Deciding what to paint for the Silver City Store this coming summer felt like a daunting task. There is no excuse for procrastination, and the better I plan, the better the sales. So, suck it up, Buttercup.
The first step in planning is to look at the available Mineral King paintings. (For my out-of-the-area readers, Mineral King is a beautiful alpine valley in Sequoia National Park; each summer I sell art 4 miles below the valley at a resort in a little cabin community called “Silver City”.)
It also involves evaluating how many paintings sold, both by subject and by size. I am painting to satisfy a clientele, rather than just doing whatever “moves” me. Thank goodness it is all very beautiful.
This planning part isn’t so beautiful. It’s methodical, tedious, and would be easier if I had a crystal ball. Instead, I have records, intuition, common sense, and piles and piles of photos, both the paper variety and on the laptop.
It is helpful to line them out by subject and size.
It is also helpful to take a break and walk somewhere. (No powerlines in Mineral King or Silver City to clutter the views up there, because it is remote, the Land of No Electricity.)
Rosemary in bloom. . . so far this year, February has been impersonating spring.
Now I have ten new paintings to produce, ranging in size from 6×6” to 8×16” and 10×10”.
I’ve attached hanging hardware and assigned inventory numbers. Next I need to give them titles, such as “Sawtooth #209”.
Not really; I think it is only somewhere in the 60s.
On a sunny morning in Three Rivers, Trail Guy and I took a drive up the Mineral King Road to see how far we could get, and to see what the construction project looks like.
We only made it to the lower gate. Although word went out that the construction crew was on hiatus until the following week, that word was wrong. We had a nice visit with the gatekeeper, who said that she couldn’t keep us from going ahead, but that we would encounter large trucks at Lookout Point. Her job is to tell people that the road is closed, but she isn’t a sheriff. So, not wanting to get in the way, we turned back. We were disappointed that the construction crew was back. However, being mature adults, we soldiered back home.
I only took one photo. Even though it is very green out, this photo captures all the brown and gray of mid winter.
So, we came home, and I gave myself a dirt manicure. These pots contained sprouting daffodil bulbs, and I hope our gophers around here haven’t begun to appreciate them. Deer and gophers are capricious in their tastes.
Reader Marjie requested more cat photos, so Pippin posed for her.
This pose is called The Meatloaf.
He chased Tucker off the rock.
Then I went into the studio to tackle the dreaded year-end bookkeeping. Tiresome stuff.
Tomorrow I plan to paint in Ivanhoe.
Due to the unstable and variable nature of my website (working/notworking/working/not working. . .), I may not be able to post anything on Friday. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Due to my limited capacity to tolerate both bookkeeping and tech phone calls, I will just hope the site works over the weekend so that I can show you Friday’s mural progress.
We last saw this oil painting commission looking like this. I actually wrote a long list of parts that need work, but it was really unnecessary because I can see what to do.
We refer to this section of trail as the Green Tunnel in the summer months and the Yellow Tunnel in the fall. Customer Mister asked that I add some yellow leaves; I think he would like the painting to reflect the crossover time between the two seasons. So, I did.
Then I kept tinkering around, adding branches, background, more leaves to the upper right, more bark, more trunks in the distance, on and on and on. Who will tell me if/when I finish this?? Not yet—the humanoid will take hours of tiny brush work.
This needs to dry for a little while before I keep detailing. Tomorrow I will be showing you another oil painting commission.
Before I finished layering the background things, I blew off any discipline about painting, ignored conventional wisdom about The Way You Are Supposed to Paint, and I launched into detailing.
When I draw, I work from top to bottom, left to right. This way I don’t rest my hand on finished parts, thus not smearing graphite around. So, in spite of generally painting from back to front (the farthest away thing like the sky first, moving forward toward the closest objects), sometimes I resort to drawing with my paintbrush in places where there are enough layers to warrant the detail. This means the left side of the canvas might start looking pretty good while the middle and the right side still resembles a dog’s breakfast.
I couldn’t see very well with the doors open and bright light behind the canvas, so I rotated it. Hence, the colors appear to have changed. (Did anyone notice this?)
Bark on trees, more branches, better grasses, humanoid becoming more human (and now wearing shorts), more leaves, more this, that, and the other thing.
It was a very satisfying afternoon of painting (and only a little mosquito slapping.)
HEY, SEARCH ENGINES, IN CASE YOU ARE LISTENING, THIS IS A PIECE OF CUSTOM ART, AN OIL PAINTING OF A MINERAL KING SCENE. (Just in case there are a handful of folks who wish to join my tens of readers and see how a painting is built by this regional artist, this self-trained, user of a paintbrush like a pencil.)
WHAP, SLAP!! WHY are there mosquitos still plaguing me in November, for Pete’s sake?!
The threat of rain prevented me from beginning on Friday. More relevant:the powers that be did not offer me a key to their building, which means I can only paint on Fridays. This coming Friday I will be setting up for the Holiday Bazaar, and the following Friday is part of Thanksgiving weekend, with no idea if the library will be open. So, why start and then wait 4 weeks before continuing??
