Painting #38 of Tulare County’s best bridge (according by your Central California artist) is inching forward into excellence. Can you see the incremental improvements?
We can probably consider it all finished now, EXCEPT FOR THE BRIDGE ITSELF!
Ahem. Excuse me for shouting. It just surprises me that after I put an enormous amount of concentration and effort into the painting that the most important part remains to be detailed.
Maybe it would be fun if I did a series of posts with all the different versions I’ve painted of this bridge.
But first, this one needs to be finished.
Here is a photo taken with my real camera instead of the inferior phone camera; the colors aren’t as strong, but neither is it as pixelated, which doesn’t matter here on the interwebs.
We call this the Oak Grove Bridge; people who don’t know it very well might call it the Kaweah River Bridge or the Mineral King Road Bridge or the East Fork Bridge. Those names sort of work.
Not that bridge
There are folks who, when they see my paintings or drawings of the bridge, say, “I’ve eaten at that restaurant”. They are wrong—the only eatery at the Oak Grove bridge might be the tailgate of one’s pick-em-up truck. The Pumpkin Hollow (“Gateway”) bridge is at the confluence of the East and Middle Forks of the Kaweah River. It isn’t over a deep canyon, just one lane wide, and with a single arch.
See the difference?
Maybe it is time to draw the bridge again in pencil. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done that; there are only 2 versions in my computer, because so many drawings didn’t get scanned or reproduced or even photographed in my early days.
Never before (as far as I know) has one of my murals been messed with. I can’t say that anymore.
A couple of weeks ago, some stupid hon-yock threw an egg into the sky of my Ivanhoe mural. So, I told the librarian to have county maintenance see if it would wash off first, and if not, I’d go retouch it.
Eggs harden and that’s that, so I took a trip to Ivanhoe.
The damage was pretty subtle.
Have a closer look at the shiny streaks and drips:
All better now
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KH!
P.S. The sign also got spruced up, AFTER the stump and log it refers to got cut down and chipped up. (“We’re from the government and we’re here to help you”.)
“Unveiling” is obviously a euphemism here. Murals are highly visible, and no one threw a tarp over the one on the side of the Ivanhoe library. (However, someone did throw an egg on it and tomorrow I will go touch it up. Sigh.)
Good sunlit photo but before it was quite finished.
When I was designing the Ivanhoe Library mural, I dug around for photos of a building that is cemented in my memory as a beautiful old structure. (Apparently, I’ve loved old buildings all my life.) I found a photo of the Ivanhoe School auditorium in Laura Spalding’s book Ivanhoe—the Town with Three Names: Klink, Venice Hill, Ivanhoe. I was confused that her book identified it as “Ivanhoe Community Hall”, but I recognized it instantly as the building where I learned to play the clarinet*, gave my campaign speech to be the school president**, checked out books, and played the piano for the jazz band.
When I finished painting it, I added “Ivanhoe School Auditorium” and then thought it would be nice to provide the year it was built along with the year it went away.
Like most things in life, that was easier said than done. The librarian called the History Room at the main library branch, and was told it was built in 1932 and demolished in 1948.
Nope and nope. Architecturally speaking, it is clearly older than 1932, and since I graduated from Ivanhoe in 1973, I KNEW it was standing past 1948.
So, I went to Visalia (had to go anyway to retrieve Momscar with its new starter) and visited the History Room. Library Historian Hunter and I pulled three thick folders from a filing cabinet and started flipping through all sorts of old papers.
Like much in life, the building’s dates are complicated, far too complicated to simply put as “19XX – 19??” on the mural.
Here’s what we learned in two different places, along with Spalding’s book:
It was built around 1926 as a community hall. Then, maybe in 1932, or maybe 1937, “the community, who being unable to meet the indebtedness gladly disposed of it to the school.” One source says it was moved in 1932, another says it was moved in 1937; a third source says it was moved in spring of 1939.
Nowhere have I found the year that the building was demolished. Maybe demolition records aren’t kept, because the demolishers are embarrassed to be part of destroying history, or maybe because it is viewed as a hazard or junk to be gotten rid of, rather than something old and beautiful that has reached the end of its functional life.
