Navels in the Orchard is actually just navels on canvas, another oil painting of Tulare County citrus.
I painted the details working from the back to the front, which means first I painted the items which are the farthest away from the viewer.
Usually I wait until the painting is dry to photograph it. But look at the weather —the sun wasn’t shining, making the wet parts sparkle.
Since Exeter’s Mural Gallery (121 South E Street) is reopening (TODAY!), I have a renewed interest in painting oranges.
The painting on the left is untitled, so for now I will call it The Painting Formerly Known As Turning Leaf. (I thought that Turning Leaf was a good painting, but apparently I was alone in my opinion.) The painting on the right is also untitled, currently known as The Painting Formerly Known As An Unsold Pomegranate. (Ditto my thoughts on that pomegranate painting.)
Easel place swap!
Not good enough yet.
Better, but photographed with an unsightly wet shine.
Therefore, I did not photograph The Painting Formerly Known as a Pomegranate.
Instead, I started a new painting. Painting oranges reignited my enjoyment of the subject, so this time I really started whooping it up with a 10×10″ canvas.
I’m going to really like this painting (until I change my mind and retouch it.)
P.S. These won’t be in the Mural Gallery just yet. They need to get finished, dry, titled, and scanned.
As I plan for the solo show at CACHE in autumn, there are a handful of paintings that I want to improve. Finesse. Polish. Tweak. Pick your word.
I love this scene! It’s one of the earlier pieces of my obsession with orange groves, foothills, and snow-covered peaks, titled “Tulare County’s Best”. Why hasn’t it sold?
I changed some of the colors and tightened some details on Alta Peak, along with making it stand out a bit more.
I painted this one with the intention of enjoying it in my dining area for awhile before putting it in the gallery (the show isn’t until mid-October). After living with it for awhile, I saw a way to make it better. So, back to the easel.
I have a few more to puzzle over and figure out how to improve. But, I’m in Texas right now, so the other Tulare County paintings will have to wait.
Poppies and oranges are two of my most popular subjects. Orange and green, green and orange. Orange is yellow and red; green is yellow and blue. I’m getting more relaxed about the specific shades of each, focusing more on values, which is Artspeak for darks and lights.
This painting will take awhile, because I want it to be perfect. Do I always say that? Prolly not. I’m not a perfectionist. It takes discipline to keep returning to the same painting over and over when I just want to cross it off my list and keep going on to the next one. BUT, I have learned that it is better to be a little annoyed during the process than embarrassed later.
This one has been very fun. It seems finished now, but chances are that I will see small things to correct once it is dry.
Finally, this one has orange trees that are green but the ones on the right are really wet and shiny.
This is an excellent example of how to not photograph a painting.
All three paintings show the beautiful parts of Tulare County at the prettiest time of year. When these are finished, I will begin one in the fall season. It won’t be orange or green.
For the past few years, my favorite subject to paint is orange groves with hills and mountains.I’ve had a large (for me) painting in progress in a time-out for awhile. In that bonus week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I worked on it.
First, I photographed it, studied it on my laptop screen, and circled the parts that were not up to snuff (weird cliché, whose meaning I do not know).
I started with the mushy rows in the red oval. It’s all wet and shiny, so these photos may not appear to be an improvement.
The orange oval was next, and I kept expanding the area around it.
The upper right corner was next. I ignored the pink, yellow, and light green ovaled areas, because I am the boss.
Now let’s look at the painting as a whole.
The usual excuses for photography that doesn’t do justice to the verbal explanations: low light, shiny paint, photographed with inferior phone instead of camera, and of course, there are many areas remaining to be detailed. I can’t tell you that it will look better when it is scanned, because it is too big to scan. But I can tell you that it looks way better in person!
After I took a plein air (on location) painting workshop, I tried to incorporate some new techniques into my normal studio method of painting. I didn’t like the results, and apparently, no one else did either, because those paintings didn’t sell.
