Too Hot in the Painting Workshop

Because oil painting can be messy, I paint in a workshop building with a swamp cooler instead of inside my real studio with its more effective air conditioner.

We had some of those 100+ degree days, and the swamp cooler was not up to the task of keeping me comfortable. Heaven forbid that a Central California artist be uncomfortable! A hot artist is an uncomfortable artist, an uncomfortable artist doesn’t paint well, an artist who doesn’t paint well doesn’t sell well, and an artist who doesn’t sell well has to get a real job.

So, I took these barely begun paintings off the wall in the workshop and moved into the studio.

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I managed to not make an oil painting mess in my little air-conditioned studio, a room normally used for pencil drawing, private drawing lessons, and doing non-messy businessy things.

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That back wall has FIVE WET OIL PAINTINGS hanging on push-pins. It (the wall) might now be in need of a new coat of paint.

Nah. It’s a STUDIO, for cryin’ out loud!

Tune in tomorrow to see three of the paintings, finished and ready to buy.

Quail Confusion

Mountain Quail are different from California Quail. One is in the mountains, one is in the lower elevations. I don’t know the specific elevations. Both are in California, but one is the state bird and one is not.

I painted a California Quail working from a photo that I took right out my studio window. Apparently I have been sort of distracted, not paying attention with all my focus.

1536 California Quail

California Quail, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60

Trail Guy carefully appreciates “his” quail, and pointed out my mistake while reading my blog. Yep, my husband reads my blog. (I might be more interesting on the screen than in person.) Thank you, Michael!! You catch my mistakes and I appreciate it.

Silly me. I should have figured out that dry brownish-yellowish grasses are a sign that the bird is down the hill, not in Mineral King.

You are probably wondering what a Mountain Quail looks like. I haven’t painted one yet, but do have several photos.

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It would be easier if they would assume the same position, hold the same pose, so we could carefully examine their differences. But, like their California cousins, they are very skittish, and so far I can only photograph them from indoors right through the window.

Hence, quail confusion.

Selling Makes Me Happy

Selling makes me happy because it validates my worth as a business person. As brash as it sounds to say in words, I am a business person and my product is art and art related services (painting murals, teaching people to draw and occasionally to oil paint, putting together books, cards and reproduction prints of my works for for resale and retail).

I used to have more trouble facing this, but the book Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin really helped me see the truth about earning money.

With Tulare County being the third least educated and the thirteenth poorest county, I often question the wisdom of choosing art as a business here.

However, this is my home, and I love to make art. It is a huge challenge to find, portray and then SELL the beautiful parts of Tulare County.

So, let’s all have a YIPPEE moment as we look at the most recently sold oil paintings of Tulare County!

1533 MK Stream

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1513 Honeymoon XX

1519 Vandever

1445 FG XVII

1439 Blooming Oranges 2

Mineral King Trail 1507

1454 hiking MK

Maybe you would like to buy an original oil painting portraying the beauty of Tulare County, before I get all fat-headed and raise my prices!

 

Oil Paintings, Completed!

“Oil Paintings, Completed!” with an exclamation point, because it feels like an accomplishment to have a finished piece. (Currently I have about 6 pencil commissions, all on hold while people ponder their options.)

1504 Backcountry Lake

Backcountry Lake, 10×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $150

1536 Mountain Quail

Mountain California Quail, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60

You can click on the price to take you to the page where they are available for sale. Or you can use the Contact button under “About The Artist” in the menu above to buy them. Or you can simply enjoy them here on your screen.

Long Way There

(Happy Birthday, Melissa!)

Anyone remember the Little River Band? Does the song “Long Way There” do anything for you? I loved it in 1978, and I still do.

Many people think of “Long and Winding Road” when it comes to driving to Mineral King. That is probably a more accurate theme song, but I used up that title on a pencil drawing many years ago.

So “Long Way There” is the title of this series of paintings. The first time I painted the Mineral King Road, it looked like this:

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I liked it a lot. A friend liked it too and commissioned me to repaint it in a much larger size than I was used to. It just flew out of my paintbrushes, and it may have been the first time I really felt as if I was painting, instead of struggling with paint.

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When helping her move a few weeks ago, it surprised me to see that I still like the painting. That doesn’t always happen.

Because I was feeling so confident about this scene, I painted it again, just to have in inventory.

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It didn’t sell. It didn’t sell. It didn’t sell.

So, I studied it carefully to see if I could figure out how to make it better. The usual things – brighter colors, more detail, higher contrast, cleaner edges – all seemed necessary.

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Long Way There, 12×16″, oil on wrapped canvas, $250

I love the blue with the orange. (Yeppers, I’m a color junkie.)

Wildflower Oil Paintings

Remember these wildflower oil painting beginnings? First, I drew them with my paintbrush.

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Stage two was to get the first layer of color down.

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The real fun was putting in the detail.

Jeffrey Shooting Star

It isn’t often that I get to paint with these colors, and it just makes my heart sing.

Lalalalalalala! LALALALALA!

Excuse me. Got a little carried away with that purplish-pink.

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Now I just know you are singing too!

