Another Little Painting Session

Suddenly after 2 months of lollygagging, it seems that my life is full of many extracurriculars at the same time that a bit more work has appeared. So, I will squeeze in little sessions of work as I can.

First, we had to go down the hill to Big Town. As a passenger, I was able to absorb all the scenery. The wildflowers were at their peak, although you can’t tell in these drive-by-shootings.

I got a pass on putting away all the groceries and headed out to paint, just wanting to have both a sense of completion and some forward motion in that little stack of Mineral King oil paintings.

I gave this guy a nose-job, “rhinoplasty”, and now am happy with it. (Terrible light—I’ll scan it when it is dry and maybe remember to show you.)

Moving forward on Farewell Gap, or “Mineral King Family Cabin” as I now am titling this scene: the distant parts first, leading to the foreground (the bottom of the canvas). Fortunately, the colors on the palette were still usable from the previous little painting session.

I painted the edges of this one and the edges of the little Sawtooth.

I did a little bit of tiny brush work on the 6” Honeymoon Cabin. All the greenery is still just blurry blobs, so it isn’t finished yet.

I have 2 more to paint of that popular subject; they can wait for another little painting session, and maybe I can finish this one then.

Ain’t nobody bored around here!

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLDER SISTER! (She reads my blog.)

Better Bit By Bit

Dutch iris are my favorite domestic flowers. I’ve painted them multiple times through the years.

Recently, I pulled one out of Kaweah Arts because I thought of a way to make it better. After sprucing it up, I thought you might appreciate seeing all the changes on this painting through the years.

First time

Better

Repaired and scanned:

Repaired, scanned, and fixed on the laptop to look like the actual painting:

Phooey, I think I need to replace the scanner.

Meanwhile, the painting is now looking most totally excellent (because they always looks better in person than on screens) and can be yours for $75 (plus tax if you are in California and shipping.)

Quick and Cold

This collage in pencil is of several Visalia landmarks.

The other day I had to go to Visalia (AKA Big Town) for the morning. In the afternoon, there were pressing responsibilities on the computer (scan some things, email them to folks who had requested such things, try a few more adaptations to the cover of the book I am working on (as editor and designer, not as author), and finally, I went out to paint.

Why? It was kind of cold out there, maybe 50°. That should be no excuse. I went out to paint, because incomplete paintings don’t sell. I had been studying my photos of Three Rivers the previous evening, thinking about sales, thinking about what I haven’t painted in awhile, and thinking about the local businesses who sell my paintings. There are a few new things I want to try.

No, it wasn’t as cold as this but I thought you might enjoy this pencil drawing of the Pear Lake Ski Hut.

Try? Yeah, as in “can I do a good job?” and “will this sell?”

Most of my current customers are visitors, travelers passing through Three Rivers. They want something indicative of their visit, preferably on the lower end of the price spectrum, small enough to fit into luggage and small enough to not skew their home decor.

Enough bloviating.

First I looked at the unfinished pieces.

While briefly considering what was necessary for completion, I felt a cold breeze on the back of my neck and realized I didn’t want to sit there while concentrating on details.

Instead, I chose to do something quick. Some things quick. Some quick things.

Never mind.

Choosing the photos, choosing the sizes, digging the canvases out of the supply shelves, assigning inventory numbers, attaching hanging hardware, and slapping on a first thin layer.

OUTTA HERE! Back to the house by the woodstove. THANK YOU, TRAIL GUY for keeping the home fires burning.

Selling While Acting Semi-Retired

You may have noticed that I have been lollygagging quite a bit this year. I remember my dad describing himself as “semi-retired” when he was the age I am now. I think that is beginning to describe me. Go for a walk, hang out with some friends, organize some stuff, do a freebie job at church, organize some more stuff, do some errands… What? me work? maybe later… I’m busy.

However, due to the diligence of Stem & Stone along with Kaweah Arts, and a long-time reputation, there have been a few sales in the last several months. These are the ones I have remembered to keep track of.

This is probably the last time I will paint the Kaweah Post Office. It has been closed for several years, and it took several years for this painting to find a buyer.

I think these are the Sequoia Giganteas that was sold by Stem & Stone. If I forget to ask the seller for the inventory number, then I get confused as to which trees have sold. These 3 were actually very small: 4×12”, but I can’t make them proportionately small here on the blog.

I showed you these two while they were in progress. The first was 6×18”, painted for general inventory and the other 12×36”, a commission. I did the first as an experiment to see how it would work; the second one has more details as requested by the customer.

I don’t remember the circumstances of the sale of this one, titled Hiking Mineral King.

This 6×12″ was fun. I titled it Big Tree, Little Cow.

A newish cabin owner in Wilsonia discovered my book The Cabins of Wilsonia and was thrilled to find that the original drawing of her cabin was still available.

Then she discovered my website and found another pencil drawing to go with her cabin.

These sold last fall but I haven’t done a Sold post since last summer.

I thought that nothing was selling except notecards, but I was wrong. Maybe I should go back to the easels and stop with the lollygagging around. I can always put down my brushes and head out to pull weeds or take a walk or read a book (THANK YOU, READER/FRIEND LAURIE FOR ALL THE BOOK SUGGESTIONS!) while the paint is drying.

Buckling Down Further

I looked at this painting and decided it could wait.

Instead, I decided to work on the marmot.

And then the deer.

Finally, I wanted to do something easy, so I put the first layer on these three paintings.

I’d call that a productive-enough day!

