But wait! There’s more! More Oak Grove Bridge oil paintings.
Here we encounter a numbering problem. When learning to oil paint, every artist has her own system for keeping track of completed paintings (or not.) It took me awhile to sort things out. Hence, here are two Oak Grove Bridge # Nines and Tens.
Happy Birthday, Cory!!
It is easy to go on and on and on about this subject. Tulare County landmark, favorite bridge, art. . .
All of these paintings are sold and todayI’m giving you a break from all the “ads” (although you may commission me to repaint any of these bridge scenes for you!)
There will be several chapters in this series about my favorite bridge, the Oak Grove Bridge on the Mineral King Road in Tulare County, California. (All those specifics are just in case you are new to the blog; if so, welcome!)
Yesterday we looked at three pencil drawings of the bridge. Today I will show you some of my earliest oil paintings of this wonderful subject.
Keep your seat belts on – it is a long and winding road with about 20 more oil paintings of this beautiful Tulare County landmark to go!
In July and August, I don’t teach regular drawing lessons. My students often say “enjoy your vacation” or “have a nice summer” as they are leaving (and several cannot resist the urge to sing “See You In September”).
Although I do spend much more time in Mineral King in those 2 months, I am still working. Sort of. There was the show Art: Inspired by Mineral King on June 30. I deliver paintings to the Silver City Resort (AKA “The Store”), work on commissions (both pencil and oil), blog, keep track of what is selling, work on my new website design, work on the upcoming calendar, plan for any upcoming shows. That’s sort of working, isn’t it?
The oil painting commission of Homer’s Nose With the Oak Grove Bridge felt too hard. Was I low on sleep? (That was both my parents’ question and/or conclusion any time there was a problem both growing up and as an adult.) Distraction was present in the form of some cats, a friend or two stopping by, the heat, lots of unfinished projects. . . but the main problem might have been fear.
So, I listened to the song “Fear is a Liar” by Zach Williams on repeat for an hour or so, and then I started a new painting of the same bridge from the same angle.
When I don’t know how to do the next step on a project, I often begin a new project. This may be the first time I’ve started a second painting of the same subject, the very one that has me handcuffed.
During this time of unfocused indecision, all my Mineral King paintings were crated up, ready to go to Silver City for the Art: Inspired by Mineral King show. This gave me a sense (albeit a false one) of not having enough paintings to sell. On top of that ridiculousness, I began the magical thinking of “What If Everything Sells and Then I Have Nothing of Mineral King?”
My response to that was to begin another 6×6″ painting of Sawtooth. Here they are on the drying wall in their sloppy scribble stage, along with the completed river painting.
Yep. Good decision. When you can’t get your work finished, just begin more work.
Aren’t you glad you stopped by for this uplifting, realistic, encouraging piece of artistic wisdom?
I find most painting subjects to be just a little bit too hard for me. Is this because I am mostly self-taught? Maybe. Is it because I have only been painting for 12 years? Maybe. Is it because I don’t know when a painting is “good”, or “finished” or “overworked” or “incomplete”? Yeppers. That’s it.
After struggling through figuring out how to blend Snozz Rock Homer’s Nose with the Oak Grove Bridge, how to work from 2 photos with different light, how to just make stuff up, all on a GIANT 18×24″ canvas (well, it IS giant compared to my normal 6×6, 8×8, 6×18 and 11×14 sizes!), I decided to work on the “teensy” forgiving 8×8″ oil painting of the South Fork of the Kaweah (“kuh-WEE-uh”) River.
And thus we conclude the teensy forgiving oil painting of a common well-loved Three Rivers Kaweah River view. (Hey Uncle Google, how did I do on all those key words??)
I worked for awhile on the oil painting commission of Homer’s Nose With The Oak Grove Bridge (WHAT shall this one be titled?? Snozz Rock? Sue’s View? The Nose And The Bridge? The Bridge and the Nose? Don’t Blow Your Nose On My Bridge?)
And thus, we have successfully covered the great desert of a scary semi-empty canvas with another layer of oil paint.
After 7-8 months of painting toward a show about Mineral King and (almost) in Mineral King, it is tomorrow!
Is it considered shouting to use bold type? Or is that only for capital letters? I’ve always always always considered italics to be whispering, so maybe this paragraph will be more soothing to your ears.
Four artists with cabins in the Mineral King area will be showing and selling our work on the deck of the Silver City Store tomorrow, June 30, 10 AM until 3 PM.
The Silver City Store is 21 miles up the Mineral King Road. It is a long way there, a long and winding road, and it is well worth the effort it takes to get there. The store is at about 6700′ in elevation, and it is no longer called “The Store” but now is “The Silver City Resort”. The store itself has been remodeled into a new rustic elegant interior; the artists will be on the spacious outdoor deck.
Linda Hengst, Joan Keesey, John Keesey and I will be there. Linda paints in acrylic (or is it oil? Hard for me to tell the difference), Joan does tight realistic botanicals in watercolors, and John does whimsical playful watercolors of somewhat stylized scenery of the area. Linda’s work makes you say “Ahhhh”, Joan’s work makes you say, “Ooooh”, and John’s work makes you smile. My work? Um, let’s see. . . “How much for this one?”
I am taking 23 oil paintings (some of which I have shown you on this blog), 5 pencil drawings (all of which you have seen on this blog), Mineral King cards (old and new designs), a few reproductions of pencil drawings (also of Mineral King, duh) and some copies of my book The Cabins of Wilsonia. (The Cabins of Where? Yes, they have been requested.)
Let’s roll! See you tomorrow??
FOUR ARTISTS: Jana Botkin, Linda Hengst, Joan and John Keesey
Not talking audibly to myself anymore, decisions made, work begun on the oil painting commission of Homer’s Nose with the Oak Grove Bridge.
Madame Customer stopped by my studio to retrieve her photos and saw the scary version. She made another change to our plan, and I was eager to try it. Her suggestion was to forget about the green hills below Homer’s Nose and extend the greenery above the bridge up closer to Snozz Rock.
Today’s oil painting for sale:
No Mineral King today – I haven’t been for a couple of weeks because I went to Hume Lake.
I love to read. Do you?
Some of my favorite podcasts are about books and reading: What Should I Read Next, By the Book (the one with all the cussing), Just the Right Book, From the Front Porch. While listening to several podcasts recently, I learned of a PBS thing called The Great American Read. It is a book popularity contest, seeking America’s favorite novel. You can watch the 2 hours of the program about the books, and if you love books and reading, you will enjoy this program. Then you can vote for your favorite novel, which any reader knows is an impossible task. No problem – you get to vote once a day until the contest ends in the fall.
I didn’t vote because it requires a sign-up, either through FaceBook (not happening for this little gray duck) or via email, and I don’t want to put myself on another list. However, you might. Or maybe you want to do what I did after watching the program: read the list and count how many of the books you have read. I have read 36 of the 100, and a few of them are on my To-Be-Read list.
What does this have to do with being an artist in the Central Valley of California?
Nothing.
Will you tell me 2 things? 1. Which ones you would vote for and 2. how many you have read off the list. Inquiring minds need to know. (I am an Enneagram #5 and a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies – you may need to do some reading to understand this stuff.)
Here is today’s painting: Reading Rabbit, AKA “Salt & Light”, an oil painting on board. It isn’t for sale, because I like it too much to sell.
