Yesterday we saw two brand new paintings on the easels, looking like they’ll never get finished. Eventually most paintings do. Layer after layer, keep studying, figuring out what to do next and how to improve it every time I pick up the brushes.
Today we will see some finished and some unfinished paintings.
This is how the bright fruit painting has settled into its new home.
This is a good showing of the progression of my colored art: First I worked in colored pencil, then I practiced mixing colors by painting many pomegranates. Now I get a real kick out of mixing all colors, combining lots of photos, and just pantsing it on the canvas.
The new fruit painting for my friend/customer is completed, signed, and moved into the house for drying.
This is in the painting workshop just before I moved it into the house. I am very happy with this one and glad I did a new painting for my friend rather than just messing with the older one by changing some of the fruits.
There are three unfinished pieces waiting for attention.
I was hoping to keep this when it is finished, but I will put it in the 2024 show and it WILL be for sale. (I can always paint another one of my favorite type of subject.)
This one has had several do-overs and a very long time-out; I’m still not convinced that I can do the subject justice but I will continue to try.
First, the wire needs to be moved. Then I will commence to draw lots of golden colored ferns.
All of these paintings started out as the same sort of vague mess as the ones we looked at yesterday. Nevuh nevuh nevuh give up.
Here is a look at two new paintings, begun for the solo show in October of 2024. Seems very far away, but it takes awhile to paint enough pieces to fill a gallery on one’s own. I have about 30 available (several unfinished but in progress which I will show you tomorrow) so I need to paint another 10-20 pieces. I’m thinking 20 is better, because I paint small. Even when I think it is HUGE, such as 18×24 which feels ENORMOUS and takes FOREVER, it looks like a postage stamp in a gallery.
This one is 16×20. I can’t find the photo on my computer, don’t remember where or when I took this, and can’t really discern the details on the little photograph.
So why bother? It has wonderful light and the road pulls the viewer in.
It will involve some “artistic license”, and I will focus on the contrast between light and shadow. Slow layer after slow layer, lots of thinking and evaluating—that will be the process on this one.
I decided to do something different with something familiar, using a 10×30″ canvas that I had on hand. The sizes of canvas on hand often dictates what I paint. If it isn’t a tried and true subject, I keep the painting small. This is a tried and true subject, even if you can’t tell what it is at this early stage.
Can you recognize what this mess is?
Lots of painting ahead for your Central California artist as she plans the best way to show off the parts of Tulare County that keep her from moving to the beach. (As if she could afford that; besides, she’d miss Trail Guy.)
Practice Painting? Painting Practice? Paint Practicing?
Never mind. Doctors practice medicine, attorneys practice law, and this artist practices painting. Some days I feel as if I am brand new, with no idea how to tackle a subject. Some days I think I’m figuring it out. Only once in awhile does the process feel easy.
I have a solo show coming up a year from now, and I want to be ready. No last-minute panic painting, just a well-planned body of work that is cohesive, looks good together, represents my best efforts, and most of all, represents the best parts of Central California, specifically Tulare County. Or perhaps is the best representation of Tulare County, a place of superlatives, both great and terrible.
Hey Central California, stop your bloviations and show us some work.
Ahem. Would you like to see what I was practicing on?
About time.
I started with more detailing on the trees.
Then it was time to work on the background. All those vague and messy branches and clumps of needles were a bit confounding, but that’s okay, because I was just practicing. It helped to put in the sunlit strips of ground.
I had to turn the canvas sideways in order to place the tip of my brush WHICH I WAS DRAWING WITH, SO THERE, in the right place to get accuracy. In order to paint those ferns in detail, I DRAW WITH MY PAINTBRUSH.
Finally, I hung it on the wall to dry, and that’s when I realized I had begun the scene upside down but hadn’t actually reversed the canvas. Oh well. A wire is easy to move.
Next, I rotated him to experiment with brown fur colors. He’s not a “brown bear”, which is another name for a grizzly. Our bears are called “black bears”, without regard to their colors.
