Many years ago, there was a fabulous little place in Lemon Cove called Foothill Fruit. The owner was a terrific baker and sandwich maker, and some mornings I woke up just ravenous for one of her scones and French Roast coffee. I worked there for a few brief months (it used to be necesary to get a second job during my slower winter months in order to pay my taxes—thank you, Sacramento). When I was no longer working there, we were on trade: Trail Guy (his name was Road Guy back then) and I ate, and I would eventually do a complicated collage drawing of her dogs and her home.
This is the only photo I can find from Lemon Cove right now. I didn’t want you to fall asleep with so many paragraphs of just words.
I used my film camera to take some photos, and then I did a few sketches. The owner, whom we will call JM, couldn’t make up her mind as to how she wanted her dogs and home depicted. Then, she moved far away.
This debt in the form of an undrawn picture bothered me quite a lot. She and I weren’t close friends, but we were on good terms and enjoyed each other’s company. I couldn’t figure out how to reach her (this was pre-internet), so I filed the notes and photos under “Incomplete Jobs” or some such thing.
At an oil painting workshop in January of this year, one of the participants asked me if I knew JM. Well, saw off my legs and call me Shorty! The participant put me in touch with JM, I dug out the photos, we started emailing, and she approved this sketch.
You know I can draw so this doesn’t scare you, yes?
If I hadn’t just completed that commissioned pencil drawing with all those little bitty faces, this would have been very daunting. However, I was feeling ultra capable and competent at my craft. Cocky, perhaps? Nope, just confident. (Confidence is a smile; arrogance is a sneer.)
The house photo is very dark so there will be a bit of guesswork on the details. The fact that JM no longer resides in this house gives me a little extra freedom. Maybe.
It is going very slowly. It’s been awhile since I drew such complicated architecture. Accuracy is important in rendering architecture, even if there is a bit of guesswork in the shadows.
I emailed this to JM to ask if there was anything that needed to be corrected. Stay tuned. . .
This painting seemed too bright. After studying it awhile, I decided to only tone down the brilliant green in the distance to push it farther away. (“Push it” visually, not warp the canvas.)
Four Guardsmen, 16×20”, oil on canvas
This is after:
Hmmm, that’s a pretty subtle difference, perhaps even dubious*. Might want to try that again later. In addition, the photography colors are significantly different.
Never mind. Let’s move ahead, shall we?
This painting looks scary in its beginning stages unless you happen to see it while galloping by on the back of a fast horse (or see it the size of a postage stamp on your phone).
After these fairly dissatisfactory adventures in oil painting, I returned to my pencils. This one has a story, which I’ll tell you when I know the ending. This is the sketch I sent to the customer to see if it matched her design expectations:
These paintings only show on my blog because I can’t remember how to get more than a handful of paintings to appear on the store part of my website. You may call or email or text if you’d like to buy any of these. Use the contact button on my website, because if I type the info in here, the cyberjerks might harass me.
Pacific Ocean VII, oil on board, 5×7”, $100
Pacific Ocean VIII, oil on board, 5×7”, $100
Pacific Ocean IX, 5×7”, oil on board, $100
Painting these is almost just as much fun as drawing with pencil, especially when I get to the third pass over the painting, where I get to draw with my paintbrush.
P.S. There is sales tax if you live in California. Figure in $8, and I’ll pay the postage.
After spending a week doing plein air paintings at the beach in October, I could not wait to get home where I could paint waves and the ocean in my painting workshop, where the waves were frozen in motion on photographs. I love those blues and teals and greens and splashing whites, and I wanted to capture that in over-the-top detail.
“Over-the-top” hasn’t quite happened, but I am pretty happy so far. I’ve shown you Pacific Ocean I, II, III, and now it is time for IV, V, and VI.
Pacific Ocean IV, oil on board, 5×7”, $100 (yeppers, raised my price)
Pacific Ocean V, 5×7”, oil on board, $100
Pacific Ocean VI, 5×7”, oil on board, $100
A friend knows someone with a store somewhere in a town on the California coastline, and she is SURE the paintings will sell there. The store has very limited shelf space, so instead of putting the paintings on little easels like I had envisioned, she said they will need to hang.
That took some searching, but I eventually found something. The choices were to buy a package of 2 for maybe $4, or a package of 100 for $8. After a brief struggle between the frugal part of my brain against the side that doesn’t want to own extra stuff, I ordered 100.
See what is meant by “board”? It is actually named “Gessobord”.
Pacific Ocean VII, VIII, and IX are wet at the time of this writing.
Once again, I am counting my chickens before they hatch, which might be my strongest talent.
It’s just too short. Of course, by now it is March and there are even more things to photograph. Maybe I should put those pictures on hold until August or September, when it is just ugly around here.
Oh No! The iconic valley oak on Kaweah River Drive fell over!
Lots of firewood in that dude.
A number of years ago when we still had a newspaper made out of paper (now we don’t even have an online paper), someone wrote an angry letter to the editor after Southern California Edison pruned the tree. It was both rude and ignorant, as I recall. The tree was a leaner, and I knew it couldn’t last. I’m guessing that letter writer might need to be sedated now.
On the same day I saw this sad sight, I saw a redbud in bloom. IN FEBRUARY!!
