Oil Paintings | Cabin Art

Back to the Easels, Sort Of

After spending a weekend at the Redbud Festival discussing and hanging around with my oil paintings, it was time to resume painting. I have 6 Mineral King paintings to complete before the show at the Silver City Store on June 30. There’s plenty of time. . . good thing, because the distractions continue.

Before beginning to work on the remaining 6, several other paintings needed to be retouched. I noticed that a few skies had some green paint smudges. How did this happen? Probably by moving them around before they were fully dried. But I had to be very very careful, because these four were hovering around my work space.

Left to right: Tucker, Heidi, Scout, Maeve

This painting of a Big Tree seemed to not be quite right to me. I reblued the sky, brightened the highlighted edge, and put a tiny bit more light green on the ground.Meanwhile, these guys wanted to know what was going on over their heads.

Then I finally began working on the 6×18″ of Timber Gap with lupine in the foreground. Wow, tedious stuff.But, plenty of interruptions kept me from falling asleep at the easel.

Trail Guy stopped by to visit with the kittens. Then he did a bit of yardening.

It was a sad day at the easels, because it was our last day with Maeve. We were correct in our assessment of her state of unhealthiness. She is a sweet-natured little fuzzball, but she isn’t going to ever grow up right. Cats with no tails and no stubs of tails often have trouble, and she was one of those types. We took her to the vet yesterday to have him do the deed, and THE VET TECH ADOPTED HER!! She will know what to watch for and will be able to get Maeve the help she needs when she needs it.

We were blessed to have this little kitty in our lives for 2 weeks, and now are ready to see what happens with the others. Tucker and Scout are our buddies, but Heidi hisses whenever we reach toward her for any reason. Maybe we’ll change her name to Hissy. Little Miss Hissy-fit.

Great Show

What makes a great show? It is a combination of comfortable weather, lots of good people to interact with, and good sales. Not all art and craft fairs have even 2 of the 3 elements present, so this year . . .

. . .The Redbud Festival in Three Rivers was a great show. I won’t list the people I got to talk to, listen to, learn from and just have fun with, but I will show you the paintings that sold.

In Which My Captions are Hijacked by a TC Native Speaker

In order to recover from the ordeal of my wrastling match (yep, that’s the way it is said in Tulare County – we are the same folks who say “warsh” for “wash”, and sometimes we say “crick” instead of “creek”) with the Kaweah Post Office oil painting, I enjoyed the yard a bit. By “enjoy”, I mean that I took a few photos and pulled a mountain of weeds.

Then it was time to get back at it, “it” being the easels. Been lollygagging around recently, so I am having to parent myself rather vigorously in order to finish my responsibilities. (“But I DON’T WANNA!”)

Here is a batch of Mineral King paintings in their ugly stages, but improving slightly.

Oops. Forgot to take the before photo of this one.

Now that’s a real unusual way to portray Sawtooth. Whatsa matter, Central California Artist? Are you getting tired of painting Sawtooth like regular folks?

Well, I’ll be! If it ain’t another Sawtooth painting!

You think this oil painting of Eagle Lake is a mess? You ought to see that sorry excuse of a trail!

This one’ll be real purdy when you get them wildflowers in it.

Ahem. Something seems to have taken over the captions of my photos today. Sounds like a Tulare County native speaker.

Shut up. Those are my people.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

A Bully of a Painting

The Kaweah Post Office XIV oil painting has been challenging me. By that, I mean it gets in my face each time I paint, and it says, “Whatcha gonna do about me, hunh? Hunh? Can you handle me? Betcha can’t! Besides, you don’t even know how to write 14 in Roman numerals!”

How rude.

Guess I showed him. Still plenty of detail work remaining, but that’s the part I enjoy. It is drawing with my paintbrush, so there, Art Snobs.

Then I looked out the door and decided it was time to get away from this bully of a painting subject. Besides, I’m going to win this battle, so there.

Finished!

It is surprising how many (or any at all) paintings got finished with all that procrastinating in April. Have a look:

Poppy #54, 6×6, $60 plus 8% sales tax in California

Foothill Wildflowers, 6×18″, $150 plus 8% sales tax in California

Moro and Alta, 6×18″, $150 plus. . . in the Golden State.

oil paintings Sawtooth Three Rivers

Painting With Kittens

No, I’m not painting WITH kittens; no, they aren’t helping me paint; no, this doesn’t mean I have a painting with kittens as the subject. I’m painting with a paintbrush while the kittens are present and active.

This kitten is less playful than the others; we aren’t convinced that she is healthy.

She is a lovable little fuzzball, named “Maeve” after my favorite novelist, Maeve Binchy.

