Classic Mineral King

When people think of Mineral King,  a certain scene usually comes to mind. It is the view of Farewell Gap, looking upstream while standing on the bridge at the end of the road, with the Crowley family cabin and the stream in the foreground. This is the most popular scene that I paint of Mineral King.

Recently a large oil painting of this scene sold at Kaweah Arts.

At the same time, Silver City Resort asked me for a large vertical painting to hang in a highly visible space inside the store/restaurant. Last year a painting of sequoia trees filled that space; this summer it is hanging (for sale, of course) at Kaweah Arts.

Clearly, I need to paint a new large canvas of this classic Mineral King scene.

This is the first time I have painted the scene in these proportions. 

I wonder how quickly I can get it done, because the summer selling season is a short little blip on the calendar.

New Paintings of Mineral King

After delivering oil paintings to the Silver City Resort (AKA Silver City Store), I looked at how many were left and realized that I needed more inventory. This is from the attitude that there will be sales, and they will be plentiful. My outlook stems from good sales last year, in spite of The Virus and The Fires.

Choosing subjects and matching them with sizes and shapes of canvases is always a bit of a guessing game. “A bit”, because obviously, if I have several of Sawtooth, no need to add more. Or if there are plenty of the Honeymoon Cabin, the Crowley cabin, or my favorite bridge (which is actually quite far from Mineral King itself but one cannot get to Mineral King without crossing the Oak Grove Bridge, unless one walks from another part of Sequoia, which is entirely a different topic of conversation for another crowd), then it is time to move into other less popular subjects. Those other subjects are just whimsy on my part. I flip through my photos, look at what has been painted and sold well in the past, look for new approaches to those subjects, and without lingering and overthinking, I make the choices in a real git-‘er-dun manner.

Let’s go!

It appears that I didn’t have enough of the Oak Grove Bridge or the Honeymoon Cabin yet. Maybe, maybe not. I can’t find my crystal ball. Can’t even remember if I ever had one.

What is this?? It is a painting of a juniper along the trail to White Chief. It was a good idea, but not good enough for someone to part with his hard-earned dollars. Thus, it will become something for someone else to part with her hard-earned dollars. (Here at Cabinart, we write an equal-opportunity pronoun blog, but we do not use the plural when referring to the singular, except for the royal “we”.)

As always, these early stages look atrocious. Fear not, Gentle Blog Reader, for your Central California artist will come through for you. After all. . .

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

 

And One More Big Tree

Let’s count the recent Big Tree* paintings: 1. Big Tree Sold at Kaweah Arts 2. Second Big Tree painted and delivered to Kaweah Arts 3. Third Big Tree painted in anticipation of another sale 4. A fourth Big Tree begun as a commissioned oil painting.


Now Big Tree #3 looks too skinny.

*Remember, Big Tree refers to Sequoia Gigantea AKA Redwood

Mineral King: Tiny & Unknown Flowers, White Chief

Another beautiful visit to Mineral King revealed many new-to-me flowers. Oy vey, a second Mineral King wildflower book will have to be published, maybe this one subtitled “Mostly overlooked boring and tiny flowers”.

Here is a peek, with my most elegant tapered and manicured finger for size:

I also found some other unknowns:

The new yellow one I showed you last week may be called Spring Gold:

For those of you don’t care about obscure and tiny unknown wildflowers but hung on to the end of this post, we went to White Chief, which has been relocated. It is no longer the short hike that I remember, although it remains just as steep. Someone moved that canyon up a couple of miles farther than last summer. Who would do that??

From the top down: Spring Creek; The Farmer and Trail Guy in White Chief; Off -Trail Guy in White Chief; the Honeymoon Cabin as seen from above rather than the normal view.

New Big Tree

The first painting that I sold at Kaweah Arts was a 6×18″ oil of a Sequoia tree. Immediately I painted another.

My mama didn’t raise a dummy. This time when the big tree sells, I will have another one ready for delivery to Kaweah Arts. Call me “Butter” because I am on a roll!

Don’t be scared. It will turn out just fine. They always do, except when they don’t, and then I repaint them into something else.

Big Tree, Again

The 6×18″ oil painting of a giant Sequoia, AKA Big Tree, sold at Kaweah Arts, an art consignment shop. When Nancy, the proprietor, let me know, I asked if it was bought by a friend or relative who felt sorry for me. She said that it went home to Wisconsin with a woman who always buys art to commemorate her travels. 

Alrightythen! Looks like a winner of a subject for this store, so I’d better get cracking on another one.

I chose the photo with a more extreme angle of peering upward into the tree, but then just started making up things. After painting too many redwood trees to count, I feel fairly confident just winging it.*

It isn’t finished. More sky should be showing among the upper foliage, the ground is not right, the grasses along the bottom are too even, and the tree itself needs more detail and contrast.

*Apparently this rogue knitter and rogue baker is becoming a rogue oil painter too.

