Flowers in My Yard

April is the most beautiful month in Three Rivers and that includes my yard. Our yard. Trail Guy is great with the big stuff like heavy pruning, sprinkler systems, and power tools. I weed, plant stuff, and do girly pruning.

Ajuga grows in the shade and is a very low ground cover, except in April when it shoots up these blue spikes, which always show up purple in photos.
Lilac smells fantastic.
Fairy Lanterns are all over the hill on the backside of the property.
Lovely lavender – I have several varieties, all blooming at once. Never can remember how to tell French from Spanish, but I know this one isn’t English.
The blurry yellow blossom is a Jerusalem sage, about to grace us with its first flowers. The iris is a fantastic light periwinkle color, and that is rock rose in the background.
Fiesta flower is wild and goes bonkers all down one side of the driveway each year.
Rockrose!
Rock rose shrubs get kind of huge-ish, but my girly-type pruning keeps them in check.
Dutch Iris? Japanese Iris? Siberian Iris? Doesn’t matter – it is my FAVORITE.

The state flower, California poppies, always more orange than yellow when grown in a domestic yard.

P.S. I have one power tool, and when/if it starts, it is great. It is one of those “easy to use” rototillers called a Mantis. I call it other things when it won’t start. Sometimes I just use an old tool that Grandma gave me instead. She also gave me her love of flowers. Today is her birthday, but she isn’t counting birthdays in heaven.

April Distractions in Three Rivers

I tried to oil paint last Friday but the greenery and wildflowers overcame my sense of duty. So, Trail Guy and I drove up North Fork Drive to the end.

My palette was ready to go.
I worked on Sawtooth a little.
After telling Trail Guy that I’d heard the flowers were great up North Fork and staring out the window a bit, he said, “Let’s go now!”

The road was longer, rougher, narrower than I remembered and all very worth the drive.

The last 3.5 miles are unpaved.
This is Yucca Creek at the end of North Fork Drive.
That’s one narrow little footbridge over a massive old culvert pipe.
Wowsa.
The yellow flowers are called Madia.
Heading back down has a view of Ash Peak with a blooming yucca and bush lupine.
Looking over the edge down to the North Fork makes one glad to not encounter any oncoming traffic on that narrow road with no turnouts.
Poppies are yellower in the wild than in my yard.
The poppies on the hillsides are what gave California its name of “The Golden State”. (Bet you thought it was the gold rush)
I love Fairy Lanterns, AKA Satin Bells. Pink isn’t my favorite color, but it is rare enough in nature that it stands out.

After we got back home, I painted a little bit more. There is this commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth for a very patient customer, and it would be good to make progress.

Sawtooth’s shape is improving, and it is acquiring colors and texture.

Then, I got distracted again and thought that wildflowers would look great on a 6×18″ canvas. Can you see the possibilities here? (Put on your rose-colored glasses with me!)

Planning a wildflower oil painting.

Easel Time

Have you noticed that the word “easel” is pretty close to the word “easy”?

It’s merely a word illusion. Nothing easy about being at an easel. 

This fact, combined with April as the most beautiful month in Three Rivers, has made it even less easy to plant my feet in front of the easel recently.

But, as I pointed out in the Eight Things I Learned in March blog post, often we must parent ourselves. (“STAY IN YOUR ROOM UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED YOUR MATH!”) So, I planted my feet in front of the easel in spite of the distractions.

Wanna see some of the distractions? I know you are interested.

In my backyard
Two brodiaea, Wild Hyacinth and Pretty Face, along with Common Madia
The South Fork of the Kaweah River
Pretty Face
Fairy Lanterns
Another  distraction, AKA Piper

Forget easel time and painting for today’s blog. See you on Monday. . .

 

More New Oil Paintings

All those paintings of Mineral King over the past several months erased the subject of Three Rivers from my mind. When I got reminded that I hadn’t yet reserved my booth for the Redbud Festival, I also remembered that people might want to see some Three Rivers subjects during that little show. 

