Mineral King Mural Re-do

The book The Cabins of Wilsonia may be in route to Three Rivers. Then again, it may not. Trust has been broken, so I am hearing the messages from the printer and the binder in the same sort of sound as the adult voices on Charlie Brown. Remember those?

Meanwhile, I am occupied with various tasks, all productive. I’d sort of rather sit and knit, or help my friend organize her closet or take a long walk, but the art world marches on, with or without my participation.

A new studio tour is scheduled for March of 2015. By “new”, I mean that different organizers are handing the arrangements. It is called South Valley Artists’ Studio Tour and will include lots of artists from lots of towns. Studio Tour used to be only Three Rivers; now Three Rivers is but a part of it.

The weather is mild, so I have spend some time refreshing the mural on my studio door. Here is the before and the middle. I know it needs more details, but need to wait for clarity and direction. It takes awhile to study one’s own work and see how to improve.

Sunshine is a wonderful thing. Like many wonderful things, too much of a good thing may cease to be so good. Sunshine fades paint, particularly the color yellow. This means greens turn to blue, oranges turn to red, and any brown that has yellow in it (they all do) goes either reddish or purple.

Here is the mural several years ago, a year when the leaves were brilliant in the fall:

Here it is prior to the recent refreshing. It kind of looks the same, so it probably has needed a do-over for a few years.

Here it is with new colors. I left the distant peaks the same so they would look distant. It might be too distant of a look. The rocks might be floating. There might not be enough detail in the foreground. It probably needs more work. And, I realized that I’ve never signed it. Perhaps I haven’t ever felt finished with the thing!

P.S. OF COURSE this is a Mineral King scene. . . were you expecting something else?

 

Orange You Glad This Mural is Finished?

A drive-by shooting of the Rocky Hill label mural on the east wall of Rocky Hill Antiques, east of Exeter.

 

This is how the mural looks in the morning light. It faces east, so I was only able to work on it when the shade was 2 feet wide, around 2 in the afternoon.

And, in case you have forgotten, it has a hidden item! No prizes offered, just the satisfaction of finding it.

Finishing the Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Part Four

On Thursday, I left you with a cliff-hanger of a green orange. (Reminds me of the time my mom wanted to show orange trees to her 4 year old Kansas granddaughter. “Look Ashley, those are orange trees.” “No they aren’t, Grandma – they are green!”)

White paint is opaque. Put down white paint, and then paint the orange! Sometimes I just floor myself with my on-the-spot innovations.  Honestly,  I often have to ask Trail Guy, but I forgot my old flip phone with a broken hinge so I couldn’t call him.

That looks weird. Gotta confess that it crossed my mind to paint it as a baseball. (It was the day that the Giants won the National League to go to the World Series.) As fun as that would have been, it would have meant that I needed to return, and I wanted to be FINISHED with this project. After all, I started the mural at the beginning of June.

Yes! The orange is done.

It looks good! The owners were right to add an orange.

I couldn’t photograph the entire mural because the pickup was blocking.

I spoke to one of the owners about adding the word ANTIQUES to the side of the mural. Together we concluded that it falls under the heading of sign, and under the skills of a sign painter. I am not a sign painter; I am a mural painter. The mural is finished.

May it be so.

Finishing the Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Part Three

We are waiting for the heat to end so I can finish the Rocky Hill Antiques mural. September passes. October arrives. The heat continues. FINALLY, last week, it mellowed from the 90s to the 80s. Practically sweater weather around here!

Wow, the mural is dusty and has some spider webs. No worries, I’m a country girl. “Girl”. Old girl. Never mind. An overall wearing man who works at Rocky Hill Antiques offered to back his pickup to the mural so I could paint from the tailgate. Perfect! He said he’d worked off scaffolding and ladders enough to know that it’s not easy. He was right, and I REALLY appreciated his help.

First step: draw the orange.

Can you see the chalk? When I backed up, I could see that the orange was too squished, so I added a bit to the right side. The leaves were also too short. They didn’t look bad, but my instructions were to follow a certain orange, not just go hog wild. (Guess I could say “off the reservation” since the mural contains the “Indian Outlaw”.)

First, I mixed some greens. There is a good dark green in that plastic jar. I didn’t put any on the palette because it dries out too fast that way.

First leaf finished, second leaf begun. Notice the headache bar from the pickup? I didn’t hit my head once!

Two leaves done! Now, time to mix the orange paint.

I premixed the basic orange in the plastic jar, then added white, yellow, 2 reds and a brown to the palette. By the way, the “palette” is a lid to a paint bucket.

Houston, we have a problem. The paints are transparent, or maybe the word is translucent. Whatever it is, they are see-through. This means with the orange paint that is mostly yellow placed on top of that blue, it goes all green! This is supposed to be a ripe orange, not one that is waiting for cool nights to arrive.

What am I going to do??

Come back on Monday, and I’ll show you. Why not tomorrow? Because Fridays are for Mineral King on this blog.

Finishing the Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Part Two

I showed my favorite view of the potential revision/addition of the Rocky Hill Antiques mural to the owner. He still wanted the word “ANTIQUES” included. I tried to convince him that the word would change a mural into a sign, and there is plenty of signage at the business with no doubts at all as to what the business is about.

But, the owner requested the word ANTIQUES, so I showed him some alternatives. He liked this typestyle. I still thought the word didn’t belong in the orange.

How about if we move the type outside of the mural?

Finally, the owner said that would be okay, but he liked the larger orange.

 

Bigger orange, like this, minus the word in the orange, and added to the outer edge.

Phew. Now all I had to do was wait for the heat to abate.

