Category: Mineral King

Mineral King Mural Finished

Doesn’t “Mineral King Mural Finished” sound like a newspaper headline? My “client” (what a stuffy word) Mrs. Cowboy called a reporter friend from her local newspaper to ask her if she’d like to write up our project, but the reporter was covering a mule packing class that day.

Because of the heat and time constraints, I went out to paint early in the morning. It is easy to do this when you are staying in the building where the mural is. This location is 2 hours from Three Rivers, so I had to make the most of the time available, which was 2 days.

This is how it looked at 7 a.m. on Day Two after 7 hours of painting on Day One.

I detailed things for an hour, then stopped, knowing I’d get back to it around noon. I was hungry and don’t believe in the myth of the “starving artist”. Mrs. Cowboy has New Hampshire Red chickens and guinea fowl, so there were fresh eggs for breakfast.

Oh my, that tarp was so very necessary.

I coated everything a second time and tried to detail as I went. But, just as a writer cannot proofread his own work, an artist can’t “proofread” her own painting.

Trail Guy and Mrs. Cowboy were on hand to discuss various details of the mural and help me get it to the best it could be. We added textures, messed with shapes, fiddled a bit with colors.

And just for fun, notice how the shadow cast by the tarp has moved throughout the day.

I purposely made the colors brighter than real life. This is because the mural faces East and will fade in the strong morning sun. Morning sun isn’t as damaging as afternoon sun or even as bad as all day winter sun, but it does suck out all the yellows first. This means the greens will turn bluish, and the grays will go to lavender.

After 13-1/2 hours over two days, this was our Mineral King mural. No longer was a fast horse necessary for optimal viewing, although a neighbor did ride up partway through the process.

Wow. Looks like someone successfully photoshopped a Mineral King photograph onto a door.

Nope. I painted that in 13-1/2 hours! (Imagine the sound of an arm breaking from patting oneself on the back. . .)

Why estimate hours when it is thank you gift? Because all murals are practice for me, and if I am getting paid, I need to be able to successfully estimate the time it will take. I’d say that was a mighty fine guess! (an “educated guess”, based on experience)

It needs 3 more things: a title, a hidden item, and a bear. Later. Now I have to go earn some money!

The Cabins of Wilsonia Book Signing, Saturday, April 4, 3-7 p.m., Three Rivers Historical Museum

The First Coat on the Mineral King Mural

This mural is about 6-1/2 feet high and 5-1/2 feet wide. It is a joy to paint a mural that requires no scaffolding or ladders. It speeds things up a bit to be able to simply step back and see how things look.

Please appreciate the shade, supplied by the handy and innovative Trail Guy. I certainly did!

You can see things look a little rough and short on detail. Gotta start somewhere! (In drawing, I call this “drawing the dog before the fleas”.)

I brought along a jar of a teal color, simply because it happens to be the favorite color of both Mrs. Cowboy and me. We were both just thrilled to see it would be very helpful to do the water!

After getting the entire surface covered, I returned to the sky for the second coat. With the heat, it was dry and ready to repaint. Since I had only 2 days to do this mural from start to finish and had estimated 14 hours, there was no knocking off for the day when I simply felt like quitting.

Mrs. Cowboy requested some clouds, so I pulled some out of my memory as I was recoating the sky. I figured we could either refine them together or I could just paint them out entirely.

And thus we conclude the retelling of Day One of painting of a Mineral King mural in 2 days. It’s looking pretty good, especially if you are on the back of a fast horse.

After the Conversations, the Mural Begins

A year passed since Mrs. Cowboy Bert and I decided what to paint on the side of her house. Life (and sad to report, also death) happened, so I just waited until she was ready to proceed. I wasn’t bored, but thanks for your concern.

I showed up around 11 a.m. on a Thursday and was in my terrible painting clothes ready to hit the wall by noon. Trouble is, it was really really bright and sunny, a difficult situation for painting.

This was not a problem, because Trail Guy was with me and all prepared to Okie-rig up some shade. (Apologies to my friends from Oklahoma. . . is there a better expression to describe this?)

I drew it on the canvas (a roll-up door so a forklift can off-load bags of pellets for the stove) as close to the sketch as possible. Before I began painting, I masked the edges, which are some sort of a rubber gasket around the door.

Next, I painted in the sky using a color that I had already mixed for skies.

Does this look like Mineral King and Farewell Gap to you?

I cleaned my brush off on the stream area, because I could tell that it would take 2 coats of paint to cover this door material. It was some sort of baked-on white paint atop metal. Might as well use the color on the brush to begin covering the surface as well as getting as much out of the bristles and ferrule as possible (that is the metal section on a brush that holds the bristles to the handle.)

Maybe this 2 day painting project can be stretched out into a week of blog posts!

Will that make you excited for tomorrow?

Murals Begin With Conversations

This mural was painted as a thank you for my friend Cowboy Bert, who built a handrail for the steps up to my studio.

Last year we began discussing it, and I posted it on the blog in March. However, when my website broke, lots of photos disappeared, so you don’t get a link here to go back and see.

I first looked through Mrs. Cowboy Bert’s photos. We talked a lot. That’s what we do. This time it was about ideas.

Then I did a bit of photoshopping to get the idea ball rolling. Here are a couple of the things we tried:

Screen shot 2015-03-28 at 4.46.27 PM

(I’m not that good at Photoshop. Just be polite, okay?)

Then, we conversed some more. Mrs. Cowboy told me more about her vision, which developed with time and talk. It resulted in this sketch, which she whole-heartedly approved.

mural sketch

Good thing she knows that I can draw and paint, because otherwise, this might have been a bit too sketchy for her. (Ever wonder where the word “sketchy” came from? Now you know!)

