Incremental Improvements
Painting #38 of Tulare County’s best bridge (according by your Central California artist) is inching forward into excellence. Can you see the incremental improvements?
We can probably consider it all finished now, EXCEPT FOR THE BRIDGE ITSELF!
Ahem. Excuse me for shouting. It just surprises me that after I put an enormous amount of concentration and effort into the painting that the most important part remains to be detailed.
Maybe it would be fun if I did a series of posts with all the different versions I’ve painted of this bridge.
But first, this one needs to be finished.
Here is a photo taken with my real camera instead of the inferior phone camera; the colors aren’t as strong, but neither is it as pixelated, which doesn’t matter here on the interwebs.
We call this the Oak Grove Bridge; people who don’t know it very well might call it the Kaweah River Bridge or the Mineral King Road Bridge or the East Fork Bridge. Those names sort of work.
Not that bridge
There are folks who, when they see my paintings or drawings of the bridge, say, “I’ve eaten at that restaurant”. They are wrong—the only eatery at the Oak Grove bridge might be the tailgate of one’s pick-em-up truck. The Pumpkin Hollow (“Gateway”) bridge is at the confluence of the East and Middle Forks of the Kaweah River. It isn’t over a deep canyon, just one lane wide, and with a single arch.
See the difference?
Maybe it is time to draw the bridge again in pencil. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done that; there are only 2 versions in my computer, because so many drawings didn’t get scanned or reproduced or even photographed in my early days.
4 Comments
Your bridge painting is looking beautiful! The pencil drawings are also beautiful. It’s interesting to think of the ones that weren’t scanned or photographed in your earlier days. I suppose writing a blog about your artwork is good incentive to keep up on documenting your work.
Michelle, I used to try to photograph things with a film camera, usually slides, because that was the requirement if art got submitted to shows. Super hard to get the light right, and to get the camera square with the piece. Sometimes I made photocopies. If I got it printed, the printshop did the darkroom stuff, and then I had to return to them whenever I needed more cards because they stored the negatives, which were useless to me. Sometimes I wish I had better records, and other times, I see the old stuff and find it rather embarrassing!
At first I thought, “Wait, the road doesn’t curve to the right like that–it goes straight ahead and then horseshoes around the cabin to the right!”
And then I noticed the view is looking down canyon, not the up canyon view we all see from the road. Duh!
Sharon, you are absolutely right! I worked from a photo that I took from atop the flume.