Another beautiful spring day, accompanied by the desire to just be outside and pull weeds.
Nope. It’s a workday, chica.
But wait! There’s an eclipse! I joined Trail Guy for a brief look at the weirdness of shadows and light, with the help of a colander and a piece of white paper.
Back to work.
Two paintings now drying, so that tighter detail can be applied in the next session.
How about another break to enjoy the wildflowers?
Back to work.
In spite of succumbing to a few temptations, it was a very productive day. So, here is our final reward of the day.
I sure do know how to stretch a story out. . . have you noticed how many people use the cliché “long story short”, and then proceed to make a short story even longer? I am sort of doing that here, except I break it into chapters for you, because of another cliché that applies to many blog posts: TLDR (Too long, didn’t read).
Here is scanned Minnesota cabin drawing before I scrubbed it up on Photoshop Junior.
Here it is converted to gray scale with all the chuds erased and the paper color also erased. Chuds are marks on the scanning bed—this word came from the days when I worked in a frame shop. Sometimes after you’d get a piece of art all sealed up under the mat and frame and backing, with paper secured over the back, you’d flip it over and there would be a little something under the glass. My co-workers called these little somethings “chuds”.
A few more thoughts. It was a thrill to have a stranger find me over the interwebs, because people are always contacting me to say that my Google ratings are too low and that they can help me. (No thanks, you creepy Stalking Strangers; how did you find me on Google if my ratings are too low??)
The customer was a pleasure to deal with. She mailed a check when I told her that PayPal takes a bite, she replied quickly when I asked for more information, and she even marked up the photos so I would know who was on first and what was on second.
Alas, I learned something the hard way. A few months ago, I raised my prices for pencil drawings. It had been years (decades??), and it just seemed like a wise move. BUT I DIDN’T RAISE THEM ON MY WEBSITE. Sigh.
Someone could use a business manager, an administrative assistant, a Girl Friday, a right-hand man. Hmm, I guess that’s the problem: my man is left-handed!
P.S. If you are curious about my prices, you can see them here: Pencil Drawing Prices. I only show the smallest and the largest, because sometimes it is all just too much information and too much work. (I’d rather be drawing.)
Which of the three sketches of a Minnesota cabin did the two sisters choose?
They chose A! (The exclamation mark is because that was the one I was hoping for.)
I cropped all the extraneous cold stuff. The sisters asked if I could show a bit more porch, and the best I could say was, “I’ll try.” There just wasn’t much to work with.
I spent an entire hour struggling to place the cabin so that there would be room for part of the wings on either side of the gable, in order to squeeze in a hint of the porch. It took a very long time to get the angles exactly right. This sounds excessive, but architectural subjects are not forgiving, and if you don’t get the skeleton down correctly, the parts don’t fit.
Finally, I was able to begin. (The picture of the drawing below is accidentally cropped—it actually has a 1″ margin around the image on this sheet of 9×12″ archival smooth expensive paper.)
Oh no! When I look at the photo I am using, the window size in the winter photo doesn’t quite match the summer photo that shows the gable end. Further, on the summer view of the gable end, there are 3 rows of shingles beneath the upper window.
. . .I walked into the painting workshop, looked at all the paintings in their various stages, and just wanted to walk back out.
Why?
Because it was so beautiful outside and because I couldn’t figure out where to start.
Wet and finished
Wet and finished, wet and unfinished
Which to begin on?
The simplest solution was to start where I stopped the day before.
Wet, obviously unfinished
So, I did.
Some friends brought us lunch and we sat together in the front yard, then took a walk. YEA! I got to enjoy the perfect spring day with excellent people!
After lunch, I just dove into those embryonic Mineral King paintings. Knowing my heart wasn’t in it, I just took a handful of the paintings a short distance. When it required too much concentration, I stopped, and began another.
That’s enough on this one.
This used to be my favorite subject to draw and paint before I got completely enamored by orange groves with hills and mountains in the distance.
That’s enough on this. It is just as hard as I remember.
Suddenly the day was finished. None of the paintings were, but four new Mineral King paintings are closer to being finished than they were when I arrived in the morning.
What makes a good painting day? So glad you asked. It is a day where I make visible progress on paintings, the kind of progress that makes me like the pieces I am working on, and the kind of progress that brings me closer to putting the paintings on the DONE list of Tulare County’s prettiest places.
