Category: Thoughts

Things I’m learning in Artworld.

Bear Activity

My studio is a little wooden shed that the woodpeckers use for stashing acorns. Sometimes when they knock on the building, I knock back. It doesn’t do anything.

It’s kind of sorry looking around the edges . Something happened here – we found a batten on the ground and a pile of acorns beneath it.

Check out the claw marks around the knothole.

The big boy wanted these acorns. I don’t know why he didn’t eat them.

Check out his footprints on the asphalt.

He didn’t step in paint. I don’t know why the footprints are white. I don’t know why he didn’t eat the acorns. I don’t know why there are so many bears this year.

Such is the life of a rural foothill artist in Central California.

An Artist Lives Out Her Donation Convictions

This is an article I recently published on LinkedIn.

Sep 29, 2015

I am perpetually fed up with artists getting asked to donate to good causes. In May of 2014, I posted “An Artist Bloviates about Donations” on LinkedIn. My hope was to encourage fund raisers to find other methods besides asking those who are often at the bottom rungs of the financial ladder.

Under the list of “Reasons to Donate”, #1 was “An artist loves the cause and wants to help.” I currently have a cause I love and want to help.

Tulare County, where I live, is poor, rural, and in Central California. It is far from Los Angeles, San Francisco or the Silicon Valley. We are not rich either in money nor in landmarks.

One of our favorite historic structures is the Kaweah Post Office, a tiny wooden structure just outside of Three Rivers. It is 125 years old and still in operation!

Because we are also not currently rich in rainfall, many of our trees are very stressed. A giant oak above our little Kaweah Post Office lost a limb which smashed the roof and porch of the landmark we love.

The building is publicly appreciated, but privately owned. There is insurance, but it comes with a large deductible.

So, I am auctioning the above oil painting on eBay. In keeping with my principles about artists not giving away their work, I will donate half of the proceeds toward the restoration of the Kaweah Post Office.

A few notes:

1. Kaweah is the name of the rivers of Three Rivers. (South, Middle and North Forks of the Kaweah make up the three. . . never mind about the Marble and East forks – our forebears had to draw the line somewhere!)

2. It is pronounced “Kuh – WEE – uh” (not to be confused with “The River Kwai”)

3. The auction listing is “Original Oil Painting of Kaweah Post Office”.

4. The painting is 10×10″ on wrapped canvas, ready to hang.

5. The auction went live at 12:02 on September 29 and remains up for 10 days.

Now, let’s see how this bloviating artist’s version of raising money turns out!

Random Topic Round-up

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).

1509 Barn — Three Rivers Barn, 8×10″, oil, $100

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.

Bear Skin on Vandever

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.

Mineral King Road

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.

Minearl King 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!)

J+M

Perkins and I thank you for joining us in the random topic round-up.

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.

Mountain Quail

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.

oil paintings

Random Thoughts

Random is a good word for unrelated items piling up in my head.

Thank you for visiting my other blog this week. I hope you poked around and discovered things that interested and entertained you a bit while over there.
Most of my sunflowers escaped the ravages of the voracious deer in the neighborhood.
The same flower looks different at different times of day. I think there may be 2 paintings in this flower.
I looked out the living room window and saw this:
i looked more closely and saw this:
My herb garden is a source of inspiration and a place of solace:
I am in need of inspiration and solace these days while we navigate rough waters as a family. Here is a link to a video of my brother-in-law talking about his future: Neighborhood Church Facebook.

Steve made the video around August 1, but I have been taking refuge in drawing and gardening rather than talking about reality. (If you know him, you probably already saw the video.) Thank you to all who have been praying and expressing your kind concern.

Lost

Sometimes I refer to myself as a “loser” in the true sense of the word. My mom used to tell me that I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached. As usual, Mom was right.

The Mural Gallery and Gift Shop in Exeter sells my oil paintings. We’ve had a good run lately, so I took another batch of paintings to them. I forgot to include something of oranges, so planned to take one down on my next trip. The sweet lady who works there said, “Bring them all – they sell!”

So, I went into the overheated and underused workshop (too hot to paint there in the summer) to retrieve some oranges. Found two oil paintings of oranges.

Funny. I have three. Where is the 11×14″?

1433 Blooming oranges

Blooming Oranges, 11×14″, oil on wrapped canvas, $175, available here

Lost.

Did I sell it and not write it down? Did I take it to a gallery and not write it down?

AHA! It was part of the show at the Visalia Convention Center this spring! It is sitting in someone’s office in Visalia, someone whose hours do not coincide with my trips down the hill!

Found! I wrote it somewhere, but obviously the list is lost.

Plein Air Painting

In reference to plein air painting, a friend who is a watercolorist emailed me and said, “I thought as a oil painter you would be into it.”

That is a common assumption about oil painters.

(My friend is more artistically adventuresome than I am. She goes out in an atmosphere where sometimes the watercolors evaporate before they are fully blended!)

