Trail Guy and I took a walk. As we were approaching home, this is what we saw.
After this excitement (plus the usual mess of turkeys in the yard), I went into the workshop to work on three paintings. One needed finishing, one needed more detail, and one needed the first layer.
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.
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.
*Because I had no work this summer I may have forgotten how to work.
Obviously, I could use a little help with titles here.
“Oranges in a Blue Bowl” is too obvious; maybe I can think of a title that has to do with the fact that orange and blue are complementary colors. This means they are opposite one another on the color wheel—”complementary”, not “complimentary” such as “Oh my goodness, you are looking gorgeous today!”
Normally we think of ducks being in a row (WHY??), but I could call this “Citrus in a Row”. Nope, too obvious. “Citrus Variety” is boring.
Any ideas for me??
I know these aren’t just generic fruits, but the alliteration was too big of a temptation to resist.
All these orange oil paintings are for sale at the Mural Gallery in Exeter, whose address might be 121 South E Street, and hours might begin at 11 a.m. but not on Tuesday, possibly not on Wednesday. Maybe you’d better call 559-592-3160 before just showing up, because clearly, I do not have solid information other than the fact that there is a boatload of great art in that tiny building.
Phew. Take a breath, Central California Artist.
There is a marketing outfit for citrus, at least I think it is for marketing purposes. They have bought many pieces of orange-themed art from me through the years and are a pleasure to deal with.
Their annual banquet is coming up, and someone in the office asked me to lend them orange-themed art to decorate the lobby leading to the banquet room.
My 30+ years of experience tells me that my art won’t sell there. When the artist isn’t present and people are simply mingling, art does not sell itself. I am not invited to the banquet, and most likely I would decline the invitation. I have run out of the internal fire to schmooze and chit-chat in a loud room with the hopes of making connections that may or may not turn into work, and doing it in the town 30+ miles away at night when I am ready to park my patoot with a book and some knitting.
But this organization has been good to me, so if they want to borrow some art, my response is, “Certainly! How many pieces would you like?”
I took inventory and found 8 available pieces (one has to be borrowed from a gallery which is never open on the day when I am down the hill, but I will figure it out somehow). These are all similar scenes, and I decided that eight is not enough.
Here is a sample piece of my normal citrus scenes:
And here is what I need to paint, title, scan, and deliver DRY in time for the event:
This is a 10×10″ and a 6×18″, both a little different from my regular orange still-life paintings. Those regular ones sell steadily, but I bet most of the attendees to the banquet will have seen, bought, or received one of these already.
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The customer told me which mountains she wishes to see in her 11×14″ painting. So I started.
Sky, mountains, foothills, indication of distant groves, indication of closer groves. Then, it was too wet to continue. This might be an excuse; sometimes when painting these scenes, I hit a place of thinking it is too hard and that I can’t do it. (pathetic, no?)
So, time to move to the 18×36″ painting.
Working on a new sky layer gives me an opportunity to think about what I want to do here.
I think I want some overhanging branches, loaded with oranges. This means I have to make up some stuff, move some trees, bringing in some closer ones. And why not? I made up the snow-covered mountains in the distance. If I am painting this to please me, then yippee skippee, I can just go hog wild and really whoop it up.
I sure do know how to live, eh?
Happy Birthday, Little Sister!
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I thought this painting was finished and was about to scan it when I realized it was missing something important.
Snow covered mountains in the distance! White is the slowest color to dry, so it will be a week or two before this one is ready to scan.
This one needs definition in the distant groves and detail in the foreground branches. 
I am just making stuff up now. As long as it is believable, it’ll do.
This will take awhile, lots of painting sessions to try this, that, and something else.
Saturday night, remember to spring your clocks forward because Daylight Saving Time begins. It isn’t saving any daylight, merely shoving it an hour later so that mornings are dark again. There is talk of making it permanent, but those who think that is a good idea aren’t thinking ahead to waiting until 8 a.m. to see any daylight in the fall and winter months. I say leave the time right where it belongs and quit jerking us around.
So there.
That title is a description of a whole day of painting.
Trail Guy started the furnace in the painting workshop, turned on the fan to move the warm air to the opposite end of the room where the easels are, and shut the doors to keep the warmth in and the cats out. They were invited to be in, but if you know anything about cats, you know how much they hate closed doors. (Trail Guy turned on the furnace for me because it makes a big POPPPHWHOOOFSSSHH! when starting and sometimes blows out the pilot light.)
Let’s move on before I add more letters to the noise the furnace makes.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, so much that I could not see the computer screen or take good photos of my progress. But, it is warm by the easels in the sun before the furnace does its job. So, I just worked with what I’ve got. . . what? You want me to build an actual studio?? Not a chance.
See the brilliant sunshine?
Pippin liked being inside before he figured out that the doors were closed.
Someone (Hi BW) asked for the 12×16″ painting, so I started there.
Hi Pippin.
Sky first.
Work downward and forward, saving the closest things for last. Not everyone paints this way, but since it is the way I first learned and it ain’t broke, I ain’t fixin’ it.
Next!
Layer, by layer. Same deal, top to bottom, back to front.
I felt like a cog in a wheel, a factory worker. So, I decided to do a 6×12″ from beginning to end. (That is the smallest size canvas in this series of Tulare County citrus with mountains scenery.)
Sky first, moving forward, ridge by ridge.
Detail is so engrossing that I forgot to photograph the steps.
This looks pretty good, but not good enough. Remember, I am a pencil artist, and I draw with my paintbrush. (So there, Art World snobs.)
This looked good enough to sign. So, I did. 
There was still time for another layer on this other 6×12″ canvas. 
With the leftover sky paint, I covered edges on three more canvases. Of course there wasn’t enough, so I had to squeeze out about four more times.
I could add that to the title. Four Squeezes, Three Edges, Two Layers, One Finished.
Nah. Trail Guy turned off the heater and I am ready to move into the house.
When deciding what to paint, there are several factors to consider. What subjects will sell, which sizes will sell, what do I already have on hand, has anyone expressed an interest in a particular shape, size, or subject, and do I have good photos to work from?
After studying my stack of photos in the Citrus file, I chose eight to paint. You saw four yesterday, and here are the other four.
Next, I will wire the backs of the canvases, assign inventory numbers, think of good (or mediocre. . . this gets difficult after awhile) titles, and then start with base layers.
Which one would you like to reserve? Because sometimes your Central California artist needs to remind people that. . .
There is a file on my computer named “In Progress”, with one inside of it called “Paint”. Inside that folder is yet another folder named “Citrus”.
“Citrus” isn’t entirely the right title. The right title would be too long: “My Current Favorite Subject to Paint” or perhaps “Orange Groves, Foothills, and Mountains” or we could call it “The Best Things About Living in Tulare County”.
The file has 30 photos, so it takes awhile to study, compare, name them (so that I can find the right ones again), and think about the best proportions and ways to crop.
After I choose a stack that I want to paint, then I inventory my canvases, finding a variety of sizes and shapes that will work best for each of the paintings.
Recently I chose eight new scenes, and then assigned various canvas sizes to them. I price according to size, rather than difficulty, which means the prices are consistent. (I’ve shown them with the sizes in case you want to reserve one or more of the paintings.)
Have a look at the first four photos and canvas sizes:
Tomorrow I will show you the other four photos that I plan to paint.