What passes for winter in Three Rivers is probably what many parts of the country regard as springtime. When we get rain, we get green.
This is greenery when I am walking, but probably just weeds to the property owner.
Moss is boss.
More moss!
The buckeye trees are leafing out.
We get flowers too.
The neighbor’s narcissus.
My paperwhites.This many are so very fragrant.
And, we get lichen. Well, we already had that, but I’m on a roll here, taking photos while walking.
An old friend told me she was envious that I get to live in Three Rivers. In order to help her feel better, I told her this:
“There are elements of 3R that aren’t so great, such as frequent power outages (more frequent than towns down the hill), smoke in the fall, evacuations during wildfires, unreliable and spotty cell service, phone and internet outages, occasional water outages, no dentist, no drug store, expensive groceries, only 3 churches to choose from, shrinking population, Park closures that adversely affect commerce, limited commercial choices (is this a bad thing?).”
How many are drying in the house at the time of this writing?
Six!
But how many are you working on right now?
Just four.
Will this painting ever be finished? It has now been improved a little bit more.
BeforeAfter
Maybe this one is ready to sign! All the edges will take awhile to paint too, but maybe the actual scene is actually finished. Actually!
It looks pretty good in person, if I do say so myself. Yep, just said it.
This is fixin’ to get some real paint so it can look like more than a mist of its future self. The green hill in the distance is the other side of the close green hill in the painting above.
It looks tiny here, but in reality, it is 16×16″.
These poppies are really fun. I put it off for awhile because it seemed too hard, too fussy, too small. I was wrong.
This little field of poppies (6×12″) only needs a bit of drying time and some final touch-ups. Well, that plus signing, edges, drying, scanning, and some varnish.
And the steady progress of building up a body of work of Tulare County oil paintings continues, in anticipation of the solo show at CACHE in late fall, 2024.
Seeing a collection of paintings that has sold provides fuel to keep me painting during a season of slow sales. This is a season of producing; November-December was a season of selling.
Sometimes people wonder if I work on more than one painting at a time. Yeppers, for sure! Today’s post is a look at several paintings at various stages of completion.
This one is getting close to completion. I like it better with each new iteration.
This will go quickly. I mean the painting process will go quickly; selling is an unknown in terms of speed.
The poppies look good but the painting needs more. . . . . . lupine and popcorn! Now it is drying in the house.The Four Guardsmen, as you head up to Giant Forest.This will definitely need another detailed layer.
8×8″, oil on wrapped canvas, The Big Trees, FINISHED!
There are more in various stages, but this is enough for today. Thanks for stopping by.
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.
The end of January had some very clear days with temperatures in the 60s. We took advantage of this to check out the Mineral King Road, just as far as where the snow might become a driving problem. There was no agenda, just some friends hanging out, stopping when and where something struck our fancy.
We walked some too.
We were curious to see if there was water in the flume.The boards on top were very slick, and we heeded this warning.Despite recent roadwork, all drainage troubles aren’t solved.Our guys did what they could.
Weird sausages made from straw keep the road from sloughing off down the canyon.
There was a deep hole here all summer, just below Slap Jack but now this dirt pile (in the foreground) has filled it up.
This was a CCC camp.Trail Guy found remains of their outhouse.
Some cabin neighbors used to refer to these redwoods as Aunt Tillie and Uncle Pete. We call them “Redwood”, as if there is just one, but it is short for Redwood Creek.
We turned around at Atwell Mill, not wanting to deal with the snow.
Just above Lookout, we saw something we’ve never seen on the Mineral King Road before.
Those are rock climbers!!
Such a clear beautiful day, and we hope it is the last chance to drive up for while because there will be too much snow soon. (But not so much that the road falls apart again this year.)
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?)
1.Quill Driver Books is a traditional publishing company in Fresno. Fresno?? How could I have not heard of this place? They aren’t accepting any submissions, but the books they sell look very interesting.
Reading Rabbit, AKA Salt and Light
2. Just for fun, have a look at this tree called the “wonky conker”. I don’t remember where I saw it, but it is a real curiosity.
This is a live oak, not the wonky conker, but I needed a photo here so you wouldn’t get bored with too much typing.
3. I heard someone say in an interview, “I’d rather have questions without answers than be told answers without being able to ask questions.” Amen!
Tucker and Pippin mainly want to know why we can’t keep the vehicles engines warm for them at all times.Jackson’s main question is “May I have more food now?”
4. My feet hurt. I thought it is peripheral neuropathy (from 2 different podiatrists), but now I have learned that it could be Morton’s neuroma, something I had never heard of. I am figuring it out on my own, and not having much confidence in doctors right now. (I’m afeared* that it’s both.)
