A friend’s mom was visiting from Georgia. She brought me these photographs.
Each one is the only existing photo of a house that no longer stands.
Each one will become a 9×12″ drawing.
Each drawing will be better than the photo, at least that is always my goal.
There will be no visible wrinkles either.
Done painting for now. It is hot in the painting workshop (in spite of the roaring swamp cooler) and there are mosquitos, and there are no painting jobs with a deadline.
Excuses?
Yes. I’d rather draw.
Besides, I have 4 new pencil commissions. More tomorrow about that.
Here are the last things I worked on with paint. (Could have been the frustration of working with acrylic that made me put my paints away for now.)
Look at the cute little oil painting alongside the giant acrylic painting, leaning up against the workshop doors. Three sizes of redwood paintings, none of them anywhere near the reality of the big trees in person.
I found my old photos of sunflowers in order to add realistic leaves. It needs more leaves, and all need to be larger so there is less blank space around. Maybe it needs another sunflower.
But I’ll think about that another day.
Today is the grand opening of Kaweah Arts!
So, I painted a really big tree for them to sell.
The really big Big Tree is about 5 feet high by 16″ wide. It isn’t quite finished in this photo, because I wrote this post before “drawing” a few more details, signing, and painting the edges.
It is $250. Why so inexpensive? Because mural paints cost less, the wood panel was free (thank you, Trail Guy), and it is painted ever so much quicker than an oil painting.
Also because I use pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art that people can understand of places and things they love FOR PRICES THAT WON’T SCARE THEM.
Come see it at Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers today!!
P.S. It costs a fortune to have a transplant, and while insurance covers much, there is much that it does not cover. If you feel generous and inclined to help my friend, Rachelle, this is the best way to do so: HelpHopeLive.Org
Some friends had this tired thing by their kitchen door. I asked if I could repaint it. Then, Trail Guy tried to strip off the peeling decal so that I could paint. He decided it was a losing proposition, so he built me a new panel. Then he built me another one with the scraps.
I decided to go ahead and paint right over the peeling decal for my friends (it was probably headed for the trash anyway), and then paint something to sell on the new panels. Maybe some poppies would look good on the smaller panel. 
That was all a bit ambitious, because this needed to be done with acrylic paint rather than oils. Mural paints, actually, so that they wouldn’t cost a fortune and take forever to paint and to dry. Mini-murals – no big deal, except that I forgot how very annoying those quick-drying paints are. Because of that quick drying problem, it is quite hard to draw with my paintbrush, i.e. make the details perfect.
I don’t like it yet. Needs more leaves and stems, lots more greenery, more than I feel capable of making up without photos to refer to.
And you can see how much I liked the poppies.
Bye-bye, poppies.
Tomorrow I will show you what I did with the new sturdy panel. (Yes, tomorrow, in spite of it being Saturday.)
*are much harder than I expected.
P.S. It costs a fortune to have a transplant, and while insurance covers much, there is much that it does not cover. If you feel generous and inclined to help my friend, Rachelle, this is the best way to do so: HelpHopeLive.Org
There is something new coming to Three Rivers, but I don’t yet know any details. Might be a simple retail shop where one can pick up local art, maybe some tchotchkes. This is why I wanted to get those little Three Rivers paintings looking better. This is also why I started a new river painting.
This is painting session #1. I want to do this in many thin layers, striving for perfection. But why?
It might be an overreaction to how I felt about the blurry Kaweah Post Office painting. It might also be some residual from having drawn this exact scene in pencil with a touch of colored pencil a handful of years ago, a commissioned piece. I want to see how close I can get to perfection with paintbrushes. I’ve already decided to leave out the tree on the left side, but like everything I do, more will be revealed in the fullness of time.
My show “Still Here” is still there, at Arts Visalia, that is. The phone # to make an appointment to see it is 559-739-0905. TWO DAYS LEFT, Thursday, noon-5:30 and Friday, noon-5:00. I will be there on Friday, April 30, and will take away the unsold pieces at 5 p.m.(MB, I will be sending you your painting next week!)