So, the painting of the old school auditorium will not have dates, only its title as I recall it: Ivanhoe School Auditorium.
When I was a regular patron of the Ivanhoe library, sometimes we had to go to the main library in Visalia in order to find enough good material to write a term paper or do a report. What is now the children’s library used to be the entire Visalia library, which I found to be stunning and overwhelming. I also thought the building was beautiful, because it is. The architectural style is like the house my dad grew up in, built in 1932. (The house—the library was completed in 1936, so it was clearly the same era.)
P.S. I drew the library in 1989 before the new one got built.
P.P.S. I also stopped by a retail store in Visalia to see a childhood friend from Ivanhoe who told me the school library wasn’t in the bay window but was in a door off the porch. That’s why I added a hint of a door on the otherwise dark and bland front porch. I sure would like to find more photos of the building, both in and out, but those were the days before everyone carried a camera.
The mural looked like this when I arrived in Ivanhoe (photo from the end of the previous painting day—I arrived early enough that the light wasn’t yet on the mural.)
After talking to an old friend who remembered more details than I, I added a hint of a door on the porch of the old auditorium. (Please excuse the poor quality of the After photo!)
Then I added orange blossoms. These are only important if you are up close and inspecting the mural; they are irrelevant if you are riding a fast horse.
Next, I flailed around for a while, trying to figure out where to work next. The idea that I might finish had me a little wound up, wondering if it was possible, wondering how to prioritize. The rooster rose to the top of the list—all those colors!
Here are the feet, before and after.
Next, I sat on the ground, now redwood chips rather than mud, and began the quail.
I stood back, studied the mural while visiting with my cousin on the phone, and decided that the blue sky in the Twin Buttes inset was too blue, too flat, too perfect.
Okay, now let’s look at the whole thing. This was a quick-quick-quick-before-the-tree-shades-it shot.
Some more staring and thinking brought me to the conclusion that despite simplifying the packing label, I needed to not abbreviate Klink to Klink Citrus; the name was Klink Citrus Association. And since I couldn’t figure out how to legibly paint “Tulare County, California” on the wall’s rough surface, I simply added “Ivanhoe.”
Throughout the day, I touched up a few more things, brightening the arms of the wind machine, tightening up the edges of the smudge pots, closing up gaps around some of the insets, putter, putter, tinker, tinker.
Enough, already! I signed it. Even with the guidelines of the bricks, my name went crooked. YOU TRY WRITING YOUR NAME WITH A PAINTBRUSH WHILE LYING ON THE GROUND!
Okay, one more photo before it was completely finished but also before the shadows hit it.
One last look.
I loved working on this mural—the commute, the ease of not working on ladders, the subject matter, the neighborhood, being at the library of my youth, meeting the various people who stopped by, the roosters, the patrolling dogs and yowling cats, all of it.
THANK YOU, IVANHOE!
P.S. An inside mural begins today, Lord willing, etc. . . if I do begin, it will be on the blog on Wednesday. Tomorrow is a little history tidbit about the mural.
Last week I did not work on the mural for reasons that are irrelevant to my public life, as shared here with my tens of readers. The week before last, actually, since I show you on Mondays what I did on Fridays. Never mind.
This is how it looked last; it’s kind of hard to see things accurately in the late afternoon sun and shadow.
When I got to the library on Friday, it looked like this:
Wait, what is missing?? The mulberry trees were pruned, and THE REDWOOD LOG IS GONE, ALONG WITH THE STUMP! Whoops. That was a monument. Sure made nice chips on the ground and So Much Easier to see and work on the mural!!
There is a saying out there that when you have a difficult job facing you, i.e.,“a frog”, you should “eat the frog first”. So, I did: Ladder Man.
After I painted Ladder Man (this was the 2nd or 3rd attempt), Intern correctly and objectively pointed out that he was too small. (Thank goodness for Intern.) So, I kept Ladder Man the same size but moved him farther away in the orchard, conveniently placed behind the Twin Buttes inset so that the wonky ladder wasn’t visible.
