Productive Painting

You know that I haven’t painted too much this year. The green and orange paintings were a start. Then I got a message about a larger painting that sold, and suddenly I felt energized to paint again. (That painting will appear at the end of the month in a post about sold paintings).

So many artists have way too much inventory and continue to crank out paintings without regard to potential sales. I have a real aversion to too much stuff. When things aren’t selling, I evaluate the paintings to determine if the quality just isn’t there, or if interest in that subject has waned, or maybe I just don’t have quite enough exposure—a likely explanation in this time of no art festivals and boutiques. Sometimes I retouch a painting; other times I paint over the top with a new subject.

If a subject is popular, I will paint it often. 

Currently, the most popular subjects are citrus, poppies, and Sawtooth.

Are these finished? Maybe, maybe not. If not, they don’t need a lot more work. 

Mineral King in January

I didn’t go. Trail Guy and the Farmer went for a day. Here are three photos for you, along with a peculiar sight.

That is the Honeymoon Cabin. (If I painted it this way, no one would buy it in the summer.)

This is the Crowley family cabin with Farewell Gap in the background. The snowy lump to the right is Big Rock.

This is a Trackster. (I think we have outgrown ours and are now willing to sell it. Are you or someone you know interested?)

Finally, here is a peculiar sight. When Trail Guy handed me his camera to put the photos on my computer, I said, “Did you mean to take a photo of a snow doughnut??”

Peculiar Sights

Remember Peculiar Sights? I used to post peculiar sights as a regular feature on the blog, but somewhere along the way, I either stopped noticing or everything became normal. 

The photos from Mineral King were taken in late August and early September, obviously pre-fire; I have been waiting for awhile to gather enough peculiarities to put together a blog post.

  1. This little concrete building is the object of much speculation in Mineral King. One day someone is going to tell us what it was for and then we will know. It is up to the older generations to pass on their knowledge and up to the younger generations to keep track.

2. Yes, that is a cat. I was stunned. After I confessed to a possible Cat Disorder, the cat man graciously allowed me to take this photo. (A trailhead ranger turned them around – pets are not allowed in the National Parks on trails or in the backcountry).

3. This dog was just covering trail as if it had the right to be there. It wasn’t until I looked at my photo that I saw he was wearing socks. (Also turned back by the trailhead ranger).

4. Can you see the cat tail below the sparkly skirt? Is this peculiar, or is it the fact that this little bitty trooper walked 9.5 miles (and then wrestled with her brother and rode her bike when she got home)?

5. I don’t know what this is, which is what makes it peculiar. It is in Orange Cove, photographed in February of last year.

6. This is no longer a peculiar sight; turkeys run amuck daily in our yard (counted 36 on a march last week), but at the time, the scene struck me as something worth photographing.

7. This deer has an additional spike (look closely).

8. Excuse me??

And thus we conclude a look into some of the more strange scenes of my little world as a Central California artist.

More Peculiar Sights, here, here (9 years ago!),and  here (almost 10 years ago!!).

New and Improved

Sometimes I reevaluate paintings that I don’t like, trying to figure what bothers me. Sometimes I also reevaluate paintings that haven’t sold in a timely manner in spite of traveling to different locations. Sometimes paintings that have traveled develop flaws, scratches or unexplained booboos.

All of these situations can eventually be remedied.

A painting that has been in several locations without selling recently got returned to me because of a weird mark. I could easily fix the flaw, but I wasn’t ever particularly pleased with the painting.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I like it better now.This is the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, a mini-museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society. The painting is 6×18″, it is oil on wrapped canvas (framing unnecessary), and the price is $165 (+ 8% California sales tax). 

 

Another Version of Sawtooth

Two years ago I had a great idea for an art project for Tulare County. I  asked important people with good connections how to pursue the idea, followed instructions to get put on an agenda for a quarterly meeting, wrote a letter as advised, put together a Powerpoint presentation, and then everything was cancelled due to The Plague.

An arts organization in Visalia has recently put out the word that there might be an upcoming project, based on the idea that I never got to present. A friend overheard and notified me, and now I am working on my submissions for the unnamed project, unnamed because it isn’t real yet and there hasn’t been a “Call To Artists”.

It calls for art that is horizontal in a 2:1 ratio. 

OF COURSE I thought of the current most popular subject matter that I paint, which is Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint.

Trouble with that is the verticality of the subject matter. Will this work horizontally? The best way to find out is to try it. 

Not wanting to spend a ton of time on a piece that might look wrong, I just did a quick messy first pass over the canvas of a 6×12 to get an idea whether or not it would be worth the effort.

If Sawtooth is big enough to matter, then the stream won’t fit. Black Wolf Falls barely fits. I am definitely fudging reality here. Does it matter? Does this work?

Maybe, maybe not.

Insert my regular cliché here; you know the one.

Back to Sawtooth

Remember all those oil paintings of Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint? Sunnypoint was a Forest Service campground in Mineral King closed in the 1970s (or was it the 1960s? I wasn’t there then.)

The view that has been so popular is a bit made up. When you are standing where I have stood to take so many photos, year after year, of the same scene, your eyes tell you that the barest tip of Sawtooth shows. When you leave the exact spot, you remember it as a place where Sawtooth, Black Wolf Falls, the stream, and wildflowers are all coexisting in beautiful harmony.

