Two Starts, One Finish, One Start-to-Finish

Translation of the title: I started two new paintings, finished one painting, and completed one in a single painting session (called alla prima in ArtSpeak, which means you layer wet upon wet).

With a sequoia painting in the queue but not wanting to waste paint in non-sequoia colors on the palette, I chose to begin another little beach painting. Why not? I have the boards, and the colors were just waiting to be used. (Fret not—this will look good eventually. I made it really small here so you wouldn’t get scared. I’m thoughtful that way.)

A sequoia gigantea painting sold and needed to be replaced quickly at Kaweah Arts, because this is Sequoia Selling Season here in Three Rivers.

Another painting hasn’t garnered proper appreciation, so rather than just wait indefinitely for the right customer, I will turn it into something else. What else might that be? The Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, the little museum of the Mineral King Preservation Society.

Finally, here is our alla prima painting, another speedy piece of work because one sold and needs to be replaced quickly at the Silver City Store.

The paintings were all painted during a not-too-hot day when the swamp cooler was adequate, while knowing very hot weather was coming, perfect for quick drying. Paintings need to be dry before getting scanned (duh), and they need to be scanned (or photographed at the very least) before delivered to stores and galleries. This is particularly important when one paints the same scenes over and over and over. . .

A Little Painting Session

Recently, I had to leave Three Rivers at 10 a.m. This presented two choices: A. waste time until 10, or B. paint for an hour or two before leaving. Being the responsible mature adult that I am (oh hush, you!), I wisely chose B. Creating Tulare County-based paintings is what I do; wasting time is normally not what I do (or want to admit to doing here on the world wide web.)

After viewing this on my screen while it was still wet, I decided it needed some leaves.

It looks better in this photo because the previous photo was taken at the end of the day. Morning light makes better photography conditions in the painting workshop.

That’s better. When it is dry, I’ll scan it and maybe remember to show you.

There was paint left on my palette and time left on the clock. It is prudent to always have a 6×18” sequoia painting ready for Kaweah Arts to sell to the thousands of visitors who pass through our town on their way to see Sequoia National Park’s sequoia trees AKA redwoods AKA the Big Trees. (These are sequoia gigantea, not to be confused with sequoia sempervirens, which are coastal redwoods.)

Yeppers, I worked from a black and white photo and began the painting upside down. I can fake these trees, so I can certainly guess how this snowy scene might look in summertime.

I started this one differently than usual. I “drew” it on the canvas rather than completely covering the canvas with thin sloppy paint.

It’s a little sloppy, but this was as far as it got when my internal chronometer said to make like a tree and leaf. Or was that to make like a cowpie and hit the trail. . . such colorful images and language from that internal chronometer.

Growing an Oak Tree (in Oil Paint)

Let’s review. I really liked this painting, but no one was willing to give me green pieces of paper with dead presidents’ faces on it in exchange. So, after going through some photos and thinking about my current inventory, I decided to grow a big oak tree on the canvas.

Jackson required some attention. He had a lot to say, but he wasn’t commenting on the painting.

Am I finished? Or shall I add some leaves?

More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Drastic Do-over in the Painting Workshop

A friend of mine sells agriculture real estate. When I used to waste time on LinkedIn*, occasionally I’d see a photo of his and ask to paint from it. That’s where I got this painting, Springville Ranch.

Apparently, no one else shared my interest in this subject or my happiness with the colors.

Bye-bye, Springville Ranch.

This got worked on flat on a table because the easels were all occupied with other wet paintings. Large ones.

This painting session was to cover the old paint and get the shapes mostly drawn in. When this layer dries, I’ll mix more accurate colors and DRAW WITH MY PAINTBRUSH (because that’s how I like to paint, you ArtSnobs, so there.)

The painting will go to Kaweah Arts, where Nancy steadily sells my paintings that pertain to Three Rivers and Sequoia.

*A few years ago, I quit LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. I read a few blogs and am getting to know people from all over the country that way, and have even had a few sales from it, which is more than I can say for those social media sites. Much more enjoyable, and less time wasted. I tried and quit Facebook in a three-week time span in 2012.

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.