P.S. Probably shouldn’t have signed the marmot. His nose is weird. I didn’t sign the deer because his face is a little weird too. Probably should just stick to scenery and architecture.

Back to Buckling Down

Here is the afternoon’s painting session after a morning of exploring around Lake Kaweah. I’m easing into the production of Mineral King paintings, with the workshop doors open to the greenery, flowers, cats, and sounds of leaf blowers, chain saws, a distant donkey, and the occasional vehicle. March is a month full of distractions and temptations to lollygag. However, summer is coming and incomplete paintings will not sell.

It is efficient to paint the same scenes at the same time since the colors are mixed on the palette. Because this is the most popular scene to sell at Silver City, I paint it in multiple sizes and shapes, and at different times of day and in different parts of the summer season.

I was pleased to be able to finish these—see the signatures? The previous painting session did not yield anything that was ready to be signed. If I can get those 3 plus 2 from an earlier session detailed and signed, then I’ll be over halfway to completing the ten paintings.

Why ten? With the ones that remain from last year, this is a total of about 15 paintings. Silver City Store sells anywhere from ten to twenty paintings for me each summer. I don’t want to have too much inventory left at the end of summer. So I keep track as paintings sell, then paint more of the popular subjects that have sold out.

It’s all a guessing game, supplemented with a little bit of intuition and experience. That’s the business of art.

In case you have forgotten:

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

March Forth on March Fourth

This pencil drawing was done from several photos taken in the campground Sequoia RV Ranch up North Fork Drive in Three Rivers. Like the other drawings used in the 2026 calendar, the original is on a piece of 11×14” archival paper. It is for sale. $375 (plus tax if you live in California) or make me an offer, because sometimes I get tired of being businesslike and think the drawings are better on someone’s wall than in my flat files.

Same sizes and prices for the January drawing, and February drawing.

I painted this scene a few times too, but they sold a long time ago.

I am willing to paint it again, because I accept commissions. (Tryna be businesslike here)

Planning Session for Summer Selling Season

Deciding what to paint for the Silver City Store this coming summer felt like a daunting task. There is no excuse for procrastination, and the better I plan, the better the sales. So, suck it up, Buttercup.

The first step in planning is to look at the available Mineral King paintings. (For my out-of-the-area readers, Mineral King is a beautiful alpine valley in Sequoia National Park; each summer I sell art 4 miles below the valley at a resort in a little cabin community called “Silver City”.)

It also involves evaluating how many paintings sold, both by subject and by size. I am painting to satisfy a clientele, rather than just doing whatever “moves” me. Thank goodness it is all very beautiful.

This planning part isn’t so beautiful. It’s methodical, tedious, and would be easier if I had a crystal ball. Instead, I have records, intuition, common sense, and piles and piles of photos, both the paper variety and on the laptop.

It is helpful to line them out by subject and size.

It is also helpful to take a break and walk somewhere. (No powerlines in Mineral King or Silver City to clutter the views up there, because it is remote, the Land of No Electricity.)

Rosemary in bloom. . . so far this year, February has been impersonating spring.

Now I have ten new paintings to produce, ranging in size from 6×6” to 8×16” and 10×10”.

I’ve attached hanging hardware and assigned inventory numbers. Next I need to give them titles, such as “Sawtooth #209”.

Not really; I think it is only somewhere in the 60s.

Finally Painting Sequoias Again

After a couple of weeks of messing around, I finally planted my feet in front of the easels to complete these three Sequoia paintings.

First, I dabbled on this one day, and then said, “Never mind, I’d rather [walk] [pull weeds] [go to the library] [anything else]”.

I girded my loins, and returned to the easels on another day. Can you tell which one is finished among these three?

Now two are finished, on the face anyway.

The light is beginning to wane, but all three are now finished on their faces.

The edges remained. It is a good way to use up the rest of the paint, and I hold them in my hand and rotate them around, trying to not end up wearing any paint. Finally, I laid them flat to dry.

The next oil painting task is to decide what to paint for the Silver City Store. Summer is like Christmas—we KNOW when it is coming, there is no excuse for procrastination, and there is plenty of time to prepare without getting jammed up against the calendar.

Maybe in one of those avoidance activities, I can engage in some deep thought to figure out why I was so reluctant to work on these paintings, which sell steadily at two local art stores/gift shops.*

Then since I was on a roll with Sequoia Trees, I got this panel set up in the sunshine to recoat the sky because that knothole made a weird appearance.

*Kaweah Arts and Stem & Stone

Slacking

I’m around, but not working much, sort of taking time off to spend with some friends and other responsibilities. However, I know how annoying and puzzling it is when a blog you read daily just seems to vanish, so I’ll post a quick something each day. Far be it from me to annoy my tens of blog readers!

This painting sold a week or two ago. It has been around for awhile, so I figured that I must have saturated the market with the Kaweah Post Office. This is painting #23. The title is Kaweah Post Office XXII, but I miscounted when I was titling them.

I painted this one en plein air, and then didn’t like it so retouched it, still didn’t like it, so retouched it again. Then when it took awhile to sell, I almost pulled it from the store multiple times, but Nancy Who Knows Better kept urging me to leave it. So, we did little happy squeals and laughs when she told me last week that it sold.

Now I will only paint it again if someone commissions me.

The Kaweah Post Office is no longer operational. Used to be the smallest operating post office in the country. Now it is just a vandalism target. Sigh. It is in Three Rivers, although the folks nearby insist that they live in Kaweah, with their own zip code. Doesn’t mean anything because the mail lands in the Three Rivers Post Office.

So there.

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DWIGHT!