Maybe “Tulare County’s Prettiest Places” would be the right name for my show at CACHE.
But what if I want to paint other places too?
Who will want other places? My fan club (fall down laughing) is based here in Tulare County.
Enough already with the speculation and analysis—let’s paint.
This is Rocky Hill Drive, probably the most popular outdoor place to run, walk, and bikeride in Tulare County.
WAIT—”Popular Pretty Places”?
Stop it and just get on with the painting, will ya?
You can’t go up on Rocky Hill itself, only up between Rocky Hill and Badger Hill. But in the very flat land of the flatlands, this is the only place for walking uphill or downhill.
This 6×18″ oil painting needs better detail on the orange trees, the shoulders of the road, and maybe even some work on the center line once all this paint dries a bit.
Orange groves, foothills, and mountains remain my favorite subject to paint. (It used to be the Oak Grove Bridge, and who knows what it will be next?)
I painted this to hang in my dining area, but put it on my website and then, lo and behold, it sold! (off the website—I didn’t open my front door to customers)
No problemo—I just started another painting.
Then, I just left it on the easel for months.
After starting all those small paintings for Kaweah Arts, I finally went back to this painting. If I don’t get it finished soon, suddenly it will be October and then it will go to the solo show and then it will sell without ever hanging in my house first! The urgency. . . !!
Details, details. All those close trees needed details. Of course, once I’ve put all those leaves on, the oranges will need more color or shaping. Then I’ll decide to add blossoms. After that, the ground will need some debris. Next, I’ll decide to put cows on Wutchumna (the hill). Maybe all the distant rows will need refining, the hills reshaped, the mountains improved. . .
Never mind. How about starting another one?
I do love me some orange groves in the foothills with the Sierra in the distance. These subjects are a real benefit of life in Tulare County. (But DON’T move here. It is in California, where people are leaving in droves. Wait—what is a “drove”?? Aren’t people leaving in U-Hauls?)
Your Central California artist bumbles along on one Tulare County oil painting, almost finished another, and finished a commission. Let’s start with the bumble.
The differences are subtle between the before and the after version. In the after version, the lower left corner makes more sense, and there are more branches on the trees.
BeforeAfter
A neighbor-friend stopped by to bring her recyclables because we share garbage services. She works alone at home as I do, and sometimes we just visit for awhile, perhaps our version of hanging out at the water cooler. (Pay no attention to those garbage cans.) She expressed an interest in my current projects, and when I showed her my challenging painting, together we came up with a couple of ideas for improvement. I will continue to bumble along on this difficult painting.
But wait! I made two more adjustments, and then photographed it more carefully. My neighbor approved, which gave me hope. (There will be more adjustments, corrections, and added details.)
I thought I was finished on the Lower Dry Creek Road oil painting. However, the closer fence posts might require some wire. On the other hand, I might not be capable of such minuscule detail. It still needs a signature and the edges to be painted.
Better detailing and color on the golden hills, the dam, the trees. Cattle, fenceposts, wildflowers, done. Maybe I can put in wire on the fence. Maybe I can do a little brain surgery while I am it. . . not feeling capable of wire. . . will it matter?
Better detailing, stronger colors, and a signature now done on Sawtooth #34, a commissioned oil painting for JL’s son. This one is only photographed, not scanned, because it is wet.
Dry Creek Road is one of Tulare County’s gems. At the bottom of this country road, there are cattle, irrigated pastures, wildflowers in spring, and views of layered hills (beer cans too, but we will ignore those). This painting combines several of these elements, and depicts late spring when a hint of green remains while summer’s golden hues are emerging. I used two different photos, and combined the pieces that best represent this route in my 60+ years of driving it. (Fear not—the first 16 years I was just a passenger.)
sky first
farthest hills next
moving closer, working forward on those hills
closest hills
all the greenery
By the time the painting was this advanced, the cold was advanced on my feet. I brought the painting into the warm house to dry, and the next time I work on it, I expect to draw a few details with my smallest brushes.
P.S. Is that Terminus Dam back there? Yeppers, it is!
This painting has been in a bit of a time-out. I was a little bit stuck in the messy middle. There are too many instructors in my head, telling me things like “loosen up” and “stop drawing with your paintbrush”.
After studying it a bit, I remembered who is the boss. The Central California artist is known for drawing details, having begun her art business with pencils, drawing cabins and homes and eventually landscapes in minute detail.
Now that she paints in oil, if she leaves out those details, she doesn’t like her paintings and her friends and family ask her if she is finished because it just doesn’t look right.
Allll-righty then.
The trees are too smooth, the foreground is messy-looking, and oy vey, those upper leaves.