Intern worked on orange blossoms for 3+ hours. (Thank goodness for Intern.) Then I dripped some paint on the bright orange on the label, tried to wipe it off, and then Intern turned it into a star, to be fixed later. I hope we remember all the Fix-it-Laters. . .
While Intern worked on the zillions of tiny white dots masquerading as distant orange blossoms, along with gray-ish green dots in the shadows, I tackled the next frog on the menu—painting the old Ivanhoe School Auditorium on that very rough wall surface, minus a T-square and a triangle, which I would be using if I was drawing it in pencil, or perhaps even when painting if the wall had been plastered.
I worked from left to right, across the inset, just as I would do if drawing in pencil. Yes, I was drawing with my paintbrush!
Time to stand back and admire all the progress, with the sunshine and clear treeless and logless view.
Then I decided to label the Auditorium inset, because no one will know what it is unless I tell them.
That was such a success (with space remaining to put in the year it was built and the year it was torn down if I am able to learn that information) that I decided to help people know what Twin Buttes are. That helped fill the too-big real estate of the road.
I sat down in the redwood wood chips which replaced the mud, and began fixing the label. You can see how the daylight changed during that interval to the late afternoon sunshine which casts a golden glow.
Please admire the detailed orange blossoms and navel on the label’s orange:
Further, note the claws on the rooster along with a hint of a shadow. This appeared on the actual label when I held it in the formerly unavailable bright sunshine.
Throughout the process of painting this mural, I continually use the measurement of “best viewed from the back of a fast horse”. After detailing the auditorium, Intern said it was “getting to be slow horse quality.”
I wonder if I’ll be able to finish it next Friday. Prolly not, when I consider how many orange blossoms remain, along with an uncontrollable desire to make the oranges brighter throughout. I also want to add a few more details, because those are the types of things that keep people looking closely.
To top off the great day of painting, there were PEOPLE IN THE LIBRARY!! Is this because the mural is drawing attention to this great free resource in this poor, tiny town of few benefits other than mountain views and the smell of orange blossoms each spring?
Day Eleven was a day of doubt, feeling like a fraud, an imposter, a Jane Bag-of-Donuts masquerading as an artist. This is probably a result of attempting to paint something with an inadequate photo, on a very rough wall, in a space where I couldn’t back up quickly to observe from a distance and then go close to inspect, biting off more than I could chew, overestimating my abilities. . .
It was also a result of being into the finish work stage; Trail Guy reminded me how quickly a building gets framed, and then how long it takes to do all the finish carpentry when building something.
I started to put in Guy On A Ladder. The ladder looked wonky, and then I realized it looks wonky in the photo. The worst moment was when I realized that the oranges surrounding him were as big as his head would be, if his head was visible.
It took a minute to figure out that my photo is quite inadequate; it was fine for drawing the model for the proposal—colored pencils under a magnifying glass. Maybe I need to shrink the oranges around him.
Never mind. I painted him out and concentrated on orange blossoms, of which there are zillions. ZILLIONS. I painted for about 2 hours on these and felt as if I had moved about 6” along the wall and still had empty places.
Never mind. I decided that painting smudge pots would give a greater sense of forward motion, restore a little confidence. (The color is weirdly bright here. . . it’s a photo accident)
Never mind. I need to keep putting those endless blossoms in. (Whose idea was that??)
I wondered if it mattered when someone was standing back at a good distance. Hard to say in the bright light and shadow.
Never mind. It was time to work on something fun and satisfying.
The quality of the light sure changed quickly during that little situation.
This is how it looked at the end of the day. (It probably looks the same to you as it did at the end of Day Ten.)
A muralist friend sent me this picture, which was posted somewhere by the Exeter mural folks, yesterday, the very same day I was doubting my abilities. If I was able to do this 16 years ago, with relatively little experience, certainly I should be able to complete this little mural on the Ivanhoe library!
Today I am painting, progressing on the mural on the Ivanhoe library. I am writing this post before I have painted today, thinking ahead.
Each day I work on the mural, there are multiple decisions to make. In the past, when I’d get a little stuck, I’d pick a somewhat mindless task, such as taping off an area or applying a base coat. Since having Intern to help, I save those tasks for him.
