Continuing at the Easels

These little Mineral King paintings got some skies. It was cold and rainy, which meant it was dark in the painting workshop. Trail Guy kept offering to light the heater; that meant I’d have to shut the door, but I needed all the light there was, so brrr.

I worked more on the commissioned painting of the little Mineral King cabin, working from several photos to make up the scene. The customer requested that I put a horizontal subject into a vertical format; in order to make that work, I added mountains that weren’t visible to that degree in real life. This meant we had to do a lot of communicating and adjusting until the painting fit both her memory and the space she wants to hang it.

I scanned it, thinking it was finished. Then she asked about the doorknobs. It needed more trees behind and above the cabin. Bearskin, the patch of snow on the right slope of Vandever (peak on the right side of Farewell Gap) didn’t look the way she remembered it. 

The purpose of a commission is to create just what the customer wants.

(The color is different between photographs and scans.) I made the requested adjustments, and then reworked Bearskin yet again, with the customer’s help. (We might have stood closer than 6 feet to accomplish this, but so far, so good, health-wise.)

The most difficult commissioned drawings and paintings are the ones when the customer wants me to do something that I cannot see. This is possible only when the customer can articulate what she wants. My approach is that a commission isn’t finished until the customer is happy.

What is this??? 

The customer was so happy that she asked me to paint it again, smaller, to give away. (Just in case the intended recipient is reading, I’ll keep this information to myself).

Upside down is not an April Fool’s Joke. It helps me see the shapes more accurately. That might be a little unsettling to you, so we’ll continue more conventionally.

Not done, but moving quickly since all the difficult decisions were conquered in the original version.

More Mineral King Oils

Drying in the morning sun; this time all three vertical 6×18″ Mineral King oil paintings are finished.

This is how they look in the afternoon light. I’ll wait until they are completely dry, then photograph them, because they are too big for the scanner.

Lupine comes in many colors, so I just mixed up a shade of bluish purple that looked good with the painting. The photo lupine color was too pink and it wasn’t believable to me.

Next, I moved on to the current painting of my favorite subject, the Oak Grove Bridge.

This is the stage where I detail it to the nth degree, the style of painting that plein air painters usually don’t bother with. (They might be too tired of swatting bugs by them.)

Oh my, I really like this one! (Yep, I am allowed to like my own work.)

Have you noticed that ever since I published Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names that I almost always include wildflowers in my paintings? What took me so long to figure this out?

One more Mineral King painting, this one a commission, working from a customer photo and some conversation about how to present things. (Not the Honeymoon cabin – this cabin is no longer standing).Before I go any further, my customer will need to let me know if this is the arrangement she has in mind.

Oil Interlude

“Interlude” is a musical term that means in interruption with a lude. 

Wait, what?

Nothing. Just messing around with words. After finishing the oak tree mural, I had days of appointments, administrative work, errands, and other things that interfered with painting, However, I did get in a few days of painting Mineral King scenes, and here are the results.

Started this one back in early January, a 10×10″.
I felt confident and hardly looked at the photo while finishing.
Is it finished? When it is dry, I’ll see if there is a believable way to add some wildflowers.
This is 6×18″, a fun format and size to paint. It forces me to distill a scene to its essence.
It will need wildflowers. The title is “Mineral King Wildflowers”, so duh.
Oak Grove Bridge # 29. Probably a higher number, but I was a little sloppy in my earlier record keeping.
Three almost finished.
These three next.

In the interest of offering these paintings for sale, the following advertisement is for your convenience/to ignore – your choice.

I sell 6×18″ for $150 plus tax which brings it to about $160; the square is 10×10″ for $175 plus tax, about $190. The plan is to have a good inventory for this coming summer, but if you are interested in buying any of these paintings now, it can be arranged. Comment here or contact me with the contact button or email me or say something to Trail Guy if you see him at the Post Office or grocery store.

