Finishing Tasks in the Painting Workshop

The reason I refer to “the painting workshop” instead of “the studio” is because I paint in a different building than where I draw. The drawing studio came first, and when I began oil painting on March 8, 2006, it was imperative to keep that mess away from my pencil drawings. It still is imperative; the operative word here is “mess”.

After spending several weeks working on large-ish (large for me means it won’t fit on my flatbed scanner) paintings, there were many little tasks to complete. Each painting needed a title and inventory # on the back, hardware for hanging, a signature, the edges to be painted, and a good photograph.

For these larger paintings, I put them outside on an easel in the sunshine, and then do my level best to take photos with my PHD* camera, which has a screen that doesn’t show up in bright sunshine. Operative word here is “level” —try to hold a tiny camera perfectly parallel with a painting when you can’t see the screen.

Someday I might buy a grownup camera again, but one of my guiding principles in life is “The more stuff I own, the more stuff breaks” (and needs maintenance, storage, cleaning, battery charging, and for Pete’s sake and for crying out loud, STOP GETTING LOST ALREADY!) My PHD is doing fine for now, so I’ll just push onward. Thanks to Photoshop Jr., I can make this work.

Trail Guy came into the workshop with a maintenance-man sort of aura, so I told him that it was time to reupholster my chair again. The duct tape from the last reupholstery session was no longer satisfactory, so he used gorilla tape this time. Classy, eh? The stool came from an abandoned artist studio where some jerk refinanced his place, then took the money and ran. Some friends of mine bought the property from the bank, and I had the good fortune to comb through and claim what I needed. Back then I stood to paint, but thought it would be a useful stool in the workshop. Now I sit more often (stupid peripheral neuropathy).

Tomorrow I’ll show you a few more finishing tasks.

*Press Here, Dummy

Sold in Spring

Learned in May? Who had time to learn anything when I was painting like a machine and paintings were selling at warp speed. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It only felt like warp speed (nope, no idea what that actually means) compared to a s l o w s l o w s l o w winter.

That was really fun. People love to ask where artists get their inspiration. I get mine from real life, the beautiful things and moments. People don’t often ask where artists get their motivation. Mine comes from sales. It validates me, gives me the oompf to keep painting when people give me green pieces of paper with dead presidents faces on them. Those pieces of paper are hard to come by, so I feel very honored when someone thinks my work is worth it.

Finishing Two More Oil Paintings

This painting has been on hold for many months. Finally, I felt able to finish it. After working on Sawtooth #66 with the water, and Sawtooth #65 with all the made up things, this suddenly felt quite manageable.

Marble Fork Bridge, 16×20, needs to dry, be photographed and varnished, all for the solo show in Tulare in August.

Success breeds confidence. Let’s paint a sunset at the beach.

First, I mixed a bunch of sunset colors, trying to be close to the colors on the several photos while knowing that the sunset had changed continually while we sat and watched (and photographed) it.

The 16×20” canvas had a basic first layer but needed refinement on the rock shape on the left. That’s Morro Rock in Morro Bay, in case you are curious.

I actually finished this painting of a sunset at Morro Rock, but the mosquitoes were buzzing and I was hungry too. So I didn’t take a final photo for you. After it dries, I’ll try to remember to show you the finished product. Or, you might have to come to the solo show in Tulare in August (if I forget to show you, or even if I do, because remember, everything looks better in person except celebrities.)

Gittin’ ‘er dun at the Easel

This painting had the tightest deadline of all the paintings in progress. After a day of doing many non-painting projects, I got a day to paint uninterrupted (except for Jackson).

The edges are painted. It needed to dry, be signed, get photographed, varnished and get rewired from its previous iteration as a horizontal painting.

This is Sawtooth #66, 12×24”, oil on wrapped canvas, $650, located at the Silver City Resort, 4 miles below Mineral King.

Too Busy to Paint

In the mornings I meet my friend and her cat so we can power up a steep road in the neighborhood.

Some mornings there are turkeys yelling in the middle of the road.

None of this keeps me too busy to paint. I just wanted you to see these pictures.

There is a large project at my church right now. It has been occupying a lot of space in my mind, figuring out what to do and how to do it.

