Category: Oil Paintings

What a Week!

I finally had a couple of hours to put my paintings back after surveying them for the upcoming solo show, “Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther” in August.

Once again, I was so pleased with my little studio where I draw and display art that I took some more photos.

A friend/former neighbor was staying in the vacation rental across the street and requested a look into my studio. Since he reads my blog, he knew that it was in disarray so he waited until I let him know that order had been restored. He walked over for a visit (with Mabel, a Pembroke Welsh corgi), and I first showed him the workshop where I paint. He asked a few questions, and then wondered if I would paint a giant Sequoia for him.

But of course!

I told him he could have the incomplete one on the easel, and I’d even box it up and send it home with him wet. He agreed (with the understanding that I’d finish it first).

We moved into the studio, where he selected 3 more paintings.

I told him that isn’t why I invited him to see the studio and he responded that it is why he wanted to see it.

So I carried the 3 paintings over to his place because he needed to keep Mabel on her leash (she was getting used to the turkeys so he needed to be ready for who knew what might happen.) I propped them on the sofa table and photographed them to show you.

What a week! A visit with my longtime friend, finding a print for someone, selling some paintings, two dogs visiting my workplace. . . but wait! There’s more!

Tell you next time. . .

oil paintings

Back to Work, Party’s Over

What party? Glad you asked! The party of one and sometimes two—goofing off, yardening, exploring, and basically not producing any art.

When we got home from exploring up South Fork, there was a serious distraction. Our neighbor’s beagle followed her nose and found her way to our cat feeding area in the workshop (same room where I paint). Apparently old beagles don’t lose their instinct to follow their noses even when they haven’t had the opportunity to do so in many years. I carried her toward her home and was grateful that one of her humans met me part way because she is solid, very heavy and wiggly too.

Finally, I started working.

First, two new large (for me) Sawtooth paintings. One is the scene from the door of my studio. I tried to start it outside, but Pippin kept wanting to participate, so I took a photo of the door to work from. (It wasn’t helpful.) The color is weird because I used my inferior camera phone, since my camera battery was on the charger.

I realize that the proportions are different on the recycled 24×30” canvas, but it doesn’t matter. I can make up this scene, but I will refer to a handful of photos. This will take many layers to cover the previous painting, done by a friend’s daughter as a college assignment.

Might as well begin the horizontal version (12×24”? 10×20”?)

Ultimately, I finished one, started two, and puttered around on four.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

Working Toward a Solo Show

In August, “Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther” will open in Tulare at the Tulare Historical Museum’s Heritage Gallery.

What is this? So glad you asked! It is another solo show of my art.

Pieces have sold since the show last fall in Exeter at CACHE, new pieces have been painted, and it is time to assess the collection. Do I have enough paintings? Is there enough of a spread of sizes, shapes, and subjects?

How do I figure this out? So glad you asked! (Have you noticed how many times an interviewee responds to a question with “great question”? I try to avoid clichés, so I made my own clichéd response.)

Trail Guy and I set up my display screens in the painting workshop and hung all the larger paintings. I made lists: how many of which subjects, how many vertical, how many horizontal, which ones need to be touched up or improved or finished, and what shall I paint next?

The two blank canvases will become Sawtooth paintings, one horizontal, and the other vertical. The vertical canvas is turned around because it has a painting on the other side, done many years ago by a friend’s daughter. She passed the canvas along to me, rightly discerning that my frugal self would say a hearty “THANK YOU!” and turn it into something else.

These look rather undignified, all squished together, crooked, some on the floor. Doesn’t matter for purposes of this evaluation session.

I wanted to go lie down, eat some chocolate, read a book, pull a few weeds, knit something, or just rock while staring out the window, but instead we schlepped all the paintings to the studio and replaced them with pencil drawings. Sometimes I can find my inner warrior and soldier through.

Are there enough? Are any too tired to show? What pieces need to be added? Do I have frames that will work or will I need to fork out money for more framing? (My framer is wonderful, in case you are interested. I take him pieces, tell him my budget, sometimes indicate a mood such as “formal” or “rustic”, tell him to make it look good and call me when it is finished. His name is Ed, and his business is Express Framing in Visalia. Tell him I sent you.)

This list is shorter than the oil list because I have many many many pencil drawings. How many? Glad you asked! A LOT!! (I don’t want to count.)

