I’ve left Mineral King and have now entered Birdland.
(If you grew up in Visalia, you may remember an area on the north side of town called “Birdland”. This was because the streets were named things like Dove and Robin. Birdland might still be in Visalia, but the name is seldom used, now that the town is 125,000 instead of 35,000.)
What in the world am I referring to when I say I have entered Birdland?
So glad you asked. Here, have a look and see for yourself.
By now you may be accustomed to how terrible my paintings look during the first layer. If you are new to this blog, rest easy. The paintings improve with time and layers.
Do you like the title? I feel quite pleased with it.
Last month this painting sold:
Oranges #135, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″
The happy customer asked if I had a matching lemon painting, to which I replied, “No, but I can paint one for you”. Then I couldn’t find the photos, so I went to the 26,000 photos on my computer and found just what I needed.
I wasn’t focused on tight detail that day, because I was doing big picture thinking about large quantities of small Mineral King paintings. But, the citrus needs to be squeezed in. Squoze in. Something.
And since I am working on citrus and have run out of orange paintings, it was a good time to begin two more orange oil paintings.
There you have it. Three new citrus oil paintings, squoze right in among all the Mineral King oil paintings. I kept them on another wall for drying. Didn’t want any orange juice to drip on Mineral King.
P.S. Two days later, they were all finished and drying.
As promised, here are some finished Mineral King oil paintings from my Phactory Phases. Factory Fases? Too much cuteness for you? I’m sorry. Must be the oil fumes.
They are all oil paintings on wrapped canvas, which means the sides are painted so they don’t need frames. The prices don’t include 8% sales tax; if you live outside of California, you don’t have to pay it, lucky you. If you want to order, you can go to the sales page and use shopping cart and Paypal or you can send me a check in the Real Mail, the US Postal Service, my favorite way to reach out and touch.
Mineral King Trail II, 8×10″, $125Mineral King Alpenglow, 6×18″, $150Honeymoon Cabin #30, 6×6, $60Mineral King Stream, 6×6″, $60Juniper, 6×6″, $60Sawtooth XXIII, 8×8″, $100
I love to blog, to post here on my web log, weblog, blog, online journal. Mostly I just run on about the business of art, but sometimes I show you things for sale. I don’t wear plaid pants, assault people, lie or talk fast; instead, I just provide opportunities for my handful of readers to buy the things I make.
It is my hope that you enjoy my blog, and find enough opportunities to buy my work without feeling sold to.
Too much variety means all of this could take up multiple posts, so a list will be the best approach today.
There are now many new paintings listed on my website – For Sale–Oil Paintings–Landscape. If you sort by newness, you can see them.
Honeymoon Cabin #28, 8×8″, oil on wrapped canvas, $100
I finally finished coloring the grapes in my coloring book Heart of Agriculture.
I started 2 other pages in the same coloring book. The ag coloring book is fun to me because there are so many colors besides just normal landscape colors. (The plum is light colored because that is how plums look hanging on the tree. The white stuff is called “bloom”.)
I found a web designer! I will withhold comment until the job is finished, but so far, I am impressed.
It was good to be at Anne Lang’s for First Saturday February; I’ll return for First Saturday March.
February is International Correspondence Writing Month. Ever heard of that before? There is even a website! They call themselves (who are “they”??) InCoWriMo
This is a post about 4 cute little oil paintings of various Mineral King scenes on boards, each one sitting on its own tiny wooden easel. (Well, yes, they are for sale – thank you for asking!)
White Chief – SOLDSawtoothVandeverLittle Farewell Gap – SOLD
The rectangular paintings are 4×6″ and are $50; the squares are 4×4″ and are $40.
Such a deal! They are available on this page. (Sort by price, lowest to highest, and they will appear on the first page.)
Now there’s a creative blog post title for you. . . just the facts, ma’am.
I’m almost finished with this phase. Paintings need to dry, get signed, scanned, and varnished. Have a look at the various stages.
Cute little 4×6″ oil painting on board, on its very own easel.2 scenes waiting for wildflowers, and a bridge awaiting some painterly confidence.Drying from 2 sky do-overs.Say buh-bye to the unwanted pomegranate.
Maybe next week I will have a host of completed, signed and scanned Mineral King oil paintings to show you.