That is Farewell Gap which is in Mineral King. Are you surprised??

Monarch Trail Revisited

There is a section of the Mineral King trail returning from Monarch Lakes that always catches my eye. It has some gnarly looking junipers, and I photograph it over and over.

I painted it once. Turned out pretty well, sold quickly.

Monarch Trail

Monarch Trail, oil on wrapped canvas, size forgotten, painted in 2008

Because I like the redo on the Oak Grove Bridge and am currently enjoying painting in a square ~~format~~ (“format”?? When did I stop saying “shape”??) shape, and because I think my painting has improved (one would hope so within a 7 year period), I decided to try it again.

Monarch Trail

Monarch Trail, oil on wrapped canvas, 10×10″, $150

New and improved? Or just more detailed? Taste is an individual matter, and currently I am drawn to brighter colors rather than trying to match reality like a Xerox painter. I’m also not trying as hard to copy things perfectly. Life is short – mix brighter colors, and don’t try so hard. Or try harder on the things that matter. But how do you know which ones matter?

Never mind. Enjoy the new square painting of the Monarch Trail.

Mineral King on the Easels

Fridays are sort of for Mineral King on this Central California artist’s blog. Can’t get there right now, although people did drive all the way to the valley a week or 2 ago.

However, I have many photos, and Mineral King is probably the heaviest category.

As a studio artist, I rely on photos. They are photos I have taken of the same subjects multiple times in a variety of seasons and times of day. Art snobs think that painting from photos doesn’t count. I don’t know any of those people, or if I do, they haven’t shared their bias with me.

Anyway, in spite of the time of year, I am able to paint Mineral King, that oh so popular subject. Here’s what is in progress:

This is the Monarch Lake Trail, heading back down to the valley. There is a section of trail with some very gnarled junipers that I photograph each time I am there. I’ve painted it before, but not in this square format.

IMG_0245_2

Sawtooth sells, so I repaint it. Farewell Gap with the Crowley cabin sells, so I repaint it. Sometimes I put hours and hours into these little 6×6 paintings, and then I feel a little yucky about selling them for $50. So other times I put less time into the detail, and then I feel a little yucky about selling them at all. These are NOT finished, or to quote my friend Ron T., “Best viewed from the back of a fast horse.”

Farewell Gap with the trail heading toward the now defunct pack station. This is the first pass over the canvas. It is also a 6×6″.

I noticed that my friend and fellow Three Rivers artist Nadi Spencer is now charging $60 for 6×6″ paintings. She is light-years ahead of me in experience, so she should be getting more for her work.

I wonder if I should raise my prices. That, along with actually selling the work is the most difficult part of being a Central California artist. I wonder if it is easier if one lives in the land of Art Snobbery. . .?

Juiced-Up Bridge Painting

My favorite thing to paint is my favorite bridge, the Oak Grove Bridge, also known as the East Fork Bridge. That’s the East Fork of the Kaweah River, 6.5 miles up the Mineral King Road.

I paint it and draw it often. It is beautiful, particularly because it is such an architectural surprise on a narrow, winding mountain road.

This time it is a 10×10″ painting with sort of juiced-up (exaggerated) colors because that is fun to paint and fun to see.

Any questions?

oak grove bridge oil painting

Oh, the price! I don’t know yet, because I think this is really really good and makes me want to rethink pricing by size. So, you may have to wait until the upcoming studio tour to find out. (Is it wrong to like one’s work?)

SOUTH VALLEY ARTISTS’ STUDIO TOUR, March 20, 21 and 22, tickets available for $15 at ARTS VISALIA. You can read about it on this link.

Driving to Mineral King in February!

In the third week of February, people DROVE ALL THE WAY INTO MINERAL KING!

Excuse me for shouting. That is just so remarkable, that I had to remark in a loud and shocked and excited voice.

I keep remembering back in 1994 (or sometime in the ’90s) that we received almost an entire winter’s worth of snow in the month of March.

pigeons

Maybe these pigeons have a message or maybe they all just like the Oak Grove Bridge as much as I do.

Eagle Trail Painting: Before, During and After

Before: trail

During:

After? Eagle Trail

I might keep painting over and over and over. This looks better to me, but once it is dry and hanging in the studio or showing somewhere in public, I won’t know for sure.

Also, this isn’t a true and fair comparison because I’m using different cameras. Guess you’ll just have to see it in person to decide. Wait, you can’t see the old one in person, because I painted over it. Trust me on this: it IS better now!

Hey Mr. Google, did you know this is in Mineral King? It is actually the trail to Eagle Lake, Mosquito Lake, and White Chief, but I simply titled it “Eagle Trail”.

Odd Job Based on Mineral King

After many years of being an artist in Tulare County, and specializing in Mineral King, people often think of me when they need an artist. I get asked to do unusual things, which I call “odd jobs”.

This one was a first for me – drawing in a manner that could be sandblasted onto granite for headstones. The lines had to be a certain thickness, and little white spaces couldn’t be too little. I learned that black equals blasted, and that Sharpies can really get up your nose.

The designs are for people who were very dear to me, our cabin neighbors in Mineral King.

He wanted Farewell Gap. She wanted Sawtooth. Their daughter and I figured out how to do both on one stone.

Farewell, Jock. Thank you for closing the gap between my 2 front teeth, for giving me to okay to date Trail Guy, for being a wonderful generous neighbor and friend, and for rearing a daughter who feels like the missing half of my brain.

Farewell, Ora Kay. Thank you for helping Jock fix my teeth, for being my first good friend in Mineral King, so welcoming and loving and enthusiastic, for rearing such a great daughter to become my friend when you were stricken by MS and couldn’t come to the cabin much anymore (and I forgive you for running over my foot with your wheelchair.)

odd job