Category: Mineral King

Doesn’t that sound careless? It is meant to convey a sense of methodically completing oil paintings, standing in front of the easels without mercy, focusing relentlessly on the job at hand in order to have time in Mineral King, or to work on some pencil drawings, or maybe just park my tookus and read.

Here are some in progress photos:

These are now completed, signed, with painted edges, all drying in the workshop.

These weren’t hard because they had base coats, with all the shapes and darks and lights blocked in. All I had to do was mix the right colors, find obedient brushes, and systematically make them the best they could become without getting caught up in unnecessary extraneous details (as I define “unnecessary detail”, not as the folks who tell me to stop drawing with my paintbrushes). Pencils require tight details; oils require great color; both require great contrast.

Now I have 3 more to paint: a commission (although it is still in the conversation stage I feel fairly confident that it will become a real job), something for a friend in trade for some iris rhizomes to share, and one more small Mineral King painting, because I ran out of daylight on my marathon painting day.

Stunningly mild summer weather made it a pleasure to paint this large classic Mineral King scene. Normally it is uncomfortable to paint in the summer with the swamp cooler roaring and blowing things around while doing its best to help me focus on work.

For some reason I found it easier to work from the bottom up, from front to back, the opposite of my usual path across a canvas.

Because it was so nice out, the big doors were open, and some vacationers across the street came up the driveway to see what I was doing. Wow, what a fun visit with this family from Ventura! Questions, so much interest and curiosity, lots of questions. Young Landon wanted to know the “very hardest thing in art – how do you draw a nose?” I said, “You don’t draw it, you shade it, because it doesn’t have any hard edges”. By then we were all in the studio, Landon, parents Christine and Lawrence, and granddad John. I “drew” Landon’s nose for him. (It might have been awful because I wasn’t wearing my cheater glasses, but he thought it was fantastic.) We all had an enjoyable visit, and I sent them to Mineral King for the next day’s excursion, because it is the best part of Sequoia front country. 

When one works in solitude day in and day out, it is a thrill to meet people who are both interested and interesting. If you are reading this, thank you for coming up my driveway, Ventura family!

Remember, I use pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art people understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

P.S. They didn’t make it to Mineral King but will aim for that in a return visit this fall. We had further conversation and learned that we have many important things in common, which might explain our immediate comfort with one another.

When people think of Mineral King,  a certain scene usually comes to mind. It is the view of Farewell Gap, looking upstream while standing on the bridge at the end of the road, with the Crowley family cabin and the stream in the foreground. This is the most popular scene that I paint of Mineral King.

Recently a large oil painting of this scene sold at Kaweah Arts.

At the same time, Silver City Resort asked me for a large vertical painting to hang in a highly visible space inside the store/restaurant. Last year a painting of sequoia trees filled that space; this summer it is hanging (for sale, of course) at Kaweah Arts.

Clearly, I need to paint a new large canvas of this classic Mineral King scene.

This is the first time I have painted the scene in these proportions. 

I wonder how quickly I can get it done, because the summer selling season is a short little blip on the calendar.