Big Old Country House, 3

People ask if it is “cheating” to measure or to use tools when drawing. In a word, NO. If I am drawing something that needs to be exact, I measure. Usually I do it by hand first, then I measure to be certain that my proportions, sizes, distances, and angles are accurate (or close enough to be believable). The “rule” (in quotes, because I am making my own rules) is that if it took a tool to build it in real life, it most likely requires a tool on paper to replicate it.

The big old house’s details are becoming clearer to me now that I have more photos. More erasing, more do-overs (YEA for pencil), and still more decisions remain. Oranges? Walnuts? Nothing in the upper left corner? 

The new photos helped immensely.

The wooden thing by the front steps that showed up in yesterday’s post as a question is irrelevant.

The front door and the windows with their diamond upper panes are now correct in both proportions and detail.

Seeing it here on my computer screen helps me evaluate it, and I plan to plant another shrub in the front. This is where Jane’s grandmother lived many years ago, so it isn’t necessary to match every detail as it is today, only to make it look good.

We decided that a flag would be a nice addition, and it will be the spot of color that I dearly love to put in each drawing, when there is an obvious place for it. (The faded silk poinsettias at the bottom of the steps were not welcome in this drawing, although that would have been an obvious spot for color.)

Big Old Country House Drawing, 2

Another day at the drawing table, and only 2 photos in progress. Watching this part is a little like watching paint dry, or watching grass grow.

Because of pruning back the shrubs on the left, I needed more photos to show what is behind them. The shrubs on the right are also being pruned in the drawing, so more photos of that side of the house will help fill in some blanks. The very tall valley oak tree on the right is a bit of a mystery too, as is the mass of confusing growth behind it. I can’t figure out the detail on the front door, and the shapes of the windows are confounding me.

A field trip is in order for more photos. Let’s go!

The front door is wider than it appears in my drawing and has more detail on the screen than I could see in my earlier photos.
Nice detail on this window. I missed it entirely. It might not show in the angle of the house that I am drawing, but more photos than necessary are a better “problem” than not enough.
Is this thing important? I’d better ask.
Now I can see that the window over here is square and centered. (I saw the square part in real life – may not have been able to capture that in a photo without crawling into a shrub.)
How many trees are over there??
It splits into 2 massive parts but from a distance, appears to be 2 separate trees.
Wait a minute. There are several trees over there, and one is a pine.

Good thing Jane isn’t in a big hurry for this drawing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHELLE LEDBETTER!!!

Mineral King, Opening Weekend

WELCOME BACK TO FRIDAYS ARE FOR MINERAL KING!

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional weekend that Mineral King opens up – gates, campgrounds (only Cold Springs this year), cabins.

  1. ROAD OBSERVATIONS: The road was well-pruned on the lower 6.5 miles, thanks to fire crews. The flowers weren’t very good until the mid elevations where the bush poppy, flannel bush, and blazing star showed up (all yellow, all kind of look alike). Drivers coming down were uncommonly courteous, but a couple heading up didn’t know the mountain courtesy custom of pulling over if someone catches up to you. (BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS GOING FASTER THAN YOU, DOOFUS!) 
  2. It took 2 axes to tackle the low level of the woodpile. Trail Guy has been up the hill when the weather is cold, and he graciously leaves the splitting to me because he knows I love to do it.
  3. I walked the Nature Trail (down the road, up the trail) with my neighbor. We saw a shrub that has always seemed sort of like a currant – turns out it is a Sierra Currant, rather than the Wax Currant that is more common  in our neck of the woods.We also saw yellow violets (called Mountain Violets)and regular violets (called Violets in my book Mineral King Wildflowers)
  4. Trail Guy and I walked to the parking lot, where the 2 trees are marked for removal. (Who knows when it will happen?)
  5. We also walked to Crystal Creek, which is low and spread out, and then meandered our way back where I found a new-to-me yellow flower. The dandelions were out in large numbers too.

 

 

Big Old Country House Drawing, 1

After finishing the 3 small custom pencil drawings of 3 small houses from 3 small photos, my confidence returned to begin the big custom drawing of the big old country house, working from about a dozen big photos, enlarged on my laptop screen in order to see the details clearly, drawing while looking under my big magnifying glass.

Big job. Good thing I love to draw.

These photos represent 2 days of working on the picture. 

You can see in the last photo that I pruned the bushes back on the left in order to show more of the structure. It was a little tricky to figure out the size and placement of the window on that segment of newly exposed wall. Working from multiple photos is full of challenges, because I leave behind the security of being able to measure directly from a photo. Instead, I look at one that shows a particular item, put it in the drawing, and realize that I don’t know where it truly belongs in relation to the things that don’t appear in the photo where I got it.

See? Can’t even explain it simply. Guess you’d have to be there.

The goal is believability AND with a piece of custom art, recognizability.