And finally, my flowering pear tree has blossomed.
I could work in the studio and show you what I’m doing in my art business. But instead, I will show you a few more photos tomorrow. Then maybe I’ll go back to the business of art.
Early-ish March isn’t that much different from late February. On an early morning walk, I just wanted to stop time.
This house always grabs my attention, with its quiet simple beauty.
As I walked, I kept smelling something that I couldn’t identify. It was a good smell, and one that I hadn’t noticed before. It was on a route that I only take when my walking partner isn’t with me, chosen because it is shorter than our normal walks. That’s the way I trick myself into going alone.
This is the first time in 26 years that I’ve noticed ceanothus while walking. It is native to this area, and it isn’t very attractive in my book. But I wondered if that was the source of the good smell.
Indeed it was!
With flowering quince and daffodils going gung-ho (that’s a weird word—Chinese origins?**) in my yard, along with mowed weeds that pass for a lawn in spring, I almost felt happy to be alive*.
This one of about nine mailboxes scattered around our extensive yard; they are tool containers so I don’t have to hike a mile for a trowel.
This is flowering quince, not redbud, which is actually pink.
*Fret not. That’s something my dad used to say in his buffoonish way of disseminating wisdom. I was thinking about him a lot in February because that was both his birth and death month.
** Thank you Gnat for sending me that little piece on MentalFloss.com verifying my guess that “gung ho” is Chinese!
Since I learned almost nothing in January, I decided to keep better track in February. I probably learned lots in January, but just didn’t keep track.
There are alternatives to Snopes for checking on “facts” or urban myths. Factcheck.org and That’sNonsense.com. They didn’t seem very easy to use; I couldn’t find anything about microwaved water killing plants. But websites are notoriously difficult to navigate the first time someone tries. This someone, anyway.
2. Duckduckgo is the search engine I use instead of Google, along with Safari, which is the Apple web browser. Now Duckduckgo has a web browser designed for Mac. I tried it. I like it. The whole idea is to not be tracked, and then targeted for ads based on Google’s estimate of your income combined with your interests. (STOP STALKING ME ALREADY!)
3. Clint Black gave a concert in Visalia at the Fox Theater AND I LEARNED ABOUT IT THE NEXT DAY! Yeppers, I would have gone to hear him. Phooey.
4. Amy Grant had open heart surgery?? She is a year younger than me! I saw her at the Visalia Fox Theater about 10 or so years ago.
5. Mike Rowe interviewed Alex Epstein on his podcast, The Way I Heard It, episode 423. I don’t know who this guy is, but he said something that piqued my interest: We didn’t have a perfect and safe planet which we then ruined with fossil fuels; we had a dangerous hostile planet which we made safer and more comfortable with fossil fuels. (I am paraphrasing, since I was pulling weeds while listening, not taking notes.) This is the opposite of the prevalent view of things. He has a couple of books which I am probably not going to wade through, since I only grasped about 1/3 of what he was talking about. Maybe I’ll look up his books on Bookpecker, which summarizes books for lazy people like me.
6. An online friend sent me a recipe to make ranch dressing from scratch. It is very convincing and a nice treat from my usual balsamic vinegar with olive oil.
7. A guy in Canada traded his way from a red paper clip up to a house in 2006. Weird, fun, and here is the link to the article about it. From paper clip to house. (It’s a short article). He has a blog called One Red Paperclip, has written a book by the same title, gave a TED talk, and there is even a cafe called the Paperclip Cottage Cafe in the town where he got the house. Isn’t it weird is that I am hearing of it for the first time almost 20 years later? Now I will check the local library to see if the book is available.
8. I actually CAN draw faces smaller than eggs; sometimes I can capture a likeness, but it is more likely I will be drawing people cousins by accident. (And I learned that I don’t charge enough.) The drawing has been removed from this post because it is meant to be a surprise.
9. Dawn, the excellent blue dish soap, added a terrible fragrance. We kept smelling something perfumey and unpleasant, traced it to the Dawn, and then I looked online and learned that many of their customers are unhappy but they have no plans to return to “Classic Coke”. (Remember that marketing fiasco?) They will be sending me a coupon to try another variety of Dawn. Meanwhile, we will use bargain dishsoap from the local hardware store. (The memory of that horrid smell is haunting me; maybe I’ll buy Dawn again, and maybe I won’t.)
Ugh. What will we do with the nasty-smelling dishsoap in this bottle?
10. Do you like “waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption”? I’m not sure anyone does. Unfortunately, the current campaign against such things is wiping away some local jobs. Instead of using a surgical method, there is a broad sweeping arm brushing them off the map in what feels like callous and careless decisions, without regard to whether or not the jobs are wasteful, fraudulent, or an abusive and corrupt use of our tax dollars. I sure wish it was being done with more precision and care. Meanwhile, there is a rumor that the local job loss is due to the administration of our local national park not getting the budget turned in on time. I certainly hope that more will be revealed.
The most learning took place in the shortest month. . . go figure.
P.S. I also learned about Publishers Clearing House from Mike Rowe’s podcast. Fascinating story about something I have never understood.
NEWS FLASH! CLINT BLACK IS COMING TO TULARE ON JUNE 28!
