Watching Paint Dry

Last week I shared my thoughts about how the world is now wanting things to be juiced up.

Here is the juiced up version of a new Mineral King painting, with enhanced versions of two other paintings, all drying in the painting studio while it is RAINING OUTSIDE!!

It is hard to tell that the 2 top pieces have been enhanced. I might need to work harder at figuring out this juiced-up thing. I am such a pragmatist and a realist. The truth drives me. However, I have been known to exaggerate in the past to make a point or to get a laugh. Perhaps I can direct this ability to my oil painting.

The Mineral King painting (on the bottom) is quite bright. At this oblique angle it is hard to know that it is still missing a great deal of detail.

Meanwhile, I’ll wait for the paint to dry and engage in some productive procrastination.

I just learned how to make chalkboard paint – stir about 1 Tablespoon of UNsanded grout into about a cup of paint. It gets thick and it dries fast and you can write on it with chalk! A person could get carried away with this sort of information.

I don’t know why I wrote those phone #s on the pegboard for drying oil paintings. First, I know those phone #s. Second, if I forgot them and there were wet oil paintings on top of them, they wouldn’t be visible.

Is “productive procrastination” an oxymoron?

Honestly, I just couldn’t figure out what to do because when it is raining, it is too dark for painting. I could draw, but the drawings are finished for The Cabins of Wilsonia. I could draw something else, but it is oil paintings that sell the best.

So, I’ll just watch paint dry and thank God for the rain.

Thoughtful Thursdays – A Juiced Up Life

Now that the drawings for The Cabins of Wilsonia  are finished, I’m thinking about oil painting again.

I’d like to make a 2015 calendar of paintings, and need to decide if I have any that can be used or if I need to do 13 new paintings. Thirteen? A year has 12 months, a calendar has 12 months PLUS a cover.

I’m studying some paintings I didn’t use in the 2013 calendar very intensely. Why hasn’t this or that painting sold? Is it the old “right person hasn’t come along” or is the painting just not good enough to grab those who have come along??

When I wonder about things like this of a philosophical and esoteric nature, I talk to my friend D about it. She and I have decided that we live in a time when we are all used to things being instant and awesome, or as I think of it, “juiced up”. Here are some examples:

Photos

A. regular photo – nice.

B. juiced up photos, like the ones in the link I gave you yesterday.  We are impressed when the light and color are enhanced, or juiced up.

Music

A.  friend playing a song on a guitar – nice.

B. juiced up, hearing it in stereo on our ear buds with all the accompaniment

Movies

A. old movie – entertaining in a dorky sort of way.

B. juiced up – big flat HD screens with stereo sound and special effects and surgically enhanced actors

What does this have to do with painting?

I can paint what I know or see, mixing the colors that match nature and reality. Nice.

Or, I can juice it up – exaggerate the colors, enhance them and show people a scene the way they remember it, because it was a juiced up memory.

Here is a non-juiced up photo:

Nice. Of course it is nice; it is Mineral King!

Here is a juiced up painting:

The colors are brighter, I added a peak, I subtracted a tree. The tree was good, but it didn’t fit the shape of this rolling trunk with a slightly warped lid.

I decided to paint this same scene on canvas. If it turns out well, I’ll put it in the 2015 calendar.

It is very wet and the color doesn’t look juiced up yet. When it is finished and completely dry, I’ll rephoto or scan it so you can see what I mean about juiced up.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, but I don’t dare turn on the comments and be hit by a tidal wave of spam. Sigh. You can use the Contact the Artist tab above or email me if we are already correspondents.

Sawtooth on a Notecard

Anyone out there still hand write cards? Send thank you cards? Send a card just because you ran into an old friend and wanted to tell her on paper in a lasting way how happy you were to see her?

This is one of the best paintings I’ve done in my shortish painting career.  (That’s just my opinion; feel free to disagree!) Now it is available as a little package of note cards. They are 4-1/4 x 5-1/2, so you don’t have to write very much. 😎 The package comes with 4 cards and 4 blank envelopes for $8 + tax.  You can find them by clicking this word:  Sawtooth.

Sawtooth is a prominent landmark mountain in Mineral King, visible from Visalia. I have an up-close and personal history with the peak. It happened on July 22, 1976 and it involved a helicopter. Who knew that one day I’d be painting the place??

My very wise dad used to say (until we were rolling our eyes) “Life’s full of surprises.”

He was right.

A Bazaar With Knitting, Calendars, Tees, and a Mineral King Box

That is a bizarre title; please be impressed with the way I incorporated Mineral King into a Friday post. (Tahoe is postponed until next week.)

Would you like to see some of the things I will have at tomorrow’s bazaar?

Great, glad you asked.

The lavender purse is spoken for – please forgive me for taunting you with it. See the bright stripes at the very bottom of the photo? Those are socks,  which are too big for me, dang it. I think a women’s size 7-11 foot would work in them. See those red felted slippers? They are too small for me, dang it. I think a women’s size 5 would work in those.

But what is this box? Yes, I hear you wondering about it.

 

Trail Guy and I are not above scrounging in places where people have disposed of items. I INSISTED that we rescue this box. He said it was junky. I agreed but asked him to shore it up anyway, because storage boxes are functional and cool and it would be great to paint on. He complied with my request. and then added wheels too. The lid doesn’t quite shut, it isn’t completely smooth or totally square but it is clean, has wheels, and will hold lots of knitting or whatever floats your boat.

