Are you tired of these posts yet?
In rethinking these paintings, I realized that this view is probably from White Chief. Or it could be from the Eagle/Mosquito trail. So, not all of the little Mineral King wildflower paintings are from the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail after all!
Let’s try this again with Mineral King wildflower painting #2.
I wonder if I show a painting a day if people will stop reading my blog, or if I will sell paintings.
I finished 8 little oil paintings of Mineral King wildflowers and realized that every single photo I chose to paint from was from the same trail. Well, duh. That trail, the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail, is always the best place to find reliable wildflowers. There are other places that are off-trail, but I don’t want to put that type of information on the World Wide Web.
Okay, time for painting #1, titled “Mineral King Wildflowers 1” (Clever, I know.)
Sort of completed. There is always waiting to dry, scanning, titling, adding to the website, varnishing, more waiting to dry, and sometimes packaging and shipping. . .
Well, would you just look at that?
Every one of these paintings shows Timber Gap.
Why??
Because the best place for wildflowers in Mineral King is up the Franklin/Farewell Gap trail, which is across the valley from Timber Gap.
There are other places with good wildflowers, but this is our favorite. (“Our” refers to Trail Guy and your Central California artist.)
Now is a good time to remind you of my book. (The museum remains closed for the time being and Silver City isn’t planning to open until June 5.)
“Busy” is a loaded word. People like to say they are “crazy busy”, maybe because it gives them a sense of importance or indispensability. I bet people aren’t using that word too often right now.
I am busy during this weird time. Some of it is commissions, some of it is bidding on jobs, some of it is taking advantage of more time to catch up on things like keeping my website current and reading business books.
Maybe instead I could say, “I have lots of work right now”. For that I am grateful, and I am grateful to have the time to take care of customers and my business responsibilities.
Enough chatter, Central Calif. artist. Show us some things!
There is more, but there is also tomorrow to show and tell you.
Thanks for tuning in today!
These little Mineral King paintings got some skies. It was cold and rainy, which meant it was dark in the painting workshop. Trail Guy kept offering to light the heater; that meant I’d have to shut the door, but I needed all the light there was, so brrr.
I worked more on the commissioned painting of the little Mineral King cabin, working from several photos to make up the scene. The customer requested that I put a horizontal subject into a vertical format; in order to make that work, I added mountains that weren’t visible to that degree in real life. This meant we had to do a lot of communicating and adjusting until the painting fit both her memory and the space she wants to hang it.
I scanned it, thinking it was finished. Then she asked about the doorknobs. It needed more trees behind and above the cabin. Bearskin, the patch of snow on the right slope of Vandever (peak on the right side of Farewell Gap) didn’t look the way she remembered it.
The purpose of a commission is to create just what the customer wants.
(The color is different between photographs and scans.) I made the requested adjustments, and then reworked Bearskin yet again, with the customer’s help. (We might have stood closer than 6 feet to accomplish this, but so far, so good, health-wise.)
The most difficult commissioned drawings and paintings are the ones when the customer wants me to do something that I cannot see. This is possible only when the customer can articulate what she wants. My approach is that a commission isn’t finished until the customer is happy.
What is this???
The customer was so happy that she asked me to paint it again, smaller, to give away. (Just in case the intended recipient is reading, I’ll keep this information to myself).
Upside down is not an April Fool’s Joke. It helps me see the shapes more accurately. That might be a little unsettling to you, so we’ll continue more conventionally.
Not done, but moving quickly since all the difficult decisions were conquered in the original version.
You saw this photo of the beginnings of a commissioned Mineral King oil painting.
Here is the reference photo for the little cabin.
The customer wanted it to be in a vertical format, and I suggested making Farewell Gap more dominant. She approved of that first sketch on the canvas, so I began painting.
This was a combination of the familiar and the fake with the goal of believability.
When this dries, I’ll start “drawing” with my paintbrush. Adding details to the cabin will be particularly enjoyable, because you may recall that I love to draw.
Drying in the morning sun; this time all three vertical 6×18″ Mineral King oil paintings are finished.
This is how they look in the afternoon light. I’ll wait until they are completely dry, then photograph them, because they are too big for the scanner.
Lupine comes in many colors, so I just mixed up a shade of bluish purple that looked good with the painting. The photo lupine color was too pink and it wasn’t believable to me.
Next, I moved on to the current painting of my favorite subject, the Oak Grove Bridge. 
This is the stage where I detail it to the nth degree, the style of painting that plein air painters usually don’t bother with. (They might be too tired of swatting bugs by them.)
Oh my, I really like this one! (Yep, I am allowed to like my own work.)
Have you noticed that ever since I published Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names that I almost always include wildflowers in my paintings? What took me so long to figure this out?
One more Mineral King painting, this one a commission, working from a customer photo and some conversation about how to present things. (Not the Honeymoon cabin – this cabin is no longer standing).Before I go any further, my customer will need to let me know if this is the arrangement she has in mind.
Yeppers, I made up another word. It simply means that I was able to paint a few more days than expected and have more progress to show you on Mineral King oil paintings.
More detail on the painting on the left, but more contemplation is needed before signing this.
What does Pippin think?
Since Pippin didn’t offer any help, I added wildflowers to these two.
That was fun, so I did the same to the painting on the left.
Now let’s tackle this unusual arrangement of a usual subject matter, the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, now a little museum. Well, actually right now it is boarded up for the winter. And let’s just paint it, not tackle it, hmmm?
This turned out really well, so when it is dry, I’ll photograph it minus the poor afternoon sunlight and sheen of wet paint so you can fully appreciate its specialness.
Pippin? Got anything to add here?
Guess not. He just adds cuteness to my life.