You’ve heard me say (or read on my blog) for about a year now that:
Today’s blog is just to show you a few of those custom oil paintings through the years. If you have been following my blog for a few years (or maybe many), these will be familiar to you.
Some go back as far as 11 years! I’ve been oil painting since March 8, 2006, so this should not come as a surprise. What still surprises me is that I feel like a beginner; maybe I need my head examined.
My show “Still Here” is still there, at Arts Visalia, that is. The phone # to make an appointment to see it is 559-739-0905. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, noon-5:30 (5 on Friday). I will be there on Friday, April 30, the last day; the work will be removed at 5 p.m.
After a period of severe procrastination, which involved studying the photographs and the unfinished painting of Forrest’s Dream Cabin, along with a fair amount of weed pulling, I finally decided that I do know how to draw with my paintbrush.
My thought was that at the very least, I could detail that cabin to the nth degree, and then maybe I could see what to do with the rest of the painting.
But will Forrest think the painting is finished? I sent him this photo, taking inside the painting workshop at the end of the day. Wow, did that ever distort the colors!
Next, I carried it outside in hopes that the color would photograph more accurately. By that time, it was upside down on the easel because the bottom edge was wet.
This color isn’t exactly right either. When it is dry, I will paint the top edge, sign it, and take it to Forrest for his approval in person.
The fat lady hasn’t yet sung (but she might be practicing a few scales.)
My show “Still Here” is still there, at Arts Visalia, that is. The phone # to make an appointment to see it is 559-739-0905. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, noon-5:30. The last day to see my work there is Friday, April 30.
These are custom oil paintings, commissioned pieces, from a whole lotta* years. Each one was done with a whole lotta* discussion with the customer (customer—custom art—get it?) to be sure to achieve what the customer desires.
This customer provided photos, but I went there myself and looked it over further, taking a few more pictures to be sure to get things accurate.
Yes, I am fully aware that Homer’s Nose does not appear above the Oak Grove Bridge in real life. However, the customer requested this, and my dad taught me, “You kisses their fanny and takes their money”. (No, no fanny kissing took place – it is simply a figure of speech that means you do what the customer requests whether or not it makes sense to you.)
This one was painted for someone who is color-blind, so I focused on contrast for him. 
*We discussed this term in yesterday’s post.
Seth Godin says “Humans are lonely. They want to be seen and known. People want to be part of something.” Or as Anne Lamott puts it, “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared.”
Seth also says, “People don’t want what you make. They want what it will do for them. They want belonging, connection, peace of mind, status.”
Further, “Create experiences. Using a product, engaging with a service, calling customer service. Each of these actions is part of the story; each builds a little bit of our connection. Offer these experiences with intent, doing them on purpose.”
He is all about marketing, and speaks and writes with great abstraction. I try to apply what I hear him say to my art business, and finally, in these words, I think I can gather some practical advice. Let me translate:
Does this make you want to hire me to make a custom painting or drawing for you?
*The masculine pronoun is intentional here; in this context it means all humans, regardless of biological gender. “They” is a plural pronoun, and I am speaking of a theoretical singular customer here, “someone” and “the customer”. This blog does not cave to current trends.
A thoughtful mom commissioned me to draw a pair of dogs for her daughter and son-in-law’s anniversary. She videotaped them opening the gift, and while I cannot put that on my blog, I can show you the dogs.
The daughter sent me this message: “Jana!!!!! I love love love the portraits of Charlie and Maggie!!!!! Thank you so much!!!! You captured their expressions brilliantly!” (I might have gotten the number of exclamation points wrong in the quote).
You are so welcome, K & F!! It was a pleasure, especially because we are friends AND because you stopped by the studio when it was on the table. It was in a folder, so I knew you wouldn’t notice it, but your mom was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
In case it has slipped your mind: