Three Rivers | Cabin Art

It has finally stopped being hot in Three Rivers, so I get to work in the studio with the door open. Although our cats are not allowed inside the house, I let them freely wander in and out of the studio. This won’t work if it is raining, but for now it is great fun.

I tried to convince Tucker, our shy black cat, that he could use the upholstered chair for naps. He only wanted to sit there if I held him, which doesn’t work while I am working. He ran outside, and when I turned around, there was Jackson, who needed no convincing.

Pippin jumped on the drawing table (I was working at the desk behind the drawing table), so I opened the blind for him.

While I worked at the desk, Pippin napped.

As much as I love summer in Mineral King, I also love fall at home in my studio in Three Rivers.

This picture is from spring of 2018; the plants and stepping stones are different now because almost nothing stays the same in life. Have you noticed this?

What was I doing in the studio? Bidding on a HUGE commissioned oil painting, gathering photos for some of my drawing students, helping a friend order calendars with his photographs, editing the TB book (haven’t mentioned that in quite awhile), and working on a new pencil drawing. When the drawing is finished, I’ll show you.

Indoor Mural, Final Day

Put down your brushes and walk away from the mural! That’s what I had to tell myself at the end of Day Three on the mural at St. Anthony’s Retreat in Three Rivers.

The mural looked like this at the end of Day Two.

At the end of Day Two, I took a photo of the mural, studied it, and made a list of things that were not quite right. When I arrived on Day Three, I didn’t even read the list but just started working. The oak tree, the sycamores, the river’s edge. . . fixey, fixey, fixey.

Next, I peeled the masking tape from the top 2 sections to see how effectively it masked the edges. Then it was time for lunch. (I love working at St. Anthony’s!)

The tape had a few malfunctions. The pencil we used to swing the arc and the blue chalk line all had to be painted out, so I used the wall paint to cover the now extraneous guidelines.

I signed it, then added one more poppy.

Stick a fork in it; it’s done!

Indoor Mural, Day Two

I started Day Two on the mural at St. Anthony’s Retreat in Three Rivers with the idea that I could finish it, maybe even in the morning.

Fall down laughing.

First, I needed to fix the slopes below Comb Rocks. It was mushy in the mural, undefined, hard to read. See?

I looked out the window to see how the hills actually look. Of course, it is the wrong time of year, the wrong lighting, and the wrong angle; that’s where I try to blend artistic license with believability.

Artistic license is also why I have made Comb Rocks more prominent in the mural than they are out the window.

Better, more defined now. maybe too well defined, but leaves on the branches in the foreground can disguise that little problem.

That took longer than I expected, so I took a break. First, I photographed the live oak out the nearest window, thinking it might be helpful.

This is a view out the nearest window. I wonder if those bells ring.

Go back to work, Central California artist, because you are procrastinating and it isn’t advancing the mural.

Branches on the oak tree and leaves on the branches. And these “bells” don’t ring; they are my clamp lamps.

Time for lunch! I love working here. 😎

River and bank sort of done. I found a river picture among the 30,000 photos on my computer that was helpful after I flipped it the other direction.

The oak tree on the left, the bank along the river, the sycamores, and the river itself don’t seem quite right to me. So, tomorrow I will see how to make these things look more believable.

Indoor Mural, Day One

It is possible that painting inside a little chapel at St. Anthony’s Retreat is the most pleasant mural painting experience I’ve ever had.

It is 1.3 miles from home.
The room where I paint is quiet.
The lighting and the temperature are steady (it is indoors!)
Occasionally someone stops by to see how it is going and to offer a helpful suggestion or compliment.
THEY PROVIDE LUNCH!! (always very good food).
The quiet makes it possible to listen to a wonderful 3-book series on Audible by my good friend Shannon VanBergen, called the “Glock Grannies“. I read the books, but it is so much fun to hear them read to me by a professional.

This is a scene cobbled together from several photos of Three Rivers as it shines in the spring. Look at how much I got done in one focused day of painting!

The faint little sketch and some of the photos are taped up, and the tallest ladder is in position on a drop cloth.

Sky, spaces for clouds, and the shapes of the hills. 2 ladders side-by-side is a helpful method.

Clouds. The light is rather low in the room, so I couldn’t tell if I was covering the wall very well.

Gabriel brought some high-powered lights and suddenly I could see that the sky had been too dark, and the clouds needed more work.

Those lights produce a lot of heat, so next time I will bring my clamp-lights. Because the wall surface has glossy paint and the mural paints are mostly transparent, I started putting an undercoating down before adding detail.

