Category: Oil Paintings

The Same Mineral King Scene

I paint the same Mineral King scenes over and over. One in particular sells very well. It is the classic Mineral King scene, the view from the bridge at the end of the road. Farewell Gap, the East Fork of the Kaweah River and the Crowley family cabin.

Let’s look at these in order of painting. There are variations in time of year, color of light, amount of snow on the peaks, amount of water in the stream, size of the fir tree on the left, arrangement on the canvas, and skill level of the artist. (Don’t mention this to my boss – she’ll get worried that I might ask for a raise.)

There are 32 of these in my iPhoto, but I don’t think that corresponds with the way I’ve titled them. Sometimes I can’t count very well. (Oh great, there goes my raise.)

And no, I won’t put all 32 in this post. They also might not be in order of getting painted. (There goes my raise for sure.)

Now there is a gap in time. Either I numbered the paintings wrong, or I took a big break from painting Farewell Gap. I think I spent a few years painting nothing but oranges, trying to get more comfortable with oil painting.

This might have been a repaint to the 2nd one above. Oh man, don’t tell my boss. She would be shocked, dismayed and disappointed at my shoddy record keeping.

Stop by again tomorrow for more Farewell Gap Mineral King oil paintings.

Mineral King oil paintings

Layer After Layer After Layer

That’s how I paint – layer after layer after layer. The Artspeak word for that is “glazing”, but I prefer English.

Layer one – Should have begun with the sky, but I asked my boss and she said, “Do whatever you want, if you think you’re so smart!” I didn’t want to mix up sky color – lazy or unmotivated or just rebellious that day, and my boss wasn’t paying attention anyway.

I’ve painted this Mineral King scene a few times before, so sometimes I just want to experiment because it gets a little boring. Maybe I ought to try painting it without looking at photos – that would be a challenge.

But I digress. Layers, we were talking about layers on Mineral King oil paintings. Or layers of Mineral King oil paintings. I could fill a room. . . I wonder if you could arrange them in order of experience. . . I wonder if I could.

Whoops. There were a lot of unphotographed layers in between the first picture and this one. Guess I got into it and forgot to show you the steps.

Now you can see the baby steps, incremental changes as the photos move along.

It is time to dry, and then I will put in all the tiny improvements and details that you need to see in person to properly appreciate. It might even require reading glasses, cheaters, middle-aged-magnifiers to see those details.

I’m not sure I like the willows that are not yet leafed out. . . they do pull your eye to the cabin, but the cabin pulls your eye to the cabin.

(Hey! Stop pulling my eye – you are going to pop out my contact lens that way!)

Next. . . a new ugly beginning, waiting for layers.

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Fruits, Nuts and Flakes

The current state of my fruits (no nuts or flakes) in progress

A friend said he disagrees with the idea that California is land of fruits and nuts. He said it is more like a bowl of granola: fruits, nuts and flakes.

I wonder why there is a correlation between flakes and artists. Artists have often been called flaky, and I work very diligently to blast that stereotype from my profession.

In my experience, it is contractors who are flaky. When I find a builder or a repairman who returns calls, shows up on time and actually calls when he cannot make it, I rejoice and spread the word. They are rare birds.

And here is a not so rare bird.

Hey, Rabbi Google (as we were taught to call it while in Israel), these are oil paintings – an orange, pomegranates, and a California quail.

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Payback to Mean Art Teachers

When I begin a new painting, it is ugly. Messy. Rough. Weird.

Those are discouraging words, here at my home on the range.

However, after oil painting for more than 10 years, I’ve come to accept that the start to an oil painting is ugly. Gotta start somewhere! My method of layering, called “glazing” (are your eyes glazing over yet?) brings improvement with each pass over the canvas.

Honestly, it is fun sometimes to just slap paint on in any old way and think, “So what? It’s a long process, and it will get better, so who cares?”

This attitude and approach is probably causing some of you to twitch, and would cause some of my former art teachers to palm their foreheads or bash something or yell at current students.

Payback, you former mean art teachers, payback. I never did like mean teachers who yelled or criticized, but always loved the ones who taught. (Thank you again, Mr. Stroben!)

Now I get to be both an artist, and a drawing teacher. Always helpful (I hope!), honest, and ever so slightly weird, but never never mean to my students.

Anyone want to sign up for drawing lessons?

oil paintings

More About Fruit and Nuts

I paint a lot of fruit. I don’t paint very many nuts.

I drew walnuts a few years ago (feels like 5 years, probably is 10).

with_please

Wow. That’s pretty good, if I do say so myself! And I do. I LOVE to draw. However, drawings need frames, and oil paintings sell better than pencil. Sometimes I ask my boss if I can draw, and she says I can after I finish all my work. Sigh.

