Almost Finished with the Sawtooth Paintings

At the time of this writing, 2 of the Sawtooth paintings are finished, and the third just needs a small area before joining the others in their finished state. I had leftover paint on my palette, so I painted the edges. This made them a bit too wet to handle, so #3 had to be on hold for a bit.

As I show you these photos of the paintings in progress, I get more and more confused as to which painting is in what stage; I’m like the mother of triplets who lost the note telling which kid has a mole on his 2nd toe or something else to distinguish them (but I don’t have difficulty in real life because they are 2 different sizes and have an inventory number on the backs).

Sometimes when I look at photos of the finished paintings, I see more things to correct. Unless they are glaring mistakes, I will ignore them. These patient customers would like their paintings sometime, preferably sooner rather than later.

Here – you can see a few more and join me in my state of confusion. This top one is finished, but we are hard pressed to tell in the high contrast sunshine.  The 16×20 is finished; the 11×14 beneath it isn’t – look at the trees on the right (middle) side. This one looks finished. I wonder if it is the 16×20 or one of the 11x14s. This one needs mid-ground trees and foreground grasses and flowers. Definitely not finished. This one appears to be finished. When there are grasses and tiny colored dots for flowers, it is finished.

What’s harder? Painting the same scene three times, or trying to sort the photos and show people? Or trying to comprehend a blog post about it? (See? I always have questions!)

Lots of Sawtooths (Sawteeth? Nah)

Painting the same complicated and difficult picture multiple times doesn’t seem to make it any easier. But, since I have done it before, I know I can do it again (and again, and yet again).

This is the 16×20″ version.

These are the two 11×14″:It takes some discipline to not get too far ahead on each one. Even if I am on a roll, I have to move to the other 2 canvases to repeat a successful rock, tree, texture, or stretch of water. When all are finally finished, I will evaluate each part, decide which painting is the best in that area, and then bring the other two up to the level of the best.

P.S. Who’da thunk that the plural of “Sawtooth” would be “Sawtooths?”

I Always Have Questions

Do other people have questions? Why aren’t other people curious? Is it curiosity or just plain interest? Don’t answer those – just ponder these with me, and if you have answers, let ‘er rip, Tater Chip.

  1. When did people stop giving things and begin “gifting” them?
  2. Why are there so many lines criss-crossing the sky that are not from jets? This is a regular occurrence, one that another friend alerted me to.
  3. Who made up zombies and decided that they were a good subject for movies? (Someone please make it stop)
  4. Where was Tucker the other night and why did that strange black cat let me pick him up and toss him in the workshop? (How do you know in the dark of night if it is your black cat or a strange one? By the voice and the odd behavior, which I dismissed because I was tired and I wanted Tucker to be locked up safely with Pippin and Jackson for the night.)
  5. If The Frankenvirus was made up by scientists messing around in a lab, why don’t we ask those scientists what sort of people they were targeting? If we knew, then we would know who is vulnerable and who to protect! (Yeah, I know, anyone who create such a monster wouldn’t actually care about who the monster injured or killed.)
  6. Why are most dresses for older women sleeveless? Could we get a little coverage here? (And what is “older”?) 
  7. Why are the deciduous large leaf privets and euonymous in my yard losing their leaves? (Not just my yard, but the yards of several friends too)
  8. Why do so many things bloom out of season in my yard? Snowball bush blooming while the leaves are changing, lavender blooming in November, rosemary in November instead of January or February – what does this mean?

Final Question for today: have you seen my show yet? Gallery days and hours below!

The Show Goes On

“The Show” refers to my solo show at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery. I have not been given an end date other than “sometime in January”.

IMAGES OF HOME

Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery and Museum

125 South B Street, Exeter, California

HOURS: Saturday and Sunday, 12-4

Eight pieces have sold, which means there are 41 left for you to choose from. (If you want to take your piece home with you, the gallery will let me know, and I will bring something else to fill that empty spot on the wall.)

In addition to original oil paintings and original pencil drawings, there are:

  • 2022 Calendars
  • Heart of Tulare County, a new coloring book for grownups and older children
  • Notecard packages
  • Single cards
  • Collector matted cards from Christmas in Exeter in the 1900s
  • ONE original colored pencil drawing of a poinsettia (in a mat)

IN ADDITION TO THE SATURDAY/SUNDAY HOURS, I WILL OPEN THE GALLERY (but not the museum) ON TWO MORE FRIDAYS FROM 11-3.

How I Designed a Logo, Final Chapter

We had a bit more adjusting and refining to do. This involved 4 more versions.

FINAL VERSION OF THE LOGO

Don’t worry if you can’t see the tiny differences. My customers and I can, and we are all quite happy with the results of this long collaboration on a logo. They were very patient and kept reminding me that they had been without a logo since the 1980s. 

It is Friday; do you know where your Central California Artist will be?

How I Designed a Logo, Chapter 8

The new drawing was in place, but I thought the type was overpowering to the drawing. The customers had a different thought, which really surprised me: they preferred the placeholder drawing to the new one!

I realize that what I consider to be a good drawing versus what people who don’t draw consider to be a good drawing differs. But, I could not not not let this drawing from the last century go into the new logo. NOT.