Bark texture! Better rocks!
Notice anything peculiar about the painting here? (I have no idea how this happened.)
More sky holes, more bark, better contrasts, branches growing more believably, more details in the distance.
There is still work to be done in the bark, branches, and upper leaves but now I believe this eventually will be worth signing. I don’t remember where I took the photos, but I know it was in Tulare County, most likely right here in Three Rivers.
In 2023, I participated in exactly one art boutique/fair/bazaar. ONE. It was in Exeter on a Saturday at the history museum/art gallery, CACHE. This was the inaugural event, the reviews are mixed, and I am guessing it won’t become an annual event.
However, I had a good day! One painting sold (Citrus Row) and many smaller items too, all adding up to YES IT WAS WORTH IT.
Being sort of accidentally semi-retired this year*, I decided that a good day of work deserved a good day of hanging out with friends. Because I still live in the same area where I was reared (children are reared, vegetables are raised), when long-time friends return to the area, they often request a get-together. This isn’t always practical, but it is usually a real treat.
I left the house at 10:30 AM and got home at 5:30 PM, just to “go have lunch”. This is why I often turn down such requests, unless I have recently had a good day of work and don’t have any looming deadlines.
The drive was interesting (I actually left Tulare County!), the company stellar, and lunch was delicious.
Our post-lunch walk was exactly up my alley.
The dead tree was interesting, but I won’t paint it.
I will probably paint this. If I really squint, I can see the mountains. We were too far north to be looking at Alta Peak.
I will paint this, minus the white spots (whitewash against thrip?) and pokey little twigs. I’ll probably fake in a navel.
My friend had to help me with these: pistachios! She said that the crop was left to fall on the ground this year. What a terrible waste.
Of course I will be painting a version of this. Shall I make the hill green?
Two outings: one work, one semi-work related, both social, one closer but more taxing (talking to people all day makes me tired), the other far but entirely up my alley with 2 close and long-time friends in the country surrounded by foothills and oranges.
“The Best View”, 10×20″, $400, currently my favorite subject matter
*Because I had no work this summer I may have forgotten how to work.
Today I will show you what I submitted for the 2nd mural on the Ivanhoe Library.
For review, here is what the selection committee provided.
Here is what I submitted for this entry way.
Here is my explanation.
“Mural B shows 2 Valley Oaks, quercus lobata, which is the largest American oak, native to Tulare County. In and beneath the trees are local birds, all seen in and around Ivanhoe, along with a few wildflowers at the base. This could be used as a fun method for children to learn their local birds.
Now, we shall see if I actually get to paint these two murals.
P.S. The commenting part of the blog has been misbehaving but comments are coming through anyway. So to those of you who soldiered through, thank you!
Okay, I’ll quit stalling now. This is what the Ivanhoe Library mural project gave to the potential artists.
First, I introduced myself with this.
“I am very pleased to be able to submit two designs for the library of my youth. I grew up outside of Ivanhoe, attending Ivanhoe Elementary School K-8. I credit my 6th grade teacher, Tom Stroben, with teaching me to draw, and much of my childhood was spent reading books from this library. It would be a huge honor to be selected as the muralist for this Tulare County treasure.”
And this is what I submitted for the long wall.
This is the explanation that accompanied the sample. The selection committee didn’t ask for this, but they got it anyway.
West Wall is an orange grove with the mountains in the distance and three insets. The mural shows a picker on a ladder (partially hidden), smudge pots, and a wind machine. In the distance are the Sierra Nevada as the peaks show on a clear day from Ivanhoe. The insets are (L to R) Twin Buttes (a geographical landmark north of Ivanhoe), an old citrus label from Klink Citrus (chosen because of the colorful rooster and the name “Venice Cove”, a nod to another geographical landmark, Venice Hills, east of Ivanhoe), and the old Ivanhoe School Auditorium, which housed the school library in the years I attended school there. (1964-1973).
Okay, I’m going to drag this out for another day. Next post about this project will appear on Monday, November 27.
Because Mineral King was closed to the public all summer, I chose to not post about it. There is nothing polite about rubbing people’s noses in the harsh reality of being forbidden to visit the most beautiful place in Tulare County, and in spite of my natural bluntness, I do my best to be polite.
We closed our cabin on a beautiful fall weekend, shut off the water to our little road, and said goodbye to Mineral King for the year.
Road repairs still had not begun, although the contractor was gathering equipment at the bottom of the road on Highway 198/Sierra Drive. There was also a bit of additional flagging where a few wires cross the Mineral King road.
