Mooney Museum Mural, Day 5

Day 5 of painting the mural on the Tulare County Museum in Mooney Grove was actually Day #2 on the Giant Sequoia trees.I thought I might be able to finish it that day.Then I thought I couldn’t.Then I thought maybe I could.Then I didn’t think it would be possible.Got it covered, but it needs better detail, some corrections, the usual adjustments.Nice new awnings over the entry door on the left and the office door on the right.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3B

After I finished the mural on the left side panel, I moved over to the right side panel to begin painting redwood trees, AKA sequoia gigantea, AKA Big Trees.

After looking through a small stack of pretty good photos of redwoods in sunlight, I chose one. Then I looked down at my scattering of business cards and got a laugh.Clearly, I like this particular view.

For once in my muralizing life, I wasn’t paralyzed by indecision. This felt easy to begin.There is no pattern to how I move around this wall – just a little here, a little there, maybe I can do this, if I do that it might help me see the proportions more correctly, up the ladder, down the ladder, step back, try this color. No matter what part I work on, the wall is getting covered.

I decided to put in sky colored background to define the edges of the trees, (including some smaller trees).Then I decided to get a bit more systematic, and work left to right.Then I didn’t want to work from the ladder any more, so I hunkered down in the mud to work on the bases of the trees.Not bad for a day’s work, eh? What makes this so pleasant and makes all this roaming around the wall in a random method possible is the fact that the wall is north-facing, and I never have to worry about protecting my palette or brush from the direct sun.

 

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 3A

First, the name of the museum is Tulare County Museum, and it is in Mooney Grove. This is a county park. Just wanted to clarify, because the title of my blog posts about this mural make it sound as if the museum is called the “Mooney Museum”. I just like alliteration.

This is how the mural looked when I arrived on Day #3.

The brighter orange is poppies, the lighter orange is fiddleneck, and the lightest yellow is mustard. (You’re welcome – I know you were wondering.)

There were a few details left to add to finish this one.Better.Best.

There is too much to show you on today’s post, so Day 3B will appear tomorrow.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 2

The mural looked like this in the morning. If you ran past it, it looked finished, but it needed detail.

Those middle hills were a bit confounding, so I just hunkered down in the mud to plant an orange grove. Oh-oh, this is going to be S L O W. Some friends stopped by, and I decided to be like Tom Sawyer. If someone had let me paint on a public wall in a park when I was 8, I would have been paralyzed with doubt, but maybe have just gone for it anyway. I told Justin that it didn’t matter what he did, just make some marks to see what it felt like, and I’d paint over anything that turned out weird.

County Parks Director Neil suggested wildflowers, which OF COURSE I should have thought of myself, and OF COURSE I immediately added in.There are poppies, fiddleneck, and mustard. You might have to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Next, I will finish the details above the grove – a barn, some non-grove-like trees, a couple of wind machines. Then, I’ll move to the panel on the far right.

Stay tuned!

A Day of Variety

Sometimes it is a little hard to work from home. There are many other things requesting attention, opportunities to be productive in other ways, chances to just lollygag around or find other occupations. Last week I had such a day.

It began with wandering outside while drinking coffee and seeing a bit of pruning, and then finding Tucker in my herb garden.

See why I want to be outside this time of year?

Notice that these flowers are in the primary colors.

Next, I made plans with a friend for a walk at the lake early in the afternoon, and that made me willing to dive back into work, knowing my time was limited to paint. Sometimes deadlines help me to focus.

This was dry enough to begin detailing until it was time to gather up my friend and head to Kaweah Lake. (Oh-oh, I can’t remember if it is Kaweah Lake or Lake Kaweah again; what’s with the mental block on this subject? This may be why we’ve always called it “The Lake”.) We just walked in the lake bottom, not close to the lake except where it covered the pretty bridge.

The lake level is rising slowly. We walked to beneath the Horse Creek Bridge, and the mustard was striking.