Finishing the Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Part One

Remember the mural on the side of Rocky Hill Antiques? I painted it last June. Here are the links to the posts about it:

Projecting A New Mural, Chapters two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight

The mural looked like this at the end.

We simplified it from the original label, which was full of words and a cellophane wrapped Sunkist orange. After simplifying, my customers decided it was too plain.

By that time, it was summer and definitely too hot to paint on a wall that collects heat all morning. There was much discussion, and eventually the owners decided they wanted an orange added with the word “ANTIQUES” on the orange.

This is Exeter, California, an orange-growing mecca, and this is an orange grower’s label.

I used the orange off a label provided by the store owner and Photoshop Elements to try to illustrate what I thought they were requesting.

They may have requested a larger orange, or perhaps I just decided to try one.

The word in the orange just doesn’t belong. Of course that is my opinion, not an absolute truth. The customers’ wishes are supposed to take precedence over the artist, or are they?? Hard to say. . . I am a hired painter, but I do have a little pride in my work.

Let’s look at my favorite version.

This suits me. However, it still didn’t suit the owners.

What’s an artist to do??

Wait. Wait for a better idea. Wait for the heat to abate. Wait for inspiration, for something.

Label Mural Afterthoughts

Ever heard it said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee?

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

The Rocky Hill Antiques mural is in danger of becoming a camel. Three owners, a former owner, vendors within the organization – many many people have opinions.

I will paint until the one who writes the checks is happy.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Meanwhile, only TWO people have told me what is hidden in the mural. There have been many imaginative guesses; I think people are very very creative!

Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Chapter 8

Look at this photo and guess what it means:

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

Give up?

It means I am finished with the Rocky Hill Antiques mural!!!

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

This is how it looked when I began. There was much less traffic – because it was Saturday, or because there was a sign on Spruce that said “Road closed at Ave. 276”? Who cares? It was much nicer. AND, there were many more people stopping by the store and saying hi while I painted. That is so nice after working in silence and solitude for many days in my studio.

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

This is the finished product. It contains a hidden image, known only to me and to Trail Guy. The first person who spots it gets a prize. Not a huge prize, so don’t get overly excited. And I’m sorry to my friends and blog readers who live far away, because it would be quite extraordinary if you were able to figure it out from this photo. So, come visit, already!

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

I also refreshed the ENTRANCE sign so it matches the mural. AND you may have noticed that the PARKING sign is gone. It was fun to mix the right yellow to cover that faded thing up. More pictures, fewer words. Sounds like building improvement to me!

Rocky Hill Antiques Mural, Chapter 6

Many thoughts go through my head as I paint on this wall. Have a look:

1. Monrovia Nursery’s trucks are quiet for big rigs.

2. When 2 trucks pass going in opposite directions by the mural, it isn’t twice as loud as one. They sort of cancel each other’s noise out a little bit.

3. Some trucks use their Jake Brakes – WHY??? It is flat, flat, flat on this road – why use a compression brake at all?

4. Cars travel in packs.

5. People tailgate as if it will cause someone else to go faster and as if it isn’t the main cause of wrecks. I actually thought a car was being towed by a big rig for a moment. . . it was just tailgating to a crazy degree.

6. My long time friend Jim and other friend Keith-The-Generous-Man-With-A-Flatbed-Truck both stopped by. I really appreciated it. We shouted at one another a bit, smiled, waved, and moved on.

7. Maybe new earplugs would help.

8. The traffic diminishes after 6:30 p.m. until the very moment I want to pull out on the road. Then there are multiple wolf-packs of cars coming in both directions, but few big rigs at 7 p.m.

This is what I see from the back of the truck when my back is to the wall. You can see part of Rocky Hill. Hard to believe this country road gets the amount of traffic that it does.

This is looking south from the back of the truck. Those things on poles are wind machines. That is an orange grove of youngish trees. The sky is polluted. Welcome to California (Now, go home.)

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

Next, finish repainting the blue, paint a border, paint the wording, and finish the base. Can I do it in 2 days? I’m so ready to be finished with the rough wall and the NOISE.

I still love painting murals, seeing it come together, getting the big impact, mixing the colors, figuring out how to tackle things that are a little too hard for me. It is my opinion that Rocky Hill Antiques should do at least 2 more of these packing label murals. After all, their building says something about “the old packing shed”, which is exactly what it is. I wonder if they could all be from Rocky Hill Farming. Maybe they should all be blue!

Rocky Hill Antiques mural, Chapter 5

I was in Wilsonia for the morning and then had to blast down to Exeter to get to Rocky Hill Antiques because I knew there was a great help awaiting my arrival. (Little did I know I’d have a visitor, the wonderful Diane who has been following and commenting on my blog for years now – bless you, my Orange County friend! THANK YOU for making time to stop by!)


Rocky Hill Antiques mural

Check this out! It is the Perfect Height and location for working on the Indian Outlaw. I can back up to see how it looks from a distance without climbing off the ladder!

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

First, I mixed a better (more accurate) blue. It matches the label more closely, although I think the old navy color is beee-yooo-teee-ful. (Check out the color of the background of my website and this blog – obviously this color makes my heart sing.)

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

The first layer on the horse head is a little rough. The first layer on anything is a little rough.

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

Better! Tomorrow I’ll probably add a few more details or see other parts to improve. and the colors aren’t entirely accurate on the computer screen. Let’s back up for a fuller view:

Rocky Hill Antiques mural

You can see the 2 shades of blue. I’m saving the painting of that part for a day when it is too hot to mix and blend colors, or maybe when a friend stops by and asks to help (you never know. . .!)

Isn’t this truck THE BEST THING EVER??