Art: Inspired By Mineral King

Farewell Gap, a pencil drawing, will be available as a framed original for $400 and in card sets.

After 7-8 months of painting toward a show about Mineral King and (almost) in Mineral King, it is tomorrow!

Is it considered shouting to use bold type? Or is that only for capital letters? I’ve always always always considered italics to be whispering, so maybe this paragraph will be more soothing to your ears.

Four artists with cabins in the Mineral King area will be showing and selling our work on the deck of the Silver City Store tomorrow, June 30, 10 AM until 3 PM.

The Silver City Store is 21 miles up the Mineral King Road. It is a long way there, a long and winding road, and it is well worth the effort it takes to get there. The store is at about 6700′ in elevation, and it is no longer called “The Store” but now is “The Silver City Resort”. The store itself has been remodeled into a new rustic elegant interior; the artists will be on the spacious outdoor deck.

Linda Hengst, Joan Keesey, John Keesey and I will be there. Linda paints in acrylic (or is it oil? Hard for me to tell the difference), Joan does tight realistic botanicals in watercolors, and John does whimsical playful watercolors of somewhat stylized scenery of the area. Linda’s work makes you say “Ahhhh”, Joan’s work makes you say, “Ooooh”, and John’s work makes you smile. My work? Um, let’s see. . . “How much for this one?”

I am taking 23 oil paintings (some of which I have shown you on this blog), 5 pencil drawings (all of which you have seen on this blog), Mineral King cards (old and new designs), a few reproductions of pencil drawings (also of Mineral King, duh) and some copies of my book The Cabins of Wilsonia. (The Cabins of Where? Yes, they have been requested.)

Let’s roll! See you tomorrow??

Art: Inspired byMineral King

Show and Sale

FOUR ARTISTS: Jana Botkin, Linda Hengst, Joan and John Keesey

SILVER CITY RESORT, 21 miles up the Mineral King Road

Saturday, June 30, 2018

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Honeymoon Cabin #33, 6×18″, $160 inc. tax. (I like this one so much that if I saw it in a gallery, I’d probably buy it.)

Mineral King Show Coming Soon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANN!

June 30 will be here quickly. That is the date for the Mineral King art show that I will be participating in with 3 other artists at the Silver City Store.

Heat will be here quickly too, so I need to finish these oil paintings before it is time to turn on the swamp cooler and swat mosquitoes while painting.

Farewell Gap at the beginning of a painting of the end of summer.

These are my painting companions.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

In Which My Captions are Hijacked by a TC Native Speaker

In order to recover from the ordeal of my wrastling match (yep, that’s the way it is said in Tulare County – we are the same folks who say “warsh” for “wash”, and sometimes we say “crick” instead of “creek”) with the Kaweah Post Office oil painting, I enjoyed the yard a bit. By “enjoy”, I mean that I took a few photos and pulled a mountain of weeds.

Then it was time to get back at it, “it” being the easels. Been lollygagging around recently, so I am having to parent myself rather vigorously in order to finish my responsibilities. (“But I DON’T WANNA!”)

Here is a batch of Mineral King paintings in their ugly stages, but improving slightly.

Oops. Forgot to take the before photo of this one.

Now that’s a real unusual way to portray Sawtooth. Whatsa matter, Central California Artist? Are you getting tired of painting Sawtooth like regular folks?

Well, I’ll be! If it ain’t another Sawtooth painting!

You think this oil painting of Eagle Lake is a mess? You ought to see that sorry excuse of a trail!

This one’ll be real purdy when you get them wildflowers in it.

Ahem. Something seems to have taken over the captions of my photos today. Sounds like a Tulare County native speaker.

Shut up. Those are my people.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

More Easel Time

Remember the commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth? I do, really, I do. Please don’t worry, DV!

It looked like this after the first painting session.

Now the sky and upper half of the painting has another layer that is more dramatic, which means both the colors and contrast are stronger.

It was a rainy overcast day, and by the time I got to the Sawtooth part of the painting, the light was too poor to mix colors accurately. That wasn’t very important on the first layer, but it is increasingly important as the layers build.

So, I moved on to a Kaweah Post Office commission. SD asked me to paint another Kaweah Post Office IX for her. This one is number IXV. It should be XV, but I didn’t number one of my earlier Kaweah Post Office paintings. That happens a lot around here.

Kaweah Post Office IX was painted in 2013; its twin will be painted in 2018 with a few adjustments. It will be a fraternal twin, rather than an identical one.

Gotta start somewhere. . . Don’t worry, SD. I’ll paint until you are thrilled with the results!

As I was painting, I realized it would be helpful to see the one this was modeled after, because maybe this wasn’t the actual photo used for that one. Yea for a laptop.

Added to the drying rack (who is back there making all that noise??)

Kaweah Post Office Mineral King oil paintings sawtooth oil painting

Just Another Workday

One day a week or so ago, I painted in the morning and drew in the afternoon. This is what it looked like:

Piper was needy. He is resting his little head on my arm, not biting me the way Samson did.

Felt compelled to paint this view again; 4 days later a friend/customer/collector emailed to ask if I had this view available; turns out he wants it to be 16×16″, not 6×6″. Good thing I have practiced this view many times.

