Mineral King Painting Machine

I have 11 paintings ready to deliver to the Silver City Store for the season, which begins on Memorial Day weekend. (I think this is the correct way to designate the last weekend in May.)

Having just finished the commissioned oil painting, I could have just quit painting for a week or two. My art business is usually feast or famine, and when there are no impending deadlines, that is the time to plan and work ahead.

Here are the steps to firing up the Mineral King Painting Machine:

  1. Grab a random assortment of canvases off my shelves, nothing larger than 6×18 or 10×10.
  2. Cover them in a layer of paint, any paint, whatever is left on the palette
  3. Pull out my prechosen photos. I have to choose the right photos ahead of time, being careful to keep scenes that I painted in recent years separated. Although I paint the same scenes over and over (Mineral King doesn’t have that many different options), the goal is to change the shapes, the times of day, and the angles from which I photographed the popular scenes.
  4. I pull out the list of sizes and subjects that I have already painted for this year, and then choose new photos of the ones most likely to sell first.
  5. The photos get paired with the canvases, making sure that the sizes and shapes are different from the ones already finished for the year.
  6. Each canvas gets a title, inventory number and hanging hardware.

7.  I usually begin with skies; it is most efficient to do all the same color in one session.

8. Next, I either block in the main shapes or I draw them in with a small paintbrush. None of this is how I was taught in any of the various classes and workshops. It just happens to be the most efficient way that I have developed.

9. When I have finished about half of the canvases, I begin getting tired and sloppy. So I just slap on approximate colors in the basic shapes, knowing that the next time I paint, the guidelines are in place, the proportions are correct, and there is enough paint down that the canvas won’t show through.

I had ten canvases out, primed, and wired, then only worked on eight. I wasn’t sure that the last 2 photos were appropriate for the 6×6″ canvases—too many details on too small of a canvas means too much effort for too little money. My prices are competitive with other local artists, but when Silver City takes its hard-earned bite, my “wages” drop considerably. Thus, it behooves me to be efficient with my time.

Does this post affect you the same way that watching sausage get made might affect you? Make you not want to eat sausage anymore, or make you not want to buy paintings?

I hope not!

Revving up the Mineral King Painting Factory

I prefer short pithy titles, but The Google likes the long ones. Who cares? Me. Just wanted you to know why my titles are longer than they used to be. 

It is time to start producing paintings to sell at the Silver City Store, AKA Silver City Mountain Resort. 

I randomly chose various sizes from my canvas storage shelf, wired the backs, went through my photos and chose scenes that I either hadn’t painted before, or ones that were a new take on an old subject. Of course, almost everything I paint in Mineral King is a repeat because I know what sells and that is what I need to be painting. I came here to earn a living, so SHOW ME THE MONEY. 

Such a sell-out. But if I wasn’t, then I’d need a job, and I’d rather do some repetitious painting (and push to improve each time) than be a waitress.

I drew this bridge at Cold Springs Campground in pencil, a snow scene, but have only painted it once before (that I remember).

I have never painted the mini falls along the Nature Trail (the mess on the right is going to be those little falls, AKA “Iron Falls”).

I’ve never painted Franklin Creek about a half mile or so below Franklin Lake but always appreciate this view with the water, wildflowers, and the light. (That’s the lower painting, 6×18″, still quite a mess).

I have painted the Honeymoon Cabin many times, but I don’t think I have done it from this distance.

I’ve painted the trail several times, but from a different location each time. This might be a new vantage point.

Sawtooth. Yawn. The trail will help. There will be wildflowers.

These seven paintings are very very loose and messy right now. Some days I don’t feel like drawing with a paintbrush. My style of oil painting works best with several layers, so the drawing layer will eventually appear.

Attending to Other Jobs

When I began these paintings, navels were still hanging on trees, and the blossoms began. Orange blossoms are my favorite scent. Suddenly, orange blossom season was almost over, and I hadn’t touched these 2 small paintings.


They are now available at the Mural Gallery in Exeter. 6×6″, $60; 4×6″, $50 (PLUS TAX, OF COURSE!) The Mural Gallery doesn’t have a website; it is at the park with Exeter’s first mural, next door to the Wildflower Cafe.

Speaking of Exeter’s first mural, here is the beginnings of a similar painting, another painting of my favorite subject.

This one will be fun. It is a commission, and I know I can do it because I painted the same scene a few years ago as a 16×20″. Or maybe 18×24″. I’ve slept since then (and painted many similar scenes).

P.S. The paintings are NOT scratch ‘n’ sniff.

Productive Painting Day

Look at all these canvases! It is time to figure out what to paint of Mineral King in order to have inventory to sell at Silver City Mountain Resort, more commonly known as the Silver City Store, informally called by locals, “The Store”.

First I randomly chose a variety of sizes. Seven canvases seemed like a good number to begin with, 6×6″ up to 6×18″, including 8×8″, 8×10″ and 10×10″.

Then I sorted through my photos and chose subjects that were familiar and added a few more scenes that I haven’t tried before. Some will need to be cropped or stretched or somehow manipulated to fit the chosen canvas shapes.