I added some yellow ochre to the brown to give him highlights.It photographed way too light, too golden, wrong.
I mixed in some dark purple with the brown to give it variety; it makes the brown much darker. The whole idea was to have variation in the fur coloring.
The sign is super washed out i this photo, making the letters illegible.
The ears got a touch of pink—but less than appears in this photo.
Finally, I sent these two photos to Mr. Customer, and he was pleased, so I am too.
Bears around here tend to have lighter colored muzzles, so now this guy does too, regardless of whatever color it was when he was new. I also put a few splinters into his sign. The lettering is actually bright white, not light blue. The funniest part to me was that when he was wet, I turned his entire being by grabbing his nose. Don’t be trying that on a live one!
I had a few unexpected hours available to paint and decided to not waste that time doing something useless like weeding or vacuuming or painting the Golden Gate Bridge (just your basic endless repetitive chore).
I worked on the commissioned oil painting, 6×18″ for my friend/customer to fit between 2 other fruit paintings in her kitchen. She saw the painting Citrus Row and requested the addition of pomegranates and persimmons but gave me the freedom to arrange and fill with whatever else I chose. Instead of adding those P fruits, I started a new painting.
She sent me this photo to show me where she wanted to put the painting.
Back wall first
The fruit on the far right is a fuyu persimmon, not a tomato. I don’t know why I started on the right side instead of the left, which is normal when I draw so that my hand doesn’t drag over the completed area.
This picture looks worse than the previous one because the paint was quite wet and the late afternoon light made it very reflective.
Incomplete: the table, stem on the pomelo, and the cap on the fuyu. and the edges and signature.
It is quite a thrill to be able to mix and use all these bright colors. Of course, having painted this at the end of the day’s light, it could look rather wrong when I see it in normal daylight.
Yeppers, the table needs work. The leaf on the tangerine is blending into the table. The shadowed part on the orange on the right isn’t right. The fuyu persimmon might need some color correction. The shade from the lemon on the pomelo looks like an outline. On and on and on it goes.
It’s a wonder that any paintings ever get finished.
Feeling fruity around here lately. A month or 2 ago, I painted this to decorate a banquet for a citrus marketing outfit.
A friend who has bought more of my paintings than anyone else saw this. She said, “If it doesn’t sell at the event, I want it!”
I took the painting to her, and she said, “I’ve been thinking. . . could you change one of these to a pomegranate? And include both kinds of persimmons?”
I said, “Sure, I can do that!”
Then I brought it home, thought it over, and decided to do a new piece for her. I dug through my fruit photos, looking carefully at the lighting and angles. Then, unlike my normal approach, I drew it out.
This is going to be good—colorful and well planned.
The other fruit painting I recently painted as a gift, I did without any real planning. I just pantsed it, trying this and that with paint, having fun with color.
I like it, and so does the recipient. Yeah, yeah, it probably would have been better to plan it. Sometimes I just rebel.
P.S. Good thing I painted a new one because the original, Citrus Row, sold at CACHE’s Holiday Fair!
“Margaret’s Poinsettia, package of 4 cards and envelopes, 4.6×7.2”, $20. Inside message: Wishing you Christmas joy and blessings in the new year!
Through the years I have designed, printed and sold hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of little cards. “Notecards”, as I refer to them, are perfect to say “thank you”, “hi”, “just one more thing”, “I appreciate you”, or even “I’m sorry”. If you write real big, you can get by with just one sentence.
“Sun Kissed”, pencil and colored pencil drawing, package of 4 notecards and envelopes, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2″, blank inside, $10
Designs come and go; sometimes I redraw something and then get rid of the older version. Other times, it seems as if a design has run its course and needs to be retired. Sometimes I have too much inventory, so I let a design run out for awhile. And sometimes a design that really grabs me just doesn’t speak to the buying public.