Because this one, the smallest, bravest and most adventuresome is climbing my skirt. Her name might be Scout, although we have used that name previously and I don’t like recycling names.

The other two kittens hang out together quite a bit; one hides the most so she is “Heidi”, and the little black one is “Tucker” because he is cute like Tucker Carlson.

I WAS painting, I was, I was!! See?

April in Three Rivers II, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×10″, $125 plus tax

Procrastinating and Painting

Those 2 words together describe a work day last week. At the end of April with heat lurking around the corner, I found it difficult to stay positioned at the easels.

It was overcast, which made the flowers seem particularly bright and colorful. The 2 pinks grabbed my attention on the way to the studio.

Petunias with rock rose in the background

It seemed like a good day to experiment with some of the mysterious settings on my camera and learn the differences.

What setting is this? There isn’t one labeled “Normal”.

This is called “toy camera”. It darkens all the edges. Why??

This looks sort of Normal to me, but there is no such setting.

Pray tell, what manner of weirdness is this setting??

Never mind for the photography lesson; get to work, Central California Artist!!

The 6×18 poppies and lupine might be finished. They need to dry.

The colors on this painting look so vivid in real life, but to mix them in paint, they all seem like dull grayed versions of real colors.

Maybe the contrast and detail will make up for the apparent dullness.

Maybe when it is dry and then I run past quickly, it will look better. Of course I could hurt myself running past with my head turned sideways. Maybe it is best if I return to photography today.

That’s enough painting. I NEED to evaluate those peculiar camera settings. Could ask The Google, I guess, but I’d rather figure it out myself. It is procrastination, but it is helpful. There is no Boss to tell me when it is time to learn new skills instead of producing new paintings. (Whatcha gonna do? Fire me?)

Paintbrush Gardening

Is it gardening when I am planting flowers with my paintbrush? Is it gardening when I am painting wildflowers?

It doesn’t matter – sounds good in a blog post title and sort of works.

This is one of the popular 6×18″ sized canvases, begun with a few spots and slashes of color. I showed you these first 3 pictures in a post earlier this week.

Now for the more recent progress of this oil painting of poppies and lupine:

There needs to be grasses across some of the flowers for it to look real, but I can’t do that while the paint is wet or the grasses will be orange and purple. There is a messy poppy in the center (from left to right but sort of higher than center from top to bottom) that demonstrates the folly of this maneuver.

Now it is finished.

And, I know you are dying to know the state of our cat situation.

Piper is happy and oblivious to the fact that we have just completely altered his life.

How have we altered Piper’s life? Look what we did yesterday:

We went to the ranch expecting to choose two kittens and brought home FOUR.

Three tortoiseshell females and one solid black male. OH NO! HOW WILL WE TELL WHICH ONE IS PIPER WHEN THE NEW ONE GROWS UP??

oil paintings poppies wildflowers

May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers in some parts of the world; in Three Rivers, it is more this way: With April heat, May flowers are beat.

That’s okay. I can paint my own flowers.

This is going to take longer than expected. Most paintings do.

I build the background around the flowers, then touch up the flowers.

There is so much variety, and I’m trying to make it look natural rather than arranged.

I think this is finished! I titled it “April in Three Rivers” and sent a photo of it to a lady who expressed an interest during the Studio Tour. She wants it! I can paint it again for you- 8×10″, $125 plus tax.

That was so fun that I began a similar one, this time in the horizontal format.

But wait! What is all this?

This is how it looks when there is a stack of new paintings ready to begin. Sky is the farthest thing in a scene, so it goes on first.

oil paintings Three Rivers wildflowers

Tiptoeing Along on Several Oil Paintings

Why tiptoeing? Because it feels slow and careful at this stage, like I am just feeling my way along, trying to be as careful as possible.

First up, Sawtooth, the commissioned oil painting.

Second, rebuild the Kaweah Post Office, also a commissioned oil painting.

Third, plant some grasses. (Oil paint grasses, not fescue or bermuda or dichondra or Kentucky bluegrass or. . .) There was more progress made, but the phone call came that it was time to rescue Piper from the vet, where he got civilized this week. $192. No such thing as a free cat. (Samson cost $132 – he was in better shape to start with.)

Then I flipped it over to paint the bottom and begin the greenery.

This one had its skyline just too rough, with things not the right heights. So, I repainted the sky, using it to shape the mountain tops.

Better now. Miles to go before I sleep. . .

I mixed up 3 shades of green and began building background. While doing this, I increased the sizes of the blooms and added many more.

commission oil painting Kaweah Post Office oil paintings Sawtooth sawtooth oil painting

Category: Oil Paintings