Mired in Detail

After spending a good chunk of an afternoon drawing with my paintbrush, perfecting the detail on the 50th Anniversary Floral Bouquet oil painting, I had a real hankering to return to the commissioned oil painting of my favorite subject. “Slamming out” some quick small paintings for the Redbud Festival just wasn’t lighting my candle.

This painting was calling my name.

I began texturing the distant hills. 

Then I built a few roads.

If this wasn’t a commissioned piece, it would go in my dining room. I can paint another for myself, but there is enough other (PAYING) work that it is not a priority. 

So, I will enjoy the process of being mired in detail for someone else’s happiness. Snow, GREEN, poppies, CITRUS. . . the very best that Tulare County has to offer. (But remember, we have bad air, high unemployment, diabetes, teen pregnancies, high welfare, no Trader Joe’s or Whole Paycheck grocery stores, and a severe lack of education. Just sayin’ in case you were thinking of bringing some big city values to our little piece of California’s flyover country.)

What Matters on a Commissioned Oil Painting

This wisdom about perfecting a painting is from Betty Edwards, most known for her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. She also wrote a helpful book about color, helpfully titled Color.

  1. Do any of the lightest lights seem to pop out rather than staying anchored?
  2. Do any of the darkest darks seem to carve holes?
  3. Does any area that is not the main event seem to fight for attention?

Turn it upside down to evaluate for these next questions:

  1. Does it seem heavy on one side or the other, or on the top or bottom?
  2. Does anything seem out of place, either too bright or too dull?

I evaluated the anniversary bouquet painting using these questions. It went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

Then I incorporated the very apt suggestion from reader (and friend and former drawing student) Nikki to make the edges of the carnations more fringed. Here is better fringiness on the left side:

And the not yet fringed right side for your comparison:

Then I fixed the hanging ribbon, the patchy-looking background, the repaired coaster, a dab here and a touch there, and finally added in a little something on the bottom left quarter.

Now it will dry, I will continue to mull it over, study it, and eventually, I hope to find the courage to sign it and call it FINISHED. (Mr. and Mrs. Customer are no help in this finalizing and nitpicking because they have been thrilled with the painting at every stage!) 

P.S. It looks better in person; there are weird shiny spots because so many parts are wet.

 

 

Painting Fast, Day Two

Because the Redbud Festival is coming this weekend, I have to git ‘er dun quickly. Day One of painting fast was quite productive. Day Two was also quite productive.

I need small paintings to sell at the Redbud Festival (Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May 8), and Mineral King is always popular. These are supposed to be for the Silver City Store, but if they sell at the Redbud Festival, I will simply paint them again. They need to be dry in time to scan, varnish and display by Friday evening when we set up the show.

Quick, start another one to finish tomorrow!

This one isn’t Mineral King, but if it doesn’t sell at the Redbud Festival, it can go to Kaweah Arts.

HEY! Maybe I should just take my work out of Kaweah Arts for the show. I could, but it makes more sense to beef up my inventory, and then I’ll have more to take to Kaweah Arts after the Redbud Festival (10-5 on Saturday, 10-4 on Sunday.)

There are so many decisions to be made when figuring out the business of art. It feels like guesswork, but there is intuition, based on experience. I definitely have not missed doing those shows. But the Redbud Festival is so close to home, so very easy to get to, at the Three Rivers Memorial Building. See you there?

Painting Fast

Redbud Festival is a long-time event in Three Rivers that I remember from childhood. I have participated many times, but was just fine missing the past two years of festivals, bazaars, and arts/crafts fairs. 

I recently learned that the Redbud Festival will be happening again this year, Mother’s Day Weekend (May 7-8) at the Three Rivers Memorial Building. 

A friend who makes felted purses can only work on Saturday; I have plans for Saturday (the drawing workshop at Arts Visalia). So, we will share a booth, which she will run on Saturday and I will run on Sunday.

Oops. I hadn’t planned on this. Most of my work these days is commissions, or it is specifically for a gallery. 

These events need large colorful pieces in order to attract attention, but they also need smaller inexpensive pieces for people to actually buy. It might not be like that in a city, but a small unincorporated town in a relatively (for California) low population rural county is a whole different animal.

QUICK–Stop on the commissions that don’t have a solid deadline and figure out what might sell at the Redbud Festival! After an inventory and survey session, I gathered some small canvases, selected a few photos that might have good appeal for the weekend crowd of browsers, pulled those seven Mineral King paintings off the drying walls, and hit the ground running.

First, finish the almost finished poppy painting that I had set aside in order to paint the carnation and rose bouquet.

Next, do something fun: 6×6″ iris, my favorite flower which happens to be in bloom right now. I was able to mix the colors accurately by looking at the real thing instead of relying on photos.

I love flowers (not just the wild kind). These little 3″ square canvases are a size I haven’t tried before, so I ordered some mini easels to sell with them, paid extra for quicker shipping, and painted 2 different sunflowers.

Still had a little time left in the day, so I “went” to Mineral King.

Revving up the Mineral King Painting Factory

I prefer short pithy titles, but The Google likes the long ones. Who cares? Me. Just wanted you to know why my titles are longer than they used to be. 

It is time to start producing paintings to sell at the Silver City Store, AKA Silver City Mountain Resort. 

I randomly chose various sizes from my canvas storage shelf, wired the backs, went through my photos and chose scenes that I either hadn’t painted before, or ones that were a new take on an old subject. Of course, almost everything I paint in Mineral King is a repeat because I know what sells and that is what I need to be painting. I came here to earn a living, so SHOW ME THE MONEY. 