Currently I have 24 larger paintings, about 15 smaller ones, and 9 tiny (5×7”) ocean scenes that will sit on easels. That is 48 paintings, but there is a chance some of them will sell at Silver City this summer. There are two new large ones to paint (maybe more if the asphalt paver coming to repair our driveway decides he would like to barter), three to improve, and one to finish.

I will probably add about four more to the current batch of pencil drawings: another pier, another portrait, and two with some color in them.

What was so tough? It was a lot of schlepping, but that’s no biggie. Sometimes it is just hard to face reality: is my work good enough? How much work remains? Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Can I do better? Am I promoting my work enough? Does anyone care? Should I just go get a real job?

All of this thinking and planning is simply part of the business of art.

art show Heritage Gallery Tulare Historical Museum

More About Business with a Friend

Two of my friend’s new paintings were just right on her wall. The third didn’t fit.

She took me up on my offer to exchange, so I put 3 new paintings in the pick-em-up truck (because Fernando is under the weather) and headed to her house.

This is the one she sent back.

Choices are good, and seeing the pieces in place is especially helpful. She said she was hoping for a painting that filled the space vertically, so these are the paintings I took to her.

She had expressed an interest in the painting with oranges, hills, and Alta Peak; I thought it might look good with the view looking east off Rocky Hill beneath the square painting to give needed height.

The winner? Well, me, because sales are always welcomed. But that’s not what you are wondering.

She chose the Oak Grove Bridge to hang at the top of her staircase!

I tried to include photos, but the ones texted from her phone to my phone to my laptop just don’t cooperate.

Doing Business with a Friend*

This post is lots of jibber-jabber before the photos, but without the gab, you might wonder why these photos are here.

A longtime (not going to say “old”) friend expressed an interest in a couple of my paintings. I brought them to her so she could see how they looked on a recently refurbished wall in her home.

After thinking it over, she asked if she could bring them back to me and see more. Of course I said yes, because A. I really enjoy her company and B. it was business.

I asked her to send me photos of the wall, and/or measurements. She did, but I do my best to not mess with people’s privacy here on the world wide web.

Before I even knew she was coming, I spent a morning vacuuming the studio. I might even have dusted a little. When I learned she was coming, I pulled most of the pencil drawings off the wall and replaced them with any painting that she might be interested in.

We spent about an hour discussing, rearranging, even designing a new painting. I drew the wall from her photos and we tried different shapes and sizes to see what arrangement was the most pleasing. This was a big decision, or perhaps several big decisions, and these things take time. It really is part of the business of art, and at the same time, it was part of friendship. If she had asked, I would have helped her figure this out even if it wasn’t my art.

The vertical shape on the left in each sketch represented the painting that she was sure about. We experimented with a square one, and with a couple of sizes and shapes of others. When she asked for my opinion, I honestly said that I was clearly not objective and am accustomed to seeing all my paintings together so I can’t tell if two paintings are better than two others when side by side in terms of subject matter.

She chose three paintings, we put them in her car, and I reassured her that if she wants help hanging them, wants to trade them for one of the others, or even wants me to paint something new, I am willing. (Another excuse to hang out? Maybe.)

I filled in the gaps, rearranged the paintings and drawings, and was so pleased with my studio that I took a couple of photos.

Here are the three paintings that she chose:

*Because if your friends won’t do business with you, who will??

P.S. There are 2 fabulous quilts on the chair in my studio that this friend made. I didn’t put them out because she was coming; they are always there, except when I take one to the cabin with me each summer.

Forget Watercolors; Where are my Oil Paints?

The last painting of a lemon sold the day I took it to the gallery*, so I painted another one. This is Lemons on the Tree IV, 6×6”, $75. It needs a few blossoms.

Now it is time to start painting Mineral King subjects to sell at Silver City this summer. This is Sawtooth #64, 8×10”, $150. It isn’t finished. (Were you nervous there for half a second?)

The Honeymoon Cabin is very popular; this cabin is from the resort which ended up in the hands of Mickey Mouse and is the only remaining one from the big teardown after the avalanche in 1969. It is now a mini museum, operated by the Mineral King Preservation Society.

