Nine Things Learned in May

This month I will publish two Learned posts, this one and a Learned in Texas. I shared several things in my little series on being in Texas but there is still more.

1. If you want to search for a term on a website, on a Mac you can use the command key (clover leaf) with F and you get a search box at the upper right corner of the page.

2. Locks of Love takes hair donations to make wigs for kids and charges the kids. Wigs for Kids takes hair donations and doesn’t charge the kids. Wigs for Kids (I don’t know how they handle gray hair.)

3. Northern Lights! In Washington, Three Rivers, and even in Texas! I didn’t see them anywhere, but CK graciously shared her photo with me.

4. I should have known better than to succumb to the temptation of a Texas souvenir in the form of a fragile item. I wanted to replace a broken favorite mug with one of a similar size (15-16 oz.) and found this on Etsy. I mistakenly thought that this fragile item would be packaged in a manner that it wouldn’t arrive in pieces. Alas, I was disappointed. At least I didn’t have to fight for a refund.

5. I finally learned to recognize the difference between Eastern redbud and Western redbud.

Eastern redbud on the left; Western redbud on the right

6. ALWAYS save your postal receipt with a tracking number if you have to return something for a refund. Companies are so eager to sell to you, offering “full money-back guarantees”, but if you can’t prove that you returned it, they will balk. Never mind the fact that it arrived at their warehouse—PROVE IT, YOU SUCKER CUSTOMER. And if you order something with that guarantee, call the customer service number to see if it actually works while you still have time to cancel the order. Some places don’t answer the phone if they even have a number to call; many don’t reply to emails or to the contact form on their websites.

7. I had never seen a fossil, somehow missing all the elementary and secondary lessons on the topic. My good friend Jee-um (that’s how “Jim” is pronounced in Texas), a retired geology teacher, sent me one after he learned of my educational deficit! This is an echinoid, but it looks like a miniature starfish to me.

8. “Functional medicine” is a new term to me—it is a way of practicing medicine that gets to the root of the problem rather than just prescribing something to mitigate the symptoms. A friend told me about this, so I looked it up, as one does. The friend told me that there are practitioners in the area, so I looked that up too. Alas, it took me to the chiropractor I already saw, the very one who tried to sell me a $3500 package of all sorts of things that might or might not treat my neuropathy. Sigh. The saga continues. . .

Did these shoes wreck my feet back in the ’70s and ’80s?

9. No matter how certain I am that a painting is finished, there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

Tomorrow: Eighteen Things I Learned in Texas (Yes, EIGHTEEN, and that doesn’t include all of the things I told you about in my six Texas travelogue posts.

Sold in Spring: 17 Paintings, 3 Pencil Drawings

Sales were slow last year, mostly due to the fact of my three selling locations either being closed or taking a big hit of one sort or another.

This spring, things broke loose, opened up, took off. Have a look! (I may have forgotten some, because I fell out of the habit of keeping track.)

It was the usual blend of citrus, poppies, redwood trees, and Mineral King, with two of the river during peak run-off season. I do have a few other subjects, but these continue to be the most popular. The largest size painting was 11×14 10×30″; most of the buyers were either getting gifts or souvenirs. And people buy paintings of what they have experienced, so I do my best to keep things seasonally appropriate.

The pencil commission of the dog was from some old friends, and I am so touched that they still think of me when they have an art need. (“Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.”)

The pencil commission of a cabin was the biggest thrill, because it came from a stranger who found me through the internet, and a thrill because drawing cabins in pencil is my strongest skill, the thing I enjoy the most. Paintings sell better, so I will continue to paint. One day I might actually have confidence in my abilities in that department. Always practicing, always learning, and hopefully, always improving. . .

Tomorrow: Nine Things Learned in May

Random Photos of Late Spring

These photos are simply things on my property that I thought you might appreciate. Sometimes it is more enjoyable to look at cats and flowers than to watch paint dry.

This honeysuckle grows on the side of my studio and smells heavenly when the door is open. (Stop scratching your screen!)
I sowed some poppy seeds with an expired date on the package. So far two have been white, or perhaps cream or light yellow.
Jackson doesn’t care about the late season brodiaea but seems to be entranced by something that he might want to kill. This variety is called elegant brodiaea.
The piecemeal fence in the herb garden has needed paint for a couple of years. If I had done it earlier in the season, I would have been able to reach all the parts that are currently covered by growth.
Oh well, it is better than before, as long as the plants hide the unpainted portions

Oh no! I took you right back into watching paint dry!

Tomorrow: Sold in Spring

First Mineral King Stay of 2024

On the drive up the hill, I was just astonished by the abundance of yellow flowers, particularly bush poppies, covering the areas that burned in 2021. There were also blazing stars, common madia, flannel bush, and monkey flowers, all yellow. There were some other colors too, but yellow dominated.

This is actually looking back downhill.

