The gallery director and her granddaughter hung the show with my eager and curious assistance.
This gallery seems dark inside, but the lights on the art are terrific. Carpet on the walls looks odd at first glance, but it is surprisingly effective in preventing the need to continually patch and repaint holes.
It’s a great gallery and I hope you can come.
Tony finished my steps. That man is an artist, in addition to knowing how to make these the most comfortable for the situation while incorporating existing elements.
I will be showing some pencil drawings in Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther. Pencil drawings require framing. Although I prefer drawing over painting, that framing business is not fun.
Remember when I painted a bunch of 5×7” beach scenes on panels? Some will be displayed (and sold, one always hopes, “one” being me in this case) on natural colored easels and some on blue easels.
My dear friend Louise is so helpfully honest when I think there is trouble with a painting. (She helped me with my first mural here at home!) She encouraged me to shrink that stack of haybales, so I did it first with Photoshop and sent it to her. It passed inspection by her excellent eye, so I fixed it on the painting. When it is dry again, I’ll scan it again. (This version is before I finished fiddling around with several parts.)
A friend sent me a photo of his country property. I thought it was so beautiful that I painted it on one of those little 5×7” panels. It’s too wet to scan.
I love working at home. Jackson and Pippin like it too. (Tucker prefers to play hide-and-seek in the lawn.)
I had a stack of 8×10” paintings from my various plein air sessions last fall. It’s taken awhile, but I am finally accepting that my plein air attempts will probably always require several touch-up sessions in the painting workshop. When people who know me or my work see my unretouched plein air paintings, they say things like, “That doesn’t look like your work,” or “Are you finished with that painting?”
Therefore, I studied each of these paintings without looking at the photos of the scenes. What could be improved?
The answer was usually more color, brighter color, more detail, and/or cleaner edges. Only one had a signature.
This is the most satisfying aspect of painting to me. Those tiny little changes take a painting from “meh” to “nice!” (I hope that ’s what they do.)
The day was great for drying outside by the wood stack on those hot-from-the-sun metal panels. (old roofing?)
They are fairly light-weight and tend to blow off the adirondack chairs. Those chairs work just fine for the wrapped canvas, larger canvas panels, and masonite panels.
Looks as if you’ll have to wait for the scans or come to my show opening (August 7, Tulare Historical Museum, 5-7 PM) to see them right-side-up. Well, not Sawtooth or the Sequoia tree, because those are for stores to sell to visitors passing through.
Looks as if Tony is almost finished with the steps. I went spelunking in a box of found and saved random treasures to locate something to make the steps a little more special.
That Tony does great work! He is going to add another step at the bottom, where the concrete is sloped and gets slippery and treacherous. It is always wise to listen to an expert tradesman and consider his ideas.
With the upcoming show (opening August 7), with many days and nights away from home, with a little stretch of mild summer weather, I have shifted into overdrive when it comes to cranking out paintings. I am focused on getting some inventory ahead for the local shops that sell for me, along with finishing things that previously didn’t feel very important.
This means that I sometimes set up paintings assembly-line-style.
Does this make you wonder where the creativity comes in?
It takes thought to decide what subjects and sizes will best meet the “demand”*, to prioritize, to organize, and to be highly efficient with my limited time. Then it takes focus to be sure that each painting is the best it can be. I don’t go for perfection, which is basically driven by anxiety. Instead, I view each painting as if I am a critical customer unwilling to part with my hard-earned green pieces of paper with dead presidents’ faces unless something really speaks to me. (Because I have been that person many times.)
Oops. Sometimes I flip my canvas upside down to paint and forget to see if the hanging hardware is going the correct direction. That’s easy to fix once the painting is dry.
*No one I work for is demanding—every last one is wonderful to work with.
These paintings of rural Oregon scenes were high on my list of Want To Paint, but rather than go to a retail establishment that caters to visitors to Sequoia National Park, they will get framed and then be part of my upcoming show, Around Here, and Sometime a Little Farther, in August at the Tulare Historical Museum and Gallery.
I wonder if I should title it “Somewhere in Oregon”.
Then this one could be called “Somewhere Else in Oregon”.
I painted these two Sequoias one day, then set them outside in the sun and breeze to dry. They dried quickly enough to be scanned and delivered to the store two days later.
Sequoia Gigantea XXI, 6×18”, oil on wrapped canvas, $195
Sequoia Gigantea XXII, 4×12”, oil on wrapped canvas, $175
The smaller of the two is a new size to me. I found these canvases while in Oregon. They are probably available somewhere in my county here in Central California, but since I only go to The Big Town of Visalia to either see my mechanic or grocery shop, who knows?
The proprietor decided to accept both paintings. The smaller of the two sold off the counter before she could even hang it on the wall, before I even made it back home!
I guess we know what I’ll be painting next.
Have you noticed that I am really enjoying the use of the non-word “tryna”?
