Mineral King oil paintings | Cabin Art

One More Mineral King Oil Painting?

These Mineral King oil paintings seem to be reproducing while I have my back turned. Maybe I should have left the light on, or maybe I should not have taken that road trip.

Ha. Don’t I wish they just reproduced on their own.

This is the one that was on my easel when I started the series about the most popular scene in Mineral King.

Farewell Gap #24, 11x14, oil on wrapped canvas, $250 — Farewell Gap #24, 11×14, oil on wrapped canvas, sold

Yes, I realize there is a numbering problem. How can this be #24 when I have shown you 32 other versions?

Life’s full of unknowns, unsolved mysteries, and other conundrums.

If the plural of medium is media, shouldn’t the plural of conundrum be “conundra”? English is weird, but I still prefer it to Artspeak.

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The Last Oil Paintings in Mineral King

“Last” is one of those many faceted English words. Here it means the most recent Farewell Gap, Mineral King oil paintings.

4x4" - wow that was tiny! — 4×4″ – wow that was tiny!

Farewell Gap XIX - wait, does this mean #19? Are there 2 of this number?? — Farewell Gap XIX – wait, does this mean #19? Are there 2 of this number??

Another unnumbered Farewell Gap painting

Farewell Gap XVIII - notice the red fir on the left has shrunk. — Farewell Gap XVIII – notice the red fir on the left has shrunk.

Farewell Gap IXX - does this mean #19?? — Farewell Gap IXX – does this mean #19??

Farewell Gap XX - hmmm, haven't we had that number already? And how did the fir tree grow back? — Farewell Gap XX – hmmm, haven’t we had that number already? And how did the fir tree grow back?

Farewell Gap XXIII, and the fir is tall because I like it that way, so there.

There are more depictions of Farewell Gap, on murals, in pencil and in 2 coloring books (drawn in ink). However, in the interest of relieving monotony, I won’t continue this theme in other media. (Did you know that “media” is the plural of “medium”? “Medium” when it means material used for making art, not the size of my clothing.)

And Yet More Mineral King Oil Paintings

4x4" Farewell Gap 2014 — 4×4″ Farewell Gap 2014

Farewell Gap XVIII, 2015 (This is my favorite.) Short fir tree on the left!

Farewell Gap IXX, 2015 Short fir on the left.

Farewell Gap XX, 2015 Double short firs.

Tomorrow we will take a final look at the Farewell Gap paintings.

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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.

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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.

Painting Farewell Gap in Mineral King plein air in 2007 — Painting Farewell Gap in Mineral King plein air in 2006

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.

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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.

Farewell Gap X, 2012 (this one seems particularly realistic)

Farewell Gap, XI, 2012 (this one is also very realistic)

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.

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Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

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.

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.

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Second Most Popular Mineral King Painting

The second most popular scene I do as a Mineral King painting or drawing is the Honeymoon Cabin.

Bottom canvas is the beginnings of another oil painting of the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King.

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.

Working from 2 photos, pulling the best features from each one to make the painting as appealing as possible.

Reshaped the top-right of Vandever (the mountain), began adding greenery to the juniper tree on the left and the red fir on the right. (I think it is a red fir – I should know after painting and drawing it multiple times!)

Now it is looking like something I might be willing to sign with my name (as opposed to Mickey Mouse’s name?)

This just needs to dry so I can scan it. Photos taken while wet usually have this weird sheen. . . that’s why the gable end of the cabin looks sort of faded here.

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.

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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!)

1622 FG XX 1623 MK 1624 FG XXI 1625 FG XXII 1626 FG XXIII

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.

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Tag: Mineral King oil paintings

Happy Birthday, Diana Banana!!