Now it is finished. Unless I change my mind. Honeymoon Cabin #49. Hmmm, I guess it isn’t as popular as Sawtooth. And fret not—this is a poorly lit photo of a very wet painting. It will look much better when it is dry and scanned. And as always, everything looks better in person (except perhaps celebrities). This is 6×12”, $145.

This will be the trail leading to Farewell Gap. The method of beginning the painting is clean-out-my-brushes-at-the-end-of-the-painting-session. It is 8×8” and will be $145.

This is not a painting. These daffodils are so heavy-headed that they fall over, so Trail Guy picked a few off the ground and put them on the kitchen window sill.

It is still April, and my daffodils are so varied and beautiful that tomorrow I will show you the immense variety scattered around the property.

*Those quick sales are a thrill and I do NOT take them for granted.

citrus oil painting lemon oil painting Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

Sunrise Over the Kaweah River

Remember this messy beginning?

After finishing the new little paintings to sell in local galleries and gift shops, I returned to this 16×20” painting, which felt like a mural after those 6×6” canvases.

There was another painting session between the photo above and the next one. I didn’t take any photos because sometimes I just forget. Other times I say to myself, “Self”, I say, “No one cares”.

Sky first (because I paint back to front). These are colors I haven’t mixed before.

The improvements might be hard to locate, but not so hard if you remember that method of painting back to front. It means I paint the things farthest away first, and keep moving closer, rather than jumping around all over the canvas.

Holy guacamole, there are so many rocks in the lower left quadrant.

Nope, not going to paint all the rocks that show in the photo. I widened the river too, because I am the boss of the painting and the photo is not the boss of me.

Now it needs the edges painted, and a signature, but before either of those, I will mull this over for awhile. So often I think a painting or drawing is finished until I view it on my computer screen.

Weird, but not uncommon.

Kaweah River kaweah river oil painting oil paintings Three Rivers three rivers oil painting

Because Business Picked Up …

… it is time to produce more paintings. These are the standard small ones that sell steadily to visitors to Three Rivers and Exeter, where my three main selling locations are, Kaweah Arts, Stem & Stone, and the Mural Gallery and Gift Shop. (Because that lemon sold so quickly at the Mural Gallery, I have another one drying for them.)

They are all oil paint on wrapped canvas, which means the edges are painted and framing is optional. I just didn’t want to type that every time.

Poppies up the North Fork, 6×12”, $145 (Kaweah Arts)

Sequoia Gigantea XVIII, 6×18”, $190 (Kaweah Arts)

Alta Peak, Moro Rock, 6×6”, $75 (Stem & Stone)

Kaweah Country, 6×6”, $75 (Stem & Stone)

P.S. If you don’t live in town and would like to buy any of these new paintings (the ones that haven’t sold already), I can retrieve them from their stores and send them to you.

TODAY IS THE SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG!

Business Picks up in April—Sold

In the 30+ years I’ve been earning a living with art, I’ve seen that business usually picks up in April. This year is no exception.

The Best View, 10×20” (I added a wind machine for the customer, but didn’t rephotograph it)

When paintings sell to people passing through town, I replace those with similar paintings. Lots of sequoia trees (AKA “redwoods” or “big trees”), oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and poppies. I’d rather paint repetitious subjects than go job hunting.

Working at the Mural Gallery

The Mural Gallery and Gift Shop in Exeter has been selling my work for many years. It used to only be for artists who had painted murals in Exeter. Eventually we were all old, moved away, didn’t produce smaller pieces, or dead. (Of that list, I am only sort of old—thanks for asking.)

Now it is a gallery, but more of a gift shop, for local artists. In order to have them take less of a bite out of an artist’s sales, artists can work one shift a month. Today is my April shift.

In case you are wondering what I have there, here are photos taken from my March shift, worked last Friday.

All the Mineral King paintings will move to the Silver City Store/Resort in time for Memorial Day weekend.

Yes, they sell my cards.

While there, I did a bit a display rearranging, after I took these photos. You can see that the place has more of the feel of a gift shop than a gallery. I’ve always done better in gift shop settings than galleries, so this is fine with me. The folks running the place are very in tune with what people want, enthusiastic, organized, and a pleasure to work with.

Meanwhile, I brought four new small citrus paintings. They are waiting for bar code pricing stickers in front of these two fabulous original paintings by the fabulous Heidi Steinman.

Category: Oil Paintings

TODAY IS THE SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG!

11-4 today, 121 South E Street, Exeter