It is my job to gather up all those pieces of reality and combine them into a believable fantasy for you. This beautiful fantasy, which matches up with peoples’ memories, has brought me back to the easel once again.

After a week of messing around, taking walks, editing 2 books, and staying away from the painting workshop, I finally went back to work.

The work that remains after this dries:

  1. Add the wildflowers
  2. Fix whatever is wrong that I have noticed during the drying process
  3. Sign
  4. Let dry again
  5. Scan
  6. Varnish
  7. DELIVER!

There is more to the story of multiple iterations of the Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint paintings. Mañana. . .

Painting More Than Sawtooth

Do you remember that I sold this painting of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River more than one time at the opening to my show, “Images of Home”?

The second purchaser requested a thicker canvas, so as soon as it arrived, I dove in. (Have you ever noticed that “dove” means both the past tense of “dive” and a bird, depending on how you pronounce it?)

 

Notice that the redbud are brighter in this one. The colors on our screens don’t adequately reflect the reality of the paintings. At one point I walked to the place in my yard where Moro Rock and Alta Peak are visible so I could clarify a few things that weren’t clear in my reference photos; that was convenient!

I also worked a tiny bit on this painting that has been a difficult project. I took it to the painting session in Exeter where my honest and helpful friends could help me discern some of the weaknesses.

First, I removed the stump that identified the spot on the trail because no one else cares besides me; the point of painting is to make it irresistible to any random viewer, not just painting because it makes sense to me. The fact that it is signed and yet I continue to work on it should indicate my level of desire to make it better – normally after I sign, I stop looking at a painting.

Then I widened that tree where the stump was, taking it out to the left edge of the canvas.

We also decided on these changes: have the light come from the left side instead of the right (or, gasp of horror, both sides), straighten the leaning tree on the right to make it cease pulling your eye out of the picture, add a bit more visible sky, vary the tree sizes, add more branches because real life is messy, and whatever I do, DO NOT TOUCH THE DEER. (That’s because they are tiny and difficult – if it ain’t broke, I ain’t “fixin'” it!)

Still not finished, but definitely better. It needs texture on the tree on the right, light corrections on all the trees (it is on the wrong side of most of them), more branches, a few more skinny trees.

This is artWORK;  not artPLAY.

 

Cowering in the Backseat on the road to Mineral King

Last weekend I went against my resolve to avoid the Mineral King road until/unless it was covered with fresh green growth or snow. The burned areas just held no appeal – scary, sad, ugly. 

However, Trail Guy, The Farmer, and Hiking Buddy were curious, so I went along. 

We stopped above the Sweet Ranch/Lake Canyon because The Farmer wanted to check out a flat area that he had seen many times from the road. You can see that the soil is just as weird here as it was in the burned area at the end of North Fork. The historic Sweet Ranch is seen here in the distance, surrounded by green plants because it was very well protected, for which we are very grateful. This is how the road looked: a bit of green on the shoulder, and barrenness all around. We stopped again above Lookout and did another foray out on another knoll.  I think these are soap plant, obviously a very hardy little piece of greenery that responded to the October rains.

We didn’t stop again for awhile. I only took this one photo – many many burned trees still standing until after Atwell. 

Normally I think that Mineral King isn’t very pretty this time of year – too much gray and brown. Compared to the road, it was BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL!!

Some observations:

  • There is an old road cut above the current road, visible from around the Cold Spring water trough up to somewhere below Lookout. (I wasn’t paying very much attention – instead I was cowering in the backseat with my knitting).
  • If there is a big warm storm, there will be mud, rocks, and boulders on the road in many places.
  • The water troughs are standing and running. (Wait, what?? How can something be both standing and running?)
  • Everything around the Trauger’s water trough is burned and it is easy to see up to where the homestead was with lots of standing dead trees.
  • Slapjack water trough area is all burned.
  • Redwood canyon is all burned, but the 2 redwood trees are fine.
  • Willows along the road above the bridge are all gone – hacked down and piled along the road.
  • The part below the bridge around Monarch Creek that needed to be pruned for visibility was not pruned. 

Almost Finished with the Sawtooth Paintings

At the time of this writing, 2 of the Sawtooth paintings are finished, and the third just needs a small area before joining the others in their finished state. I had leftover paint on my palette, so I painted the edges. This made them a bit too wet to handle, so #3 had to be on hold for a bit.

As I show you these photos of the paintings in progress, I get more and more confused as to which painting is in what stage; I’m like the mother of triplets who lost the note telling which kid has a mole on his 2nd toe or something else to distinguish them (but I don’t have difficulty in real life because they are 2 different sizes and have an inventory number on the backs).

Sometimes when I look at photos of the finished paintings, I see more things to correct. Unless they are glaring mistakes, I will ignore them. These patient customers would like their paintings sometime, preferably sooner rather than later.

Here – you can see a few more and join me in my state of confusion. This top one is finished, but we are hard pressed to tell in the high contrast sunshine.  The 16×20 is finished; the 11×14 beneath it isn’t – look at the trees on the right (middle) side. This one looks finished. I wonder if it is the 16×20 or one of the 11x14s. This one needs mid-ground trees and foreground grasses and flowers. Definitely not finished. This one appears to be finished. When there are grasses and tiny colored dots for flowers, it is finished.

What’s harder? Painting the same scene three times, or trying to sort the photos and show people? Or trying to comprehend a blog post about it? (See? I always have questions!)