Things got confusing, so I flipped it all upside down to see if I could focus better on the shapes.
Moving forward
Hi Jackson. Please do not bite me while I am painting. It would also be appreciated if you didn’t lean on the back of my legs.
Can I get all the different groves, fields, and patches in? How important is it to get each one perfect? The customers said it isn’t, but accuracy is a driving force as I paint.
The roof of the house is now in the lower left. There will be blueberries covering most of the house, a decorative addition. They will be balanced by avocado leaves in the upper right corner.
Now it can dry a bit before I continue adding and tightening the detail.
REMINDER
I can help people write books and get them printed. The books that I have shepherded from idea to publication but that I don’t sell can be found on this new page: OTHER PEOPLE’S BOOKS. This includes Tales of TB, Springville’s Hospital, The Crooked Cross of Diamond Lake, Only the Living, and Adventures in Boy Scouting.
In case you are curious, this is some of the area around Ivanhoe. I really love it there, which you may have figured out. Of course I also loved living in Lemon Cove, and now I love living in Three Rivers. (Don’t move here—remember that we are fat, have diabetes, the air is bad, and there is no Trader Joe’s. Or 4 year college. Or most of whatever else people are used to in more populous areas.)
I didn’t know (or care) that Alta Peak is visible from Ivanhoe when I was living there. It was all simply “The Mountains”. Only people from far away said “The Sierra”, and people from cities said “The Sierras”. My dad taught me that it is simply “The Sierra” which is shorthand for the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Dad said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
This sort of view is probably in my blood and why I love to paint orange groves and mountains, none of which are listed on my website currently because I may be quietly hoarding them in my studio and house.*
The golden hill is part of Venice Hills, known locally as “Venice Hill”, singular.
*See?
SoldTulare Co.’s Best II, 24×24”, $1700In the Orchard, 11×14”, $300Behind Wutchumna, 18×36”, $2000
Today I will be painting on the Ivanhoe library mural, Lord willing, the Creek, etc. The past two days have been seriously disrupted by many hours on the phone trying to solve the website problem, which also took down my email.
If I was a smoker, it would have been a couple of 2-pack days.
Contemplation
I really contemplated whether or not it is possible to run an art business without a website. Many artists only use Facebook and/or Instagram. Having dabbled in those several years ago, my gut instinct is NO NO NO NO. And NO!
There are no Yellow Pages, direct mail is cost prohibitive and cannot be easily updated, and I’m not inclined to wear an A-frame sign or a weird chicken costume and stand on a street corner. I don’t want to rent public space when I have my most excellent studio and painting workshop here at home, an easy 35-second commute by foot from the house.
So, my inclination is to just relax and recover, and then look into another hosting company. BlueHost used to be based in Arizona, and humans were accessible here in the United States without a robot on the phone to direct you to another country where some poor (but very smart) person with an accent (occasionally accompanied by background children or roosters) would keep reassuring you that they really were sorry for your problem and would do their best to help. It wasn’t until after a series of phone calls that added up to 5 hours (yes, I counted) when I insisted that the case needed to be escalated and stated that I will look for another server/host company that I got an email saying the problem was resolved.
Maybe it is resolved; however, my confidence in BlueHost has taken a hard battering, and there may be a separation in our future.
Techie Details
They upgraded me to an expensive plan, which I declined. They moved me to a more reasonable plan, which included a $199 “migration fee”. Then they neglected to “migrate” my site to the reasonable plan; on one call I was reassured that it had been done, and it worked briefly. Next, the email that is attached to the website ceased functioning, and I was told that it had not been migrated. WELL, MIGRATE ALREADY!
Ugh. Can we talk about something more pleasant? Let’s lift our eyes until the hills. . . from whence does our help come? Not from tech, that’s for sure and for certain!
When a painting doesn’t sell, I study it to discern what can be improved.
This painting has been with me for awhile, so I gave it some thought and then made a few subtle changes.
I don’t expect you to be able to discern what I did to it, but maybe after it is dry and scanned, I’ll show you the before and after scans.
This painting has also been with me for awhile. It took about 4 years to complete because of not having a clear vision of what it ought to be. The photos meant something to me, but just didn’t translate into a nice scene. While I thought it was finished, it hasn’t rung anyone else’s bell
More thought, more study, and some useful input from Trail Guy resulted in this version.
Again, I don’t expect you to be able to discern what has been improved, but now I am hopeful that the right customer will come along.
Next week I’ll show you a more drastic do-over as we contemplate those finishing tasks in the painting workshop.
My life is full of random things lately. Some projects at church, a colorful scarf using up scraps to surprise a friend, walks by the river, minimal Christmas decorations, an oil painting workshop. And power outages, internet and phone outages, and road blocks.
Work consists of selling calendars and reminding folks of my show at CACHE* in Exeter, “Simply Home”, which ends December 29. Is that the last day or is that the day the show is coming off the walls? (Volunteer-run organizations tend toward squishiness, so I am unclear on the meaning of the ending date.)
Those words all describe my recent blog posts. I haven’t shown you any work in progress, only the pieces hanging at CACHE in my solo show “Simply Home” until December 29. (Have you been yet? Live too far away? I can ship paintings. Just sayin’. . .)
So, let’s enjoy a few more autumn photos from Three Rivers, taken before the storm. Chinese pistache trees remain the star in the landscapes; flowering pear is the champion outside my studio.
SIMPLY HOME
Sawtooth XXIII, 18×24″, $850
UNTIL DECEMBER 29, CACHE, 125 South B Street, Exeter, California
CACHE’s hours are posted on their website under the “Visit” tab. Scroll to the bottom and look on the right side.
When thanking the Veterans you know, embrace this observation from Army Veteran Charles Province:
It is the Soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion. It is the Soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the Soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to protest. It is the Soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the Soldier, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote. It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
My drawing students are used to hearing me tell them, “You can be fast or you can be good; I get to be both.” Everyone still laughs, in spite of the obnoxiousness of the second part.
This is an indisputable truth, when it comes to the highly detailed, accurate type of drawing that I teach.
Alice worked on a drawing of her Desert Painted Sheep, nicknamed “Oughtie”, for several years. (Hey Alice, I didn’t mean THAT S L O W!) But things take as long as they take*. She was very meticulous about every shape, every texture, every value, and she did a fantabulous job.
I didn’t take any photos of the process, or more accurately, I don’t remember if I took any photos of the process. We discussed various background ideas, tried some different textures, and ultimately, she decided that the drawing is finished.
During the process, I learned that goats’ tails go up and sheeps’ tails go down. She made some good friends to play pickleball with. (My drawing students have varied interests and are some of the nicest people you could ever spend time with.)
Here is the final outcome, scanned, but not yet scrubbed up with Photoshop (the junior version).
The artist forgot to sign the drawing before she sent it home with me to scan, so she emailed me a few signatures. I chose one and placed it on the scrubbed-up scan.
My classes are full but you are welcome to get on a waiting list. If there are four people waiting who can all meet at 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons, I will add that 1 p.m. class.
Seeing a collection of paintings that has sold provides fuel to keep me painting during a season of slow sales. This is a season of producing; November-December was a season of selling.