I have been working on a painting of a scene, incorporating every cabin below Timber Gap and Empire’s outcropping, in spite of there being no actual place to see everything at once. So, this was a good opportunity to really observe each cabin before all the foliage had leafed out.

I spent several sessions standing in various locations, sketching how each cabin might look in relation to its neighbors.

But I bet you didn’t come to this post to see me go on about my work.

View looking uphill from Lookout Point. The tip of Sawtooth is barely visible, but you can see that Sawtooth is still snow-covered.
Farewell Gap is also very snow-covered.
This is the stream by the Honeymoon Cabin.
The Nature Trail has some snow drifts.
The Spring Creek bridge is not in, but someone went snooping around and found a metal plank and placed it below where the stream divides.

The Mineral King road is still under construction with a fluctuating schedule of closures. As soon as I think I know when it will be open and when it will be closed, the schedule gets rearranged. There were many pieces of equipment parked along the shoulders (such as “shoulders” exist on this road), many piles of dirt, and many places of dropping down to gravel where sections will be repaved. But compared to last summer, it isn’t scary.

Let the summer begin!

Drawing a Pennsylvania Dog in Pencil

Pencil Pennsylvanian? Pennsyl Pennsylvanian? Pencil Pencilvanian?

Never mind.

His name was Elvis, and some friends of his former owner commissioned me to draw him.

Outline first
looking at a very lightened photo to see the dark eye and nose details
When the eyes are right, it is safe to continue.
Almost done

All those inferior progress photos were taken with an inferior phone camera. Here is the finished drawing, scanned, photoshopped, ready for delivery.

Elvis in pencil

More Better Than Befores

Before
Better. Comb Rocks in the Distance, 10×10″, $200
Before
Better. Heading to Farewell Gap, 8×10″, $145
Before
Better. Redwood & Dogwood II, 6×12″, $145

And thus we conclude our tour through paintings of Tulare County, better than before. I think one must see the paintings in person to properly appreciate the subtle improvements

Now if you will please excuse me, I have a commissioned pencil drawing to begin.

Tomorrow: Pennsylvania Dog in Pencil

Better Than Before

While at the Redbud Festival, there was plenty of time to sit and study my paintings. I put on my mental critic hat, and made a list of adjustments that would improve my paintings.

Before
Better. Craig Ranch, 8×10″, $125
Before
Better. Olive Orchard, 10×10″, $200
Before
Walnut Grove, 10×10″, $200

Whaddya think about the improvements on these typical Tulare County scenes? Betcha you can’t even tell the differences.

Tomorrow: More Better Than Befores

Sequoia Oil Paintings

Sometimes I write things about Tulare County that sound rude; they are simply the truth.

However, in addition to the fact that we are all fat, poor, undereducated, and have bad air, we have SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK!

Here are four Sequoia oil paintings, drying in the sun on the driveway in front of my painting workshop building.

So, I paint Sequoia trees. Every time I go to Sequoia, which we simply refer to as “The Park”, I look for good trees to photograph. Then, I paint from the photos. As time passes and the experiences mount up, I am more able to make up trees. The photos guide me, but then I just pants it. (Did you know that “pants” can be a verb?”)

Big Tree Trunk, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×12″, $145
Sequoia Gigantea IV, 6×18″, oil on wrapped canvas, $190
Sequoia Pair II, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×18″, $190

And remember, here in Tulare County we are fat, diabetic, uneducated, unemployed, and without a Trader Joe’s, although we now have an Aldi’s and a Sprouts. . . moving up in the world.

P.S. All three Sequoia oil paintings are available to view and to purchase at Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers, now located in The Dome, just downstream from Reimer’s Candies.

Tomorrow: Better Than Before

Eight on the Easels

Eight WHAT on the easels?

So glad you asked! Eight oil paintings of Mineral King are on my easels. Sometimes they are on a table, sometimes they are in my hands while I paint.

After putting a base coat on the canvases to bury the white, I painted skies on all eight.

four 6×6″ paintings
one 10×10″, one 8×10″ painting

Three are the same scene, the most popular Mineral King subject of the Crowley family cabin in front of Farewell Gap. And now that the skies are in and I am seeing it on the computer, it is apparent that West Florence peak (the left side of Farewell Gap) on the 10×10″ painting isn’t high enough. That will be an easy fix.

Are you counting and recounting and wondering if I have forgotten basic arithmetic?

Here are the other two. I started them awhile ago but set them aside to paint some redwood trees.

These have new skies now, but I didn’t rephotograph them

Here are the redwood trees, in case you have forgotten. Or maybe you needed a reminder that Sequoia gigantea is the same as redwood. (We also call them The Big Trees around here in basic low-brow Tulare County type language.)

I wanted to show off my Sequoia gigantea paintings. Just a little. It might be called “marketing” or “advertising”, possibly even “bragging”.