Tightening Up Plein Air Paintings

This past summer I painted plein air (on location) in Mineral King for the first time in about a dozen years. The results were mixed; I wasn’t fully satisfied with 2 of the paintings.

So, I put them back on the easels last month and tightened up the details. Can you see the difference?

Before
After – Crowley Cabin, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $125
Before
After – Empire and Cabins, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, sold

There are always more things I could have done. (Time for me to stop looking at these.) And be assured, they always look better in person.

Making Arrangements

In the Art World, people who really like an artist and buy more than one piece of art from her are called “collectors”. In my world, I call them “friends”.

A friend who has several of my paintings (and quite a few drawings too) asked me to help her figure out how to arrange them. Since she lives 250 miles away, I did this via the magic of technology.

She sent me a photo so I could see which 4 pieces she had and how she just put them willy-nilly on existing nails. (I won’t show that photo, because of my strong policies of protecting people’s privacy on the World Wide Web.)

I made up these vignettes for her. (Oops, sorry, “vignette” is Art Speak for little illustration.)

She has a favorite arrangement from these. Do you?

It probably depends on the space to be filled. And there are probably many other options too, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her. That would be rude to any friend, especially one who collects my art.

Painting in Mineral King

After watching Marty Weekly paint, I caught the plein air bug again. I wanted to set up in exactly the same place, same time of day, and attack the same scene, using the methods that Laurel Daniel taught back in April.

Following Marty’s example a little bit, I painted 11×14, which is HUGE for plein air after doing 6×8″ paintings with Laurel.

I forgot my camera, so after painting for about 1-1/2 hours, I went back to the cabin to get it. What a hoot to walk away from a wet painting on an easel with a full palette just sitting out there in the elements. No worries because it was an extraordinary day.

This is how far I got in that first 1-1/2 hour.
It seemed to me that the distant mountains weren’t as pale as one would expect, so I took a black and white photo to check the values. Sure enough, not very pale. But what would you expect when they are only 6.5 miles if you don’t cut any switchbacks? I bet they are really only about 3.5 miles away.
Here is how it looked in color.
Trail Guy showed up and took a few photos of some friends that stopped by to check on the progress. (Yes, they are very tall people.)
See? I was actually there painting in Mineral King.
So was Trail Guy. (That’s my photo face, and yes I do wear dresses in Mineral King and yes I do wear them with my trusty Crocs.)
I like photos like this, showing the painting in the setting. (The clouds will NOT hold still so I have to make them up.)
I quit after about 2-1/2 hours, but, taking another lesson from Marty, I knew I’d work on it the next day.

Enough. Come back tomorrow for finishing the painting.

A Little Painting

English is confusing. “A little painting” could mean I painted a little bit or that I painted a small painting. What if in this case it means I painted a little bit on 3 small paintings? And I painted a little bit on a (for me) huge painting?

Then you’d have today’s title and today’s post, that’s what.

This Oak Grove Bridge number umpty eleven needed a few more touches on the sides. Then I realized that it was going to be very difficult to photograph, so I started experimenting with settings on my PHD* camera. (Why did I give away my tripod? Because I didn’t anticipate needing it after 30 years without using it. Why did I give away my large camera? Because the lens ceased to be reliable.)
Two paintings of the same Mineral King scene, a 6×6″ and an 8×8″ will probably sell at an upcoming show at the Silver City Store. (June 29, thanks for asking).
Oops. I forgot to take photos of the stages of painting. If you are a regular reader, you’ve seen that before.

I also took some photos of the kittens, three of which remain at our address. KitCarson is settled very happily in his new home, where he will be loved beyond his wildest expectations, and Tigger, formerly known as Gilligan, is very happily settled in his new home, where he plans on becoming the boss of his people.

Alas, my PHD camera wasn’t up to the task of close up photos of these active little creatures.

