Tomorrow we will take a final look at the Farewell Gap paintings.
And Yet More Mineral King Oil Paintings
Still Oil Painting in Mineral King
Not really oil painting in Mineral King – oil paintings of Mineral King, painted in Three Rivers.
As a studio artist, I work from my photos. The variations are based on size and shape of painting (square, rectangular, really rectangular – and never horizontal for this scene, although that is an interesting idea). The variations also happen with time of day and time of year and type of snowfall and flow of water AND where I stood to take the photo. Plus, sometimes I juice up the colors a little more than natural. Sometimes I work at tight realism, and other times I try to loosen up. That isn’t natural to me, but is certainly faster.
These all look sort of dark, but I think it was the way I photographed them, not the paintings themselves. 2014 wasn’t a dark year. 2015 was a dark year, but we’ll have to see if that sadness was reflected in my paintings tomorrow.
Mineral King Oil Paintings, continued
One time I painted the Mineral King scene of Farewell Gap with the Crowley family cabin plein air. That was very difficult – the light and colors kept changing, people kept asking what I was doing (umm, skateboarding?), and I had to keep scooting out of the way of cars.
I don’t remember which one it was or how it turned out. I had only been painting a few months and thought that plein air painting was necessary to learning. It may have been, but mostly what I learned was how grateful I was to be a studio painter, working in a controlled and quiet environment from my photos.
That’s a new twist on an old theme.
More Farewell Gap, Mineral King Oil Paintings
Happy Birthday, Diana Banana!!
Since I have about 32 oil paintings of Farewell Gap with the Crowley family cabin in Mineral King, let’s keep going. You can evaluate my progress (or lack thereof).
I painted it often in 2012.
The Roman numeral numbering system isn’t consistent here. Sometimes I called a small version simply “Mineral King”, sometimes I included it in the consecutive numbering.
Come back on Monday to see how I painted the scene in 2013.
The Same Mineral King Scene
I paint the same Mineral King scenes over and over. One in particular sells very well. It is the classic Mineral King scene, the view from the bridge at the end of the road. Farewell Gap, the East Fork of the Kaweah River and the Crowley family cabin.
Let’s look at these in order of painting. There are variations in time of year, color of light, amount of snow on the peaks, amount of water in the stream, size of the fir tree on the left, arrangement on the canvas, and skill level of the artist. (Don’t mention this to my boss – she’ll get worried that I might ask for a raise.)
There are 32 of these in my iPhoto, but I don’t think that corresponds with the way I’ve titled them. Sometimes I can’t count very well. (Oh great, there goes my raise.)
And no, I won’t put all 32 in this post. They also might not be in order of getting painted. (There goes my raise for sure.)
Now there is a gap in time. Either I numbered the paintings wrong, or I took a big break from painting Farewell Gap. I think I spent a few years painting nothing but oranges, trying to get more comfortable with oil painting.
This might have been a repaint to the 2nd one above. Oh man, don’t tell my boss. She would be shocked, dismayed and disappointed at my shoddy record keeping.
Stop by again tomorrow for more Farewell Gap Mineral King oil paintings.
Layer After Layer After Layer
That’s how I paint – layer after layer after layer. The Artspeak word for that is “glazing”, but I prefer English.
Layer one – Should have begun with the sky, but I asked my boss and she said, “Do whatever you want, if you think you’re so smart!” I didn’t want to mix up sky color – lazy or unmotivated or just rebellious that day, and my boss wasn’t paying attention anyway.
I’ve painted this Mineral King scene a few times before, so sometimes I just want to experiment because it gets a little boring. Maybe I ought to try painting it without looking at photos – that would be a challenge.
But I digress. Layers, we were talking about layers on Mineral King oil paintings. Or layers of Mineral King oil paintings. I could fill a room. . . I wonder if you could arrange them in order of experience. . . I wonder if I could.
Whoops. There were a lot of unphotographed layers in between the first picture and this one. Guess I got into it and forgot to show you the steps.
Now you can see the baby steps, incremental changes as the photos move along.
It is time to dry, and then I will put in all the tiny improvements and details that you need to see in person to properly appreciate. It might even require reading glasses, cheaters, middle-aged-magnifiers to see those details.
I’m not sure I like the willows that are not yet leafed out. . . they do pull your eye to the cabin, but the cabin pulls your eye to the cabin.
(Hey! Stop pulling my eye – you are going to pop out my contact lens that way!)
Next. . . a new ugly beginning, waiting for layers.
Second Most Popular Mineral King Painting
The second most popular scene I do as a Mineral King painting or drawing is the Honeymoon Cabin.
This is the one remaining cabin from the resort days in Mineral King. The resort was owned by Ray and Gem Buckman, and they sold to Disney, thinking that the ski resort was an inevitable next step in Mineral King.
It wasn’t. No ski resort, but Disney ended up owning property. This is the only structure remaining, and the Mineral King Preservation Society turned it into a little museum.
It is quaint. It is scenic. It is paintable.
Honeymoon Cabin #?, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $100. Use the contact button underneath the About The Artist tab if you’d like to buy this before it sells at the Silver City Resort.
More New Mineral King Paintings
But wait! There’s More!
Why does that always elicit a smile or a chuckle?
Because it is obnoxiously obnoxious.
Here are the other paintings I finished last week. It was very hot in Three Rivers, so they dried quickly outdoors, and I was able to scan them without getting paint on the scanner.
It is horrible to get paint on a scanner. It’s even more horrible to scratch the glass trying to remove the paint. Best to not ask me how I know this.
Five new little oil paintings of Mineral King, all for sale at the Silver City Resort (unless they already sold!)
This week I had some special visitors to my studio. These are folks I’ve known since the 1980s, plus some extended family members. One of my old friends said, “I think your painting is improving.”
I hope so! I’ve been oil painting for 10 years, and if there has been no improvement, I need to quit.
Nope, not quitting.
New Mineral King Paintings
Last week I was a ninja-crazy painting factory, cranking out oil paintings of Mineral King. This is high season in the high country, and it is busy. Gotta get ’em done, visible, and selling.
Sounds a bit like a mercenary, an artist of fortune.
Nah. No fortunes are being made here. Just painting Mineral King.
Drying Mineral King
“Drying Mineral King” means drying the paintings of Mineral King.
Want to see what that looks like?
The paintings start on the peg board in the painting workshop. Then I begin scooting them around outside. The 2 of Sawtooth are currently on the tractor-seat stool outside the studio, getting direct sun and a breeze. The goal is to have them dry enough to place face down on the flatbed scanner without smearing oil paint on the glass.
Here in Central California, we have sunshine and heat and breezes in abundance. I wonder what artists do in other places. . .