In June, after Tulare County had their lower piece of the road repaired, Trail Guy and the Farmer volunteered many hours, marking the hazards and making the road passable. The Park gave permission for these two hardworking, capable, generous men to do the Park’s work, for free. They were instructed to not clean up anything, because the Park wanted Federal Highways to see the damage and messes.
This repair project should have been started as soon as the road was passable. In the opinions of those of us who drove the road regularly, at the very least, the Park should have sent up a backhoe operator with a shovel-wielding ground crew person to clean out the culverts and clear the gutters. However, they are extremely short-staffed, and Mineral King is not a priority.
The road to Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon has been closed all summer.
The Park hired a contractor, and all summer we kept hearing warnings to not drive the road because we would be interfering with road work. In reality, there was no road work by either the Park nor any contractors.
We were also warned against driving the road because if there was a problem, there would be no way for emergency vehicles to assist or rescue.
An off-duty Park employee thought it was just fine to drive on the wrong side of the road, even on blind curves. Silver City was able to limp their truck to the lower gate for towing; the park employee’s vehicle was still drivable.
We were warned against using our cabins because if there was a problem, no one would come help us. No propane trucks could deliver, and there was no garbage service. Somehow, the resilient and resourceful cabin community made it through these inconveniences.
Eventually, the phone company made it up the hill, but Trail Guy and I opted to not have a phone at the cabin. Several neighbors have phones, which they made available to us. This was an excellent arrangement, and since Trail Guy helps them out regularly, almost as if he is everyone’s (unpaid) resident houseman, he needed their phones in order to stay in touch. In return, we didn’t have to pay $54/month to keep our phone throughout the entire year for 4-5 months of use. Even more importantly, we didn’t have to hear it ring, interrupting our peace and causing us to wonder if yet another Fireman’s Fund was desperate for our help.
The latest missive from the Park:
A quick update on the Mineral King Road construction project. We’ve just been notified by the contractor that they won’t need to begin full road closures until October 17th. They will begin moving equipment and performing some work along the road beginning on Monday, October 9th. They will have traffic control personnel on site during this first phase of work.
Road work impacts will be from the park boundary up to the top of the construction zone at the Conifer Gate. The closure could be reduced over time but shouldn’t extend beyond that.
Work will take place Monday through Saturday, no work on Sundays.
7am-Noon????Road Closed Noon to 1pm? Road Open 1-5pm ???????Road Closed 5pm to 7am ??Road Open
Access will continue to be limited to cabin owners and administrative traffic only. No public access.
In the opinion of the highly knowledgeable Trail Guy, formerly known as Road Guy, the construction zone needs to be extended above the Conifer Gate. You may recall that there was a rather alarming sinkhole in July, which was just 2 miles below the end of the road. We didn’t mention that there were also numerous “tree failures”, and the logs were just moved and trimmed to be one-lane passable.
Although it was mighty peaceful in the summer of 2023, we are not snobs nor are we elitists: we certainly hope that Mineral King is open to the public in 2024.
If you have been reading my blog for the past 2 months, you have noticed that I haven’t been doing much in the way of artwork. Something just went silent, not “artist’s block” because I never run out of ideas. What was it? Two things: spring was so beautiful that all I wanted to do was work in the yard, and sales have dropped significantly so I didn’t want to keep building up inventory. (Too much stuff stresses me out, whether it is possessions, noise, items on a calendar, or people at a gathering; please forgive me for referring to people as “stuff”.)
After working on the Yokohl Oak painting, I worked a bit more on the big painting that I was hoping to someday hang in my dining area. It was just sitting quietly on the easel next to the oak tree, patiently waiting for some attention. The heat wasn’t too bad, I had an interesting podcast to listen to, and I had just killed a mosquito. (There is always one.) Why not keep painting?
It felt a little bit too hard, but my experience tells me that putting brush to canvas is the best way to overcome the feeling of inadequacy. So I dabbed a bit at those upper marks to turn them into oranges.
I couldn’t find a paintbrush that would cooperate. All the little ones did that annoying thing of gathering lots of paint but not releasing it. So, I moved into less detailed areas, just defining dark and light clumps, and actually counting the trees that appear in the front to match them with the trees in the photo. This is not because I need to be a Xerox machine; it is because in order to understand how things look, I need to actually LOOK at them. (or at a clear photo)
Getting better, but still lots of work ahead.
I am not in a hurry. This is for me, and I can take as long as I want and be as detailed as I desire. (“It’s my painting and I’ll draw if I want to, draw if I want to, draw if. . . “)
Someday this painting of the areas of Tulare County that I find so beautiful will be completed, Lord willing, and my vision don’t expire. (How many clichés can I butcher here?)
If you came here for Mineral King news and are disappointed, you can check theMineral King websiteto see if anything new has been posted.
