Is there a word that starts with P to substitute for “day”? I could use “process”, but it isn’t accurate enough.
After spending time with Krista evaluating my paintings, I repaired four in one day. (One wasn’t even on the list, but it was bugging me.)
Everything dried quickly to be scanned. Maybe I will have time to do the two more still life paintings before the show opening in October. . . but, maybe not. There are more things happening than I tell you all here. . . will more be revealed??
August in 2024 has been a month of activity and learning and a full schedule. Good thing I don’t teach drawing lessons during this month because there was no extra time. Most of my learned items this month are accompanied by irrelevant photos.
1.William Faulkner is not for me. I tried As I Lay Dying as an audio book and only made it through the first CD on my recent road trip. So much repetitive pointless conversation by unexplained characters. So I chose some rather mindless but entertaining “literary” fiction (which I think means modern but not formulaic) by Anna Quindlen, an excellent storyteller.
2. On hard curves on Interstate 5, vehicles lose hubcaps. I don’t know why, but it probably has something to do with excessive speed and centrifugal force (my hubcaps are all intact and in place—thank you for your concern.)
3. My peripheral neuropathy is most likely due to being in the “pre-diabetes” category. This feels quite unfair and rather unlikely, but there is no other possible explanation.
4. I have learned to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) in an attempt to understand what is happening to my blood glucose levels when I eat this or that or eat things in a particular order or drink vinegar in water prior to a “bad” food or meal. It is a combination of interesting (because it is fun to learn) and highly annoying (better when I learned to silence the warning alarms) because I had to keep my phone with me constantly. This was a real nuisance in Mineral King, and then I had to borrow a charging device. I don’t take my phone up the hill because there is no signal and the camera is crummy.
5. I learned about a texting problem: messages will only go through when texting a non-iPhone from an iPhone IF YOU ARE USING CELLULAR SIGNALS. They will NOT go through if you are using wi-fi. That sure explains a lot of missed messages.How do you know if you are texting an iPhone or a non-iPhone? If the messages are blue, it’s iPhone; if the messages are green, it’s not.
6. Indoor malls are a thing of the past. I learned this in Salem, because I am not a shopper at malls, having always preferred catalogs and not being one who views shopping as a recreational activity. The mall we visited had each store open to the outside. I wonder what is inside all the space where people used to walk from store to store. I wonder why people stopped doing that (besides the fact that the malls are now all outside access types).
7. Frass is the sawdust made by insects chewing on trees. (Thanks, DV)
8. Learned the ins and outs of In-N-Out Burger. I read the book about it by Lynsi Snyder, who is the big kahuna there. I’ve only eaten there once, and not being a burger aficionado, it was probably wasted on me. The family is full of very rough edges, and the book read like an infomercial. But now I know, and it was worth reading, since memoir is my current favorite genre.
This will not be in Simply Home; it sold awhile ago. I didn’t learn about preparing for a solo show because I’ve been there and done that. No tee shirt because I don’t wear clothes with words on them (except for the tee shirt that says “Easily distracted by plants”, which was a gift).
With all those posts about Mineral King, did you wonder if I am still working?
Thank you for your concern. It may look as if I am just loafing in Mineral King, taking bad photos, and wishing it wasn’t smoky.
HOWEVER, I spent some valuable time with a very savvy artist friend (Krista Fulbright, who has her work at CACHE right now—don’t walk, RUN to see the show). I showed her all my paintings for my upcoming show at CACHE (opening date Saturday, October 19) and she gave me excellent honest input as to how to improve the body of work.
Every piece I have is a landscape with a single exception.
I asked Krista if I should just leave this one out, and she said yes, or choose 2 more subjects to go with this. WHAT? PAINT MORE? Maybe.
I took a box of photos to the cabin, and sorted through to find possible companion pieces. A former drawing student/good friend/cabin neighbor and Trail Guy shared their opinions as I tried several combinations. (Didn’t have the painting with me —just one of the reference photos).
I haven’t decided yet. First, I need to polish, refurbish, and refine about 4 or 5 other paintings.
So, you can see that I sometimes even work in Mineral King.
ABOUT THE FIRE: The Park has closed Mineral King to recreational activity, including trailheads, trails, and campgrounds. There is also a possibility that the road may close before the end of the weekend due to “fire front slowing backing down closest to the road in the general Lookout Point area.
This painting is inching forward. It wants wildflowers (fiddleneck) next, maybe some distant shrubs.
The book about TB got sent to the publisher/printer and then put on hold because it needed “hyperlinks” in order to be an e-book. Hunh?? I learned how to do this, then after 2 hours, I remembered that the manuscript could not be sent from my laptop because the Mac scrambles the index (Word and Mac are not very good teammates.) This meant a trip to Visalia and 1-1/2 hours of fumbling around on the author’s HP to no avail. Wow, I am clumsy on that machine which is NOT intuitive. We made the good decision to scrap an e-book.
It is bear season in Three Rivers. This doesn’t mean you can get tags and shoot bears; it means that they are active. (Thank you for use of the photo, JM!)
. . . is the current status of the latest oil painting. More branches, twigs, leaves, and some wildflowers remain. I might even draw a few more blades of grass. I like long grass.
