What a weird sounding title. Never mind. Have a look at the progress on the Kaweah Post Office oil painting for Chuck.
First I drew it on the canvas.
Then, I put the first layer of paint down.
Don’t be scared, Chuck! They all start out this rough. It is a long layering process, and I’ll keep you posted weekly on the blog.
To continue yesterday’s dissatisfying post about color, here is an aspen painting before I added blue: 
Here it is afterward:
Ahem. Why is it that I can repair photos quite well using Photoshop Elements but cannot get the same painting to scan the same way 2 times in a row?
Who cares? I have real work to do!
A friend is learning about art, practicing diligently at watercolor, taking workshops and painting with a group in her town. She also reads about art, and has been kind enough to spend time with me, discussing various art related topics.
She told me about a book called “Breakfast at Sotheby’s: An A-Z of the Art World” by Philip Hook. Not only did she read it, she took notes. AND, she shared them with me!
Two main points interested me in our conversation about color.
1. In Breakfast at Sotheby’s, her notes say this: “Red and blue are the most important colors in modernist art.” (I’ll have to look up the definition of “modernist”. . . always something to be learned around here. . .)
2. One of her instructors believes that all paintings should have some cerulean blue. This is a lighter blue, leaning toward turquoise that I use when I mix colors. (I only use the primaries plus white to make all my colors with a few exceptions.)
While my friend and I sat together in my studio discussing color, we looked around together at the paintings hanging on my walls. We discovered 2 that had neither blue nor red. So, in a spirit of experimentation and adventure, I added some.
Artichoke before: 
Artichoke after: 
Now that is an unfair comparison. The scans turned out differently, although the size is supposed to be the same it is not, and I guess you’ll just have to see the painting in person. I promise that I didn’t mess with the greens. I did mess with the color and exposure on the computer, trying to get the 2 to match, but something just isn’t working.
Never mind. Have a nice day. Thanks for stopping by and making it to the end of this post. Perhaps I should just get to the easels and finish the Kaweah Post Office.
The Kaweah Post Office is one of our only landmark structures in Three Rivers. I am working to help meet the insurance deductible to rebuild it because a big limb from a valley oak tree smashed the roof. (We are quite rural – perhaps a bear was in the tree eating acorns and caused the limb to break . . . I wasn’t there, but it could have happened that way!)
There is an auction on eBay to sell my painting of the Post Office; I will split the proceeds with them. (I gotta earn something here, dear readers – selling art is how I make my living!) It ends tomorrow, Friday, October 9, at noon. See it by clicking this link.
A nice man named Chuck told me he wants to participate with $200, but he just doesn’t shop on eBay. No worries, Chuck. I understand those types of boundaries, because I don’t play on Facebook.
So, I offered to repaint it for him for $100 and give $100 to the Post Office (that size normally sells for $150.)
Chuck upped his donation to $150 to the Post Office, so I got busy immediately. Here is how it looked after the first session on the canvas.
Normally, I don’t draw the image in pencil first. Instead, I block it out with my paint brush and correct the proportions with each successive layer of paint.
Because I will show Chuck a photo of the progress once a week on this blog, I wanted it to look better at each stage than paintings usually do. If he saw my normal sloppy way of beginning, he might get scared and withdraw his offer!
Thank you, Chuck (and don’t be scared!)
Mister Black is the name I give to the ravens I paint. There are two so far, painted because of the Raven Festival in Three Rivers.
Three Rivers does something special-ish on the first Saturday of each month. A new theme is chosen each month, and for October, it is ravens.
The amazing Nadi Spencer had the idea of a raven theme and took it a little further than just a normal First Saturday. October is a busy month for me, so I haven’t been around for the festivities.
However, I have done a painting for 2 years now. This is the first Mister Black.
In this is this year’s version he was looking out from atop that pole (which was actually white and fiberglass.)
At Sierra Subs and Salads in Three Rivers is a show of the raven artwork. You can learn more on the First Saturday Three Rivers page.
Gotta go paint now!
Here’s a catch-all, catch-up post for you on random topics. My blog post ideas are triggered by pictures, and these were just languishing in the file without purpose.
This painting was very difficult. I worked on it from real life, and from several different photos taken at different times of year. This is the final iteration (unless someone has a suggestion for further improvement).