Could this foot apparel from 1979 be why my feet hurt in 2024?
5. No cussing in pickleball. Really! If you cuss in a tournament, there are penalties. The friend who explained this to me said it has to do with respect for the game. In today’s world of coarse language, this is refreshing. (I thought the pickleball players that I occasionally watch were just all on good behavior because most of them attend the same church!)
6. If you grow yourhair to have it made into a wig or hairpiece, when it is time to cut it, it’s best to divide it into 4 ponytails, then cut it 1″ above the rubber band. AND, don’t cut it wet because it could mold. (Eeewww) Most places that take donations need a minimum of 10″, and some require as much as 12″. I wonder if I can hold out against a haircut for another 6 months. . .
7. Grocery shopping in new stores is kind of stressful; in one day I visited Sprouts for the first time (shockingly expensive and fancy), Aldi’s (priced about the same as Winco with much less selection), and finally I went to Winco with tremendous relief. Good grief Charlie Brown—I need to get out more if visiting new grocery stores stresses me.
I’d rather pick my fruit in an orchard than in a new grocery store.
8. You know those cartoons of pretty ladies from the 1950s with sarcastic and inappropriate captions? The originator of many is someone named Anne Taintor, and you can find 102 of them on The Bored Panda. So funny!! (Maybe other people have done these captioned funnies too, but I just learned about Anne Taintor.)
*I know that’s not a word. I’m trying to put a little levity into a rather alarming situation.
When Kaweah Arts closed in early January for a couple of months, I retrieved all my paintings. Kaweah Arts sold well for me in its three year span despite serious hardships: a plague, a fire, another fire, and a flood, each one leading to the closure of Sequoia National Park, which meant the flow of visitors to Three Rivers ceased. I went through my records of sales, and came up with a list of sizes and subjects that sold the best.
The average price was $145, and the most popular subject was sequoia trees, Sequoia gigantea, AKA redwoods (the common name) or “big trees” (local vernacular). Two other popular subjects were mountain range views and poppies.
I gathered seven blank canvases from 8×8″ ($100) up to 6×18″ ($165) and then went to my oh-so-lovely newly organized photo files. The efficiency. . .!
After pairing the photos with the right canvases, I then did some preliminary sketching. This isn’t something I normally do, but in the interest of painting quickly, this seemed like a prudent move. (Remember, I also need to produce 20-30 larger paintings for the solo show in October AND paint for the Silver City Store, which sells well for me in the summers when Mineral King is open to the public.)
Next, I did the boring tasks of assigning inventory numbers, and putting the hanging hardware on the back. (This is the sort of task that makes me wish I had an apprentice or an intern.)
All-righty, then! Let’s start with the assembly line style painting of the first layer to establish where colors will go and to cover the canvas.
Painting back to front means starting with the sky. The order of colors and placements doesn’t really matter at this stage, but it is wise to practice good habits whenever possible.
Green next, just using whatever is on the palette, but occasionally making dark/light adjustments.
Browns and oranges, same color family, plus yellow.
Looks like seven little messes that vaguely suggest what they will become, but with almost 18 years of oil painting, this is no longer alarming to me.
I hope you are not alarmed either. This is the most efficient way I know to paint, and these seven paintings will be finished, signed, dry, varnished, and scanned by the time Kaweah Arts reopens in March.
It’s all part of the business of art. (Just in case the Art World is checking in and judging my use of photos, let me explain that I took great care in composing those photos and have taken great care in cropping, blending, adjusting, and arranging the parts of each one of these paintings. So There, because working from photos is not wrong.)
I have 12 little drawers full of snapshots collected and used for pencil drawing over the last 37 years. These are in the studio.
I have a filing cabinet full of photos taken, organized and used for oil paintings and murals over the past 18 years. These are in the workshop where I paint. A filing cabinet with folders is not an ideal organizational situation for photos. It takes too long to find what I need, time that would be better spent actually painting.
What’s a Central California artist to do?
Sort, toss, refile, reorganize, of course. This is best done in the house. (Well, happy days, now I have photo messes in all my buildings.)
One of those little 6-drawer cabinets will fit in the workshop shelves. Looks as if those shelves could also use a makeover.
I might need both of those little 6-drawer cabinets in the painting workshop. The photos for drawing in the studio might end up in envelope boxes or shoeboxes.
It’s a long process to get all these actual photos on paper into the proper places, easily accessible, and ready for painting. Remember, it is not wrong to paint from photographs. That’s what studio artists do. (Except when they are trying to make up stuff, bumbling along on challenging paintings.)