I didn’t photograph this one after putting on the final touches, so I’ll just tell you that I fixed the branch in the center that is too light and too straight. I also added a few branches hanging down in front of the main tree with leaves and a hint of olives. Then, I signed it!
The road is dirt now. Yeah, yeah, I know that Dry Creek Road is paved, has a center line, and feels like a freeway compared to the Mineral King Road. But this is my painting. So, moo. I also tightened a few details on the barn.
This one needs to dry so that I can add wildflowers. Looks as if that leaning tree on the left could use a bit of straightening. It didn’t look weird in the photo, but it isn’t translating well here. When the flowers are in the painting, I will do a post showing you all the photos that I used to make this scene, which is the best representation of my memory of walking this trail on a very early morning last spring. The photos just don’t tell the story.
This painting is another compilation, or perhaps amalgamation is a better word, of many photos. I know how it looks in person, the camera doesn’t tell the story, and so I mess with the photos on Photoshop to see if I can make the different elements work together. Then I use that to create the scene I remember.
This was so fun. It felt as if I was painting for an hour or so, and suddenly, the day was over!
It often just comes down to the little things, the details, those finishing touches on a painting that bring the most satisfaction. Here are five paintings that I added little things to on a single morning of painting.
Tucker wanted to know if I was going to be there for awhile.
Big Oak: I studied this painting for awhile and decided the dirt patch at the bottom might be too large— “might be” was enough to make me go back to touch it up.
I signed it too. Wow. Was that worth the effort? Maybe.
Square Orange Grove: I thought this was finished but maybe I wasn’t convinced, because I didn’t sign it. Trail Guy asked me why I hadn’t put orange blossoms on the close trees. Ummm, I forgot. . .
Excellent! And now it is signed too. All it needs is a title (I’ve been calling it The 16×16″), photography, and varnish.
Take Me Home: I tried to put a single leaf in tight detail on the road. It looked dumb. So, I put in texture to resemble dirt, rocks, sticks, and basic dirt road debris. Then I signed it. I don’t want to work on this painting anymore. (But I will if someone tells me something that would make a measurable difference.)
Homer Barn: I had forgotten to put the trees on top of the left hills, and the road wasn’t quite right. I worked on the shoulder of the road and added a layer to the field on the right.
Now I have to decide if it should have cows on the right, which will mean it needs a fence. I’ll just wait on these decisions until the road and other new parts are dry.
Dry Creek Wildflowers: more lupine and leaves on the skeletal tree were needed.
This could be signed now, but then again, I might keep “polishing”. I might want to keep this one. . . maybe I’ll just keep working on it so it isn’t ever quite ready to sell.
Yeppers, Tuck, I was here long enough to bore you to sleep.
And thus we conclude another tour through painting the prettiest places in Tulare County.
When Kaweah Arts closed in early January for a couple of months, I retrieved all my paintings. Kaweah Arts sold well for me in its three year span despite serious hardships: a plague, a fire, another fire, and a flood, each one leading to the closure of Sequoia National Park, which meant the flow of visitors to Three Rivers ceased. I went through my records of sales, and came up with a list of sizes and subjects that sold the best.
The average price was $145, and the most popular subject was sequoia trees, Sequoia gigantea, AKA redwoods (the common name) or “big trees” (local vernacular). Two other popular subjects were mountain range views and poppies.
I gathered seven blank canvases from 8×8″ ($100) up to 6×18″ ($165) and then went to my oh-so-lovely newly organized photo files. The efficiency. . .!
After pairing the photos with the right canvases, I then did some preliminary sketching. This isn’t something I normally do, but in the interest of painting quickly, this seemed like a prudent move. (Remember, I also need to produce 20-30 larger paintings for the solo show in October AND paint for the Silver City Store, which sells well for me in the summers when Mineral King is open to the public.)
Next, I did the boring tasks of assigning inventory numbers, and putting the hanging hardware on the back. (This is the sort of task that makes me wish I had an apprentice or an intern.)
All-righty, then! Let’s start with the assembly line style painting of the first layer to establish where colors will go and to cover the canvas.
Painting back to front means starting with the sky. The order of colors and placements doesn’t really matter at this stage, but it is wise to practice good habits whenever possible.