While in Oregon, I loved seeing those rural scenes with barns, but only took photos through the car window because we were always on a schedule without time to meander along back roads. Freeways don’t often have scenic turnouts, and many country roads don’t either.
I lamented that I had no reason to paint Oregon subjects; then, my artist friend Krista told me to paint them and then look for an outlet to sell them in Oregon. (She is full of bigger ideas than I ever think of.) My sister said, “I don’t know why a barn picture wouldn’t sell. It is a thing to have a barn picture.”
Then I remembered that my upcoming solo show in Tulare is title “Around Here, and Sometimes a Little Farther”.
So, I went for it, using 11×14 canvas boards instead of my usual wrapped canvases. Why??
That was so satisfying that I did another one. (The photography part was an interruption so I skipped all the steps on the second barn.)
I wonder if that hay stack is a little too weird. too centered, perhaps.
Whenever I finish something in fairly short order, I almost break my arm patting myself on the back. Inevitably, when it is dry, I scan it, view it on my laptop screen, and groan: “WHY DID I THINK THAT WAS FINISHED??”
At least I know what to expect after these are scanned.
I also figured out that in the upcoming show, all my paintings of local scenes are on wrapped canvas, and all the “sometimes a little farther” paintings are on boards. These will require easels or frames. Aha! The visitors to the show might be able to differentiate just by the format (and possibly by all the ocean scenes. . . duh.)
Ka-Ching! That’s just part of the business of art.
Notecards have been a mainstay of my art business since 1987 (maybe you weren’t born yet). There used to be many stores throughout Tulare County that sold these steadily, and I spent copious amounts of time packaging cards, sometimes with the help of my parents or my friend Gnat.
The packages had two each of five designs and retailed for $5.00. It was possible to make a profit because I worked at a print shop and received a discount, but had to order large quantities to make this work. “Large” means 1000 or more of each design, instead of the 100 or so I now order. Since this was before email, most of polite society used cards. (Impolite society didn’t send thank you notes.)
Now notecards can be ordered online, and if I wait for a discount sale from the company who prints the cards, I can make a small profit selling four cards (all same design in a package) for $10.
Have you picked yourself back up off the floor? Okey dokey, let’s see the new designs coming soon. These were chosen to please my higher selling stores’ customers, many of whom are visitors to the area in the summer. The pencil drawings aren’t new; the paintings were completed recently (within the last year).
These are all scenes drawn or painted from my* photos, sometimes embellished and made up from several photos and my memory, all specific to eastern Tulare County: Three Rivers, Sequoia National Park, and Mineral King.
The notecards will be available at Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers and on this page of my website.
*Except Lake Kaweah, generously supplied by my friend Rachel.
Translation of the title: I started two new paintings, finished one painting, and completed one in a single painting session (called alla prima in ArtSpeak, which means you layer wet upon wet).
With a sequoia painting in the queue but not wanting to waste paint in non-sequoia colors on the palette, I chose to begin another little beach painting. Why not? I have the boards, and the colors were just waiting to be used. (Fret not—this will look good eventually. I made it really small here so you wouldn’t get scared. I’m thoughtful that way.)
A sequoia gigantea painting sold and needed to be replaced quickly at Kaweah Arts, because this is Sequoia Selling Season here in Three Rivers.
Another painting hasn’t garnered proper appreciation, so rather than just wait indefinitely for the right customer, I will turn it into something else. What else might that be? The Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, the little museum of the Mineral King Preservation Society.
Finally, here is our alla prima painting, another speedy piece of work because one sold and needs to be replaced quickly at the Silver City Store.
The paintings were all painted during a not-too-hot day when the swamp cooler was adequate, while knowing very hot weather was coming, perfect for quick drying. Paintings need to be dry before getting scanned (duh), and they need to be scanned (or photographed at the very least) before delivered to stores and galleries. This is particularly important when one paints the same scenes over and over and over. . .
A friend of mine sells agriculture real estate. When I used to waste time on LinkedIn*, occasionally I’d see a photo of his and ask to paint from it. That’s where I got this painting, Springville Ranch.
Apparently, no one else shared my interest in this subject or my happiness with the colors.
Bye-bye, Springville Ranch.
This got worked on flat on a table because the easels were all occupied with other wet paintings. Large ones.
This painting session was to cover the old paint and get the shapes mostly drawn in. When this layer dries, I’ll mix more accurate colors and DRAW WITH MY PAINTBRUSH (because that’s how I like to paint, you ArtSnobs, so there.)
The painting will go to Kaweah Arts, where Nancy steadily sells my paintings that pertain to Three Rivers and Sequoia.
*A few years ago, I quit LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. I read a few blogs and am getting to know people from all over the country that way, and have even had a few sales from it, which is more than I can say for those social media sites. Much more enjoyable, and less time wasted. I tried and quit Facebook in a three-week time span in 2012.