Category: the business of art

2015 Cabin Calendars for Sale

There are still a few of the 2016 calendars, “The Cabins of Tulare County” for sale. This calendar is a collection of pencil drawings of cabins in Tulare County. (Captain Obvious speaks again.) It is heavy on Wilsonia, followed by Mineral King, and there is one token Camp Nelson. These drawings are gathered from the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, and various commissioned drawings I’ve done in the past year or two.

Have a look at the unidentified months. I didn’t attempt to find seasonal pictures, other than a snowy cabin in December. Cabins, for the most part, are summer homes.

2016 calendar drawings

The calendars are $15 each, including sales tax. If you send me a check in the mail or money using Paypal, AND YOU GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS (excuse me for shouting – someone ordered via Paypal and didn’t give me her address or answer my email – how is she going to get her calendar??), then I will get your calendar to you and pay the mailing costs. (in the USA only)

November is the Busiest Month

Happy Birthday, Shirley Goodness!

November is the busiest month of the year for my little art business called “Cabinart”.

This is a long post and it might make you tired. Better grab some coffee before settling in.

Here’s a little sampling for you.

Friday a.m. was a meeting with our state assemblyman, Jim Patterson. It was at the Gateway Restaurant, which is just upstream of the Gateway Bridge. That bridge is the bigger brother of my favorite bridge (three arches instead of one), so of course I had to attend the meeting near it. It was sort of a family reunion to visit the Gateway Bridge; wouldn’t you agree?

I got home with a little time to work on these signs. You can see the evidence of a minor paint accident.

Then it was time to head over to the Remorial Building to set up for the Holiday Bazaar. “Remorial” is how we say “Memorial” at our house. We learned it from our neighbor when she was about 6 years old.

The show was a booming success on Saturday. You can see it was a gorgeous day in Three Rivers for this annual event.

I got home in time to shove everything into the workshop and studio and head to church for the annual Harvest Festival. Details aren’t relevant to the content of this blog, but suffice it to say that the overlap of dates really kept me running.

While shoving things into the workshop, I was reminded of work that awaits.

These paintings were drying in the house by the wood stove. They need to be ready for the next boutique in 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, a commissioned pencil drawing is ready to be started.

Cats sketch

(The customer chose C. He already knows I can draw, so no one needs to call a veterinarian for these kitties.)

And, this is first time I have painted olives. These are commissioned oil paintings, as are the oranges. I think the olives are so beautiful that I ordered a 24×24″ canvas and plan to do a large painting of olives when things calm down a bit.

It won’t be this exact arrangement. Instead, after the other 5 paintings are finished, I will figure out the best parts of each and make a new design.

Meanwhile, I might need to go lie down for a bit.

NOPE. This is the harvest season, and during harvest, farmers don’t climb out of their pick-ups and go home for a nap. I am a farmer’s daughter, and I can and will push through. What’s more, I am really enjoying this season.

Is there any other job in the world with this much variety and activity and autonomy and chance for creativity?

P.S. Thanksgiving is coming quickly, I’m planning for an oil painting workshop for my advanced drawing students, have jury duty soon, am looking for a date to schedule private drawing lessons for 2 busy girls, got another commissioned pencil drawing to design and complete in time for the customer to have framed before Christmas, and practice for the church’s Christmas musical is heating up. (No, I don’t sing – I can read music, listen, and push buttons, so I run the sound board.) Also been asked to participate in a skit (I said no), judge an art contest (said yes, but keeping it anonymous) and go shopping for Operation Christmas Shoebox (just took the easy way out and wrote a check.) No nap for this little gray duck. Please pass the chocolate (the darker, the better.)

An Artist Lives Out Her Donation Convictions

This is an article I recently published on LinkedIn.

Sep 29, 2015

I am perpetually fed up with artists getting asked to donate to good causes. In May of 2014, I posted “An Artist Bloviates about Donations” on LinkedIn. My hope was to encourage fund raisers to find other methods besides asking those who are often at the bottom rungs of the financial ladder.

Under the list of “Reasons to Donate”, #1 was “An artist loves the cause and wants to help.” I currently have a cause I love and want to help.

Tulare County, where I live, is poor, rural, and in Central California. It is far from Los Angeles, San Francisco or the Silicon Valley. We are not rich either in money nor in landmarks.

One of our favorite historic structures is the Kaweah Post Office, a tiny wooden structure just outside of Three Rivers. It is 125 years old and still in operation!

Because we are also not currently rich in rainfall, many of our trees are very stressed. A giant oak above our little Kaweah Post Office lost a limb which smashed the roof and porch of the landmark we love.

The building is publicly appreciated, but privately owned. There is insurance, but it comes with a large deductible.

So, I am auctioning the above oil painting on eBay. In keeping with my principles about artists not giving away their work, I will donate half of the proceeds toward the restoration of the Kaweah Post Office.

A few notes:

1. Kaweah is the name of the rivers of Three Rivers. (South, Middle and North Forks of the Kaweah make up the three. . . never mind about the Marble and East forks – our forebears had to draw the line somewhere!)

2. It is pronounced “Kuh – WEE – uh” (not to be confused with “The River Kwai”)

3. The auction listing is “Original Oil Painting of Kaweah Post Office”.

4. The painting is 10×10″ on wrapped canvas, ready to hang.

5. The auction went live at 12:02 on September 29 and remains up for 10 days.

Now, let’s see how this bloviating artist’s version of raising money turns out!

Kaweah Post Office oil paintings Three Rivers

Cabin Communities Matter

“Cabin Communities Matter” is the name of my presentation about, umm, cabin communities (duh) using my drawings and what I learned while making my book, The Cabins of Wilsonia.

It was an hour drive to Tulare, where I gave the talk. I chose to drive through the country, which means orange groves, fields of cotton, vineyards and walnut orchards. Boring? Nah, don’t insult farmers, especially not when you are wearing fiber and eating food.

The talk was at the Tulare Public Library for the Tulare-Kings Genealogical Society. I wasn’t sure my presentation was relevant, and figured I wouldn’t know anyone with the exception of my drawing student who invited me to speak.

The library is beautiful, five years old, spacious and multi-functional for the city of Tulare. (For my far away readers, that word is pronounced “Too-LAR-ry” – not “Lar” as in Lars, but “Lerr” as in “Larry.” I live in Tulare County, but the county seat is Visalia. Never mind how that one is pronounced for today.)

In spite of being only 5 years old, there were difficulties with the technology. I went a day in advance to make sure I knew how to run things. Good thing, because of the troubles, we met in the City Council Chambers – very very nice – and my main contact also had to learn how to run things. I made Very Specific Notes.

5 Wilsonia friends came, along with other people I know and a handful I didn’t know. There were lots and lots of questions, which I found very fun to answer at the end. Questions are fun for a speaker because it says the listeners are interested in the topic and it gives me a chance to get to know them a little.

Giving talks is an important part of marketing or “self-promotion” as it is called in the art world. It’s fun, and I’m willing to do one for your group.

Use the contact button that drops down when you hover your mouse over “About The Artist” and send me an email if you’d like to hear why Cabin Communities Matter to our county.

California Artist The Cabins of Wilsonia Tulare county

Trail Guy Tee Shirts

mineral king tee shirt

Remember the Mineral King tee shirts, AKA Trail Guy Tee Shirts?

We have almost run out completely.

However, I messed up by not removing them from my website. It was set up so people can do a backorder. Someone ordered 2 shirts in a size we do not have.

Lucky you!

This means I have to place another order for tee shirts.

Would you like to order one? Go to the tee shirt page and place your order so I can include it in the tee shirt order, which I will place during the week after Labor Day.

This is the Mineral King scene on which the tee shirt embroidery design is based:

mineral king

This photo is current, and you will notice that the tall tree is now singular. In our tee shirt, there are two.

Does this make the tee shirt a “collectible” or perhaps “vintage”? Time flies, and the strangest things get called “vintage” or “retro” these days.

Dang. I’m middle-aged and that’s a sure sign. Another sign is that I’d rather hike up-hill than down-hill. Pretty soon I’ll be muttering, “Kids these days. . .!”

Mineral King tee shirt mineral king tee shirts

Too Hot in the Painting Workshop

Because oil painting can be messy, I paint in a workshop building with a swamp cooler instead of inside my real studio with its more effective air conditioner.

We had some of those 100+ degree days, and the swamp cooler was not up to the task of keeping me comfortable. Heaven forbid that a Central California artist be uncomfortable! A hot artist is an uncomfortable artist, an uncomfortable artist doesn’t paint well, an artist who doesn’t paint well doesn’t sell well, and an artist who doesn’t sell well has to get a real job.

So, I took these barely begun paintings off the wall in the workshop and moved into the studio.

