Seeking Calm at the Easels

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Sometimes life is hard. Oftentimes life is hard. Even if my own life is wonderful (and it is), life around is less than wonderful. Friends are suffering, the world seems to be on fire. I could list the worrisome items, but you probably have a similar list.

So, I will simply continue to seek calm at the easels.

I hope that seeing the progression of this Mineral King oil painting brings a bit of calm to your world.

Refocusing on Real Art

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

My real art is oil painting and pencil drawing. Road signs, deer cages, book safes are all just for fun. Useful fun, but fun, particularly because I listened to an audio book while working on them: Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan.

Then, I got serious and refocused on my real art.

I took this one all the way to the end.

Then I painted all the skies.

Next, I finished this one. Maybe. Now that I see it here, it is a bit too monochromatic for my tastes. (That means single colored . . . I wonder if wildflowers would look weird in the lower section. Certainly not believable, but maybe attractive.)

Finally, I finished another Sawtooth just before sliding into Idiotland.

Three down (maybe), five to go.

Mineral King oil paintings are the best sellers in the summer. The trick is to guess how many of which subjects and what sizes. 

I wonder if I could make a useful crystal ball??

 

Are You Really Painting Sawtooth Again?

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Yeppers, another Sawtooth oil painting. Sawtooth is visible from the flatlands of Visalia on a clear day and is the signature peak of Mineral King. It has recently become the most popular of the Mineral King subjects that I paint, and a few weeks ago, someone commissioned another version of the “Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint” view. This is number 8, and the first one in the ratio of 1:3 (6×18″, vertical).

As usual, I started with a scribbly base, and then put in the sky, working my way closer and closer to the front.

Suddenly, I was confused on all those mountain ridges, so I dropped into the stream to pick apart the rocks. I photographed the stream in order to see the rock formations at higher water, before the seasonal growth obstructed my vision. I don’t understand water flow well enough to convincingly make this up.

This represents an afternoon of work, trying to perfect the detail on the first pass, knowing full well that I will need to make corrections as the other parts get completed. And then those “other parts” will need to be corrected.

It would be satisfying to spend as much time on every painting as I am on this one. But paintings don’t require the level of detail that pencil drawings do, it isn’t cost effective, and for the most part, my customers don’t even recognize that level of intense detail. (Not everyone is as near-sighted as I am, albeit it with strong cheater-readers these days.)

Links to other posts about painting Sawtooth:

  1. Department of Redundancy Dept.
  2. Lots of Sawtooths (Sawteeth? Nah)
  3. Almost finished with the Sawtooth paintings
  4. You just won’t believe this one
  5. Back to Sawtooth

Maybe, Maybe Not

When I look at a finished painting in person, it seems truly finished. This painting signifies the best of Tulare County to me, and I am not always objective.

However, when I look at a photograph of the painting on my screen, sometimes things appear that weren’t all that noticeable in person. 

Here is a progression of the untitled painting that is finished, or maybe not.

Tuesday morning overview.

Tuesday morning lower right corner, unfinished.

Wednesday morning lower right corner, finished (but in shade so hard to tell what is what).

May I be finished now? Better put it in the sunshine for a truer color photo.

Now may I sign it, and then paint the edges? 

Maybe, maybe not. Better let it mull a bit, study, scrutinize, put on my truth glasses (just a figure of speech) and try to be objective.

Or maybe I should show the customers and see if they think I am finished.

Maybe, maybe not. 

What is this mess?

When I paint commissions, I go through stages something like this:

  1. Not sure, but I will try
  2. Piece of cake
  3. What is this mess?
  4. What have I gotten myself into?
  5. I’ve got this.
  6. What is this mess?
  7. Who told me I could paint?
  8. Ooh, I love to draw with my paintbrush!
  9. What is this mess?
  10. Oh my goodness, I think I am going to finish soon!
  11. What is this mess?
  12. Make a harshly honest list and fix those things.
  13. Can’t find another thing to fix, better sign it and get it out of my face before I mess it up.

This was probably about step 8.

Then I hit step 9.

I painted for a morning, repairing all sorts of messes, drawing with my paintbrush. Can you see the improvements?

 

Now it might be at step #10.

It looks wrong in this light. But you can see that only a small portion in the lower right hand corner remains untouched. I might hit a couple more “What is this mess” stages. I went a little nutso trying to get the highway better, narrowing the driveway at the bottom, detailing the rows of citrus trees more, adding in a few more buildings and tightening up the ones that were there, and planting a couple of new groves. I did not darken the blue mountains but actually lightened them. However, this is not apparent in the poor light of early afternoon photography.

Then I had to quit because my friends were waiting for me to come over and make some more stepping stones.

More remains, but the fat lady will be warming up her vocal cords soon.

Dragging it Out

This commissioned oil painting is highly detailed, in spite of the fact that it is a landscape. People who see it want to know where it is, where I was when I got my photos, what are they seeing. 

It is impossible to put in every single grove, building, road, dirt road, and random tree. I enlarge the photo on my laptop to an astronomical size in order to see what the tiny spots are, decide the main landmarks that would be helpful to the viewer, try to get them in the right place, and then use my tiniest paintbrushes to indicate them.

Can you see the added detail?

Every time I work on this painting, I have to change things that I thought were right. 

I am not worried. There is still time to finish and to finish well, believably, and with confidence that this will be my best work.

But maybe I should put more hours into this custom oil painting and stop making stepping stones.

Two Commissions, Continued

This is the best photograph I was able to get of the Fiftieth Bouquet. (It just occurred to me that I may not have actually titled the painting!) I was able to eliminate the shiny spots but cropped the left side a bit. One of the things that is always pounded in all art advice workshops, classes, books, and websites is to hire a professional photographer for one’s work.

Fall down laughing.

That might work for people who just complete one painting a month and then sell it for $5000 or $50,000, but that is not the way things work for this Central California artist. So, I bumble along with my PHD* camera. (My more expensive cameras have broken so I no longer waste money on them.)

I also inched along a bit more on my favorite subject.

Can’t wait to get back to this one, but then I will finish and have to say goodbye to it.

Life is a series of decisions, choices and consequences.

*Press Here Dummy

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?