Green next, just using whatever is on the palette, but occasionally making dark/light adjustments.
Browns and oranges, same color family, plus yellow.
Looks like seven little messes that vaguely suggest what they will become, but with almost 18 years of oil painting, this is no longer alarming to me.
I hope you are not alarmed either. This is the most efficient way I know to paint, and these seven paintings will be finished, signed, dry, varnished, and scanned by the time Kaweah Arts reopens in March.
It’s all part of the business of art. (Just in case the Art World is checking in and judging my use of photos, let me explain that I took great care in composing those photos and have taken great care in cropping, blending, adjusting, and arranging the parts of each one of these paintings. So There, because working from photos is not wrong.)
Your Central California artist bumbles along on one Tulare County oil painting, almost finished another, and finished a commission. Let’s start with the bumble.
The differences are subtle between the before and the after version. In the after version, the lower left corner makes more sense, and there are more branches on the trees.
BeforeAfter
A neighbor-friend stopped by to bring her recyclables because we share garbage services. She works alone at home as I do, and sometimes we just visit for awhile, perhaps our version of hanging out at the water cooler. (Pay no attention to those garbage cans.) She expressed an interest in my current projects, and when I showed her my challenging painting, together we came up with a couple of ideas for improvement. I will continue to bumble along on this difficult painting.
But wait! I made two more adjustments, and then photographed it more carefully. My neighbor approved, which gave me hope. (There will be more adjustments, corrections, and added details.)
I thought I was finished on the Lower Dry Creek Road oil painting. However, the closer fence posts might require some wire. On the other hand, I might not be capable of such minuscule detail. It still needs a signature and the edges to be painted.
Better detailing and color on the golden hills, the dam, the trees. Cattle, fenceposts, wildflowers, done. Maybe I can put in wire on the fence. Maybe I can do a little brain surgery while I am it. . . not feeling capable of wire. . . will it matter?
Better detailing, stronger colors, and a signature now done on Sawtooth #34, a commissioned oil painting for JL’s son. This one is only photographed, not scanned, because it is wet.
Step one: Slap some paint in the approximately correct colors in the approximately correct shapes and sizes on a 6×6 canvas: Outline, background, interior parts.
Step two: Detail the background but not too carefully because the rose is the star here. Just hint around at leafy shapes, using darks and darkers to suggest lots of greens.
Step three: Start on the rose, putting in the darkest areas of shadow that helps to shape the petals. (Pay no attention to the painting behind it on the easel, because I am not . . . I’m doing some productive procrastination here. )
Step four: work from the outermost petals inward. (Why? Because I am the boss of my painting and this makes sense to me.) You can see that I rotated the 6″ canvas so that I could visually follow the tip of my brush. This is called “drawing”; it’s how I paint details. The arrows show you the petals I worked on (so does the glare of wet paint) working from the outermost petals inward. (Why? Because I am the boss of my painting.)
Step five: Paint more petals, continuing from the outside toward the center.
Step six: work on the center with a tiny brush.
Step seven: touch up the lighter parts for more of a glow, and sign it.
There are more steps: let it dry, scan it, spray varnish so the shiny parts (with extra walnut oil to make the paint obey me) won’t stand out, give it a title.
Rose, By Any Other Name, No Thorns, Floral Perfection, Gordon’s Rose, any other ideas for this painting??
If you receive this in your email and want to see the photos, click on the title.
When I begin a new painting, there is a sense of “oh boy, this is going to be great!”
When I am in the middle of a painting that doesn’t seem to be improving, I encourage myself that when I can add the details, it will improve. It’s just the Messy Middle.
Here is a look at a hopeful beginning: this is a rose grown by my brother-in-law that just slayed me with its beauty. I took a photo thinking it might be helpful to one of my drawing students, but then I was captivated, captured, mesmerized, gone-zo. (See? hopeful!)
While I worked on it, the painting of the road hovered and lurked in the background, grousing, “What about me? When is it my turn again? HEY, Central California Artist, aren’t you supposed to be getting me ready for a show? Hunh, hunh?”
It was sideways on the easel so that I could visually follow the tip of my brush for more accuracy. I flipped the photo back vertical so you won’t hurt your neck.
Layer by layer, leaf by leaf, branch by branch, I think it is getting better.
