Cranking Up the Painting Machine

That would be me, the Painting Machine. I’ve spent the past several weeks evaluating my inventory, thinking about subjects that might appeal to a flatland audience, analyzing my photos and asking others to share their opinions on a pile of pictures. After making decisions about subjects and sizes, putting the hanging hardware on the backs of canvases, assigning inventory numbers and titles, and adding them into my inventory lists, today I finally picked up my paintbrushes! This is how things look right now; think of this as a sneak preview into a solo show that is coming for me in May!

New Year Lessons

Here is a list of what I am learning so far in 2011

1. How to use the Total Gym

2. How to update my website by adding pictures

3. What a mistake it is to not photograph every piece of art

4. What a mistake it is to not label every photograph of art

5. That plantar fasciitis takes forever to heal

6. That it takes a very long time update my website

Here is a list of what I would like to know:

1. Is 1000 miles too many in a pair of walking shoes?

2. Do people actually consistently use the Total Gym?

3. When will my website be ready?

4. What should I paint on my repaired garage door, now that I feel more confident it won’t end up in the county dump?

5. Whatever was I thinking when I didn’t bother photographing some paintings or keeping a list of which was where or checking in regularly to the stores that were selling for me???

6. Will I learn from #5???

Here, let’s try to take the edge off of the hard lessons of life:

Think of it as a “bridge over troubled waters” (and no, I don’t know the title, size, when it was painted or who has it now.)

Why Artists Choose Three Rivers

First in a series called “Thoughtful Thursdays”

When my art studio was in Exeter and I lived in Lemon Cove, people assumed I lived in Three Rivers. I’m guessing this was because of my occupation of pencil artist. (Given the choices of of towns in Tulare County, this is a reasonable assumption.) Now that I actually do live here and have become a painter, I recognize a multitude of reasons that any artist would want to reside in Three Rivers.

We are surrounded by beauty that takes no effort to see. There are incomparable views from my yard, studio, mailbox, and even from in my neighbor’s pool. The beauty continues as we go to the post office, the Memorial Building, the golf course, or maybe even from the dentist’s office!

Then there is the beauty that might require a little more effort to take in: the North Fork, the South Fork, Kaweah River Drive, and the Salt Creek area of BLM land come to mind. If you are able to walk, there is so much more that becomes visible.  In fact, I wrote a series on my weblog called “Peculiar Sights in Three Rivers” documenting odd items that appear to the pedestrian in our town.

Another great enticement to living in Three Rivers is the shorter drive to Sequoia and to Mineral King. In less than an hour you can be among the big trees and in a little longer than an hour, you can be in a valley that I have heard resembles the Swiss Alps.

Everywhere I look there are subjects to paint. The wildflowers could keep my brush flying for several seasons. The gates alone could occupy my pencils for a year. I could produce an entire series of drawings and paintings simply of loading chutes. Curves in the road, bends in the river, the autumn leaves, light on the rocks, Moro Rock from every possible angle, Alta Peak from every attainable viewpoint, sycamores all around town, the grand oak trees of every variety, the assortment of fence styles – every one of these subjects could be depicted in pencil or paint.

It is true that there is beauty in almost any location if one learns to recognize it. I certainly had plenty of subjects available in my former locations.  Now, the accessibility of paintable scenes is almost overwhelming!

A little plan

In reading other blogs, I see patterns of posting. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has “Random Mondays”, Jon Acuff has “Serious Wednesdays” and Abby has “Five Senses Fridays”. As an original thinker (sort of, maybe, mas o menos) I am hereby now instituting “Thoughtful Thursdays”. Starting this week, I will republish articles written by me for the Kaweah Commonwealth, the local paper. They call my articles “Artist in Residence” and they are similar to what you see here, only a little more formal and a bit longer. In republishing them here, I will refine them a bit for a wider audience and thrown in some photos or paintings or drawings. The first one will appear Thursday, January 6. Enjoy!

Year-end, Year-beginning

Ever notice how all those lists appear at this time of year? Here are two lists of mine:

1. Some of the things I did in 2010 that are worth noting:

Didn’t accept any more weird sweaters from my knitting needles – instead I ripped all the ones that were heading in the wrong direction.

Painted 2 more murals (So what if one is on my studio door? It is still a mural!)

Visited (and fell head-over-heels in love with) North Carolina

Trained for and completed the 21-Mile Big Sur Power Walk

Wrote and published regular articles on art in the Kaweah Commonwealth

2. Some things I hope for in 2011:

A working website

A working garage door opener

Another mural (or 3 or 4?)