This is a popular size and shape, so my last canvas of this size became Sawtooth #29.

Finished? Sawtooth definitely fits this shape of canvas nicely.

Then I moved into the studio. It was a sunny day, so I raised the blind and saw this:

Hi Mike, the carpenter (not to be confused with Michael, the Trail Guy)

Here is another drawing in progress for the 2019 calendar.

The plan is to put a little color into this drawing of oranges. Can’t be considered an authentic Tulare County artist unless I include oranges in my rotation of subjects.

And thus we conclude another workday in the life of this Central California artist.

citrus art Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings oranges pencil drawing

Finished Mineral King Oil Paintings

These are the oil paintings that were dry enough to scan so I can list them on my website. This size doesn’t normally sell through the website but does sell very well in Mineral King in the summer, and I am now ready. Maybe.

They never scan as bright or colorful or pretty as they look in real life. There are two more, but I showed you yesterday and don’t want to bore you.

Mineral King VIII, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60 plus tax for Californians

Sawtooth #27,6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60 plus tax for Californians

Mineral King IX, all other info the same

Mineral King oil paintings

More Mineral King Painting Factory 5

I like this one so much that if I saw it in a gallery, I’d probably buy it.

When this is drier, I can add the flowers.

Piper is easier to paint with than Samson was. He is calmer.

This is Timber Gap, as seen from the trail nearing Crystal Creek, and that is Piper asleep under the easel.

Those rocks along the sides of the trail are a time-consuming challenge. They don’t have to be exact, but they have to be believable, and there are so many. . .

At the end of last week, I had 4 more finished Mineral King oil paintings, a 6×18″ was sold, and the 2 paintings on hold were still just waiting their turns. Now it is time to count up again, evaluate by subject and size, and decide if I need to keep the factory producing more Mineral King oil paintings.

Really, truly, I just want to draw. I love to draw. Have I told you this?

P.S. Look out the window at the shingle siding on the studio!

Mineral King Mineral King oil paintings

More Mineral King Painting Factory 4

Week One of Operation Mineral King Painting Factory felt successful. 7 of the 11 paintings are completed (except for drying, scanning and varnishing), and it seems possible to complete the remaining 4 (3 are large-ish) and maybe even make tracks on the other 2 on stand-by, all next week. (Prolly not. . . that is overly ambitious, given the way life often intrudes on my work plans.)

This painting really wanted to be detailed, so I began on the left side.

The right side is really looking sorry by contrast.

This detailing took FOUR HOURS!! Good thing I like it. I like to draw, because I definitely “drew” with my paintbrushes, something frowned upon by The Big Boys and Girls of Art.

This painting was a challenge. It is a scene I haven’t painted before, the view at the upper end of the Nature Trail as you enter the cabin area.

This might be the best I can do with this one. Squishing a vertical scene into a square sort of works.

This one is also new to me in terms of painting. It is the view from Timber Gap.

This feels easy after working on the 6×18″ piece of a similar view.

This one needed a sky do-over. I think I last worked on it in low light. It is better, but this was photographed in low light, so hard to say.

This one is finished, and is so fun to photograph in front of its larger brother.

Why not photograph the new Sawtooth in front of the muralized one?

And I think this one can be considered finished.

That was a productive 4 days of painting.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

More Mineral King Painting Factory 3

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MELINDA!! (now entering the S-words)

This is the third day of Mineral King Oil Painting Factory.

This one was drying, taking up valuable easel space.

Here they are with the photos on top that I’ll use, hoping that somehow seeing them there will make me a better painter.

Piper, how did you convince your brother to come out of hiding??

Tuxedo sat there briefly, tiptoed around a bit, heard a noise and returned to the hole. I’ve been thinking that Ansel would be a good name for a black and white cat.

Back to work, feeling happy because perhaps I will have 2 cats after all.

Feeling happy makes for good painting, maybe. When this is finished and dry, I’ll compare it to the earlier ones (unless they have all sold).

Sawtooth. I thought I could set it aside, and then I realized that the telephone pole could use some foliage.

Just kept adding detail, layer after layer, until it seemed as if I was just lifting off what just got laid on.

At the end of the day, I feel tired of standing, staring, squinting and painting. That makes it a good time to do some loose base coats, since my ability to focus has diminished after about 6 hours of painting.

This whole idea of being a painting factory has its good points and its not so good ones. Have you noticed that applies to almost every single thing in life?

The good: Getting things finished well in advance of a deadline is a good way to do business, and focusing on the same subjects and colors over and over should be honing my skills.

The not so good: Focusing to this degree is tiring, I might be boring my readers, and OH NO WHAT IF THEY DON’T SELL BECAUSE I HAVE SATURATED THE MARKET??

Besides these 11 paintings in progress, there are 2 more that have been on stand-by for months – my favorite bridge and Eagle Lake.

I’ll think about all that another day.

P.S. Tony was thrilled with his goose, the black and white cat is definitely gone, and the 6×18 painting has sold.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

More Mineral King Painting Factory

Are you just bowled over by the clever titles to my blog posts? Some days I just about put myself to sleep with the repetition in titles, but there is always something new to post for you to see and read.