A Mess of Deer and Three Paintings

Trail Guy and I took a walk. As we were approaching home, this is what we saw.

After this excitement (plus the usual mess of turkeys in the yard), I went into the workshop to work on three paintings. One needed finishing, one needed more detail, and one needed the first layer.

This one got some wire on the fence, a signature, another cow, and the edges painted. This is a photo taken with the phone, but when it is dry, I will scan it for a more accurate representation.
The leaves and oranges on the front row might be finished. There are orange blossoms on the tree at the far right, but the idea of adding them to the rest of the row was a bit daunting (boring, actually).
I bet you can figure out what this 16×16″ canvas will be. Almost looks like a watercolor at this stage.

Returning to My Favorite Subject

Orange groves, foothills, and mountains remain my favorite subject to paint. (It used to be the Oak Grove Bridge, and who knows what it will be next?)

I painted this to hang in my dining area, but put it on my website and then, lo and behold, it sold! (off the website—I didn’t open my front door to customers)

No problemo—I just started another painting.

Then, I just left it on the easel for months.

After starting all those small paintings for Kaweah Arts, I finally went back to this painting. If I don’t get it finished soon, suddenly it will be October and then it will go to the solo show and then it will sell without ever hanging in my house first! The urgency. . . !!

Details, details. All those close trees needed details. Of course, once I’ve put all those leaves on, the oranges will need more color or shaping. Then I’ll decide to add blossoms. After that, the ground will need some debris. Next, I’ll decide to put cows on Wutchumna (the hill). Maybe all the distant rows will need refining, the hills reshaped, the mountains improved. . .

Never mind. How about starting another one?

I do love me some orange groves in the foothills with the Sierra in the distance. These subjects are a real benefit of life in Tulare County. (But DON’T move here. It is in California, where people are leaving in droves. Wait—what is a “drove”?? Aren’t people leaving in U-Hauls?)

Progress On My Favorite Subject

For the past few years, my favorite subject to paint is orange groves with hills and mountains.I’ve had a large (for me) painting in progress in a time-out for awhile. In that bonus week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I worked on it.

First, I photographed it, studied it on my laptop screen, and circled the parts that were not up to snuff (weird cliché, whose meaning I do not know).

I started with the mushy rows in the red oval. It’s all wet and shiny, so these photos may not appear to be an improvement.

The orange oval was next, and I kept expanding the area around it.

The upper right corner was next. I ignored the pink, yellow, and light green ovaled areas, because I am the boss.

Now let’s look at the painting as a whole.

The usual excuses for photography that doesn’t do justice to the verbal explanations: low light, shiny paint, photographed with inferior phone instead of camera, and of course, there are many areas remaining to be detailed. I can’t tell you that it will look better when it is scanned, because it is too big to scan. But I can tell you that it looks way better in person!

Whooping it up on the Canvases

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The customer told me which mountains she wishes to see in her 11×14″ painting. So I started.

Sky, mountains, foothills, indication of distant groves, indication of closer groves. Then, it was too wet to continue. This might be an excuse; sometimes when painting these scenes, I hit a place of thinking it is too hard and that I can’t do it. (pathetic, no?)

So, time to move to the 18×36″ painting.

Working on a new sky layer gives me an opportunity to think about what I want to do here.

I think I want some overhanging branches, loaded with oranges. This means I have to make up some stuff, move some trees, bringing in some closer ones. And why not? I made up the snow-covered mountains in the distance. If I am painting this to please me, then yippee skippee, I can just go hog wild and really whoop it up.

I sure do know how to live, eh?

Happy Birthday, Little Sister!

I Have a Feeling that. . .

Are all these posts looking alike to you? (That’s a rhetorical question, one that I don’t want to hear the answer to.)

I decided that this 6×12″ painting is finished. “Citrus and the Sierra #forty-eleven”, perhaps?

Time to put more layers on the 12×16″. Normally I paint back to front, meaning I start with the parts that are farthest away in real life. This day I started with the closest items instead.

After putting detail on the closer trees, I moved to the row of trees that is next, trying to make the perspective look believable.

That looks right to me now.

So Tucker and I sat back and studied the painting. It caused me to do more work on the mountains, not photographed yet because you prolly won’t know the difference. Yes, I wrote “prolly”. The green hills need a lot of attention too. Oops, one of those trees looks like a fuzzy green ball. 

I have a feeling that I will be working on this one for awhile.