Commissioned Mineral King Oil Painting
This custom piece of art, a commissioned oil painting of a Mineral King scene for a customer we will call Mister while not assigning any pronouns in order to protect anonymity, is starting to come together enough that I am no longer questioning the wisdom of accepting the job.
You can see the difference in color below because the sun was behind the hill. The inferior camera phone makes adjustments for low light, while changing the color. I sat down to work on the foreground, to get the darks and lights in the right places, hoping the colors were good (are shadows blue? purple? or just darker dirt and darker grass colors?). Tricky stuff to paint in low light.
I got tired of slapping mosquitos so I stopped after here. (Stopped painting, in hopes that I could stop slapping.)
I am still somewhat apprehensive about my ability to create a humanoid which is not only believable, but recognizable.
But it is too soon to worry about this. Actually, why worry at all? Instead, I’ll continue to paint.
I considered making a list of everything remaining, but it is too soon for that too.
On Monday, you saw this version of the custom oil painting of a Mineral King scene.
Next, I put more paint on the sky and worked more carefully on West Florence. (The humanoid is still a mess.)
Time to rescue the humanoid from embarrassing me. Wait, time to rescue me from the embarrassment of the humanoid. Something. . .
What’s different here? A little more background spots, using dark green and the grayish blue/bluish gray of West Florence.
Let’s make like a tree and leaf.
More color and texture on the tree trunks.
Something… Oh. I moved the tree on the left closer to the viewer.
In spite of using Trail Guy as a human-size model in the scene, I’ve decided to make the human larger in the painting.
Many more leaves, branches, trunks, grasses, and trail work to go before getting into the nitty-gritty of putting the correct human in the painting. That is going to stretch my skill to the nth degree.
Here is my usual collection of thoughts about custom art: This is too hard, I’m a washed-up has-been, why does anyone think I am qualified? And: These people are counting on me and I’d better get started because it is going to be hard and take a very long time. Finally: Just paint, you Goober! You know how to do this!
This is what you saw at the end of Monday’s post:
I started with sky because it is the farthest away, then put another layer on West Florence.
Sometimes I turn the canvas sideways because I can better control the brush and see it better for certain areas.
Here I started putting more paint on the trees. I’m also just planting them where they look right to me. The actual tunnel is kind of a mess, hard to find individual trees. If I painted more loosely, I could just slap on spots of various shades of green and then put in hints of blue sky beyond along with hints of tree trunks. But then I wouldn’t have gotten this job, because Mister likes my style of painting, not that loosey-goosey style.
This must have something changed for me to have taken another photo. Oh, I see that I tried to take some of the ridiculousness away from the humanoid-like figure.
“Commission” means someone is paying me to paint custom art for him. Them. Her. Shhhh, I think it will be a Christmas present.
Let’s call the customer Mister. You can decide if it is a man, a woman, or several humans. Mister decided on 20×20”, a square format. The canvas arrived, and I put a very thin coat of paint on it.
This is the version of the requested scene. Yes, it is Mineral King, and that is Trail Guy for size reference.
No wonder my laptop gets splatters on the screen.
Here is the beginning. The photo says “Yellow Tunnel” but Mister is requesting the tunnel to be green.
That’s as far as I got. When it dries, I’ll put in a better sky and a better West Florence (that’s the peak on the left side of Farewell Gap.)
In case you are curious, I painted the tunnel in the green season several years ago. (If it feels like three years, it was probably six.)
Heh-heh, it was actually just five years ago. I think I paint better now. Sure hope so, otherwise I am One Stuck Central California artist. Gotta keep improving. . . always. And don’t give me this “your own worst critic” stuff either, because if I’m not, how will I get better?
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. For now.
These “Sold” posts are mostly to reassure myself that I’m not just drawing and painting for the fun of it. They serve a secondary purpose in reminding my tens of readers that I accept commissions (lest you think I am a prima donna who only creates what I “feel like” creating) and that I do sell my work (lest you think I just prefer to cover my walls with my own art.)
I distorted the proportions of West Florence and Vandever in this painting. I hope someone from far away bought it so that they don’t notice my “artistic license”.
Most of these sold at the Silver City Store, four miles below Mineral King. The sequoia paintings mostly sold at both of the stores which sell for me in Three Rivers (Kaweah Arts and Stem & Stone). One sequoia painting was a commissioned piece for a long time friend and customer, and another was to some new friends/customers.
If it weren’t for all those folks passing through town on their way to Sequoia National Park, I’d be sure that only my friends and relatives buy from me. It is thrilling when a stranger likes my art enough to part with their hard-earned pieces of green paper with dead presidents’ faces on them.
Tomorrow I’ll show you all the pencil drawings that sold. You’ve seen most of them already, so it will be reruns for you.
Just a few days ago I told you about Trail Guy hiking to the Franklin/Farewell junction and lamented my lack of hiking this summer. Last Sunday a friend and I decided to go to the Franklin/Farewell junction, because I really wanted to see it at least one more time in my life. (yes, being a bit dramatic here). I figured I could turn around if my feet started objecting too loudly (or perhaps wear ear plugs?)
The previous day had a terrific storm, but looking toward Farewell seemed clear, so K and I took off, (along with Trail Guy for the first mile or so.)
