What sort of stupid-sounding blog post title is that?
An honest one. I paint better when I am not overheated, and in spite of the calendar having turned to autumn, the swamp cooler in the painting workshop is still in use. I painted better this session than the last one because I was more comfortable.
Several of these still need a signature. That is easier when the paint is dry.
It was still hot last week. I painted awhile in the workshop but didn’t turn on the swamp cooler. Probably should have. Painted slowly, quit early.
I retreated to the studio and turned on the air conditioner. While listening to interviews with the very smart and entertaining Mike Rowe, I began this pencil commission.
I love to draw.
There are a few small fall shows coming up beginning in October, and I don’t have any small paintings for these venues. I have large Mineral King paintings, but this is not what typical customers are seeking at boutiques, festivals and fairs.
Hence, I pulled out some photos and began planning new small oil paintings. There will be 3 on 5×7″ boards which sit on miniature easels, 3 4×6″ and 3 6×6″ oils on wrapped canvas. All will be citrus. For now. Let’s see how things go here. . . if I finish these, I might do a few pomegranates too.
Then I heard one of my favorite sounds.
Oh boy! My new walking shoes are here! I took them into the house, thought about trying them on, reminded myself that I was supposed to be working, so I had to parent myself: “Try them on when you are finished painting and go back to work NOW”.
Because these tiny paintings don’t sit on my easels, I hold them in my left hand to paint. Or I lay them flat on my rolling thing (it has an art name but I can’t remember what it is).
However, there was another distraction.
Tucker was very needy, but willing to sit still on my lap so I worked around him.
More rough beginnings, but that’s okay. It is hard to concentrate when there are new shoes and kitties who need me. Besides, I was tired from getting up early to walk fast and far in the dark in worn out shoes. (A goathead went right through the bottom last week!)
I came into the studio to get some work done, to post to the blog, to cross things off my inventory list that have sold recently, to sketch a little. . . you know, just the normal art business tasks.
This time Scout was very needy. She will not sit still, licks my hand and arm and bites my watch, steps on the computer, and changes position every few seconds. 
I had to smash her down with my hand so the laptop could photograph her. (Wow, my hand is scary looking. Someone please tell me that it is the Photo Booth application or I might go into shock.)
A friend of Trail Guy’s family has been in touch with me via email, and we have been enjoying our correspondence. She recently decided to commission me for an oil painting and 2 pencil drawings, all related to the Silver City Store*. After a great deal of communicating, sending photos, clarifying, and just discussing things, it was time to begin.
First, the oil painting. The oldest photo we could find was from 1985. It is later than her time there, but certainly closer in appearance than how it looks today.
Good thing that she knows I can paint, because the beginning always looks very rough. This will take many layers because of the vast amount of detail.
*The Silver City Store is 4 miles below the Mineral King valley. People stay in nice chalets, smaller store cabins, or in private cabins, and they stop there for burgers, pie and (we hope) for oil paintings.
Isn’t that title redundant? Probably. Every time I begin, it is on a new project.
A thoughtful mom bought a painting of an iris for her daughter named Iris.
She has another daughter named Camille and requested a camellia for her. Luckily, I have a good photo of a camellia in bloom, remembered the month it blooms, and only had to look through the February photos of 10 years to find it. Maybe it is even more lucky that Customer Mom liked the color and lighting and angle!
This will dry and then I’ll be able to detail it, my favorite part.
English is a weird and confusing language. Does the title of this post mean that my painting is little, or that my painting session is little?
Yes.
The hot weather eased up a bit, so I spent some time working on a painting.
What the weather has to do with painting is that I paint in a room without air conditioning. It has a swamp cooler, which is adequate for days as hot as about 95, if it isn’t humid.
Two canvases awaited me, along with Scout and Tucker.
Neither of these paintings will be for sale – they are slated for bigger things than filthy lucre. This may be the only time I show them to you, until more is revealed in the fullness of time. You’ll just have to hold your camels, as I learned to say when in Israel 2 years ago.
*I stole “mafungo” from Chris Daniel, on Fresno’s KMJ 580 AM from 2-6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
These Mineral King oil paintings began as four little messes. After the second pass over the canvas, they dried outside in the sun for 24 hours. That was all it took for them to be ready to scan and move up the hill to the Silver City Store for sale.
They NEVER look as good on the screen as in person. (Feel like taking a drive up a long and winding road?)
Each one is 4×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, ready to hang without a frame or to set on a shelf, $54 includes California sales tax.
Mineral King oil paintings have been selling steadily this summer at the Silver City Store/Resort.
The popularity of subjects has changed a bit. The Honeymoon Cabin is this year’s favorite, the Crowley cabin/Farewell Gap (view from the bridge at the end of the road) is second, and only one Sawtooth painting has sold. All the other paintings are in the category of Everything Else, which includes back country, trails, streams, and general scenery of the area.
The most popular size remains 6×6″ (perhaps because I paint more of that size than any other) with the second most popular size 4×6″. The large paintings look good in the store, but most people just want a bargain.
There are a couple more on the list of solds, but I didn’t keep close enough track and can’t find the scans of those paintings. (There are drawbacks to living in 2 places, one of them without the internet, but I bravely soldier on.)
Maybe for next year I should just do 6×6″ Honeymoon Cabin oil paintings. Wait, that won’t work because the market for those may be saturated. But wait. . . are the customers one-time visitors, repeat guests, or cabin community members?
The business of art is full of by-guess-and-by-golly. There is so much more to being an artist than just painting. . . all the thinking and planning in the world is still just an intuitive guess.
My four little messes from last week have become paintings. This 4×6″ size is tricky to paint. I hold them in my left hand, often ending up wearing paint in addition to applying it, and always wishing for smaller and smaller brushes. They retail for $50 (plus 8% tax, welcome to California) each, and the place that sells them takes a bite out of the $50, so I have to be careful to not pour too many hours into them.
In other words, I have to “settle”. Two passes over the canvas is all they get, and rather than focus on precision, I focus on pleasing colors and contrast. That’s not natural to this Central California artist whose specialty is detail in pencil.
But, I bravely soldier on. . .
But wait! There’s more!
It has been a few weeks since I oil painted. Little paintings are selling steadily at the Silver City Resort/Store 4 miles below Mineral King, and in this final push of summer before the season shuts down after Labor Day, it seems wise to load up their shelves.
How in the world do people complete a painting in only one pass over the canvas? I’ve done it, but right now it seems like a foreign language that I have never heard before.
It was easy to choose the subjects to paint, and goodness knows, I have hundreds of photos of the same scenes in Mineral King, all in different lights.
Here are four little messes. By “little”, I mean 4×6″. By “messes”, I mean OH NO HAVE I FORGOTTEN HOW TO PAINT??