This needs plants, many many many plants. How many? I don’t know.

Fortunately, I know someone who knows. Melanie Keeley has a native plant nursery in Three Rivers and she is a genius expert botanist. (Her nursery is Alta Vista—call or email for an appointment.)

First I had to make gopher baskets. It wasn’t easy, but I had help. We only bled a little bit.

Six or seven friends met Melanie at church one morning. She chose and brought 35 plants, placed them, and instructed us in the planting requirements. Some didn’t need gopher baskets, and some that did needed a hole snipped in the center of the bottom. Weird. Maybe gophers don’t bite tap roots.

After we finished planting and hand watering, we returned in the afternoon to cover it all with mulch. There wasn’t enough, but whatever got spread was an improvement.

Then two guys set up a watering system. Seeing them (lower right side of the landscaped area) in this poorly photoshopped shot gives you an idea of the scale of the project.

In addition to working on the planting project, I repainted a cabin sign.

Then I started on a design for embroidered caps for my friend to sell at her store, Stem & Stone in Three Rivers. (The link is a Facebook page, so I can’t open it, but maybe you can.)

There are two versions here because the embroiderer charges by the stitch count, and we don’t know what the different prices might turn out to be, so we want options.

After she approved these two arrangements, I used colored pencils and Photoshop to turn these into useful designs. (The one on the left isn’t showing completely here.)

She’s not in a big rush. That’s good, because I need to design a ranch map and get some paintings finished.

I love the variety in my job and life!

Ready for Summer, Professionally Speaking

The store, no, the employees at the Silver City Resort do their best to sell my paintings every summer. Sometimes they are closed due to pandemics, fires, floods, ultra heavy winters, or ruined roads. But we nevah nevah nevah give up.

There are about five Mineral King paintings at the Mural Gallery and Gift Shop in Exeter which I will retrieve today to take up the hill for Memorial Day weekend, which is early this year. Historically Memorial Day was May 31 until most holidays got Mondayized to become 3-day weekends when people would be the least interrupted and have chunks of time to do things that rarely have anything to do with the date which gave the privilege of time off.

I looked over the paintings, evaluating sizes and subjects, and figured out that five more would probably be adequate until August. Meanwhile I need to concentrate on getting a few more large paintings ready for the solo show, also August.

Stop talking, Central California Artist, and show us your paintings!

Sawtooth #63, 8×8″

Sawtooth #64, 8×10″
Honeymoon Cabin #49, 6×12
Mineral King Family Cabin
Mineral King Trail, 8×8″

Every year it is a by-guess-and-by-golly to figure out which subjects in which shapes and sizes to paint. Lots of artists would have just figured out a way to reproduce the paintings as prints, but I want people to own originals. Besides, I don’t want the unsold inventory hanging around.

As my dad used to say, “You pays your money and you takes your choice”. I have no idea where he got that saying. His main piece of business advice was, “You kiss their fanny and you take their money.” He had a lot of sayings, most kind of funny, and all full of wisdom.

Day #3 of Painting Sawtooth*

Nope, don’t wanna paint this.

After a moment’s thought, I remembered a made-up somewhat embellished view that sold twice last summer as a 6×12”, the same proportions as this 12×24” canvas. I dug out the relevant photos, and flipped the canvas.

Then what happened? So glad you asked! First, upside down so the proportions would be correct and believable. Sometimes I just need that extra method of seeing correctly (another reason against plein air painting for me.)

It was not dry from the previous day’s painting, so it was a little challenging to keep the paintbrushes from digging up yesterday’s wet colors. I didn’t paint the sky first because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the blue pure. It got this far along, and then it needed some drying time. You can see an outline of Sawtooth, so in spite of not wanting to paint that thing again, here it is, because it sells.

It seemed like an easy task to finish the little canvas of the classic view of Mineral King. I barely need photos anymore and have stopped trying to keep track of how many times I’ve painted this scene. I’ve titled the scene “Farewell Gap”, “Classic Mineral King”, “Crowley Cabin”, and “Mineral King Family Cabin”, and probably a few other names too. It’s good to have one handy, but I pick and choose which elements and which colors. Sometimes the tree on the left is tall, sometimes it is gone. Sometimes the stream lines up with Farewell Gap, sometimes not. The water and snow on the peaks also change from painting to painting. Every time I stand on the bridge to view the scene, I am POSITIVE it has NEVER looked so good. So, I take another photo.

