Mural, Day Two

Trail Guy stopped by to check on my progress and suggested that I place my bucket under the drip to see how much is coming off that pipe in 24 hours. Well, 20 hours, because I have been working about 4 hours a day. It started sort of hot again in the sun yesterday and by the end of the session, I put my ragged flannel paint rag on. (It’s an old shirt, one that belongs in a rag bag except that I need it.)

I wonder if puffy white clouds would look good on this wall. Those unpainted spaces could become clouds.

More will be revealed as more is covered.

 

 

 

Mural, Day One

This is on the grounds of STYC – seems really fancy for Three Rivers, but in a good way, something in which to have a bit of architectural pride. (There are some other nice buildings in town, but they are not public.)
The wall had enough shade to begin around 1 p.m.; it was sort of hot in the sun on November 2!
What am I painting here??
The dripping pipe kept my bucket full.
I bet you can guess now.
From a distance.
Now it is in shade.
That’s it for Day One.
The light is fading quickly so I left the mural at the stage where it is best viewed from the back of a fast horse (while wearing sunglasses at midnight).
Until next painting session, buh-bye.

Three Rivers Post Office

When it was time to mail the cabin drawing to the customer, I packaged it. Trail Guy came out to the studio to offer his delivery services, and I was delighted to not have to interrupt my work with a trip to the Post Office. Yes, I know it is only 3-4 miles away, but in the summers, my work days are limited because I keep going to Mineral King instead of keeping my feet planted in front of the easels. So, I value my work time and appreciate not having to do my own errands.

Trail Guy returned from the Post Office with the receipt and an explanation of why it cost $18 to send a piece of paper to San Diego – had to buy a box, pay for insurance, etc. And “piece of paper” isn’t meant to discount the value of an original pencil drawing, but essentially, to the post office, it was a highly insured piece of paper packaged carefully in an overpriced box.

He turned toward the counter in the painting workshop, picked up a taped-together bundle of cardboard and said, “What is this?”

Ahem. That would be the drawing that I thought he had just mailed.

When I got back up off the floor from laughing, I emailed my customer to tell her to expect a box of cardboard, minus her drawing before actually receiving the drawing.

Later that afternoon, I went to the Post Office with the actual drawing. The clerk retrieved the box from the back, we opened it, inserted the drawing, and she taped it back up. No new packaging, no new payments. It was in time to go out with that day’s mail.

I LOVE THE POST OFFICE IN THREE RIVERS!!

This is the Kaweah Post Office, not the Three Rivers Post Office. The unframed original is available for $200. Interested? Give me a pair of minutes to look for it because I can’t find it right now. What else would you expect from someone who mails empty boxes to customers?

 

Two Job Conclusions

Thing One: the A-frame is now in place. I stopped driving by the pump like some weird stalker, and just waited. Eventually, a neighbor left a nice message on the phone saying how good the sign looked, and was it my work?

So, I walked that direction the next morning.

Hey! What’s that??

The dry season is to the front.

Spring is to the rear. I wonder, will it get rotated next year?The A-frame is in place.

Thing Two: I mailed the Coat of Arms on a Monday and was told the expected arrival was Thursday. It was received on Tuesday!

Now what’s next??

Kaweah Lake Paintings, Part 2

These are more recent paintings of The Lake, also known as Lake Kaweah, and Kaweah Lake. In addition to not remembering the correct way to state the name, I often wonder if it is in Lemon Cove or Three Rivers. 

Life is full of unanswered questions.

This painting of Kaweah Lake was done in 2014, probably on a 6×6″ canvas.
Painted in 2015
Painted in an unknown year.
Same painting, repainted in another unknown year as my skill grew. 

I also painted the lake other ways.

The Lake, oil on wrapped canvas, 4×6″, $50

 

This was painted in my phase of making colors brighter than they appear in real life.

That concludes our tour through paintings of Kaweah Lake. Tomorrow we’ll move on to other topics.

Kaweah Lake

As I refreshed the mural at the Tulare County South Fork fire station #14 in Three Rivers (sorry for all the words – it helps Uncle Google find my posts), I thought of all the times I have painted Kaweah Lake. This subject isn’t as popular as Mineral King, of course, but very little is that popular.