We saw Western Eupatorium, a flowering shrub I’ve only seen up near Franklin Lake.
We crossed Franklin Creek without trouble; K hopped the rocks and I simply walked through the water, which was shallow and clear, making it easy to see good foot placement.
Shortly after crossing, we felt a few raindrops. No problem: we each had a parka AND a poncho.
Good thing. Thunder, lightning, rain, and hail, but we just marched ourselves onward up the trail with only one break to stand under some trees (yes, risky with lightning) when the hail got too strong.
The white line is hail; the brown line is the very muddy stream.
When we reached the junction, the storm seemed to be letting up, so we stopped for a bit to see if any flowers remained and to eat something. (This was a hike, not a walk, so we carried food and water, and needed ponchos to keep our packs dry.)
Feeling hopeful, but cautious, we cut our break short and headed back down the trail. Two men had just passed us on their way down from Forrester Lake, cutting their backpack trip short by a day because the weather was a bit much.
Not long after heading back down, it all started again, with pouring rain that turned to hail, and steady thunder and lightning. We caught up to the men, sheltering under some trees because the hail was just so strong again. After a little conversation about how our ponchos were fairly ineffective, we headed down again. The trail turned to a flowing stream of mud, making it difficult impossible to see foot placement. I gave up pretending that the combination of parka and poncho were keeping me dry, accepting cold and wet as reality. (Ever get hail in your Crocs? It feels like a pebble, but eventually it melts.)
We took a couple of breaks beneath the few groups of trees, just to assess ourselves and one another. K is tough as nails, resourceful, always cheerful, and game for almost anything as long as it is in Mineral King, making her an excellent hiking partner. So, we mushed ahead and then. . .
. . . Franklin Creek!! Completely uncrossable. Raging, muddy, scary.
I took two photos, then packed my camera into its case (knit and felted by me, of course), then the poncho bag, and then buried it in my pack under the non-effective poncho. No more photos—the hike’s focus became solely about getting home in one piece.
NO MORE PHOTOS
K and I thought about our choices:
Wait for the two men to arrive and cross in a human chain, holding to one another for support. (K did this downstream on Franklin Creek many years prior).
Get comfortable and wait for the stream flow to subside.
Find another way home.
Option one still felt too risky; option two was too unknown and could take hours; option three was the best.
We went back up the trail to where we could bushwhack our way down to the East Fork of the Kaweah, which begins up at Farewell Gap. I guess you could call this “Farewell Creek”, or “Farewell Drainage”. Whatever its real name, we made our way to the stream, which was very muddy but not raging. The challenge was clambering up the bank after crossing, and somehow we made it up the other side without actually falling in, with apologies to the willows and other shrubs that we stomped on.
Then what? We knew that there was an old “trail” (just a route, because the trail is not visible in most places) up that side of the canyon to Farewell Gap. When we were on the trail, I led; when we were off trail, K led. I did my best to keep up, and she was very kind in waiting when she saw I was struggling—she is quite tall compared to me, and used to this sort of scramble-hiking, whereas I usually avoid this off-trail stuff.
We went over wet grass, through scratchy shrubs, over fallen logs, through a bear sleeping area (he wasn’t home), through some soggy little drainages, and over a zillion slippery branches, one of which knocked me to the ground, but only one, so there.
THOUGHTS, EXPRESSED AND NOT EXPRESSED
If anyone had shown me a video of the day’s hike, I would have said, “I’ll pass—just leave me here by the wood stove with my knitting.”
I know this is wacko, but I’m kind of having fun!
Unless one of us gets dementia, we’d NEVER forget this day. (We’ve been friends for 40 years, and this was definitely a memory maker.)
Trail Guy would hate this!
ONWARD
We knew we’d have to cross White Chief Creek, and because K was familiar with that side of the canyon, she knew that it flattens out where it enters the East Fork, which was also a raging muddy force of wetness. After crossing White Chief, we continued down canyon, aiming to connect with the trail which the pack station used to use for crossing the East Fork.
Just as we hoped, K led us directly to that trail, which she referred to as “Davis Camp”, and we huffed and puffed our way up to the real trail, the one that leads to White Chief, where we had considered going. I pushed for the Franklin/Farewell junction, since I’ve been to White Chief twice this summer.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH
(WHERE did that saying come from??) Trail Guy was getting mighty worried. He went to a neighbor to apprise him of the situation, and together they began discussing a plan, correctly thinking that the Franklin crossing would be impossible.
While they were formulating a plan, we made it home. Trail Guy asked what I would have done if the situation was in the reverse. I said that I would have assumed he’d know to cross the East Fork and bushwhack his way home on the other side of the canyon, just as K and I did. He said that was exactly what he would have done, validating K and my decision making.
In thinking over the situation, K was the perfect partner for the adventure. Her cool head, optimistic attitude, knowledge of the area, stamina, and general toughness were just the right combination.
Meanwhile, we will never know how those two men made it across Franklin Creek.
Oh yeah. This is supposed to be a business blog. Have a look at a couple of oil paintings of Franklin Creek (both sold, but I can paint either scene again.)
Looking downstream, not too far below the Franklin Lake dam.
