As Long As You Are Painting, You Might As Well. . .

I was working on the Sawtooth oil painting. This is the first time I had painted in a few weeks, so I started over with fresh paint on my palette.

White, 2 yellows, 2 reds, 2 blues, and a mixture of the darkest blue with the darkest red. All that the Sawtooth oil painting required was a brown and about 3 greens. No need to waste all that paint once Sawtooth was finished. What to do?

I could have covered it and put it in the freezer. Eventually, I did that. But first, do you remember the hot peppers that I painted for a friend’s kitchen?

Now I get to paint a tomato for her. There is no deadline, but I started it now because the paint was just itching to be used.

The photo is to help me know how to place the darks and lights. Because it is a tomato and they aren’t supposed to be identical, I don’t care if the shape is exactly the same. Because I like brightly colored tomatoes, I am relying on my memory for the best colors. Because this is the first layer, it will get better as I go. 

It’s good to get a thing started.

Little Mineral King Oil Paintings

A week or so ago, I showed you the very rough beginnings of 5 new Mineral King oil paintings. In spite of the scribbly appearance, a faithful blog reader claimed one of them. She knows I can paint, although at this stage there isn’t much visual evidence to back up her confidence in my abilities.

This necessitated a new painting. It is a weird mini factory assembly line situation to paint 2 of the same scene at the same time. Efficient, but like deja vu all over again.

Sawtooth is a popular subject in the Silver City Store (4 miles below Mineral King). It is visible from the seat of Tulare County, Visalia, on the days when we aren’t qualifying for the worst air in the nation. The smog funnels through the Altamont Pass and into the Central Valley, a fluke of geography. Sigh.

But I digress. Here are the other little Mineral King paintings in progress. The first one is aspen trees along the Nature Trail, the lower end of the same trail with the view of Sawtooth.

The one on the upper left is the Monarch/Sawtooth trail, heading back down to Mineral King. Upper right is White Chief (the greenish color in the sky is the result of dropping my palette on it, and it will be repaired in the next layer of paint); bottom painting is the trail leading out of Atwell Mill through the redwood trees.

Atwell Mill is the campground below Silver City in a mostly logged grove of sequoia (AKA redwood) trees. The trail below leads to the East Fork of the Kaweah, one of the best trails in the Mineral King area. 

P.S. In case you think these paintings look as if I can’t paint, please be reassured that each one needs at least one more layer. That layering method is called “glazing” in Artspeak. It is what allows this pencil artist to paint without coming unglued at the inability to erase.

The Rest of the Stories

Remember Paul Harvey? We had to be quiet during lunch so my parents could listen to him every day at noon when we were home from school. He would tell a story sometimes with a surprise ending, and then he would say, “And now you know. . . (long, very long, very very long extended pause). . . the REST of the story.”

Remember the pencil drawing of the walnut grove? The recipient loved it. 

Remember the very difficult and (for me) very large painting of the Oak Grove bridge?

It is finished. It now hangs in my dining room, because I am really happy with it. If you want to buy it, it can hang in your dining room.

Oak Grove Bridge IXX, 24×30″, oil on wrapped canvas, $1500 (plus tax)

Remember a painting I did of a trail in Mineral King? I improved on it a bit. Without showing you the old version, you might not recognize the improvements. 

 

Mineral King Trail, 11×14″, oil on canvas, $275

Remember the habañeros? The commissioned oil painting is finished. I still don’t know how to dispose of the peppers themselves. If I bury them in the garden, they might grow new ones. . . can’t be growing toxic waste in my yard that way. . . put them in the green waste bin? But they are red!

Finally, remember the “easy” painting of the bridge? 

Oak Grove Bridge XXII, 11×14″, oil on wrapped canvas, $275 plus tax

And now you know. . . .

(very long pause)

 

the REST of my stories.

Red Hot Chile Peppers

These habañero red hot chile peppers are fun to paint. Check out the progress.

I chose this view because, without slipping into boring Artspeak, it fills the space well, and I like it.

The first pass provides an underpainting and also gives me a chance to decide if the arrangement is pleasing.

Instead of printing a photo to use, I just kept the photo up on the laptop. I have the peppers to check the coloring, but I’m afraid to touch them.

There is something fun about mixing all the reds and oranges. It might simply be the contrast against all the greens, grays and browns of my usual landscape paintings.

One more pass over the canvas to perfect some tiny areas and to put in the stems ought to do it for these red hot chile peppers. Samson will be on standby to keep me company. He seems to be enjoying The Great Course called “Understanding the Fundamentals of Music”, which I’m listening to while painting these days.

Hottest Peppers To Paint

A friend commissioned me to do a little painting of a jalapeño pepper. 

She liked it so much that she brought me 2 habañero peppers, one of the hottest chili peppers available. 

Treating them like toxic materials made it a little tricky to photograph them, but I persevered. 

Now I have to decide which arrangement is most pleasing for the second painting. I’ve narrowed it to these four ideas and will have the real peppers on hand to make sure the colors are correct. Sure does make me nervous to touch them. . .

