Tiptoeing Along on Several Oil Paintings

Why tiptoeing? Because it feels slow and careful at this stage, like I am just feeling my way along, trying to be as careful as possible.

First up, Sawtooth, the commissioned oil painting.

Second, rebuild the Kaweah Post Office, also a commissioned oil painting.

Third, plant some grasses. (Oil paint grasses, not fescue or bermuda or dichondra or Kentucky bluegrass or. . .) There was more progress made, but the phone call came that it was time to rescue Piper from the vet, where he got civilized this week. $192. No such thing as a free cat. (Samson cost $132 – he was in better shape to start with.)

Sawtooth got its front ridges painted.
Then I flipped it over to paint the bottom and begin the greenery.
This one had its skyline just too rough, with things not the right heights. So, I repainted the sky, using it to shape the mountain tops.
This was begun all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Better now. Miles to go before I sleep. . .
I mixed up 3 shades of green and began building background. While doing this, I increased the sizes of the blooms and added many more.

April Distractions in Three Rivers

I tried to oil paint last Friday but the greenery and wildflowers overcame my sense of duty. So, Trail Guy and I drove up North Fork Drive to the end.

My palette was ready to go.
I worked on Sawtooth a little.
After telling Trail Guy that I’d heard the flowers were great up North Fork and staring out the window a bit, he said, “Let’s go now!”

The road was longer, rougher, narrower than I remembered and all very worth the drive.

The last 3.5 miles are unpaved.
This is Yucca Creek at the end of North Fork Drive.
That’s one narrow little footbridge over a massive old culvert pipe.
Wowsa.
The yellow flowers are called Madia.
Heading back down has a view of Ash Peak with a blooming yucca and bush lupine.
Looking over the edge down to the North Fork makes one glad to not encounter any oncoming traffic on that narrow road with no turnouts.
Poppies are yellower in the wild than in my yard.
The poppies on the hillsides are what gave California its name of “The Golden State”. (Bet you thought it was the gold rush)
I love Fairy Lanterns, AKA Satin Bells. Pink isn’t my favorite color, but it is rare enough in nature that it stands out.

After we got back home, I painted a little bit more. There is this commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth for a very patient customer, and it would be good to make progress.

Sawtooth’s shape is improving, and it is acquiring colors and texture.

Then, I got distracted again and thought that wildflowers would look great on a 6×18″ canvas. Can you see the possibilities here? (Put on your rose-colored glasses with me!)

Planning a wildflower oil painting.

More Easel Time

Remember the commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth? I do, really, I do. Please don’t worry, DV!

It looked like this after the first painting session.
Now the sky and upper half of the painting has another layer that is more dramatic, which means both the colors and contrast are stronger.

It was a rainy overcast day, and by the time I got to the Sawtooth part of the painting, the light was too poor to mix colors accurately. That wasn’t very important on the first layer, but it is increasingly important as the layers build.

So, I moved on to a Kaweah Post Office commission. SD asked me to paint another Kaweah Post Office IX for her. This one is number IXV. It should be XV, but I didn’t number one of my earlier Kaweah Post Office paintings. That happens a lot around here.

Kaweah Post Office IX was painted in 2013; its twin will be painted in 2018 with a few adjustments. It will be a fraternal twin, rather than an identical one.
Gotta start somewhere. . . Don’t worry, SD. I’ll paint until you are thrilled with the results!

As I was painting, I realized it would be helpful to see the one this was modeled after, because maybe this wasn’t the actual photo used for that one. Yea for a laptop.

A decent start.
Added to the drying rack (who is back there making all that noise??)

Starting Over Again With Sawtooth

All those paintings of Sawtooth completed over the past several months, and someone wants a different size? 

Yep. No problem. I am an artist, and artists make art. Here are the beginning steps of the commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth:

First I assign an inventory #, title the piece and attach a hanging wire.
Second step is to prime the canvas, or “tone” it as another artist names it. That was even more boring than Step #1, so this photo is showing the paint from the tubes and the colors I mixed to begin the painting.
Painting from back to front means that the blue sky strips go on first.
Then some clouds, and the realization that it would be helpful to crop the photo to a square.
More clouds and the beginning of Sawtooth’s shape.
The angle looked too steep on Sawtooth’s right side slope, so I pulled out my angle finder tool. It was a little tricky to take this photo so I am not holding the thing correctly here (vertical needs to be vertical, not tipsy). I’ll recheck the angle in the next layer.
At the end of the painting session, everything had a first coat of paint.

Wow, it is time-consuming and interruptive to photograph the steps in this much detail. But, this customer has become a friend and likes seeing the progress. I’ve heard from others that seeing the process is interesting, so here we go. . .

Kaweah Post Office Oil Paintings

Kaweah Post Office, first painted in 2009 with three years of painting under my belt, no confidence in my ability to paint architectural subjects and not a ton of experience in photographing my work either.

Every time an oil painting of the Kaweah Post Office sells, I paint it again.

Kaweah Post Office II, painted in 2010 (Where is the flag???)
Kaweah Post Office III, painted in 2011
Kaweah Post Office IV, painted in 2010, getting really elaborate with my details as my confidence and skill grows.
Kaweah Post Office V, complete with the cigar Indian on the porch, also painted in 2010.
Kaweah Post Office VI, 2012 (must have taken awhile for the previous one to sell)
Kaweah Post Office VII, also painted in 2012

That’s a lot of oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office. But wait! There’s more! Come back tomorrow and see the second set of seven.