So, I drew it again.

Before:

Edited to:

After:

The road and the fence were what spoke to them in the old drawing. I did better mountains, better foothills, and because they grow both oranges and lemons, we included both. 

But wait! There will be more. . . stay tuned!

Eight Things I Learned in November

  1. Pineapple quince is good for baking like apples, and eaten fresh it is like a green pear but very dry. (Something is telling me I might have learned and forgotten this one before!) I didn’t pick one – only saw them, took a photo, and asked The Farmer, who supplied me with this answer.
  2. Want to know why painters wear white? There are several reasons, including tradition. It was the official color of the painters union, is the base color of almost all paints (couldn’t be the base of the dark colors, could it?? of course not!), is cooler in the heat, signifies to others a professional appearance and approach to work, and shows all the layers of work done. Finally, if you see people wearing white, it might make you careful about what you touch.
  3. What is BCE and why instead of BC? BC means before Christ; BCE is the newer way of indicating time and stands for Before Common Era. (You can probably infer the reason for the push to change the old designations). 
  4. In the same vein, AD means Anno Domini, which is Latin for “year of our Lord”; it is now called CE for Common Era. This implies there will be another era ahead – will it be called UE for Uncommon Era?
  5. A few months ago, I learned that the dial tone on the phone is F#. Being a curious person, I decided to test it. IT ISN’T F#!  It is a flat A – not A-flat (can’t find the symbol for the musical flat sign on my computer keyboard – maybe I will learn that next month).
  6. It isn’t wise to schedule a blog post series during an active art show. I wrote the chapters of “How I Designed a Logo” before IMAGES OF HOME opened, scheduled it ahead to run on consecutive days, and then my show happened with many fun things to show and tell. Now I keep interrupting the flow of “How I Designed a Logo”, and it dilutes the impact of this large and important (to me and D-Bar-J) custom job. I hope you are enjoying the series despite the start-and-stop nature.
  7. I lowered the price on The Cabins of Wilsonia from $50 to $40; the sales picked up right away! Is this because the website store page has a tag on it that reads “Sale!“? If I knew this, maybe I’d drop all my prices by a dime or a dollar and mark it as being “on sale”. But alas, I didn’t learn anything solid other than lowering the price increased the sales.
  8. Badgers have a white stripe on their heads. I’ve never seen a badger but my UPS driver saw one dead on the side of the road near Kaweah Oaks Preserve, took a picture and showed me.

Did you learn anything in November? (Does anyone besides me keep track?)

How I Designed a Logo, Chapter 7

My customers chose this version of their logo.

Now, it was time to do the original drawing to customize the logo for them.

They requested color, but before I added it to the drawing, I put it into the logo instead of the place holder.

Getting there, but more polishing and adjusting ahead. Logo design is tricky stuff, and there has to be clear communication between me and the customers in order to get it just right for them.

To be continued. . .

Exploring the End of North Fork Drive

Trail Guy, The Farmer, Hiking Buddy and I went on a bit of an adventure. We had all been here are various times in our lives, but never after a fire. The upper end of North Fork Drive had borate (pink fire retardant) sprayed on both sides of the road, the views were much wider than before with so much brush burned out, and it was much more apparent than before how very steep the drop-off is to the river.

After a tail-gate lunch, we headed across the creek and up a dirt road to see how things looked.

This road was widened by bulldozers to create a firebreak. The area definitely burned, but the October rains and the north-facing slopes together have allowed green to begin emerging.

Hey -what is that?

Just a couple of little underground rooms, one with a solid concrete door.

Look – we crossed a bridge to peek into the little rooms – I didn’t notice at the time.

This road is just going up and up and up and up. . . nothing looks different. Let’s go back and take the fork to the right. But what is this white stuff? Ash. A tree on the ground burned and we are looking at the branching pattern left behind.

This was probably covered in a variety of shrubs. I am loving the green here. We headed over to a big flat area, known as Grunigen’s Flat, a former homestead or cattle ranch or commune or something.

Because it all burned, this impressive rock wall shows up.

We followed the wall, which followed the creek. All this chiseled quarried stone, laid without mortar, for what end?

Ugh. Fire. I kept expecting to come to a granite slab with Indian grind-holes. Sure enough, we did, but I didn’t photograph it. I was too absorbed in the sycamores, stone wall, and the green.

The ground was weird like this all over – is this some sort of fire-heave effect?? I don’t think it was a gopher evacuation camp.

The Farmer did a bit of searching and learned that the wall was built in the ’30s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, specifically the Yucca CCC Camp. Not sure what purpose it served other than providing work. If I didn’t have other things going on, I might look it up. But sometimes, a wall is just a wall, and a stone wall this aesthetically pleasing is good enough for this Central California artist for now.

Oil Painting With Friends

Today I will be at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery from 11-3, oil painting with friends. You are welcome to stop by!

Why will I be there when I could be painting at home? 

  1. My friends don’t have as much experience in oil painting as I do, so I can help them.
  2. Sometimes it is fun to paint with friends instead of painting alone at home.
  3. I HAVE A SHOW HANGING AT THE GALLERY WITH MY ART FOR SALE!

I might bring this trail painting or maybe a stack of Sawtooth paintings.