Sometimes I invite him to step back with me to look at the whole picture. I ask him what he sees, we discuss the next steps, and often I ask him which task he thinks ought to come next. I ask him for 2 reasons: (1) to help him understand the thought necessary in the process of creating such a massive painting and (2) sometimes I have “decision fatigue”, which might be a euphemism for mental laziness.
In anticipation of today’s work, I made a list of the next easy tasks, and in the process, I realized that his role as an active intern on this mural might reach an end today. What remains are tight detailing: the man on the ladder, some smudgepots, the rooster, tighter lettering, the auditorium, a wind machine, and perhaps a couple of surprises.
I wonder if he will still want to hang around while I work on these things. He might, he might not. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Someone Else’s Thoughts on Internships or Apprenticeships
The next two paragraphs are taken from Eric Rhoads, the prolific painter, writer, workshop and convention coordinator and leader—the man who led the weeklong plein air retreat in Monterey that I attended in October 2024.
“. . .that’s exactly how the masters worked. Apprentices would paint backgrounds, grind pigments, even paint entire sections of ‘the master’s’ work. Collaboration wasn’t a buzzword; it was how things got done. Raphael had an entire workshop of apprentices painting from his designs. Was it still “his” work? The Renaissance said yes. Our modern obsession with individual authorship would have confused them. When I let those kids paint on my canvas, I wasn’t risking ruining it. I was enacting a centuries-old tradition. And more importantly, I was doing what those Renaissance masters did: passing it on. Because here’s the secret they knew and we’ve forgotten — art isn’t about the final product. It’s about the transformation that happens in the making. —From Eric Rhoads
In case you were curious, I kept track of Intern’s hours and paid him last week. I will pay him for his remaining hours of working, but not if he chooses to simply observe. He was shocked by the check, slightly insulted when I asked him if he knew what to do with a check, and felt unworthy, as if he owed me something in return.
I reminded him that he gave me some hours of his life, I gave him the equivalent of green pieces of paper with dead presidents’ faces on it in exchange, and we were even.
I Wonder
How many more Fridays will it take to complete this? Should Intern’s name go on the mural? Will I be able to do all those details without his excellent eye and honest input? Will I be able to help him find a steady job? Will he go on to paint a mural of his own? (He is into videography more than 2-dimensional art.)
Look how far we’ve come in ten days of painting!
The end of Day One:
The end of Day Ten:
Enough bloviating for today. Come back Monday to see how close we are to the end of this most satisfying project.
I left sunny Three Rivers and headed down into the fog. I remember worse fog when I lived outside of Ivanhoe with my parents, so this wasn’t too awful.
Downtown IvanhoeCan you see the mural through the fog?
The mural looked like this. I seem to forget where I left off from week to week. I’m pleased with the repaired mountains. Intern and my Number One Fan (Josie brings me treats, encouragement, and posts to some FaceBook group) both noticed the improvement.
I began with orange blossoms.
Intern began working on another layer of white over the words on the label. Since there was only one color used, instead of using a palette, I told him he could dip straight out of the jar. Might have been a mistake, but one we can recover from. When the paint dries, we will simply peel up the plastic, because mural paint is acrylic, and acrylic is plastic.
Slight spillage in the mud. I scooped up as much as possible and put it back in the jar. I wonder if this will dry in the ensuing week.
Next, he worked on the lower border of the auditorium inset.
The two orange groves in the Twin Buttes inset weren’t good enough. So, I made them better. Here are the steps:
Next, orange blossoms on the close branches on the right side.
After Intern left, I was bored* with orange blossoms so I decided to tackle the most difficult piece: the auditorium. Although I prefer drawing architecture to almost any other subject, painting from a poor photo on a rough wall while sitting in the mud presents some challenges.
Most of what remains is tight detailing. This might mean that I’ve almost run out of ways for Intern to assist. However, he will be quite helpful on the distant orange blossoms.
*Probably not actually bored, just wanting to do something with more impact so it felt as if I was making measurable progress.
