workshop, looked at all the paintings in their various stages, and just wanted to walk back out.
Why?
Because it was so beautiful outside and because I couldn’t figure out where to start.
Wet and finished
Wet and finished, wet and unfinished
Which to begin on?
The simplest solution was to start where I stopped the day before.
Wet, obviously unfinished
So, I did.
Some friends brought us lunch and we sat together in the front yard, then took a walk. YEA! I got to enjoy the perfect spring day with excellent people!
After lunch, I just dove into those embryonic Mineral King paintings. Knowing my heart wasn’t in it, I just took a handful of the paintings a short distance. When it required too much concentration, I stopped, and began another.
That’s enough on this one.
This used to be my favorite subject to draw and paint before I got completely enamored by orange groves with hills and mountains in the distance.
That’s enough on this. It is just as hard as I remember.
Suddenly the day was finished. None of the paintings were, but four new Mineral King paintings are closer to being finished than they were when I arrived in the morning.
For some reasons, I couldn’t scrape up appropriate photos for this month’s Learned List. So, let’s enjoy a few photos that Trail Guy took on a recent walk.
John Bray Estates is a website for luxury coastal property in Cornwall, England. If you like to look at homes, both inside and outside, this site is like See’s Candy to a sugar addict.
Skills Millennials Won’t Use is quite entertaining. There are things I’ve thought about for awhile, such as the ability to drive a three pedal car, reading a face clock, dialing a telephone, reading a map. There are other things that I agree with—not liking meatloaf or jello, not using paper napkins. There are things that surprised me—not wearing Crocs was the largest. Enjoythis list! It is very long—almost 200 items!
I read this quote in the memoir Driving Hungry by Layne Mosler: “A rich man isn’t the one who has the most; he is the one who needs the least”. By that definition, I am very wealthy!
The two most common reasons for neuropathy are unmanaged diabetes and back trouble. I have neither, so the mystery and saga of my feet continues. . . (what I learned is that my back is fine).
Surgery is very stressful; I had the privilege of sitting with a dear friend while waiting for a delicate surgery on her husband. We simply chatted about this and that, nothing too heavy or scary or formal. She hadn’t asked me to be with her, but I insisted, because I knew in my gut that this was scarier than they made it out to be. We both learned that the presence of a friend is a valuable comfort even when it wasn’t requested. I also learned how much I truly care about these friends.
A thymoma is a tumor on the thymus gland; it is better than thymic carcinoma. I would like to not know this, but a dear friend is now experiencing it, so here we are, learning about unwelcome health troubles.
Have you ever had rutabaga? We got a couple and didn’t know what they were. A friend enlightened us, and I cooked them without any idea of how they would be, figuring anything is good if you add enough butter. Turns out they are actually quite good for you, sort of a mashed potato substitute with fewer carbohydrates and lots of good nutrients.
There is a website which summarizes non-fiction books in 5 bullet points. It is free, because they make their money by people ordering off Amazon through their site. It has the weird name of BookPecker.My hope is that it will speed up my journey through my To-Be-Read towers of book.
Goodbye, March! You are the Most Beautiful Month, and we will miss your weather and your colors.
One day I had a bunch of things to juggle, beginning with a “telehealth” appointment. I stared at the landline off and on for 2 hours before giving up.* Rural clinics run by large corporations are bastions of bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence.
I called a friend who knows people and how to get stuff done. Within an hour, I was at another doctor’s office, and within another hour, I had the promise of a referral that I was seeking. (my feet. . . sigh.) It was a quaint old building with interesting details.
Then I raced to a place where I could get cuttings of myoporum, an easy-to-transplant groundcover. Next, I met the piano tuner at church, and planted some greenery while I waited for Mr. Tuner to do his magic. The two redbud trees that Trail Guy and I planted last fall are in bloom now!
I also fielded a few phone calls and texts. FOUR close friends are dealing with difficult situations right now, and it is good to check in with them (a newly deceased parent, a husband with delicate surgery, a friend with a disruptive cancer diagnosis, a husband with a substance problem). I didn’t talk to all of them, but was alert for any incoming requests for a listening ear or a praying heart. At the same time, I was coordinating with Kaweah Arts Nancy, to deliver merchandise for her opening at the new location. PLUS, I was helping her connect with the piano tuner, because she is also responsible for the Remorial** Building here in town and has an event coming soon that requires a tuned instrument.
The piano got tuned, the calls made, the paintings delivered, and I came home. There was time to admire this dragon arum calla lily. (It seems early this year.)
Too jeezled up to paint any serious details, I sat with lists, canvases, hanging hardware, tools, and stacks of photos, making decisions about what to paint for the Silver City Store in the summer. This is how that process looks. (The jar contains those little moisture absorbing packets that come with each canvas, saved because someone told me they are handy if a cell phone gets wet—may I never need to know this experientially.)
I had made a list of subjects and sizes and ordered canvases for the missing sizes. I pulled out the canvases that were available, and began choosing the right photos, adding hardware and inventory numbers. It was a rough-ish day, so I didn’t trust myself with titles other than the obvious, such as “Sawtooth #49”. I had no idea if that is the right number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth, so I made it up; later I went through my list of Sawtooth paintings and learned there have been 57 other paintings of this iconic Mineral King landmark. (Yes, I changed this one to “Sawtooth #58”.)