This popular shape and size is perfect for Moro Rock and Alta Peak and good practice for a possible mural of the same scene (still only in the conversation stage). This painting clearly needs many more layers.
Not sure how it will be to paint all this grass. I will put a bunch of wildflowers in it instead of the few that appear in the photo. The green time of year here is almost wonderful enough to balance out the seemingly endless dry brown hot months.

8 Recent Happenings

Today there are many topics to address, so we will have a long list.

  1. I went away with my sisters and our Mom for a family funeral. Supposed to be a sad time, but it was surprisingly fun. 

    Me and four of the most important women in my life feeling happy to be together
  2. Tomorrow and Sunday is the South Valley ARTists’ Studio Tour. Will I see you there? You can buy tickets the day of the event at the places listed on their website.
  3. I hope the studio tour has more attendance than First Saturday Three Rivers. There were 4 people covering for me at my studio while I was with my chicky-babes (see #1) and 11 visitors.  ELEVEN?? Bless you, those eleven who came out in the rain. I hope you enjoyed your wildflower freebie!
  4. What a week of learning! I actually designed a website for my friend who manages vacation rentals here in Three Rivers. She got tired of waiting for the guy who said he’d do it for her, and I jumped in with both feet but perhaps only half my brain. We will do a lot of polishing, but the site is ready to be seen. Sequoiavacationrentals.NET It was thrilling to be able to help her, to have some experience, to have all sorts of photos to supplement hers, to FIGURE THIS OUT!! It was hard. I did it anyway.
  5. Why am I designing a site for someone and paying someone else to design a site for me? Because mine is very very complicated. There is much work ahead for me. Good thing I practiced on my friend.
  6. It was so beautiful in Three Rivers this week that instead of working in the studio (drawings to be done for the 2019 calendar and a few more paintings, including a Sawtooth commission), I pulled weeds. It was a nice break from figuring out how to build a website.

    Lots and lots of weeds.
  7. Piper is doing well. There may be kittens soon; I hope the little guy adjusts and is polite.
  8. Trail Guy took a day trip to Mineral King. The road has a gnarly slide across it above the ranger station.

See why I had to make a list?? And, in case you were wondering, I am not superstitious about today’s day and date combination.

Kaweah Post Office Oil Paintings 2

Thank you for returning to see the next set of seven Kaweah Post Office oil paintings. Shall we commence our tour of the growth of my painting skills through the capitalistic exploitation of an innocent elderly landmark? (That would have cracked my Dad up – is anyone else out there laughing along?)

Kaweah Post Office VIII. Obviously, the little post office was popular in 2012. This one was bought by a celebrity who occasionally comes to Three Rivers. That isn’t as a big of a deal to me as the fact that a stranger bought my work!
Kaweah Post Office IX was painted in 2013.
Kaweah Post Office X was painted in 2014. It might have been the first one sold to raise money for the new roof. I think it is wrong to see this much sky behind it, because there is a steep hill back there.
Kaweah Post Office XI is my favorite so far. This was done in 2015, specifically to help with the new roof. Another lying sky.
Kaweah Post Office XII was also painted in 2015, also painted for the roof repair. But shouldn’t there be a little sky showing off to the side? This is another thing I forgot to check when I was there in person. Frankly, I don’t think anyone else cares!
This one is simply titled Kaweah Post Office. I lost the sequential numbering momentum, so that means that #13 is actually #14. Does anyone care? Too bad I didn’t skip #13, like ships and some apartment buildings do. And yet another lying sky. . .
Kaweah Post Office XIII was also painted in 2015. It is currently available at Anne Lang’s Emporium in Three Rivers or from my website. 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $125 plus tax (unless you buy it from my website which STILL is unable to charge sales tax for some irritating and unknown reason).