When I took a studio painting class, specifically called “photo-realism for studio painters”, the teacher asked how many of us wanted just studio painting and how many wanted the photo-realism aspect. Very few were in my camp, and he told the class that it is just a matter of tricks that anyone can master. (He never did address nor explain or demonstrate those so called “tricks”.) Then he set up still life arrangements and made plans for us to go out plein air painting. I signed up to specifically learn to be a photo-realist studio painter, so after half a semester, I dropped the class.

Sigh.

So, here is the progression of my own weak attempts at plein air painting. It is a Three Rivers scene, which you probably figured out all by yourself.

Block it in from photos while in the studio

Set up on location and make a few stabs at improving it. More was revealed in real life than from the photos – that was helpful.

plein air painting

Finish it up in the studio.

The finished piece is spoken for, but the “buyer” doesn’t want it yet. Hmmm, any other offers? Until money exchanges hands, it is simply conversation.

Random Thoughts from a Chaotic Mind

We are having an extreme family emergency, and it is causing me great distress and lack of focus. If I don’t go into detail, perhaps I can live in denial. If you are interested, you may read about it here. (my brother-in-law) Meanwhile, random thoughts from a chaotic mind. . . If I dabble in this and that, it has to add up to productivity eventually, dontcha think?

This is what it looks like to drive in the countryside of Tulare County in Central California. Doesn’t it just make you wonder why anyone lives here? Or how an artist can persevere to find things to draw and paint?

This is the place where the Orange Cove Lions meet weekly. Their scheduled speaker cancelled, so they called me. Sure, I’ll speak to your group! What a great group of guys – I felt right at home. Citrus farmers, rural Central California folks – my kind of peeps.

And this is what my drawing table looks like right now. 2 drawings in progress, working from many photos, adding a little colored pencil, all because it was too overcast to see to paint. The sun came out, so I took this photo, moved into the workshop to paint, and then, bye-bye sunshine. What’s a Central California artist to do?

In other news, I messed with this painting a little more. A bit more light on the water and brighter colors in the flowers.

Is it finished yet? Will I finish anything – a drawing? a thought? a task? Can’t think, can draw.

Fake Painting on a Garden Tour

“Fake painting”? What means this?

It means that I was supposed to be painting plein air, and although I was painting plein air (which means on location), I have no intention of considering those paintings completed. I am a studio painter, and painting on location is a special skill for someone else.

It is sort of like handing a ukele to a violin player and saying, “Here! You’re a musician! Play this and have fun!”

It might have been more fun if it wasn’t 90º. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t productive either.

I set up on the porch in hopes of seeing and completing this view.

I’m in the shade, squinting out into the light, wondering what colors I’m really mixing.

Okay, never mind. I’ll finish this in the studio. Let’s try another location. If I’m out in the sun, maybe I’ll be able to see my colors better. So what if it is hot? I’m a Central California artist, and we can take the heat. Otherwise, we’d move to a more sensible location in the state.

Never mind. Let’s take a break and listen to some music in the shade where there is a breeze. I can finish this in my studio later.

There were some beautiful flowers. Maybe I should become a plein air photographer.

Guess I need to spend some time in the studio cleaning up those messy paintings. Someone else can play the ukele and stand in the heat and do plein air messy stuff because I have a studio and am not afraid to use it.

Spring on the Farm Photos For Inspiration

When we visited Cowboy Bert and Mrs. Cowboy Bert, the animals were all vying for my attention.

Remember this little Baby Cakes?

Look at her now:

Here: look at her where you can get a better sense of scale:

Still a bottle baby, along with the white one who is a bit younger and smaller.

There is also a short horse and a couple of tall dogs. Gets a person a bit confused about proportion and perspective. (short horse = pony?)

They wouldn’t pose for me so that I can show you the 2 over/undersized critters together.

New Hampshire Reds are beautiful chickens. This is a hen, not a rooster.

When the sheep all talk, they sound like people imitating sheep. There are bass, tenor, alto and soprano, and they make really funny sounds.

Scooter is my favorite of all 4 cats. Cats are my favorite of all the animals. The kind of farm I grew up on had trees, a dog or two, and always cats. No sheep talking like people, no short horses, and certainly no hens imitating roosters. Makes me feel like a city girl! I’ve often thought that growing up on the kind of farm I did only meant that everything was inconvenient, I got used to wide spaces without buildings, I learned to plan ahead for shopping trips (oh how I hated going to town unless it included a stop at the library), we were not dependent on neighbor kids for fun, we learned to drive young (ever driven a spray rig that has only a clutch and a brake, no accelerator?) and we ate as many oranges, olives, plums and walnuts as we wanted. Hmmm, maybe there was a pig on that farm who looked a lot like me.

P.S. I wrote this blog with my sweet kitty Perkins by my side. We weren’t allowed to have animals in the house growing up. Guess I’ve kicked over the traces of my raising in that aspect, but I still eat as many oranges as I want.