This year I have set the goal of finishing all the Mineral King oil paintings well before the season begins. The Silver City Store has been selling my oil paintings since 2010, and it is good for them, for me, and for the customers. The past 8 years have provided a good idea of what sells and in what sizes and quantities. Why not look at this information and make a plan?
Phase I was finishing a large quantity of paintings in the month of January, some that were begun in December. The total was something crazy huge, like 2 dozen or so. I hadn’t planned on buying 4×6″ canvases or painting on 4 little boards that used to contain things like tomatoes, so the number went up. All this production forced me to figure out how to use my painting hours more efficiently, and in February, I am continuing with this plan.
(Do you need a nap yet? A cup of espresso?)
Phase II is filling in the gaps – do I have the right quantities of the best subjects in the most popular sizes? Nope, not yet. Here is how beginning another 8 paintings looks. It’s not that pretty, but it is not as gross as making sausage, I guess, although I’ve never witnessed that operation.
Wiring and writing titles and inventory numbers.Buh-bye, sweet little pomegranate that no one wants.Skies come second, after I have “toned” the canvas, which is Artspeak for smearing the gunk from the bottom of the turpentine jar all over it and letting it dry.
There are about 6 more subjects I want to paint. These are also Mineral King, but they involve new scenes.
If this seems a little repetitious to you, well, it is. It is a little repetitious to me to. That’s the thing about doing work for a seasonal business – it is repetitious because there are new customers every week, and they haven’t seen my paintings before. Or they saw them last year and want to add to the collection. Or, their friends saw their painting and wanted one too.
That’s me, talking to myself. Keep painting, Central California artist, keep painting!
I messed up and ordered 4×6″ canvases instead of 6×6″. This means I have some adjusting to do and some decisions ot make.
The first step is to see how it is to paint on this size and shape.
The standard/classic Mineral King view of the Crowley family cabin with Farewell Gap in the background.Vandever is the name of the peak that forms the right side of Farewell Gap.The Honeymoon Cabin is tied with Sawtooth for the number 2 position in subject popularity.The 6×18″ painting of Sawtooth sold before I put it on my web page for sale. Therefore, I am painting another 6×18″ of Farewell Gap with alpenglow.Homer’s Nose is an interesting granite formation visible from the Yokohl curve, between Exeter and Lemon Cove. I love the view, but apparently I am the only one, so it is becoming Eagle Lake. Time will tell if there are more fans of Eagle Lake than of Homer’s Nose.If you look very quickly at this rough version, you might get the idea of a lake forming.This 8×10″ will contain a tremendous amount of detail. The challenge will be to emphasize the trail, keeping it from disappearing in all the textures.
This is an 8×8″ of my tied-in-second-place Mineral King oil painting subject, the Honeymoon Cabin. It was part of the resort; then Disney bought up parts of the resort in hopes of building a ski area. That didn’t happen, and now this little cabin is a museum of artifacts and photos of Mineral King.
You saw it yesterday hanging on the wall drying. In my normal manner, I got things a little mixed up, posted yesterday as #4 and had today as #3. Then I switched things a few times and finally corrected it, but here is the Honeymoon Cabin at an earlier stage. I might be a bit dizzy from the oil fumes, or maybe the turp. Could be the propane, but I doubt it; the oil painting workshop room is extremely well ventilated (read “drafty”).
Oil paintings don’t dry very quickly; that is both the good thing about oil paint and the bad thing. Trail Guy set up this handy little shelf in front of the heater in the painting workshop/studio, and that will help things move along.
Will these Mineral King oil paintings ever be finished? Yes. Then I’ll have to decide what to paint next. I’ll still need more Mineral King for my inventory (I’m painting ahead for the first time ever – finally have learned that summer starts on Memorial Day weekend and this year I will NOT be surprised.)
Some of these look like the same paintings as in other photos because they are the same paintings. I move them all around depending on their state of dryness. Some of them just look the same because the subjects are the same, only with differing amounts of snow or water or with different lighting.
The bridge is still a little bit too hard for me. It will have to wait until I am out of my Mineral King Oil Painting Factory Mode.
Aren’t these little 4×4″ boards sweet? I can’t sign my name on that size, so only put J.B. They will each sit on a tiny wooden easel, and will be $30 each. A man from Marin Co. told me he saw 2×2″ paintings sitting on tiny easels at $120 each.
I wasn’t focused on tight detail that day, because I was doing big picture thinking about large quantities of small Mineral King paintings. But, the citrus needs to be squeezed in. Squoze in. Something.