I thought the decisions were good ones, but then started doubting some of the sizes and some of the subjects. How many people actually hike to White Chief and then patronize the Silver City Store? Not as many as those who walk on the Nature Trail! So why was I planning two paintings of White Chief and none of the Nature Trail? Recalculating. . .
The next day without time wasted staring at the phone waiting for a phone call that never comes, racing down the hill to a clinic, meeting a piano tuner, transplanting, or coordinating merchandise drop off (but not a day where I don’t check in with dear friends who are on the struggle bus), I hope to finish the details on 3 paintings for the fall show at CACHE, and then begin the first layer on nine new paintings of Mineral King.
Lord willing, the creek, etc. (Read James 4:13-15, if you are so inclined. . .)
*The doc NEVER CALLED, and then the clinic had the audacity to send me a reprimanding letter titled “Missed Appointment Letter”. Believe me, they will be receiving a reply, and I had better not receive a bill!!
**The way our neighbor taught us to say “Memorial” when she was about 9 years old.
A few weeks ago, I went to Tulare. As usual, I chose back roads. There were orchards in bloom, greenery everywhere, and snow on the Sierra Nevada. There is often snow there but it isn’t always so visible from the flatlands. (Smog comes down the Altamont Pass from the Bay Area and collects in the Central Valley.)
Agriculture is the biggest industry in Tulare County, and there is more to ag than citrus, although you might not know that if you look at my art. I don’t get out very often, so when I saw this field of some kind of grain (prolly for cattle to eat or perhaps for dairy cows) with the silos and the mountains beyond, I pulled over.
The base coat, easy stuff.
It looked easy, so I started with the sky, corrected the mountain blue/lavender, and then decided to try the grains. Then, I just kept going.
It was a little tricky to paint into wet paint, but the practice is good for me.
The end of the day has low light, so I took it outside to get a better photo. The color is weird on the silos and buildings, not just because of the low light, but because the mountain blue/lavender paint got mixed in. That is a risk of painting wet into wet. (Sometimes I live out on the edge, painting wet into wet or pulling over on the side of the road for photographs.)
All that remains is to get those mountains right and correct the color on the silos and buildings. I left off a giant house because it didn’t seem important. I’m the boss of my painting, not the photographs or reality (unless it is a commissioned piece).
In the middle of a day of painting, I took a short walk.
Last year at this time, we were preparing for a wedding. I spent a fair amount of time preparing the yard where the wedding was to take place. This year I revisited the site, and the cows remembered me. When they saw I was weeding a little bit, they came to the fence to ask for treats.
These are some of the weeds I pulled to feed the beeves. They could also be considered wildflowers
This one was the most assertive.
Since it was a workday, I didn’t linger, but I did enjoy more wildflowers on the stroll back to the easels.
Redbud is actually pink, or magenta, or purplish pink, not red.
We left off with this painting of a fabulous view from a special place in Tulare County at this stage. Everything remaining to finish falls under the category of Drawing With My Paintbrush.
Whether drawing or painting, I often turn things upside down in order to see the shapes accurately. If things are right side up, our brains talk to us about what we think we see. If we flip things over, we are forced to study the shapes and proportions as they really are. So, this method was helpful in copying the shapes of the mountains correctly.
Next, the valley below needed detailing. I didn’t try to make it exact, because no one cares. (It ain’t the Sierra!)
I added more detail to the closer hills, then put in the oak tree on the right.
Finally, I put more detail and contrast on the rocks.
It isn’t signed because after all the greens dry, there will be some wildflowers. Never miss an opportunity to put in wildflowers!
When I showed my two orchard paintings, Sharon, a real life friend and most active blog commenter, suggested I paint a stonefruit orchard in full spring color.
I told her that those orchards just aren’t in my normal routes.
Then, I went to Fresno for a day. The plums (white blossoms) were finished blooming, but there were some peach orchards still going strong. Since I prefer backroads to the dreaded State Highway 99*, I was able to find a blooming orchard with a shoulder to pull over and take a few photos.
Oops. I was in a hurry. Sitting on the side of the road while traffic blazes past isn’t conducive to careful framing of one’s photographic shots.
There were better orchards, but a ditch separated them from the road. AND, I didn’t think of it at first. Probably should have taken photos on the way to Fres-yes instead of waiting until I was on the way home. Maybe I need a boss.
Pretending that I had a boss who told me to get crackin’, I messed around with the photos and came up with this beginning.
I bet this orchard painting will sell quicker than the walnuts or the olives.
THANK YOU, SHARON!
*99 is said to be the darkest highway and the most deadly of all state highways: a study says “Highway99, a 424-mile road that runs through the state’s Central Valley, leads the country for most fatal crashes per one hundred miles”. But that doesn’t matter, because we will get a bullet train from Modesto to Bakersfield some time in the next 50 years or so. You should see the stone-henge type concrete supports, complete with graffiti along the route. . . lovely fixtures in Central California for almost a decade now. As I said Friday, California is a special kind of stupid.
