Lisa’s family has a lake house in Minnesota, somewhere northern and treed and lakey and gorgeous. She asked me to paint it. After briefly considering a request to be flown there to see it with my own eyes, I came to my senses and said “Yes, of course I can work from your photos.” (I […]
Responding to the Voices in My Head
That’s a scary title, is it not? When I paint, I listen to lots of things. There is music, podcasts, talk radio, books on tape, and voices in my head, including my own. An aside: Someone said we should talk to ourselves the way we talk to our best friends. You know how sometimes you […]
The Kaweah Post Office Goes to New Jersey
Remember I was struggling with finding the oomph to paint this? Once I got to the finishing details, I wanted to paint and paint and paint some more. I finally stopped so the nice lady with my favorite name in New Jersey could get her painting. Elizabeth looked through my photos and chose this view […]
The California Artist Finds Her Big Girl Pants
I got serious about working on this commissioned oil painting of the Kaweah Post Office in Three Rivers for a nice (and hopefully patient) lady from New Jersey. Now, this is more like it. layers, details, contrast, texture. It needs to dry so I can paint the words on the signs – KAWEAH, POST OFFICE. […]
Kaweah Post Office and Big Girl Pants
Dabbling, thinking it might be good to finish this before it gets hot again when I’d rather be in the drawing studio with its A/C unit instead of in the painting studio with its swamp cooler. Dabbling, deciding, doodling. . . Has anything even changed from yesterday? Get going – drink some coffee or eat […]
Painting the Kaweah Post Office Again
Commissions are good! They mean I get to paint something that has a definite buyer. They are the opposite of speculation painting. Contractors build “spec houses”. It means they build a house like the Field of Dreams philosophy, in anticipation of a buyer. (“Spec” is short for speculation, not specifications.) Very few artists admit to […]
More about lavender
My amazing friend Barbara grows lavender. She opens her lavender gardens (or is it a farm?) to the public each June when the lavender is at its peak. People can harvest bunches of lavender. The dates of this event are a little squishy, because the bloom is dependent on the weather. This year, it is […]
Trading skills
Trail Guy has used the same Cabela’s commuter mug for more years than I can remember while he was Road Guy. A week before he retired, it fell inside one of his big yellow machines. The handle broke. ONE WEEK before he retired! (Reminded me of the old song called “My Grandfather’s Clock”, but in […]
A Painting Break
Because my self-imposed drawing quota for The Cabins of Wilsonia was met for February, I used the last week of the month to knock out a few oil paintings. Two are commissions, and the rest are to sell at the Three Rivers gallery Colors. Here they are in progress: Kind of nice to be working in […]
Loosiosity, Revisited
“Loosiosity” is a word coined by my customer/student/friend Sara. Because it is one of those self-defining words, I’m guessing that you can figure it out. Sara commissioned me to paint a scene for her based on a piece of art she had seen and loved. I had a little photo of that art, but didn’t want […]