This one in particular was troubling, because I thought the subject matter would overcome any difficulties.
After goofing off for weeks, I decided to warm up to painting by improving this little loser.
When it is dry, I will scan it so we can all scratch our heads in bewilderment about how I could have ever thought the painting might sell in its earlier state.
Guess I was blinded by love for the subject matter of Tulare County’s best features.
P.S. I didn’t mess with the orchards or wind machines because they look fine.
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“Locals” is the name of the current exhibit (i.e. show and sale of art) at CACHE, the new name for Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery and Museum. It stands for Center for Art, Culture, and History in Exeter. THE RECEPTION IS SUNDAY, 2-4 PM.
I began my recorded talk about this oil painting, “Groves, Hills, and Mountains” like this:
“A few years ago I became obsessed with the way that orange groves look against foothills and distant mountains. I took many photos and borrowed from friends, and began painting those scenes.”
If you receive these posts in email and the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. It will take you to the blog on the internet. These photos are from March 2, a brilliant and cold day.
A friend and I went for a walk. (This was before the big rains.) I realized that while this first photo is normal to us, it is probably peculiar to other folks. These boulders get moved to block parking spaces when Edison closes its beaches on busy weekends. This method of closing a parking area is probably unusual; I think it is innovative.
The river is flowing steadily but isn’t high because nothing above was melting yet.
The snow was sooooo low.
But the daffodils were bright, in spite of being slightly splattered with mud.
Enough. Get to work, Central California Artist!
This oil painting, an 11×14″ commission is coming together. No matter how difficult these seem at the beginning, if I don’t give up, eventually they get done in a believable manner.
“Nevuh, nevuh, nevuh give up” —good advice from Winston Churchill.
This 12×16″ unfinished painting has been spoken for, so it is taking precedence over the other unfinished paintings.
The printed photos arrived from Shutterfly. Sometimes it is easier to paint from the laptop; sometimes it is easier to paint from printed photos. I haven’t evaluated why this is so. I do know that it is really difficult to photograph the shiny print.
Here you can see that the mountains are taking shape. I might keep adding layers, tightening up the detail to match the photo even more. But, in painting, the things that are farthest away are supposed to have less detail than the things that are closer. On the other hand, the most detailed areas are where your eye goes first in a painting.
What is more important—the Sierra Nevada or the citrus groves?(Don’t answer that unless your initials are MBW)
Those green hills have a lot of details, but I am not planning on counting the distant oak trees or boulders.
This is enough for this layer today.
The correct colors were mixed up, ready to go on the palette, so it was efficient to use the paint for the next canvas. This one is 6×12″.
The day ended with a fistful of paintbrushes to wash. For a couple of weeks, instead of washing them each day, I just wrapped them in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer. Eventually, I run out of the brushes I like and then the brushwashing vacation ends.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GLB!!
If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.
Custom art, or “commission” work might be the most satisfying piece of my business. I am painting something that someone really wants, painting with confidence that it will be loved, and confidence that it will be sold.
Artists can be so insecure. We pour ourselves onto paper or canvas, creating something that really lights our fire, getting lost in the process, and then . . . what? Nothing happens.
So, when I get a commission, particularly one of something that I am familiar with (orange groves, sequoia trees, Sawtooth, cabins, or anything Mineral King), it is a real pleasure to paint.
The customers chose 16×20″. I primed the canvas, assigned an inventory number, and wired the back. Pippin hung around, but wasn’t interested in the details. (And the vase of lemon geranium may have repelled the mosquitos.)
It was near the end of the day, and I was in danger of falling into Idiotville, where Stupid, Sloppy, and Careless reside, so I set it aside for the day.
And this is how it looked after the next painting session:
Yeppers, this time in oil paint instead of pencil. Not sisters this time—a brother and a sister, different grove. And no deadline, so I will spend oodles of time make this piece of Tulare County art perfect.
Oodles, I said.