Done!

I’m feeling the pressure to complete all the Mineral King paintings because it is time for the Silver City Resort (4 miles below Mineral King) to open for the season.

*Only one Sawtooth today.

Another Day of Painting Sawtooths*

I thought this would be easy to finish, forgetting that it is much faster to cover large areas with a wide brush than little bittty dots of color with a tiny brush. Feeling bold, I messed up the sky with aspen leaves.

See the photo in my hand? Many aspens. This photo carries more weight than the stack of Sawtooth photos I’ve been using so far because it has the best aspens.

The leaf mess in the sky is now aspen trees.

I’m tired of green now.

That yellow and white were so fun that it is time for red.

After I got these wildflowers done, I stopped for lunch. While I was downing something fast and boring but nutritious (thank you for your concern), I faced the fact that I just didn’t want to work on the 12×24” horizontal painting of Sawtooth. If I didn’t want to paint it, why would anyone want to buy it?

Time for a new thought. Come back tomorrow if you are curious.

*We discussed this yesterday.

A Day of Painting Sawtooths*

Two Sawtooth paintings on my easels, yellow-lidded palette thawing from its overnight storage in the freezer. Next a decision to begin with the skies, so the tall painting needed to be flipped. And since sky was the first color, I added in the tiny (6×6”) classic Mineral King painting to the day’s tasks.

I flipped it over because otherwise I’d need to stand on a ladder to reach the upper parts of this 24×30” painting. While it was accessible, I worked on Sawtooth.

And since the right colors were on the palette, I painted Sawtooth on the 12×24” canvas.

Then since the colors of Sawtooth were a good blend for trail dust, I flipped the painting and hit the trail.

Moving forward on the painting, I mixed up distant forest colors and got those trees covered.

Obviously the next step was to take care of the distant evergreens on the larger painting, which I was able to reach right-side-up.

Next, I photographed my studio door for reference. It is a little unusual for me to be using a mural instead of photographs. However, I used this door, a stack of photos, and mostly just painted from my mind. This is a new approach, but after painting Sawtooth a minimum of 64 times, I should be able to figure out how to paint it from memory. (I am not exaggerating the number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth.)

It’s a little tricky to see any changes among the first three photos, but I was very diligent about photographing the progression. By the end of the day, I was sitting down (because my feet told me to) and began “drawing with my paintbrush”. (That’s what the ArtWorld snobs call it when a painter gets obsessed with detail—maybe because they don’t have that skill. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. They’re just jealous. So there.)

You can tell that I sort of forgot about the 12×24” canvas. These are both quite challenging, because I am not following a specific photo to create a specific view. Instead, I’m wanting to create paintings that summarize the feeling and memories that someone has after walking up the Nature Trail in Mineral King. I’m painting two different shapes so there are choices for customers.

*Sawtooth is a mountain that is visible from Visalia. Two paintings of Sawtooth would be “Sawtooths”, not “Sawteeth”. Any questions?

And Another Productive Day!

This looked like a full day of painting ahead. If I could knock these out, it would be a productive day.

Let’s go! I knocked out the wildflowers on the 8×10” Sawtooth painting first.

Actually, this didn’t look too hard. It needed some fencing and cows and of course, wildflowers, which are just colored dots in this type of painting. And it is so small here on the computer that you can’t see many of those details. Trust me. It looks better in person. Duh.

Easy peasy. Let’s go to the beach next. Wow, this one went quickly. Finishing with details is the best part of painting.

I took a brief break to scan a dry painting in the studio and was just slayed by the perfection of these lemon geraniums blooming by the studio and flowing over the wall. You should smell these!

Finally, I tackled this trail in Mineral King on a 8×8” canvas. It isn’t finished, but I signed it because I was able to scratch my name into the wet paint.

Finished all three plus an additional 8×8”, AND met with the customer about designing her ranch map. I need a week of these productive days, quickety quick before it gets too hot to paint.