Top to bottom: Jeffrey Shooting Star, Leopard Lily, Foxglove. Yes, I know foxgloves are not native flowers around here, but they certainly go wild!

These are commissioned oil paintings of wildflowers. When they are dry, I’ll sign them, then scan them, then probably wrap and deliver. (It’s a wrap – another wildflower song in the can!)

Ambiguous Oil Painting

(Ambiguous: unclear or inexact.) There’s this 10×10″ oil painting that has been collecting dust and spider webs in my painting workshop for awhile. I’m unclear as to when I began it.

It just hangs there, and after awhile, I stopped thinking of it as a painting. Instead, it was just another thing that the spiders used for support.

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Bottom right – Backcountry Lake. The upper one is on the easels again (because it is a little bit too hard for me), the lower left one is finished. But there hangs Backcountry Lake. This photo was taken in April.

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All 4 of these other paintings have sold by now, and there is old Backcountry Lake, just hanging around in March. Is that when I started this?? My dates are inexact.

Now the time has come to finish this painting. There might be a show coming up to celebrate the 125th (or 100th?) anniversary of the beginning of Sequoia National Park. (I’m unsure of the show, and the dates of the anniversary are inexact in my memory.) I think this lake is in Sequoia, but I’m unclear as to which lake it is since I got it from my friend Kenny and now we aren’t in touch. I’m unclear as to why we aren’t, but no longer have a working email for him. So, I’ll finish it and enter it in the show, if the show happens. But I’m not sure there will be a show.

Wow. Lots of ambiguity surrounding this painting!

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I redid the sky, and then began working my way down the canvas, working from distant to close, which worked out the same as working top to bottom.

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Wowsa! Nothing ambiguous about this now! I’ll tighten up the details on the lower right section, sign it and then paint the edges.

This is unambiguously a clear and exact painting! It was very satisfying to correct the color, heighten the contrasts and tighten up the details. That is the most fun I have had with a painting for a long time.

So there.

Non-commissioned oil paintings

So much to paint, so little time. These are new paintings, begun for the joy and challenge of the subjects, in addition to the confidence that they will sell.

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Mountain quail are shy. We are so fortunate to have 2 pairs feeding in our front yard in Mineral King. Because of the way the window is situated, I am able to photograph these birds more easily than the California quail in Three Rivers.

This bridge is not shy. It is beautiful and proud, knowing it is an anomaly on such a narrow, winding and rural road. We call it The Oak Grove Bridge, “we” being those who regularly travel the Mineral King Road in Tulare County. The sign says “Kaweah River” or maybe “East Fork”. I don’t know, because I am always either looking at the bridge or at the water beneath.

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There is a crazy amount of feathery detail on the bird. No matter how often I paint the bridge, there is a crazy amount of detail on it and on the rocks beneath.

That’s okay. These are not commissioned paintings, so I have time.

Each one is 6×6″. I have been selling that size for $55, but it is time for those prices to go up. The amount of time this sort of detail requires is a little overwhelming. Maybe I should just get a real job.

Nah. . .

Oil Painting Commissions

Commissions – orders to make a custom item, following the wishes of the customer.

I’ve been asked to do 3 custom flower oil paintings, each 6×6″. Three makes it easy to find a place to hang, either vertically or horizontally. Or, they can be set here and there without having to locate wall space.

This is a special commission, but I am not free to share the details until some time in August.

Let’s get started!

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Foxglove, Leopard Lily, Jeffrey Shooting Star.

I thought I’d just outline the shapes and wait until another painting session to begin the layering process.

I thought wrong. This is WAY too fun to wait!

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These look almost finished, but if you saw them up close, you’d see that the paint coverage isn’t thick enough, the details (leopard’s spots and foxglove’s freckles) are still missing, and obviously, the edges of the canvas need to be painted.

The customer doesn’t need them until August 8. I want them to be PERFECT, signed, dry, scanned, and varnished.

I am not a procrastinator. Deadlines are best dealt with head-on, immediately and without delay. Then, if there is a snafu, there is time to fix things. Often there are snafus, but that is another subject for a different post.

Or not. I’ll just wait on that. . .

Mineral King, Real and Painted

Time for some Mineral King, because I had a rough painting week with all those “Little Bit Too Hards”.

I can paint Mineral King! Yes I can!!

mineral king oil painting

This is the first time I am painting Farewell Gap with that giant red fir on the left gone. GONE. Cut down. Bye-bye, big fir. Hello little red fir behind it that always made the front one look messy.

1529 FG XVIII

Farewell Gap XVIII, 8×10″, oil paint on wrapped canvas, $100

Now, for a look at some Mineral King photos, taken by Trail Guy, because Fridays are for Mineral King.

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Sierra Columbine

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Penstemmon, AKA “Pride of the Mountains

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View from a mining tunnel on Empire Mt.

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Mariposa Lily

P.S. We have had some great times with different groups in Mineral King. A class from Western Michigan University about Walt Disney came up to Mineral King and we got to show them where Disney had dreamed of a ski resort. A family from Chicago visited and we got to hike with them (“we” mostly being Trail Guy, since I headed back down the hill to paint things that are a little too hard for me). I choose to not take photos of people for posting in the blog – feels as if it is a violation of their privacy.