Painting in Mineral King

That was a confusing title. I was in Mineral King, painting non-Mineral King subjects. The heat in Mineral King is less uncomfortable than the swamp-cooler situation in my painting workshop. Sometimes in the past when I have been painting non-Mineral King subjects while in Mineral King, people have asked why I am not painting Mineral King. The answer is because there is a check, a customer, a gallery, or a store waiting for these particular paintings. (And, would you like to commission me to paint something here in Mineral King? This can be easily arranged.)

It is a little difficult for Joe Bag-of-Doughnuts from West Undershirt to accept the reality of art as a business. I do my best to educate him.

Moving on. . . here is how it looks to be painting non-Mineral King subjects while in Mineral King.

None of these are finished, all needing more details, edges painted, signing, and I have to pick some bugs out of the sky of the Moro Rock painting.

The wet paintings go on the stairs inside the cabin until time to take them home to be finished.

It isn’t ideal, but we make it work. I am very happy to have a place to sell my paintings and grateful to Nancy at Kaweah Arts for her terrific work on behalf of Three Rivers artists.

 

Good Sales Means New Paintings Needed

Big Tree #2 on a panel needed to be touched up and Big Tree #3 needed to be painted. On a morning before the swamp cooler began to feel useless, I worked on these giant paintings of giant trees on panels. These new panels, cobbled together by Trail Guy from scrap lumber, are all different proportions. Neither of these lent themselves to showing an entire Giant Sequoia; the tree would have been far too skinny on the panel and not filled up the “canvas” well.

When I finished these, they were lined up in the painting workshop and I noticed a theme: paintings on salvaged and reclaimed items. The trunk holds cat food, and the shutter is for a fundraiser for the Mineral King Preservation Society.

The owner of the art consignment shop Kaweah Arts has been selling very well for me. We had a conversation about the sorts of customers she is seeing and what they are drawn to. This led me to conclude that I need to keep Sequoias in different sizes and shapes and prices always ready to go, along with the Kaweah Post Office, some Mineral King, the river, and some standard scenes that people see when visiting Sequoia.

This is a salvaged canvas from a plein air painting that I did at home after taking the 3 day plein air workshop in Georgia 2 years ago. I liked the scene, but no one else cares. Now it is becoming something new. (Bye-bye, patriotic chairs.)

Here are all the newly begun paintings. 

 

 

Two New Big Trees

A few months ago, I went out on a limb and used my mural paints to put a Giant Sequoia on a panel that was about 1-1/2×5 feet. It was at Kaweah Arts for awhile, and then it sold. The next day, someone came into Kaweah Arts, cash in hand, excited to buy that Giant Sequoia. They snoozed and loozed. (Just say it aloud – you’ll get it).

Trail Guy and I went through our lumber scraps, and he was able to put together another one of these panels, this time 2×4′. He set up some sawhorses, and I put the new panel on them, along with a smaller one from the previous project. 

This is how it came together.

These don’t show the entire tree because the proportions of the panels are wider than the first one. The entire tree on these panels wouldn’t fill the space well; it would be too skinny and leave too much empty space around the tree.

But I hope those cash-laden folks like one of these anyway.

P.S. I don’t know how to classify this. It feels like a mural because I used my acrylic mural paints, but it isn’t on a wall.

Doing Nothing in Mineral King

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD.That title is not exactly true. We sat around, took a short walk to Crystal Creek, visited with neighbors, rearranged garbage in the dumpster and examined the difficult lock, met the temporary law-enforcement ranger, napped, watched the curtains flap in a windstorm, enjoyed a bit of rain. I also painted, read and knit. But we did not hike, because it was too hot.

The overcast provided relief from the heat, as did the precipitation one afternoon.

We pried ourselves off the porch and ambled up to Crystal Creek. (This photo is darker than reality in spite of messing with it on the computer.)

It is a banner year for baby’s breath close to Crystal Creek.

Crystal Creek was very low but adequate to water some very nice wildflowers in their prime. (To learn the names, perhaps you might like to buy a copy of Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.)

Walking back, we admired the corn lilies, which are having a rare year of bloom. Can you recognize the Honeymoom Cabin from this side?

Federal Highways has big plans to redo the Park’s section of the Mineral King Road, and part of the plan is to expand and pave the parking lot at the end of the road. There is a juniper of historical significance in the parking lot, now in jeopardy. You can see the dead tree to the left; the juniper to the right is just fine. It is somewhat camouflaged in this photo.

The blue paint lines mean the tree is going to be removed. I don’t want it to be removed! Does anyone know a certified arborist who can verify the health of the tree? Maybe the Park would listen to someone with Important Papers and Capital Letters. (My Most Important Papers about being Exeter Woman of the Year in 1998 don’t count, nor do the capital letters DBO).

Here is a more familiar angle of the Honeymoon Cabin, which serves as a mini-museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society.Meanwhile, back near the cabin, I found more corn lilies in bloom, a new mint, and a blooming swamp onion.

Completed Commissions

Here are the promised scans of the two most recent custom art jobs, now both completed.

Here is Sawtooth.

Here is Yosemite Falls, as interpreted by the Central California artist, working from multiple reference photos in the “comfort” of her swamp-cooled painting workshop.

More On Drawing Lessons

These drawings are all by my drawing students, in progress, quickly photographed by my inadequate phone.