Such a sell-out. But if I wasn’t, then I’d need a job, and I’d rather do some repetitious painting (and push to improve each time) than be a waitress.

I drew this bridge at Cold Springs Campground in pencil, a snow scene, but have only painted it once before (that I remember).

I have never painted the mini falls along the Nature Trail (the mess on the right is going to be those little falls, AKA “Iron Falls”).

I’ve never painted Franklin Creek about a half mile or so below Franklin Lake but always appreciate this view with the water, wildflowers, and the light. (That’s the lower painting, 6×18″, still quite a mess).

I have painted the Honeymoon Cabin many times, but I don’t think I have done it from this distance.

I’ve painted the trail several times, but from a different location each time. This might be a new vantage point.

Sawtooth. Yawn. The trail will help. There will be wildflowers.

These seven paintings are very very loose and messy right now. Some days I don’t feel like drawing with a paintbrush. My style of oil painting works best with several layers, so the drawing layer will eventually appear.

Variety in the Working Life of a Central California Artist

There you go, Search Engines. Hope you like that ridiculously long title.

I had a day of great variety, all of it interesting, all of it productive

  1. This book, Adventures in Boy Scouting, will soon be available as an ebook through Bookbaby. It took a lot of learning, and a lot of proofreading. The print version is available at the Three Rivers Mercantile, Three Rivers Historical Museum, and BookBaby.com. 
  2. After enjoying the nice fire in the house (in the wood stove—no need to be concerned) while proofreading (we had a few cold days), I moved to the painting workshop to do a bit of polishing on the Fiftieth Bouquet oil painting. “Polishing” here means making some small corrections. The roses, red bow, vase, coaster and background are not finished.
  3. I detailed the mountains and put a second layer on my favorite scene.

  4. Then I left the painting workshop and moved into the studio to finish a drawing. After scanning it, I sent it to the customer to get her approval before spray-fixing it and then adding color.

It was a good day of working on projects that are all presold. While it is fun to just paint and draw what I want, it is more satisfying to paint and draw for other people, particularly when they choose subjects that float my boat.

In case you have forgotten because I haven’t shouted this at you for awhile:

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

 

Seven New Oil Paintings Available

These seven oil paintings are now finished, dry, scanned, and available for purchase.

“Purchase” sounds so fancy; these paintings are ready to buy. (Is that better? Don’t want to get above my raising here.)

Navels, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×12″, $125 plus California sales tax IF YOU HAVEN’T MOVED AWAY YET
Poppy 59, oil on wrapped canvas, 4×6″, $50 plus 8% California sales tax
Poppy 58, 4×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $50 plus you know what
Poppy 57, 4×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $50 plus you know what
Poppy 56, 4×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $50 plus you know what
Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint VII, 6×12″, oil on wrapped canvas, $125 (plus 8% if you still live in California)
Craig Ranch, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $125 plus you know what if you live you know where

Any questions? Maybe the comment feature is working on this blog post. If not, we are probably friends in real life so you can email or call or lean out the door and yell or wave me over on the road or talk to me after church on Sunday. Lots of options for connecting.

Another Version of Sawtooth

Two years ago I had a great idea for an art project for Tulare County. I  asked important people with good connections how to pursue the idea, followed instructions to get put on an agenda for a quarterly meeting, wrote a letter as advised, put together a Powerpoint presentation, and then everything was cancelled due to The Plague.

An arts organization in Visalia has recently put out the word that there might be an upcoming project, based on the idea that I never got to present. A friend overheard and notified me, and now I am working on my submissions for the unnamed project, unnamed because it isn’t real yet and there hasn’t been a “Call To Artists”.

It calls for art that is horizontal in a 2:1 ratio. 

OF COURSE I thought of the current most popular subject matter that I paint, which is Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint.

Trouble with that is the verticality of the subject matter. Will this work horizontally? The best way to find out is to try it. 

Not wanting to spend a ton of time on a piece that might look wrong, I just did a quick messy first pass over the canvas of a 6×12 to get an idea whether or not it would be worth the effort.

If Sawtooth is big enough to matter, then the stream won’t fit. Black Wolf Falls barely fits. I am definitely fudging reality here. Does it matter? Does this work?

Maybe, maybe not.

Insert my regular cliché here; you know the one.

Back to Sawtooth

Remember all those oil paintings of Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint? Sunnypoint was a Forest Service campground in Mineral King closed in the 1970s (or was it the 1960s? I wasn’t there then.)

The view that has been so popular is a bit made up. When you are standing where I have stood to take so many photos, year after year, of the same scene, your eyes tell you that the barest tip of Sawtooth shows. When you leave the exact spot, you remember it as a place where Sawtooth, Black Wolf Falls, the stream, and wildflowers are all coexisting in beautiful harmony.

It is my job to gather up all those pieces of reality and combine them into a believable fantasy for you. This beautiful fantasy, which matches up with peoples’ memories, has brought me back to the easel once again.

After a week of messing around, taking walks, editing 2 books, and staying away from the painting workshop, I finally went back to work.

The work that remains after this dries:

  1. Add the wildflowers
  2. Fix whatever is wrong that I have noticed during the drying process
  3. Sign
  4. Let dry again
  5. Scan
  6. Varnish
  7. DELIVER!

There is more to the story of multiple iterations of the Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint paintings. Mañana. . .