I use the blank wall beneath to clean off my brushes between colors; this helps give a sense of what will go where and puts that first coat of paint on the wall.

I got a phone call and needed to write down a number. (No, don’t call the number, please!) I started the tree, and worked a bit more on the clouds.

When I paint murals, there is a lot of noise in my head. Listening to Shannon’s books occupied the part of my brain that keeps yammering at me that I have no idea what I am doing, and that this is too hard for me. So, on this day of painting, the noisy and negative part of my inner dialogue didn’t have a chance. I just listened and painted, and it was lovely.

Three Rivers

New Indoor Mural

St. Anthony’s Retreat is a conference grounds here in Three Rivers, a gathering place by many people for many reasons, not just a place for Catholic retreats. I like to go there; it’s close to home, has happy memories, and most of the people who work there are my friends (I don’t know all of them. Yet.) Plus, if I am there around lunchtime, they feed me really good food.

They want to convert a small windowless room to a prayer chapel, and got the idea to have me paint a mural on one of the walls so that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic in that space.

The wall isn’t entirely blank at this time; there is a beautiful oil painting by the talented Father John.

The wall is about 14 feet long and 10-1/2 feet high.

We got the shape and size measured, marked, and taped.

“We”? Yes, my trusty, competent, and willing assistant came along.

Stay tuned. I’ll show you the mural as it grows.

mural

Faded (poppy) Love #3

Let’s get those pinkish poppies re-oranged. (Funny, they don’t appear pinkish in this photo.)

Can I be finished now? There are 5 kittens, some knitting, weeds, and a stack of good books at home.

I put back the branches on the tree to the left of the door but am ignoring the dreaded door itself.

Truthfully, this mural is not in a highly visible place, it is rarely noticed, and no one cares if I refresh it or not. I don’t think anyone will notice if I leave the dreaded door. So, maybe I am finished. I didn’t sign it this time, so maybe I am not proud of it. Sigh. Maybe I am not finished after all.

Three Rivers mural three rivers poppy mural

Faded (poppy) Love, #2

We have had weird unusually cool weather here in Three Rivers, and I took the opportunity to continue working on the faded poppy mural.

You can see the lower section needs refreshing.

I started with green among the lower poppies. You can see that the middle ground of poppies is pinkish.

The lupine haven’t faded, so I am working around them. I did add some white tips to the blossoms on the far left in this photo.

I keep backing up to see if it looks as messy far away as it does from up close. The way a mural can look so terrible up close and so tight and photographic from a distance never ceases to amaze me. Feels magical.

Now I have added green to the lower right AND greens to the next layers of hills, fading as they move back. (If you are interested in ArtSpeak, this is called “aerial perspective”.

I worked more on the poppies, all the while lamenting how much was left to be done and getting COLD in May!! The pinkish colored ones haven’t been retouched yet.

There are some poppies remaining, along with the dreaded door. A friend (a very important person) really likes the tree, so I will retouch it on the left side and probably tackle the dreaded door, as long as the weather cooperates.

A list of what remains to be done, depending on the weather and my availability:

The dreaded door
The tree
Pinkish poppies, both close and far
Adding more popcorn flowers (or painting out the ones I just added)
More grasses to overlap the poppies
The lowest horizontal edge, which is currently covered in dirt and splatters from the rain.
Brightening the lupine, just because I love those colors and want more, more, more

I think that the distant Alta Peak and Moro Rock, along with the rocks on the hillsides can be left. Their fading makes them look farther away than they did when I first painted the mural, which is the way it is supposed to look.

This is KitCarson, who always goes first, like his mama, Scout.

poppies

In Bloom

Sometimes I have the overwhelming need to share some beauty with you that is not of my making. (I hope you know me well enough to not take that sentence as if I believe all my art is beautiful. Gotta stay real and humble here.)

What is this new-to-me wildflower, across the road and downstream from Reimer’s (the candy store in Three Rivers)?

The plant I pilfered a cutting from last summer in someone else’s yard is in bloom!

The Spanish or French Lavender is in bloom; I’m inclined to think of it as Red-Violet rather than Lavender.

Look at the Honeysuckle! Too bad you can’t do a scratch-and-sniff on your screen.

Redbud Report 1

The 45th Annual Redbud Festival in Three Rivers took place on a very nice day, not crazy hot or cold as we’ve experienced some years. Today I’ll show you the beginnings of Saturday.