. . . book with which I have been helping a doctor-turned-author, Dr. William Winn, for almost seven years is now at the publisher! Tales of TB: White Plague of the North, should be in our hands in about 2-3 months.
. . . I am now helping another author-friend, Louise Jackson, with a book, this time a novel. We worked together on The Visalia Electric Railroad and Trail of Promises, both now out of print. It is a privilege to use my editing skills to help folks, honed through about 60 years with my nose in a book.
Normally I think pretty long and carefully about what to paint, particularly when trying to build up a solid body of work for a solo show. I know that citrus, sequoias, Mineral King, foothills, and local landmarks are the most likely to sell. After all, I did come here to earn a living, not to just putz around for fun. It ain’t all that fun when it is 103°, painting in a room barely cooled by a swamp “cooler”.
I’m not complaining, just explaining.
This scene kept calling me back, so I finally decided to just paint it, even though it doesn’t really fall into any of the regular categories.
I love to draw with my paintbrushes. If I am listening to a good podcast and drawing, I hardly notice the heat. There will be an enormous amount of drawing with the bark on the trees, the chain holding the swing, all the branches and twigs, leaves, and of course, wildflowers in the foreground.
This tree with the tire swing is a mile or so above my house. I’m painting it because I feel like it.
So there.
Any questions?
I have one for you: WHAT SHALL I NAME THIS??
What’s wrong with this picture?
The downhill lane isn’t convincing, the leafy bush/tree over Guardsman #2 is too yellow and looks like a cultivated roundie-moundie, and the growies in that center lane are too mushy.
All better now.
Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers (now located in The Dome) and the store at the Silver City Resort 4 miles below Mineral King have been selling steadily for me so far this summer.
When times are slow, it is easy to start thinking: “I’m a has-been. My prices are too high/too low. I’ve saturated the market. It’s all over. I feel fat—maybe I should start singing.”
When sales are brisk, it is easy to start thinking: “It’s about time. I wonder if I should raise my prices. Finally, I’m starting to figure this thing out.”
The truth is that there are feasts, famines, surges, and ebbs. The economy is up, then the economy is down. (Mostly in Tulare County the economy is “downer” than in the rest of the country.) Sales are seasonal. It’s all part of the business of art.
All I can do is continue to paint the best I know how, and when sales are surging, keep producing for the wonderful stores that sell my work.
P.S. The sizes aren’t shown in relativity to one another. They vary in size from 6×6″ up to 6×18″ and 12×16″.
When it is hot (i.e. “summer”), I prefer to paint in little stages rather than in long sessions. The swamp cooler helps, but it isn’t A/C for sure and for certain.
This might be how it looked last time you saw it. “It” has the working title of “Keep Right”, and I am open to suggestions, because I don’t want to paint the sign that says “Keep Right”, which belongs on the lower left.
I didn’t show the steps between the photo above and the one below. Sometime after I thought it was moving in the right direction, I put another layer of sky over everything in the background. It was a little alarming, and I didn’t take a photo. After it dried, I redid the distant tree trunks, and rebuilt the greens back there. Then I moved to the foreground on the right side.
I was working from a terrible photo that I took through the windshield and then cropped vertically. When I started the painting, I changed my mind and started it as a horizontal painting. This meant that I set aside the printed photo and switched to the terrible one on my laptop. Aha! I see the downhill lane on the left! Now I needed to rearrange things to make sense instead of just slapping lots of greenery on the unknown spaces.
Something might be different in this photo but I can’t quite tell.
I took this last photo when I was tired of being hot.
There is more work to do, but it is beginning to look believable.
Summer lasts a little bit too long for my liking. In early July, I was tired of it. That is an unpopular view, and I accept my status as a weirdo in this regard. However, I soldier onward in the heat, thankful for the inadequate swamp cooler in the painting workshop, and the inadequate wall unit in the studio. When I am finished painting for the day, I stagger into the house and cool off in the most totally excellent central air conditioning.
Sometimes I go walking in the mornings with my good friend. Occasionally we see a garbage bear.
Then I come home and paint.
I added wildflowers to the 8×8″ oil painting of Franklin Falls in Mineral King. They are mountain pride, arnica, and Indian paintbrush. Although they were not in either reference photo, I’ve seen them all at Franklin Falls. Being the boss of my painting, I took artistic license. Here it is, drying on the wood pile stack.
Having finished the smaller paintings destined for the Silver City Store, I returned to building up a body of work for the October-December show at CACHE.
Like most of what I have chosen to paint lately, this isn’t easy. Look at my reference photo, taken from inside the car. Traffic stopped briefly so at least it is focused.
The working title is Keep Right. Although that is very good instruction to drivers heading to Giant Forest in Sequoia as they approach the Four Guardsmen, I am doubting my ability to make the sign look good. Besides, we live in times when people tend to be highly sensitive, spring-loaded in the offended position, so out of deference to those folks, I will think of another title.
Or you can think of another title. . . I’m not easily offended, and love to hear good ideas from my tens of readers, most of whom are friends in real life.
I wasn’t kidding when I said it was hot. Look what happened while I was painting.
Wow. What a sensitive little snowflake. It was only 103° that day.