These are the first ones I painted of the lake, back in 2007 when I had only been oil painting about a year. I didn’t have a good inventory system set up yet, so I don’t know the sizes. I think they were either 4×6″ or 5×7″. Who bought them? I don’t know that either. If you own one of these, THANK YOU!

These were painted a bit later, maybe in 2009. I still didn’t record the sizes and didn’t yet have a scanner or Photoshop Junior. This is the same year that I first painted the water tank at the Tulare County South Fork fire station.

2009, when the mural was new, after I practiced the subject at least 8 times on canvases and boards.

We’ll continue our tour of Kaweah Lake on Tuesday.

Refreshing the Mural, Day 4

At the end of Day 3 on the South Fork fire station in Three Rivers, I left thinking “oh, them barren heels.”

Excuse me??

When I was a kid, a couple of Mom’s Alabama cousins stopped by to visit us on their first trip to California. One of them kept saying, “Them barren heels!” Translation: compared to the hills of Alabama, our hills looked bare to her.

On Day 4, I fixed them barren heels.

Let’s have a little review:

2009, when the mural was new.
The yellow faded, leaving everything that used to be green now in varying shades of blue.
Refreshed in 2020, this time using a yellow paint that is more lightfast.

Next, I’ll need to stop by in the afternoon light to take a better photo of the mural.

Thank you for following along as I turned the faded tank mural back into one that makes drivers on South Fork Road smile.

 

Refreshing the Mural, Day 3

The left side begins the day in shade, but it involves some looking into the sun while painting.

The flag flapped around, casting disturbing intermittent light and shadow on the tank.

The hills need more detailing, more texture, maybe some color changes.

I added smears of various yellows and oranges to indicate fields of poppies, fiddleneck, and mustard.

One more session and it should be finished enough for me to sign my name and sigh with relief that another mural in Three Rivers is looking good.

Mural Refresh Day 2

The weather continued to be cool, which allowed me to keep moving ahead on the water tank mural at the Tulare County fire station in Three Rivers.

On Day 1, I noticed goatheads because they came right through the bottom of my apparently worn-out Crocs.

On Day 2, I took a big sheet of cardboard to put beneath me on the ground. Good thing, because I sat and knelt to work on the flowers.

First, the right side before the sun got too intense.

You can see the tremendous degree of fading here, particularly in the poppies.
Poppies first.
I really like the color combination of poppies against the strong periwinkle blue, which has to be painted over with green.
Lots of time on the cardboard, working green around lupine and poppies. Although the lupine are almost still a good color, they needed another layer of paint.
Time to move to the left side, which was still shady.
I was on a schedule, so I just slammed out some green. The details will have to wait until another time. You can see that the lupine are almost the right color in their faded state.

On Day 3, I hope to finish detailing the flowers and grasses on the left side, and then spend time adding detail to the ridges of hills. The lake might be just fine as is. 

Refresh

in 2009 I painted a mural on the water tank at the South Fork fire station. This is Tulare County Station 14 in Three Rivers.

I mixed the colors using red, yellow and blue, plus white. About 2 years ago, the mural company stopped recommending that particular yellow for outdoor use. 

See why?

The yellow faded, turning everything that used to be green into varying shades of blue.
Oops, I think this green is too dark.
This is lighter, but I’ll have to try more areas first to know how things need to be.
Couldn’t resist trying that brilliant spring green. It really emphasizes the fadedness. (I know that isn’t a word, but I can’t think of the right one.)
I just started slapping various greens on in a somewhat random fashion so that I could compare the darknesses.
Now there is more to work with, so I can start making adjustments.
The blue ridge behind the farthest green needs to be a bit darker, but first I’ll finish the greens.

There – see the darker blue now? Colors are supposed to fade as they recede into the distance. That is part of what helps us know what we are seeing.

Now the sun is too high to continue.

When the sun shines directly on a mural, the paint dries too quickly on my palette and in my brushes and I can’t do my best work. So, this shall be continued. The grasses and flowers will take quite a bit of time, and the lake might need another coat. Then I’ll probably start drawing with my paintbrush, making up ridiculously detailed areas because that is the most fun part to me.