“Oak Grove Bridge #28″, oil painting, package of 4 notecards and envelopes, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2”, blank inside, $10
I used to sell my cards in many stores around the county. Most of those stores are now closed. Even if the stores were still around, my costs are so high that if I sell them at a wholesale price to a retail store, there is zero profit for me. This means that I am working for free. That’s just dumb business.
Sawtooth and wildflowers, pencil and colored pencil drawing, package of 4 cards and envelopes, blank inside, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2″, $10
Nowadays I sell the cards here on my website, occasionally when I do a bazaar or if I am having an art showing or exhibit (what’s the diff? I dunno), and on consignment at a very few places. “Consignment” means that they pay me after the cards sell, which means a lot of checking in, rewriting lists to keep current on supplies, making bills, sending the bills, paying attention to what has sold and what needs to be restocked.
Farewell Gap in Mineral King, pencil drawing, package of 4 cards and envelopes, blank inside, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2″, $10
It’s all part of the business of art, which involves many decisions. Most of those decisions would be better if I had a crystal ball. Lacking that, I look at the history of sales, look at the current economy, look at the venue and think about the customers. If consignment, I look at the store’s record of payment, if the cards are getting shopworn and need to be repackaged, or if the store hasn’t been displaying the cards in a manner that the customers can see them.
“Sawtooth”, oil painting, package of 4 notecards and envelopes, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2″, blank inside, $10
The business of art is a complex and delicate blend of science, art, and guesswork.
After a chunk of time away from the easels, I was very happy to return.
First I got to finish the fruit painting that will be a gift. (I will be GIVING it, not “gifting” it.)
This is wet, photographed here in the box I used to carry it into the house to dry.
I started this quite awhile ago, working from a photo shared with me by one of my drawing students. The ferns had been nipped by frost, turning them golden.
Although I am working from a photo, I am rearranging the trees. Here is a photo of the photo, which I am looking at on my laptop while painting.
My hope is to make those ferns perfect. Just perfect. But there is lots to be painted before I get there.
The new paintings won’t be at the Gift Fair but there will be plenty of merchandise to choose from.
Because I teach people how to draw, it is prudent for me to keep in practice. I have no commissions right now, so this means I can draw whatever I want.
I began a drawing that was full of challenges, showing my students that I follow the same steps that I teach them. Then I had some interruptions to my work life and just set it aside for awhile. When I returned to the drawing, it was hard to focus.
Flowering pear
I pulled out the drawing and decided EVERYTHING was wrong. So I stared out the door for awhile.
Finally I went back to the drawing, following the advice I would give one of my students to see what, if anything was wrong. I discovered one part that was easy to correct, and then decided that I wasn’t focused enough to work on detail. So I went to the blurry, dark, somewhat unimportant background. “Unimportant” in that its accuracy was irrelevant, but important in that it be a support to the main part of the drawing without drawing attention to itself.
I didn’t document the earlier phases of the drawing because it didn’t seem like a potential blog post. The hat was the most important part to me, so I did it first, figuring that if it didn’t look good, I could just toss the drawing without having invested too much time.
You can see a serious erasure under the horse’s chin. That was the easy-to-fix part, and I hope I can bury the messed up part in some background.
I walked back to the house after this bout of serious focused work (fall down laughing). Told you this was distracted drawing, didn’t I?
Wild turkeys and deerFearless deer are vacuuming up the mulberry leaves.
Tucker and the deer don’t really care about each other.
Today I will show you what I submitted for the 2nd mural on the Ivanhoe Library.
For review, here is what the selection committee provided.
Here is what I submitted for this entry way.
Here is my explanation.
“Mural B shows 2 Valley Oaks, quercus lobata, which is the largest American oak, native to Tulare County. In and beneath the trees are local birds, all seen in and around Ivanhoe, along with a few wildflowers at the base. This could be used as a fun method for children to learn their local birds.
Now, we shall see if I actually get to paint these two murals.
P.S. The commenting part of the blog has been misbehaving but comments are coming through anyway. So to those of you who soldiered through, thank you!