Different levels of experience, different levels of completion, but all work at their own speeds on subjects they choose.

Some of the things I tell them: “You can try this if you really want to, but it might even be too hard for me”; “You draw better than I do so I’m not sure why you are here but I will try to help you”; “That looks really fun!”; “Oh wow, that is going to take a long long time”; “I drew something like that once and ended up hating the subject”; “That is a great photo and will make a great drawing”; “Good thing you know your subject matter because it is really difficult to tell what is happening in that little area”.

I also help with step by step instructions. Lessons last 1 hour with 4 students per class. $55/month plus supplies, no lessons in July, August, or December. If you would like to know more, email me (cabinart at cabinart dot net, spelled out because it is supposed to discourage robots from contacting me) or use the contact button here on the website.

Drawing Lessons

Drawing is not a talent; it is a skill, and if you can listen and be patient with the process, you can learn.

Look what is in progress right now with my drawing students of all levels (I took the photos quickly with my phone so OF COURSE they look better in person):

Some are almost finished, some have weeks or even months to go. Each student works at her own pace on the subject of her choosing. Some work from their own photos; others find photos from other sources. Some are doing the drawings as gifts; some turn them into cards; some have reproduction prints made from their originals to share with people; some are drawing commissioned work.

Everyone has fun (including me). 

More later.

Another Oil Commission

In case you might have forgotten, I use pencils, oil paint, and murals, to make art that you can understand of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

Sales pitch over – let’s get on with it.

A friend sent me this photo of Sawtooth because her mother said she’d like a painting of the signature peak of Mineral King. The photo is a little plain, so we decided that some wispy clouds in the sky and brighter aspens will jazz it up.

Here is the rough beginning of the painting.

I added some green blobs, then moved it into the drying area with Yosemite Falls. I could have kept going, but it was time to head up the hill. And sometimes I just quit in the middle of the day because I am the boss of my business and can do anything I want. (Fall down laughing . . . sometimes the business is the boss of me.)

OH NO! Yosemite Falls is sideways! 

This is because the Yosemite friend first sent me a horizontal photo, so I wired the canvas that direction. After she changed her mind, I decided to wait until the painting is entirely dry to change the orientation of the wire. Being the boss of my business, I can do things in any order I want. Sometimes I just get rebellious and live on the edge like that.

P.S. I have good friends who like my art and prove it by hiring me, and I consider it a great honor, although sometimes I wish I could just give it all away. But then how would I pay for this overpriced laptop and all the hidden internet costs? And gas? Oh, food too. . . what about taxes? and YARN???

Above Timber Gap

Over the Fourth of July weekend, our cabin neighborhood was full of friends who happen to have cabins near each other. That’s the best way I can describe our little enclave of rustic shacks in Mineral King. Some of the neighbors spent a day on the trail to Hockett Meadow for a 23 mile hike. Some of us did something a bit more manageable.

It was a beautifully clear day when we set out around 9 a.m. No matter how many photos I take of this scene from the bridge, each time I am sure it is the best it has ever looked.

Sometimes I take this photo downstream too. This time I took it because soon the 2 trees by that cabin will be gone.

We went to Timber Gap and then up to the left (it felt really really up-ish), back down into the gap, and crashed around until we stumbled on the old wagon road built in the mining era.

This is the view over Timber Gap to the Middle Fork of the Kaweah drainage. If I study the view and squint hard, I can pick out Alta Peak, the mountain that is visible from our house.

This is the view of Mineral King from the slope above Timber Gap on the west. (It is where I took my reference photos for the giant Mineral King mural in Exeter.)

We headed back into Timber Gap and decided we were all game to find the old wagon road.

Trail Guy said it is hard to find from Timber Gap, and I agreed, except that I always manage to crash around and stumble across it in spite of the vagueness of that method. Once again, it worked.

There were five of us, but we took no selfies or group shots. After this photo, I put my camera away because: 1. I have taken many photos of this before and 2. it was prudent to watch my steps carefully.

On the Fourth of July, we had a little spontaneous flag-raising.

It almost took a village, but mostly it took Trail Guy and a Yacht Master.

God bless the USA and God bless our neighbor-friends!

 

 

New Oil Commission

“Commission” is fancy talk for custom art.

A friend requested an 8×10″ oil painting from a photo she took in Yosemite.

I haven’t been to Yosemite very often and don’t really know it but somehow I knew to ask if this was Yosemite Falls, and doesn’t it have 2 parts? The oak tree in the foreground was obstructing the shapes of the cliffs, and I also needed to know if the barely visible cabin in the lower right mattered.

After a bit of back-and-forth, I went to the World Wide Web, found many photos that showed the dual nature of these famous falls, and proceeded to make up my own version. 

Since when have I become such a rogue painter??

Here are the steps (without showing you the photo from the WWW because I do not have permission.) I began the painting in the studio (the reasons are boring), where oil painting does not belong, but I was very very careful.  I worked from my friend’s photo on the laptop. You can see that I chose to keep and enhance the little structure, because I am into cabins (hence “Cabin Art”).

The next painting session was in the painting workshop, where it is not a tragedy to drop and spill things. The natural light is better there than in the artificial light of the studio, so it was a much better place to finish the painting.

The last photo was taken with the phone instead of the camera. Neither one is adequate, but will have to suffice until the painting is dry and can be scanned.