After our walk,  I was able to paint a bit longer on the Mineral King cabin oil painting commission. I think I can get even more detailed on this, but it needs to dry a bit more.

And thus we conclude a day of work combined with distractions.

Commissioned Mineral King Oil Painting

You saw this photo of the beginnings of a commissioned Mineral King oil painting.

Here is the reference photo for the little cabin.

The customer wanted it to be in a vertical format, and I suggested making Farewell Gap more dominant. She approved of that first sketch on the canvas, so I began painting.

This was a combination of the familiar and the fake with the goal of believability.

When this dries, I’ll start “drawing” with my paintbrush. Adding details to the cabin will be particularly enjoyable, because you may recall that I love to draw.

More Mineral King Oils

Drying in the morning sun; this time all three vertical 6×18″ Mineral King oil paintings are finished.

This is how they look in the afternoon light. I’ll wait until they are completely dry, then photograph them, because they are too big for the scanner.

Lupine comes in many colors, so I just mixed up a shade of bluish purple that looked good with the painting. The photo lupine color was too pink and it wasn’t believable to me.

Next, I moved on to the current painting of my favorite subject, the Oak Grove Bridge.

This is the stage where I detail it to the nth degree, the style of painting that plein air painters usually don’t bother with. (They might be too tired of swatting bugs by them.)

Oh my, I really like this one! (Yep, I am allowed to like my own work.)

Have you noticed that ever since I published Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names that I almost always include wildflowers in my paintings? What took me so long to figure this out?

One more Mineral King painting, this one a commission, working from a customer photo and some conversation about how to present things. (Not the Honeymoon cabin – this cabin is no longer standing).Before I go any further, my customer will need to let me know if this is the arrangement she has in mind.

Finished Oak Tree Mural

Here are the better photos of the finished Oak Tree Mural, which I am renaming in my mind as Three Birds.

Oak Tree Mural, Day Five

Day Five was a looking and thinking day, figuring out the final finessing of the Oak Tree Mural at St. Anthony’s Retreat in Three Rivers.

This is the chapel from the outside. It is one of the most visible buildings when one views St. Anthony’s from other places in Three Rivers.
It was a clear day out the window near the mural.
More outside views, because I am thinking, procrastinating, and letting ideas percolate.
Out the window there’s a woodpecker, probably an Acorn Woodpecker, which is the most common around here.

Get to work, Central California Artist because you have a mural to finish.

This is how it looked when I arrived in the morning. Finish the leaves, fix the awkward spots, add the fun things, a simple list.
Why do we humans always organize things, make things parallel, line things up? This clump of leaves needs to be messed up.
Better.

Hey, what is that up there in the corner of the sunshine?

Not what, but who?

That was so fun I’ll add another, this time a Scrub Jay.

All-righty-then, gotta have a California Quail.

And I hid something in this mural, but you might need to see it in person to find it.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Tomorrow I’ll take a photo of the completed project. It doesn’t photograph well in the afternoon light.

Hockett Meadow, Two Pencil Drawings

The customer allowed me to put color in the flag, a technique that I am very partial to. I added smoke, scanned it, and did the Photoshop clean-up.

As I was adding the grassy meadow to the foreground, I was thinking about the first time I drew the Hockett Meadow Ranger Station. It was part of a notecard set called “Backcountry Structures”.

Back in the olden days (in the 1980s), people used pens to handwrite notes in cursive, put them in envelopes, address them, LICK a stamp to put on the envelope, and then place into a real mailbox for people in other parts of the country to receive. 

How quaint. Those were definitely kinder, gentler, slower, more personal times.

Now, hold onto your hats, Dear Blog Readers, because I am going to show you something frightening. 

Your Central California artist needs to keep reminding herself that it is good to be humble.

Growth is good.

People were very kind in the olden days and hadn’t learned all that anonymous internet rude behavior yet.

If you bought art from me back then, THANK YOU!!