A couple of years ago (feels like 2, must be 4), a friend commissioned me to do some 2×2″ paintings of all the best selling produce in California. Maybe it wasn’t the best selling – maybe it was the crops that California produces the most of.

nuts Those are the only paintings I’ve ever done of nuts – a walnut on the upper left and almonds on the upper right.

Pretty cool idea, eh?

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Fruit and No Nuts (or It’s Good To Be The Boss)

Happy Birthday, Judy-O!!

Have you heard California referred to as “the land of fruit and nuts”?

If you take the statement figuratively, it is referring to people in the state.

If you take the statement literally, it is referring to the vast amount of food produced here in Central California.

As a Central California artist, it is my duty, nay, my calling, to portray these things.

There are fall shows coming, and these require items to sell. When I do shows in places other than Three Rivers, paintings of fruits sell well. They sell steadily all year, and definitely do better down the hill than the mountain scenes.

That lower painting? It was this:

olives

It has been collecting dust since January. Chances are good that if I didn’t like it enough to finish painting it, no one would like it enough to write a check for it.

I asked my boss and she said I could cover it with pomegranates.

It’s good to be the boss.

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Second Most Popular Mineral King Painting

The second most popular scene I do as a Mineral King painting or drawing is the Honeymoon Cabin.

Bottom canvas is the beginnings of another oil painting of the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King.

This is the one remaining cabin from the resort days in Mineral King. The resort was owned by Ray and Gem Buckman, and they sold to Disney, thinking that the ski resort was an inevitable next step in Mineral King.

It wasn’t. No ski resort, but Disney ended up owning property. This is the only structure remaining, and the Mineral King Preservation Society turned it into a little museum.

It is quaint. It is scenic. It is paintable.

Working from 2 photos, pulling the best features from each one to make the painting as appealing as possible.

Reshaped the top-right of Vandever (the mountain), began adding greenery to the juniper tree on the left and the red fir on the right. (I think it is a red fir – I should know after painting and drawing it multiple times!)

Now it is looking like something I might be willing to sign with my name (as opposed to Mickey Mouse’s name?)

This just needs to dry so I can scan it. Photos taken while wet usually have this weird sheen. . . that’s why the gable end of the cabin looks sort of faded here.

Honeymoon Cabin #?, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $100. Use the contact button underneath the About The Artist tab if you’d like to buy this before it sells at the Silver City Resort.

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Painting on a Bungee Cord

No, my painting isn’t suspended from a bridge. It just returned to me for a minor detail.

back again

Mrs. Customer asked if I would put the tiny white lines in the windows because her husband wanted them there. I sighed, and said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice!” Then I told her to smack her husband with the back of her hand for me. After that, I added the little lines.

I like happy customers, and didn’t mind at all once it stopped being 108 degrees out. The swamp cooler in the painting workshop can’t cope with that sort of temperature.

Neither can I.

P.S. I may have added a few more details, brightened up a rock or two, straightened an edge, added a blade of grass. . .

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Half-Solved Mystery

Last year I did a little oil painting of a backcountry scene whose location was a mystery. I didn’t know who lent me the photo, and I didn’t know where the scene was.

Since last September, I have been working with Louise Jackson on her upcoming book, Trail of Promises. I edited about 200 photos, and later she and the subjects of the book pointed out that I was partial to a particular peak.

Last week I was looking through photos of completed paintings, and recognized one that stopped me up so short that I almost flew over the handlebars. It was that same peak that I kept choosing to use in Trail of Promises!

Have a look at the painting:

1504 Backcountry Lake

Now have a look at a photo of Banner Peak by Mike McGinnis :

Well, saw off my legs and call me Shorty!

I called my painting “Backcountry Lake”, but it should have been titled “Banner Peak”.

That’s half the mystery solved. The other half is Where Did I Get That Photo??

Save

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More New Mineral King Paintings

But wait! There’s More!

Why does that always elicit a smile or a chuckle?

Because it is obnoxiously obnoxious.

Here are the other paintings I finished last week. It was very hot in Three Rivers, so they dried quickly outdoors, and I was able to scan them without getting paint on the scanner.

It is horrible to get paint on a scanner. It’s even more horrible to scratch the glass trying to remove the paint. Best to not ask me how I know this.

Five new little oil paintings of Mineral King, all for sale at the Silver City Resort (unless they already sold!)

1622 FG XX 1623 MK 1624 FG XXI 1625 FG XXII 1626 FG XXIII

This week I had some special visitors to my studio. These are folks I’ve known since the 1980s, plus some extended family members. One of my old friends said, “I think your painting is improving.”

I hope so! I’ve been oil painting for 10 years, and if there has been no improvement, I need to quit.

Nope, not quitting.

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