I put a little bit of another base coat to help me remember which scene goes on which canvas. 

But, there are other jobs to be attended to while these seven dry.

Mañana.

Productive Painting

You know that I haven’t painted too much this year. The green and orange paintings were a start. Then I got a message about a larger painting that sold, and suddenly I felt energized to paint again. (That painting will appear at the end of the month in a post about sold paintings).

So many artists have way too much inventory and continue to crank out paintings without regard to potential sales. I have a real aversion to too much stuff. When things aren’t selling, I evaluate the paintings to determine if the quality just isn’t there, or if interest in that subject has waned, or maybe I just don’t have quite enough exposure—a likely explanation in this time of no art festivals and boutiques. Sometimes I retouch a painting; other times I paint over the top with a new subject.

If a subject is popular, I will paint it often. 

Currently, the most popular subjects are citrus, poppies, and Sawtooth.

Are these finished? Maybe, maybe not. If not, they don’t need a lot more work. 

Mineral King in January

I didn’t go. Trail Guy and the Farmer went for a day. Here are three photos for you, along with a peculiar sight.

That is the Honeymoon Cabin. (If I painted it this way, no one would buy it in the summer.)

This is the Crowley family cabin with Farewell Gap in the background. The snowy lump to the right is Big Rock.

This is a Trackster. (I think we have outgrown ours and are now willing to sell it. Are you or someone you know interested?)

Finally, here is a peculiar sight. When Trail Guy handed me his camera to put the photos on my computer, I said, “Did you mean to take a photo of a snow doughnut??”

Peculiar Sights

Remember Peculiar Sights? I used to post peculiar sights as a regular feature on the blog, but somewhere along the way, I either stopped noticing or everything became normal. 

The photos from Mineral King were taken in late August and early September, obviously pre-fire; I have been waiting for awhile to gather enough peculiarities to put together a blog post.

  1. This little concrete building is the object of much speculation in Mineral King. One day someone is going to tell us what it was for and then we will know. It is up to the older generations to pass on their knowledge and up to the younger generations to keep track.

2. Yes, that is a cat. I was stunned. After I confessed to a possible Cat Disorder, the cat man graciously allowed me to take this photo. (A trailhead ranger turned them around – pets are not allowed in the National Parks on trails or in the backcountry).

3. This dog was just covering trail as if it had the right to be there. It wasn’t until I looked at my photo that I saw he was wearing socks. (Also turned back by the trailhead ranger).

4. Can you see the cat tail below the sparkly skirt? Is this peculiar, or is it the fact that this little bitty trooper walked 9.5 miles (and then wrestled with her brother and rode her bike when she got home)?

5. I don’t know what this is, which is what makes it peculiar. It is in Orange Cove, photographed in February of last year.

6. This is no longer a peculiar sight; turkeys run amuck daily in our yard (counted 36 on a march last week), but at the time, the scene struck me as something worth photographing.

7. This deer has an additional spike (look closely).

8. Excuse me??

And thus we conclude a look into some of the more strange scenes of my little world as a Central California artist.

More Peculiar Sights, here, here (9 years ago!),and  here (almost 10 years ago!!).

New and Improved

Sometimes I reevaluate paintings that I don’t like, trying to figure what bothers me. Sometimes I also reevaluate paintings that haven’t sold in a timely manner in spite of traveling to different locations. Sometimes paintings that have traveled develop flaws, scratches or unexplained booboos.

All of these situations can eventually be remedied.

A painting that has been in several locations without selling recently got returned to me because of a weird mark. I could easily fix the flaw, but I wasn’t ever particularly pleased with the painting.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I like it better now.This is the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, a mini-museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society. The painting is 6×18″, it is oil on wrapped canvas (framing unnecessary), and the price is $165 (+ 8% California sales tax). 

 

Another Version of Sawtooth

Two years ago I had a great idea for an art project for Tulare County. I  asked important people with good connections how to pursue the idea, followed instructions to get put on an agenda for a quarterly meeting, wrote a letter as advised, put together a Powerpoint presentation, and then everything was cancelled due to The Plague.

An arts organization in Visalia has recently put out the word that there might be an upcoming project, based on the idea that I never got to present. A friend overheard and notified me, and now I am working on my submissions for the unnamed project, unnamed because it isn’t real yet and there hasn’t been a “Call To Artists”.

It calls for art that is horizontal in a 2:1 ratio. 

OF COURSE I thought of the current most popular subject matter that I paint, which is Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint.

Trouble with that is the verticality of the subject matter. Will this work horizontally? The best way to find out is to try it. 

Not wanting to spend a ton of time on a piece that might look wrong, I just did a quick messy first pass over the canvas of a 6×12 to get an idea whether or not it would be worth the effort.

If Sawtooth is big enough to matter, then the stream won’t fit. Black Wolf Falls barely fits. I am definitely fudging reality here. Does it matter? Does this work?

Maybe, maybe not.

Insert my regular cliché here; you know the one.