Continued excellence in knitting (and finishing all those recalcitrant sweaters)

Continued weeding out of Stuff (I might have whatever is the opposite of that Hoarding problem)

A new fitness goal that doesn’t involve blisters or plantar fasciitis or 10+ hours a week when I should be painting

Business growth – increased skill, blog readers, customers, students, good ideas, pencil commissions (remember, I LOVE to draw!) and income

Of course there are piles of other things on both lists, but this is the very public internet, we all have short attention spans, and now I have to show you a piece of art because this is an art blog, not a place for personal aggrandizement. (Sorry – I just wanted to use another Big Word – can you find and understand the first one?)

Untitled (because Cotton Fleece is too obvious and A Good Yarn is taken), colored pencil, 9″x12″, private collection, took 4 years to complete, phew.

Buy Now Button

If it doesn’t work for you.please e-mail me if you’d like to buy something. Apparently it works if your name is Vicki, but not if your name is Bob. Technology. Sigh.

Learn, Schmearn

That is what Drawing Student Megan said in response to 2 possible solutions to a drawing problem. Still makes me smile!

When figuring out a path for my business of art, it seems that I am constantly learning, whether or not I want to. Take these Christmas ornaments for example: last year I was so excited to paint little Big Trees (tee hee hee, that sounds odd) on wooden disks. They sold okay, but not great.

This year I evaluated the sold ornaments versus the unsold ones, and there was a definite pattern. I repainted the remainder to resemble the sold ones, and they haven’t done so well either.

In addition to the Big Trees, a friend suggested that I paint little scenes on the remaining zillion blank disks. I tried a few, and although they sold very well, they take way more time than the price can handle. Here are the final 2 of that variety (sold, of course, and to the friend who made the suggestion.):

There are 10 Sequoia ornaments remaining. What will become of them? How about this: I will offer one each as a gift to the first 10 people who respond to this blog entry. Ick, that sounds ungrateful! If they won’t sell, I’ll just give them to you? But they are kind of neato! And adding the word “FREE” without strings attached often makes a thing look better. So does pricing it for lots and lots of money, but that isn’t my style. My style is honesty and generosity; hence, this blog and this offer!

You can either email me at cabinart@cabinart.net or comment on the blog. The first 10 get an ornament. If no one bothers, it will most definitely be a learning experience!

Green apple

At the show over the weekend, a nice lady (with impeccable taste, of course) asked me to paint a little green apple to accompany her pomegranate and orange paintings. (I mean the painting is little – not to be confused with the Roger Miller song!) I was eager to begin, so I went to the local market and bought a Granny Smith. That was the only variety, which eliminated an unnecessary decision. Morning light is better for still life photography at my house, so this a.m. I took the apple outside. As I hunkered down with my camera on the very cold porch, Perkins wanted to know what I was doing.

Presentation is Everything

Having just finished another weekend show and sale, I’ve been thinking about the truism “presentation is everything”. During set-up, I was done quickly so I had time to help Ginny Wilson, photographer extraordinaire. She brings so much inventory to shows that it takes 2 vehicles to transport all her support materials and the merchandise. Together, we hauled tables, scooted display screens, unpacked boxes, and constantly discussed which pieces should go where – both the display pieces and the photographs. There was a great deal of adjusting and stepping back to survey the scene from a visitor’s point of view. Her space looked bright and inviting, and a side effect was that I brought lights for my own area the next day.

On Friday, my fellow artisans told me that they had been studying my work and decided the ice cream cone (called “Worth It!”) was in the wrong frame AND should be displayed at “lickable” height! I pulled it from the frame and replaced it with the wreath painting. BOOM, the wreath sold!

On Saturday, I rearranged my paintings. This time, instead of isolating the bright little fruit/vegetable/leaf squares onto one screen, I clustered them in groups and used them to surround some of the scenery. This is how it looked partway through the day:

Those bright little squares began selling themselves. I rearranged several times, trying different groupings. My hope, of course, was to sell scenery AND little squares, but sales are sales. If people want those little pieces of fruit, I want them to have those little pieces of fruit. There is no photo at the end of the day because I hadn’t planned on writing this post and the screens looked too bare to bother photographing. Bottom line: presentation is everything. There is no One Right Way, but there is definitely something to that arranging thing that causes people to notice and be drawn in.

I can help with that!

2 comments I hear from people over and over are “I’m out of wall space” and “I’m trying to be careful with money”. Here are my responses to the first: “You can rotate your art” or “Look! Small paintings on little easels look nice on a bookshelf, lamp table or fireplace mantel!” To the second, “Look at these little bitty paintings, hand-painted ornaments and packages of cards – all $20 or less!”

Here are a few more 4×6 oranges in progress – they sit on easels and are $30 each

And these little bitty paintings are $15 each:

So are these ornaments: