Let’s try this again with Mineral King wildflower painting #2.
I wonder if I show a painting a day if people will stop reading my blog, or if I will sell paintings.
Mineral King Wildflowers 2
Mineral King Wildflowers
I finished 8 little oil paintings of Mineral King wildflowers and realized that every single photo I chose to paint from was from the same trail. Well, duh. That trail, the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail, is always the best place to find reliable wildflowers. There are other places that are off-trail, but I don’t want to put that type of information on the World Wide Web.
Okay, time for painting #1, titled “Mineral King Wildflowers 1” (Clever, I know.)
Completed Commission
When I told you the story of painting a commissioned piece of Lost Canyon, I may have accidentally misled you into thinking that all the changes and decisions were a nuisance.
Not so!
The customer and I had a great working partnership. He was discerning and decisive and helpful, not a pain in the least. My goal was to paint exactly what he wanted, but also to help him explore the idea even further than his initial request. We both enjoyed the process and ended up happy with the result. (The color is way better in person!)
Completed Wildflower Paintings
Sort of completed. There is always waiting to dry, scanning, titling, adding to the website, varnishing, more waiting to dry, and sometimes packaging and shipping. . .
Well, would you just look at that?
Every one of these paintings shows Timber Gap.
Why??
Because the best place for wildflowers in Mineral King is up the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail, which is across the valley from Timber Gap.
There are other places with good wildflowers, but this is our favorite. (“Our” refers to Trail Guy and your Central California artist.)
Now is a good time to remind you of my book. (The museum remains closed for the time being and Silver City isn’t planning to open until June 5.)
Available here
Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
Lots of Work Right Now
“Busy” is a loaded word. People like to say they are “crazy busy”, maybe because it gives them a sense of importance or indispensability. I bet people aren’t using that word too often right now.
I am busy during this weird time. Some of it is commissions, some of it is bidding on jobs, some of it is taking advantage of more time to catch up on things like keeping my website current and reading business books.
Maybe instead I could say, “I have lots of work right now”. For that I am grateful, and I am grateful to have the time to take care of customers and my business responsibilities.
Enough chatter, Central Calif. artist. Show us some things!
There is more, but there is also tomorrow to show and tell you.
Thanks for tuning in today!
Decision on the Morphing Commission
While I was working on the backpacks in the commissioned oil painting of Lost Canyon, wondering if I’d be able to move the stream and trail, the answer came back as a definite “no”. They wanted the trail to remain across the bottom of the canvas.
When someone hires me to paint something specific, that someone is my boss.
I kept working my way down the scenery toward the backpacks, figuring out what to put in those large areas where I didn’t have any photos to guide me, figuring out how to make the stream flow in a believable manner, adding rocks, shrubs, trees, and textures.
The color isn’t accurate here because it was photographed in low light at the end of a painting day. But I wanted you to see how this is coming along, particularly the backpacks! This is my favorite way of painting – drawing with my paintbrush.
What remains to be painted: the hiking poles, the lower grasses, and of course wildflowers in the grasses.
Morphing Commission Continued
Last week I showed you a commissioned oil painting with a changing plan, and I was waiting for customer approval to move the stream and the trail into a new position, to match the cobbled together photo below.
While I was waiting for the answer, I continued to detail the rocks on the mountain in the distance.
There is no way to copy each rock, green patch and tree especially when combining multiple photos. The idea is to make it believable.
Working upside down helps me see what is really there, not what I think or hope is there. It forces me to see the shapes correctly.
As I studied it and worked on it, I began seeing ways to make the scene have more distance. This was by pulling the green patches up into the rocks in smaller and smaller pieces.
Then, I moved to the backpacks, because regardless of the customers’ decision, they would remain in the same position.
More will be revealed. . .
Morphing Commission
A blog reader became a friend and then a customer. He asked me to paint this photo of Lost Canyon for his wife and himself.
I started the painting. Scary, eh? Good thing he knows that I can paint.
Then I thought, “Just wait a minute here – if this is Lost Canyon, I want to see the backside of Sawtooth!” So, I put together Plan B and showed my Friend/Customer.
He said yes, so I kept painting, this time adding in Sawtooth.
Then I thought the plan for the stream doesn’t look right, and the trail doesn’t look right either. Yes, it follows the original photo, but we’ve been to Lost Canyon, and we can do better.
So, I put together Plan C with the help of the internet and photoshop. These are fantastic tools for an artist who accepts commissions of subjects she knows for people who communicate well.
Now I await the decision of Friend/Customer and Wife. Will they agree with this change? It is probably unusual for an artist to tell the customer how to do things on a commissioned piece. Of course I will defer to his opinion – he has commissioned the piece and I will not be finished until he is happy with it.
Odd Job, Part 3
This is how the painting of the odd oval job progressed, with mind changing throughout as it came into being.
There was a sign of this label along Freeway 5 in Norwalk, a landmark to watch for as kids on a car trip to Southern California. Our name was (and still is) Marshburn, and my parents said that this is “the other side of the family”.
In college, I had the pleasure of meeting some of those “other siders”, my third cousins. One of them got in touch with me a few years ago, so I had his contact information. He graciously put me in touch with his dad, who sent me the more usable version of the label. In the process, we got to visit via email, and I learned that contrary to the information I received while growing up, my family actually was “the other side”!
All of this happened because my first cousin’s wife commissioned this painting as a gift for their anniversary.
Congratulations, Bruce and Shellie, on your many years of marriage! (and thank you for the privilege of painting this for you.)
The painting was a hit, and Bruce gave permission to show this picture.
Odd Job, Part 2
Last week I left you hanging on the cliff of Why Is The Central California Artist Doing Such an Odd Job?
More will be revealed in the fullness of time. Besides, this was a fun challenge.
I began tracing the design on the oval, which was a little different shape than the design. This required a bit more adjusting.
It is the first time I’ve used graphite paper to transfer and trace onto canvas so I wasn’t sure it would work.
It did, so I finished with the lettering.
Then I saw that the farmer needed to be larger on the canvas than on the actual label so there wouldn’t be so much blank space.
Yep, hard to see. Let’s add some oil paint, a first layer, and think about what colors should be used in the painting. The customer and I agreed that the colors in the actual labels weren’t going to look good on a painting.
Let’s continue this tomorrow.