Before I saw them, I assumed I’d be using a green background, but that will hide the stems. Gray might be the right solution.

 

On the Easels and On the Needles

This jalapeno is a commissioned oil painting. I’m happy with the colors and will be tightening up the detail next.
The Honeymoon Cabin is a very popular subject. This is from an early evening photo with heightened colors. The size is 8×8″ and will be $100.
Sawtooth is another very popular Mineral King subject. This is 10×10″ and will be $150.

And in case you were wondering if all I do is work, please be reassured that I always find time to knit. A friend is waiting for a new pair of lungs, and there will be a fund raising dinner with silent auction and pick-a-prize items. I made these 2 infinity scarves for the event, and the blue/red/brown one already sold! No worries, I have just finished a brown/teal and have a second one on the needles, which I might be tempted to keep. Kind of tempted to keep the aqua one, but my friend needs to pay for her lung transplant infinitely more than I need another scarf.

Oh wait – you need to see what an infinity scarf looks like, not just all the colors.

Forget it – this one is mine! (Okay, make a large enough contribution to my friend’s lung account and I will send it to you, but it better be a HUGE check – email if you’d like further instructions.)

 

Finished Oil Paintings

Did you think I had forgotten my promise to show you recently finished oil paintings?

Nope.

First, the commissioned piece. It isn’t totally finished, but I never show you the sides of the canvas anyway.

It is Oak Grove Bridge XX, which means #20, but is probably the 25th time I’ve painted it because sometimes my record keeping is not so good.

Now, the P Fruits:

6×18″, P Fruits, oil on canvas, wrapped edges, ready to hang, $150 plus the obnoxious 8% California sales tax.

And a Sequoia Gigantea, with the same information as above, except it is a Giant Sequoia tree.

Whole Lotta Oak Grove Bridges

Whole lotta bridges going on around here. All the Oak Grove Bridge, of course. 2 paintings, a calendar, 2 photos.

Samson was busy with other things (thank you, GE for babysitting) so I tackled the bridge again. This time I started over, working from back to front and top to bottom. This layering and layering and layering is called “glazing” in Artspeak.

The lower right corner is a mess. Real life is very messy. Most scenery is messed up with sticks, dried stuff, dead branches. . . and we don’t notice because we look past it to the good parts.

You can see the lower right edge of the photo is a mess, a tangled mess.

It isn’t finished here because I just flat don’t know what to do.

So, for now I’ll stop and just think about all the versions and how I’ve handled this corner in previous renditions.

Because I’m feeling more confident about the 11×14 commissioned oil painting of the Oak Grove Bridge, I decided to pull out the 24×30″ version from last year. I tackled it the same way – starting over in the farthest places, working forward.

Just like with murals, the larger, the easier. 

Weird.

Particularly Challenging Challenge

Oil painting is a real challenge at times. Getting the colors right in addition to the darks, lights, textures, shapes and proportions, along with seeing what is really there instead of what I think might be there plus adding and subtracting whatever is necessary to enhance the scene . . . it is just hard.

Then along comes a new challenge. This oil painting commission of the Oak Grove Bridge may take longer than any other previous oil painting. Let the photos suffice, although none were taken while claws and teeth were attached to my painting (or photographing) hand. In all the wrestling, a button got pushed on the camera that made the colors more vivid than normal. I’m surprised nothing got broken or accidentally painted or dropped.

While this Bengal bitey-boy-beast, AKA Samson, took a rest, I was able to work on the rocks beneath the bridge a bit, and also located the posts on the bridge itself. The customers didn’t give me a deadline, and they say, “No hurry” each time I see them. 

Good thing.

Three Oil Paintings

Happy Birthday, Robin!

Today’s post is an update to several paintings in progress.

I carried this one outside to the sidewalk to photograph for you. That’s what the weird gray texture around the sides is. The leaves on one of the pomegranates need another layer, because they were an afterthought. And, when it is dry, it will photograph with more accurate colors. Still have to sign it.

What shall I title this oil painting?

Fruit beginning with P.

This one is called “Sequoia Gigantea”. That was the name of the newspaper at Redwood High School, and I have never forgotten that it is the real name of what we euphemistically call “The Big Trees” around here. This is to keep them from being confused with the other Big Trees, the other redwoods, the Sequoia Sempervirens, AKA “coastal redwoods.

Sequoia Gigantea

And the Oak Grove Bridge painting goes on and on and on. . . this time when I saw that the arch still wasn’t right, I adjusted the left side. Why is this so hard for me to paint?? With all the practice I’ve had, you’d think I could paint it with my eyes closed.

Wait. That wouldn’t work.

Paint it with one arm tied behind my back? 

Never mind. It is hard, but I love the scene in reality, on paper and on the easel.

Oak Grove Bridge

This post is brought to you courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Dept. because I keep painting the same scenes and subjects over and over and over and. . .