I managed to not make an oil painting mess in my little air-conditioned studio, a room normally used for pencil drawing, private drawing lessons, and doing non-messy businessy things.

That back wall has FIVE WET OIL PAINTINGS hanging on push-pins. It (the wall) might now be in need of a new coat of paint.

Nah. It’s a STUDIO, for cryin’ out loud!

Tune in tomorrow to see three of the paintings, finished and ready to buy.

oil paintings

Sketchy Decisions

So many pencil drawing commissions are awaiting decisions. I’ve sent sketches and more sketches. Can’t start drawing until I know what the customer/commissioner wants!

2 other sketches 1 cabin 2 sketches 3 other sketches 3 sketches

Sketches, called “thumbnails” or “thumbnail sketches” were required in most of the assignments in art classes, both in high school and college (I went to 4 different colleges – a full-fledged Transfer Student) More often than not, I had one good idea, and the rest of the sketches were just a waste of time, mindlessly fulfilling the assignment. The reason for the sketches was never clearly articulated – just do it because the teacher said to do it. (As a Questioner, I despise that sort of “teaching”.)

Now that I am a professional artist, I know that customers need to see things sketched out because photos don’t do the trick. People also like choices, but not too many.

Too bad the “teachers” didn’t teach us how to guide a customer to a decision. My cynical mind says this is because those “teachers” never had any customers. They only had teachers, giving them time-filling assignments.

COME ON, PEOPLE, DECIDE, PLEASE? Please? pleeeeeeese? I really want to start drawing!

commission pencil work drawing

Selling Makes Me Happy

Selling makes me happy because it validates my worth as a business person. As brash as it sounds to say in words, I am a business person and my product is art and art related services (painting murals, teaching people to draw and occasionally to oil paint, putting together books, cards and reproduction prints of my works for for resale and retail).

I used to have more trouble facing this, but the book Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin really helped me see the truth about earning money.

With Tulare County being the third least educated and the thirteenth poorest county, I often question the wisdom of choosing art as a business here.

However, this is my home, and I love to make art. It is a huge challenge to find, portray and then SELL the beautiful parts of Tulare County.

So, let’s all have a YIPPEE moment as we look at the most recently sold oil paintings of Tulare County!

1533 MK Stream

1513 Honeymoon XX

1519 Vandever

1445 FG XVII

1439 Blooming Oranges 2

Mineral King Trail 1507

1454 hiking MK

Maybe you would like to buy an original oil painting portraying the beauty of Tulare County, before I get all fat-headed and raise my prices!

A Little Bit Too Hard

Sometimes I paint things that are a little bit too hard for me. They are not commissions, nor are they subjects that I think will sell.

Instead, they are things that I just want to paint, in spite of my lack of skill or experience. After I have completed paintings that need to be done for sale, working on these types of paintings is my “reward”.

Wow, is this ever difficult!! This is my great-niece, and I think of the painting as The Flower Girl.

The girl is from this photo.

The flowers are from this one.

The girl feels too difficult, so I am now focusing on the flowers. It is fun to find and mix all the colors, and if I get the petals a bit wrong, it isn’t critical like the face is.

Success on the flowers (still not finished) gave me confidence to paint a bit more on the girl.

Her hairbow is better and her arm is a little chubbier. This might need to rest for a month or two while I build my confidence and skill on paintings that don’t matter to my heart quite so much.

This will need about 10 more painting sessions, a decision on the background color, and a whole bunch of do-overs.

But I’m learning. That is what happens when one pushes through something that is a little bit too hard.

Okay, it might be a LOT too hard.

Kaweah River Trading Company

This post is about the business of art, especially the business called Kaweah River Trading Company.

There’s a new kid on the block.

That’s a weird old cliche. I wonder where it came from. . .

Kaweah River Trading Company is a brand new store in Three Rivers with a cool name and logo. (Hudson River Trading – anyone remember this?)

Holly and Erin are selling souvenirs, local food items (honey, olives), locally made soaps and lotions, some antiques (anyone looking for a Coke machine?), tee shirts, caps, cowboy stuff, local maps and visitor information books, jewelry (made by folks they know), pottery, wall art, and my notecards. They have many other good things; those listed here are just from my immediate memory.

41891 Sierra Drive, Three Rivers, Ca

559-561-4095

Open daily, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

P.S. If the building seems familiar, it is because it was Sequoia Outdoor Sports, where I painted a mural a handful of years ago.

P.P.S. My notecards are on the front counter, and the store has already placed a second order! Yea! People still write notes to each other by hand!