A functional all-purpose Mineral King painting on wheels! 

And this is the final selection of calendar photos. We did it!! Thanks to you, Tulare County photo calendars are now available!

See you at the Senior League Bazaar

Saturday, November 16, 9-4

Three Rivers Memorial Building

Mineral King is Closed

Hmmm, this is all so weird. I will refrain from sharing my opinion about the government shut down, because people come to this blog to be entertained and inspired. Discussing a difficult and divisive subject could possibly be entertaining, but I doubt if it would be inspiring.

Have a look at a painting of a familiar, comforting scene in Mineral King. Feel inspired. Feel entertained. Don’t worry, be happy!

Mineral King Autumn, 8×8″, oil on wrapped canvas, $95, sold


New and Improved Farewell Gap

Last year I did an oil painting of a standard Mineral King scene, Farewell Gap. It didn’t sell.

No big deal. I took it to shows and put it on my website. It didn’t sell.

What gives? I took it back to the Silver City Store this year and everything has sold so far except that painting.

Finally, I showed it to my friend Tall Cathy, who has been going to Mineral King her entire life, which is about 10 years longer than my life, plus she started at an earlier age. (i.e. Tall Cathy is a bona fide Mineral King Expert.) I asked her, “What’s wrong with this painting?”

She said, “Little Florence is too low”.

I said, “Shoot. I was afraid of that. Guess I’ll take it back to the studio and redo it.”

Little Florence is the peak on the left side of Farewell Gap, and it is lower than Vandever, which is the peak on the right side. Sometimes when you see it from a place other than the bridge, it looks very much lower. With 20,713 photos on my computer, I’m not going to look for the exact one I used for the painting. You can see the concept here:

 

Aside from the fact that normal people don’t lie in the grass to take photos, this is not the normal way that normal people view when they normally view Farewell Gap from the bridge. (There – have I successfully destroyed the word “normal” for you?)

Here it is in its new and improved version. Last year I photographed my paintings. This year I scan them. The color isn’t true either way. Look at the heights of the peaks – this is more of what people expect when they think of Farewell Gap.

Do you agree with this?

How to Decide if There is Enough Contrast

When I worked exclusively in pencil, a drawing had to have contrast. My friend Debbie used to say, “Remember, black is your friend.” She was right.

Without contrast, a drawing is flat, plain gray and boring.

Paintings can sometimes get away with not very much contrast. They don’t look great, but the color distracts from the lack of value range. (Values are the darks and lights – “value” is a good Artspeak word to know.)

But, I am very aware of contrast and value because of my pencil days.

I painted this little canvas of Timber Gap in Mineral King. It didn’t look very good to me.

 

 

I converted the photo to black and white which confirmed my suspicions of not enough contrast.

There really weren’t enough lupine either, but that’s not the main problem.

Have a look at the redone painting in black and white.

Neat trick, eh?

Here is the finished piece in color.

Timber Gap, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×6″, $50

 

Business Decisions Are Hard Without A Crystal Ball

Maybe they are hard with one too.

I’ve been getting the message from several sources that my prices are too low.

My subject matter is Tulare County, and most of my customers are here. Because we are poor, fat, undereducated, breathing bad air, and accustomed to frugality, I price my art work accordingly.

Common art marketing wisdom says that if your prices are too low, people will not value your work.

Common sense says that if your prices are too low, you will stay poor.

Contradictory common sense says that if your prices are low, you’ll sell more and more people will buy your work and then you will raise your prices and have a following who are willing to pay your new prices.

Common sense is uncommonly confusing.

(“Too many cooks spoil the stew” or “Many hands make light work”? “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” or “Out of sight, out of mind”? See what I mean?)

This little 6×6″ painting of Sawtooth is $50 plus tax. It is an original oil painting that took me about 2 hours to make. (First I had to buy the canvas, brushes, turpentine, linseed oil and paints.) When it sells at the Silver City Store, they keep a percentage, of course. That means I am earning a sorry hourly wage, particularly when you take the giant self-employed bite out of it.

Does this matter?

Not to me. I paint Mineral King because I love Mineral King.

However, I do need to earn a living.

I just looked up other oil painters. For 6×6 oil paintings, they charge $26, $65, $80, $100,  $125, $150, $175, $190, and $325.

Holy Cow. Excuse me, I need to go do some more thinking. Might need to knit a few rows to calm down, have a hit of chocolate, pace, rock back and forth while banging my head on the back of the chair, perhaps even put my thumb in my mouth and curl into a little ball.

Making People Cry

My dear friend Natalie moved to Texas about 18 years ago. I still miss her. We email, write letters, talk on the phone very occasionally, and every so often we find a way to visit each other.

Natalie is such a great person that her boss and co-worker decided to buy a couple of paintings from me for her birthday. They chose Mineral King as the subject, because that is where Nat and I met back in 1986.

I think it was because she was so surprised, so touched and maybe a little bit tired that these paintings made her cry. I don’t think it was because she was so disappointed!

I love you, Nat!! I’m almost wishing I’d driven to SLO for a stranger’s wedding last month so we could have had a 2 hour visit. Might have been a little rude to the bride. . .