*PHD = Press Here, Dummy

Deciding What to Paint Next

Sometimes it might be nice to have a boss or maybe a crystal ball or even a mentor or a board of directors. When deciding what to paint next, there are days when I think how good it is to just do whatever I want; other times I wish someone else would tell me what to paint.

I have two 6×18″ canvases left and five ideas for them.

When I don’t know what to paint, I go with my first idea or first impression. All of the ideas are good, all are Mineral King, of course. The juniper tree along the White Chief trail has been calling to me in spite of having painted it twice already this spring, and OF COURSE I want to paint wildflowers. The others might be good to paint later. But, I’ll have to place yet another order with the art supply company, and Prudence tells me to wait until some paintings have sold. (Prudence often tells me wise things.)

I’m starting this and treating it as an “alla prima” painting in an attempt to finish it in one session.
Nope, this will take another session and much better light. But, I think it is a great start.
I just dove into this without much forethought. Could not wait to paint wildflowers. Does this surprise anyone?

This Mineral King painting will require lots of reference photos to remember the leafing patterns and to get the flowers to be believable. (The peak is Vandever, which is on the right side of Farewell Gap.)

Paint On, O Painter

I recently read O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Can you tell by the title of this post? I’m glad I finally read it, enjoyed it, but wouldn’t gush about it to others or call it a “must read”.

With all the spring beauty, it is a little bit hard to keep my feet planted in front of the easel, but I press onward. Currently I’m listening for the second time to The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg while I paint, and that helps keep me working. (Very good book)

The trees in the foreground look as if a fire has gone through the neighborhood, so I added detail.
These are all finished. Trail Guy still thought the top painting of Alta Alpenglow looked fire-ravaged, so I added more fuzzy things to resemble some foliage. Probably just looks like mistletoe now.
These are also finished. That makes 16 of 32 finished, mostly Mineral King oil paintings, halfway through my stack (in case you didn’t want to do the math).
I like this – Trail Guy and Young Trail Girl, releasing a fish back into the stream.
So very tiny. . . I’ll need to work on it further, if the 2-hair brush and my magnifying glasses hold up.
This is a relief after the tee-niny-eensy people.
None of these are finished, but they are close. Maybe I’ll be faster on my next painting day so that my mean painting boss will let me go outside.

Painting a Half Day

Isn’t that an odd title? One day last week my walking buddy and I decided to drive to a new place and walk a trail instead of heading out at dark-thirty with flashlights and walking a road. This meant that I only had a half day to paint. So, hubba hubba hubba, let’s git ‘er dun. The plan was to get the last 9 paintings covered with the basics in colors and shapes, not to detail anything. In other words, to do a job, not a good job.

2 alike, an 8×8″ and a 6×6″. This is the most popular Mineral King oil painting subject.
Another pair of look-alikes.
Five more makes nine. Now what shall I work on?
I climbed up on a ladder to get a view of a table full of paintings in progress. There are 20 here. You’re welcome (I know you were wondering whether or not to take the time to count these.)
While on the ladder, I looked out the door at my irises in bloom.
Before deciding what to work on next, I took another census. With these, I’m up to 28 paintings.
But wait! There are 5 more, for a total of 33. When I said there are 32 in progress, I was ignoring the citrus.
This one! I’ll do this one next. I might be a teensie bit bored with painting greens.
After photographing a painting, I can see the things that aren’t quite right. Why are those things more visible on a computer screen than in person? What is more important than matching the photo is deciding if the painting can stand alone.
And as a reward for being so productive, I chose to work on my favorite bridge. The colors are weird in the painting because it was actually dark outside when I took the photo, so the camera was confused.

Phew. That was a sprint. And after walking 6 miles in the morning. . . I’ll show you our walk tomorrow.

P.S. The promised update on a memorial service for The Cowboy
Bert Raymond Weldon, May 21, 1956 — January 8, 2019
CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND RECEPTION Friday, March 15, 2019, 11:00 a.m. CrossCity Christian Church, 2777 E. Nees Avenue, Fresno, California 93720