We are in year #4 of a drought. In spite of 15″ of precipitation in July, there was no snow on Bear Skin, the almost-year-around patch on the side of Vandever, which forms one side of Farewell Gap in Mineral King.
My favorite bridge was built in the 1920s and is supposed to be replaced. This fills me with dread. The current plan is to keep this one as a footbridge/landmark and push the road further up the canyon with some sort of newfangled, modern, probably-not-very-attractive contraption that will destroy the simple beauty of this scene. But I am neutral to the subject, keeping an open mind. . .
Sometimes when I drive down the Mineral King Road, I am struck by new scenes. You’d think that after 31 summers of driving it almost weekly that I wouldn’t notice a thing. You’d be wrong.
At the end of the Mineral King Road is a bridge. (It was rebuilt in Sept. and Oct. 2011 and the process was documented fully on this blog.) The abutment gets a lot of water abuse on one side, and was piled with rocks to protect it. However, kids love to use rocks to build dams in the stream, and most of those rocks got scooted away! So, the men in uniform and heavy equipment had to come redo the rocky protection underneath the bridge.
Some new friends joined us in Mineral King early in the summer. Mister New Friend was an outstanding photographer, and he took this photo of Trail Guy and me. (Thank you, MAK!)
Perkins and I thank you for joining us in the random topic round-up.
Sometimes, while painting in Three Rivers, in Tulare County in Central California (not LA, not San Francisco – NOTHING like the stereotypical California), I am just minding my own business, painting along, staying calm and focused, and then stuff happens.
Smoke? I smell smoke. Hmmm, there are ashes. . . that’s worrisome. I don’t hear sirens, so I keep painting.
Just painting some fruit here. After all, California is the land of fruit and nuts, and Central California is where most of it originates. No big deal – just oil paint on canvas. I’m fine. I’m calm.
Painted a raven too. I’ll tell you more about that in another post. Just painting along,
HEY! BOBCAT SIGHTING!
Um, Perkins, my Sweet Sixteen year old cat, it would be good for you to lie low on the front porch right now.
Whoa. Good thing I keep my camera with me in the painting workshop building, door open for smelling smoke (no sirens, no worries?) and sighting cannibalistic wild felines.
Allllrighty then, if all is calm, focused and just fine, explain why that raven is upside down.
Shut up.
Last week we looked at 3 completed fruit paintings that included a squished orange.
I began 3 more fruit oil paintings (I AM a Central California artist, after all!) because I had 3 more of those extra thick canvases.
Then, I looped back to the squished orange and unsquished it.
Can you see the difference?
Squished.
Unsquished.
Looping around with my fruits.
My friend/customer LOVED these paintings, including the extra thick canvases. Yea!
However, I studied the orange painting and realized it isn’t symmetrically round like an orange – it is squished on the left side.
Back to the easels. . .
Do you ever wonder about the origins of sayings such as “jumping the gun”? That is an easy one – it refers to racers (horses? people?) who take off before the starting gun.
In commissions, the “starting gun” is when the customer pays 1/2 down and we decide exactly what she wants. A conversation alone is not the starting gun.
I have had a recent wonderful reunion with an old friend (we are actually middle-aged, not old, and think we met in 4th grade but can’t remember). She expressed an interest in some fruit paintings. We didn’t decide anything for sure, and I didn’t even have the right sized canvases.
But, I’m having a hard time focusing and pushing through and following up. Sometimes life is hard, and it robs one of the ability to do everything one normally would do. Sometimes when life is hard, one just takes the easiest route.
(LBWR, feel no obligation for these 3 paintings – I just felt like tackling the project even though the canvases are thicker than the ones you saw and we didn’t cement the final look. If they don’t suit you, I’ll schlep them around to my fall shows, and I will still paint yours however you would like.)
First pass – wow, these are thick canvases. 
Next, effort into the orange because it got short shrift last time.
Looks good, and the colors are easy to morph into lemon colors. 
Wow, that pomegranate looks awesome, if I do say so myself.
“If I do say so myself” – where did that ludicrous saying originate? I did say so, myself.
LBWR, what do you think of these? I will be painting the sides dark green so they won’t need frames.