And thus we conclude our tour of my endless depictions of the Kaweah Post Office, popular landmark in Three Rivers, but not where I get my mail, in case you were wondering.

Kaweah Post Office Oil Paintings

Kaweah Post Office, first painted in 2009 with three years of painting under my belt, no confidence in my ability to paint architectural subjects and not a ton of experience in photographing my work either.

Every time an oil painting of the Kaweah Post Office sells, I paint it again.

Kaweah Post Office II, painted in 2010 (Where is the flag???)
Kaweah Post Office III, painted in 2011
Kaweah Post Office IV, painted in 2010, getting really elaborate with my details as my confidence and skill grows.
Kaweah Post Office V, complete with the cigar Indian on the porch, also painted in 2010.
Kaweah Post Office VI, 2012 (must have taken awhile for the previous one to sell)
Kaweah Post Office VII, also painted in 2012

That’s a lot of oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office. But wait! There’s more! Come back tomorrow and see the second set of seven.

About the Kaweah Post Office

The Kaweah Post Office is about 3 miles up North Fork Drive in Three Rivers, California. For awhile it was known as the smallest operating post office in the USA. Now it is operated in a weird little way; the woman who owns the building goes to the Three Rivers Post Office to collect the mail and then brings it to Kaweah to pop it into the boxes. 

People who live near the post office are quick to tell you that they live in Kaweah, not Three Rivers, thank you very much. It has its own zip code (93237), so I guess that makes it its own town.

The building is very picturesque and old-timey, established in 1890, but I think the current building was constructed in 1910. It is also sort of falling apart. I don’t know what will happen to it. But, I don’t know what will happen to anything or anybody, and neither does anyone else.

It has a ton of visual appeal, which is why I continue to draw and paint it. Have a look at some of the drawings. I’m not showing you the very first one because it is downright embarrassing.

 

Drawn in 1999 (last century!)
Drawn in 2010 for the 100th year celebration
Drawn in 2018

Tomorrow I will show you the first seven oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office. Not “THE FIRST”; MY first. I’m sure there must be dozens of other artists through the years that have chosen this little jewel.

Field Trip or Procrastination?

While working on the umpteenth pencil drawing of the Kaweah Post Office, I was struck by how stupid it is to guess at what is around and behind the little building. Why am I struggling with an incomplete photograph when all I have to do is drive about 4 or 5 miles and see the thing in person??

This is the photo I was using, and there is green chaos all around the edges. Besides, I took this photo in October of 2010, so I suspect things have changed.

Indeed, they have. I know the biggest oak lost a limb; I helped raise money to replace the roof by selling oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office, donating half of whatever they auctioned for. But where is the little fence with the gate?Would you look at that? It is gone! But wait! I think I see it. . .That’s no help. Guess I’ll just stick to my old photo. The background works, just sort of scribbling in blurry curly growing symbols. 

Are you curious about the porch and the inside? Have a look:

After goofing off enjoying a spring morning outing, I went back to the drawing board. (Do you know anyone else who can literally say that?)

Three California Poppy Oil Paintings

It has been ten years since we had that spectacular poppy season in Three Rivers. I still find them when I walk and in in my yard, but never since have we had them in such abundance.

While I was conducting the private oil painting workshop, I painted two poppy paintings. It is good to be available to the students, but no good to just hover.

I was pleased with them until I saw them in better light in the workshop. Then I saw that they needed another layer or two, and the shapes weren’t quite right. Since I had the colors mixed and another canvas ready to go, I decided to throw in a third poppy.

When they were finished, I realized they still needed reshaping. 

When that was finished and dry, I scanned them and realized they still needed another layer on the reshaped edges.

Easy little paintings, no trouble at all, just slam them out, piece of cake, no problem.

Fall down laughing. 

FINALLY, they are finished. I think.

Poppy #51, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″, $100 plus tax
Poppy #52, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″, $100 plus tax
Poppy #53, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″, $100 plus tax