The Barn Drawing

Remember the pencil commission of the Michigan barn, drawn from some barely adequate photos? I think the grass and sky took as long as the barn itself. When I finally finished, I scanned it to email to the customer for approval.

He saw right away that the 2 tall doors were lighter than the others. Why didn’t I notice that? Because I was in the weeds! I mean the grass! (. . . don’t get weird on me; I’ve never tried an illegal substance in my entire life and that is the shocking truth)

Doors too light

Here it is with the large doors darkened a tad. 

The next step is to do the prep in Photoshop Elements so it can be reproduced. Can you tell the difference?

Odd Job With a Goose

This is Tony’s wooden goose with a coat of primer on it.

He didn’t give me any instructions other than to paint the goose. I found several helpful photos of Canada geese to work from, with visible head, neck, wing tops, wing bottoms, tail and the back.(What did people do before The Google came along to answer all our questions? They didn’t say yes to as many odd jobs.)

First step: mixing paint. I used my mural paints because this will be outside and because it needed to dry quickly.

White, burnt umber and phthalo blue, along with some grays, browns, a purple and an orange.
The first color, black, was achieved with the purple (alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue), phthalo and orange (cadmium yellow and cadmium red). I made a small dot of the color with white and it made a pure gray, so I knew it was black and not purple or brown or green.
Here is a brown that will work. It is an old mixture that I called “dark redwood”, but altered a bit here with orange and some of the black.
Ahem. I seemed to have painted this guy’s head upside down.
Better!
Found another photo of a goose’s back.
The underside of the wings are important, because this is a flapping goose that will be seen from all angles. I was able to flip the photos horizontally in order to see the goose both directions.
Will this work? Do I need more detail? The color is grayer on my goose than on The Google’s goose. Can I trust the photo? Will Tony be disappointed?
It was easiest to paint when it was lying flat and I could see each side at the same time.

Am I finished? I’ll email this photo to Tony and see what he says.

Whoa, Tony, you’d better come get this goose because he is trying to fly outta here!

Birdland, Third Day

Who knew that birds would show up in such numbers in my art business??

My friend’s husband, Tony, asked if I could paint a wooden goose for him. A what, Tony? A goose! He didn’t specify type, so I had to consult The Google for ideas. I told him it will be a Canada Goose (yes, it is Canada Goose, not “Canadian Goose”) and that I hope it will look so realistic that someone might try to shoot it. This could fall into the category of Odd Jobs, and when I show you how it is coming along, that’s how I’ll classify it.

Meanwhile, the birds go on. . .

4 new chickens, a bear and a reflection scene
The great blue heron and the rooster are drying together in peace, no one flapping or crowing.
The quail and hen are drying together too, but they are all crooked so you’ll have to wait until they are dry enough to be scanned in order to have a proper view and full appreciation of their beauty.
This rooster and another hen as they appeared after layer #2.

Meanwhile, I am sorely lacking in quail photos. Those little guys are shy and busy. They show up outside the windows when the light is low, so it takes about a dozen photos to find one that might be paintable.

Barn Raising

Just kidding. I’m not raising a barn, just drawing it. Well, maybe I am raising it out of the vast whiteness of the paper.

I received these 2 photos along with many instructions. The top photo is how the barn looks now; the lower one is how it looked when the customer was a child and what he is wanting me to draw.

He also wanted me to match the size of the barn in this print, drawn (or is that ink with a watercolor wash or something else I don’t recognize?) by one of my art heroes.

Part of the business of art is communicating thoroughly and clearly with customers and potential customers. I realized that this job would require a sketch and approval of the sketch before I began, because there were lots of places for misunderstanding. I sketched it roughly 2″ x 3″, to match the proportions of the size the customer requested (measured in picas, so just trust me that it is proportionally correct). 

Got it in one attempt! Sketch approved, drawing begun. The photo isn’t great, nor is the printer. I am working primarily from the sketch and the notes.

A few hours later, this is where I was:

I told the customer it would be 2-3 weeks, but commissions always jump to the front of the queue. (2 poppy paintings need a final layer, there are 4 paintings in Birdland, and I still need a few more paintings of the most popular Mineral King scene because 3 more sold last week. Not complaining, just explaining.)

Squeezing in Citrus

Do you like the title? I feel quite pleased with it.

Last month this painting sold:

Oranges #135, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″

The happy customer asked if I had a matching lemon painting, to which I replied, “No, but I can paint one for you”. Then I couldn’t find the photos, so I went to the 26,000 photos on my computer and found just what I needed.

I wasn’t focused on tight detail that day, because I was doing big picture thinking about large quantities of small Mineral King paintings. But, the citrus needs to be squeezed in. Squoze in. Something.

And since I am working on citrus and have run out of orange paintings, it was a good time to begin two more orange oil paintings.

There you have it. Three new citrus oil paintings, squoze right in among all the Mineral King oil paintings. I kept them on another wall for drying. Didn’t want any orange juice to drip on Mineral King.

P.S. Two days later, they were all finished and drying.