On Leaving California

Not me. I’m never moving again, being deeply traumatized by leaving Lemon Cove and moving 14 miles east to Three Rivers almost 22 years ago.

A friend of a friend is leaving California. My friend would like to give her friend a little something as a token of our native state. Her idea was perfect – a 2×2″ painting of a poppy, the state flower.

Back when I thought I was ordering a dozen 2×2″ canvases to give them a try, I ordered a dozen packages of 10 each. It has taken awhile, but they are now all used up.

I was relieved to find a poinsettia which could be converted to a poppy.

It needs to dry, then it can sit on a cute little easel for the friend of a friend who is leaving California.

I think she deserves a medal of bravery for making such a huge change.

Inching Along the Commissions

Reminder: “commission” is Art Speak for a custom piece of art. Here are two in progress:

No matter how often I paint the Oak Grove Bridge, it challenges my ability to draw with a paintbrush. Drawing with a paintbrush is something that is sneered at in the Art World, but I am hard-pressed to imagine how one of those loosey-goosey painters would handle this subject.

I sent this photo to my customer, and he declared me to be finished. He was actually nicer than that – he said, “As I said before, you are the best!” Aw shucks, thank you, DB. You are a dream customer.

The giant circle continues to develop. The surface of smooth plywood with several base coats of paint is different than canvas and will take multiple layers to cover. That’s fine, because I can get tighter and better with each layer. This is my preferred method of painting, fix, fix, fix some more, and fix again, called “glazing” in Art Speak. That is how I painted the bridge commission.

My customer the citrus grower asked if the trees would be darker, because I sent a photo taken earlier than this one. Then I took this photo, and because the paint is wet here, it is reflective so it still looks pale. I kept painting, and then sent this photo:

I love this subject matter just as much as the Oak Grove Bridge and am quite happy about getting to spend many hours making it look as good as possible.

New Commissioned Oil Painting

I stopped by the Silver City Store to check my paintings and encountered an old friend on the deck. He said how much he liked my bridge painting in the store. I went inside to do inventory and couldn’t find the bridge, so came back out and asked, “Did you say you ‘like’ the bridge or that you ‘bought’ it?”

He said that he “liked” it, and I told him it had sold. He was disappointed, so I offered to paint it again for him, and he said yes.

Wow. If only every sale was that easy. I went home and immediately began painting, because the Oak Grove Bridge is my favorite subject. (If you have been following this blog for awhile, then you already knew that. If you would like to see more, put “Oak Grove Bridge” in the search bar of the blog and it will give you a stack of old posts to read or to just look at photos, paintings and drawings of the bridge.)

Ooh. As soon as I saw the bottom photo here, I saw some things to correct on the painting.

 

 

Finished and Finished

The green looks a bit uneven because it is wet. Those tiny white letters were challenging, nay, CHALLENGING!

The two sided A-frame mural (sign? what is this thing?) needed a few touch-ups.

 

In case you are wondering, yes, I can name all the flowers. They are all foothill flowers, not in my wildflower book Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.

 

Other than getting the quail as close to reality as possible, this side was just lots of scribbling in brownish yellows and yellowish browns. 

Now what am I going to work on??

Odd Job, Day 5

Back to the coat of arms painting, an odd job of an oil painting commission.

I mixed and applied the correct green, along with a strong purple for the bottom ribbon. (It will need some detailing).

Then I mixed and applied a more golden yellow and a stronger blue.

The edges are a little weak, but the entire piece will get black outlines. This is a simple painting, but there is very little forgiveness with strong colors each abutting other strong clean colors. It requires a lot of drying time in between layers.

Starting and Ending

I started a new citrus painting, much like a recent one (that is still too wet to photograph well.)

Really, it is different from the other one. . . see?

Almost finished. needs a couple more layers on some of the do-over parts.

Citrus sells steadily in Exeter at the Mural Gallery, so it is good to always have another one ready to go.

Finished and delivered this one: SHHHH, IT IS A SURPRISE! And yes, I know the scene is cobbled together from places that aren’t together in real life.

 

A Fun Day at the Easels

As a pencil artist, with drawing as my first artistic love, a fun day at the easels for me is when I finally get to the stage where I am able to “draw” with my paintbrushes. This is considered a bad thing in the Art World; all I can think of to respond to that is that the Art World is missing out. So there.

But I am not missing out. If I persist, persevere and nevah nevah nevah* give up, I finally get to draw with my paintbrushes so that my paintings look like MY paintings and not something I picked up from an internet video.

This one still needs work, but now I can work on it without gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw.

SHHH, REMEMBER THIS ONE IS A SURPRISE.

What does this need (besides better photos with more visual information)?

Gotta** see those angles correctly, not drag my hand through the wet paint, and be able to see the tip of my brush in order to draw well.

Closing in on it. . . one more session ought to do the trick.

Tucker is a bit indifferent to paintings but would like to know if there will be treats soon.

Finally, I am pulling out all the stops with this one, painting it because I want to, not because it is a commission or because there might be a market for it. If is sells, fine, but if not, it will be exactly at home in my kitchen. There is no deadline, but I have to be careful to not lose momentum, lose heart and then lose interest. These are some of the risks to working alone at home, away from the Art World, but risks I’m willing to take.

Just living on the edge. . .

*This is something that Winston Churchill is reported to have said. He meant “never”, but being a Brit, he pronounced it “nevah”, just like Anthony Hopkins.

**”Gotta” is a word like “prolly” and “liberry” – fun to say, funny to write, and perhaps a teensy bit worrisome to the reader about the validity and authority of the writer.

I’ve shown you all twelve paintings at Anne Lang’s Emporium; if you want one and don’t want to drive to Three Rivers, let me know and we can work out the details (such as Paypal or a check in the mail, the Postal Service to you. . .)

Creeping Incrementalism

“Creeping incrementalism” sounds like the frog in the frying pan. In the case of this Central California artist, it is the way I am currently approaching paintings. Maybe if I just paint in increments, telling myself along the way that I can just do a little and quit any time, then at least a bit of progress will happen.

Whattsa matta??

Sometimes I don’t want to paint. I’d rather be in the house knitting or in the studio drawing or in the yard raking leaves. If I approach work with the attitude of Just Do A Little For Now, then maybe I’ll get involved and forget that I don’t want to be there.

Why don’t I want to paint? This might be a question for a licensed therapist, or a life coach, or a sympathetic friend to figure out. Never mind for now. Let’s have a look at paintings that are improving in small creeping increments. (Creeping? Why this word??)

  • The Cabin Scene (shhhh, it is a surprise!) a commissioned oil painting

The sky has been retouched, the mountains and distant forests too. (The colors are a lot different due to the lighting on an overcast day.)

With a new photo of the cabin, even though the shutters were closed and there is snow on the ground, I was able to determine the placement of details.

  • The Citrus Row, which obviously needs a better name.

The background goes in first.

You can see that I am not locked in by the photo. And maybe you can see that maybe I should be locked in by the photo. Maybe just locked in. Or locked up?

Geraniums, because I like this

It has been so long since I began this that I forgot about the actual physical photos and instead was painting off my computer screen.

The power went out once, it was sort of too dark to see when it came back on, and I just started making things up. Prolly time to put away the brushes for the day, eh?

Today’s featured painting at Anne Lang’s Emporium (and these look much much better in person than on screen):

Sunny Sequoias #35, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×6″, $60

Cabin Scene Continued

We last saw the cabin scene oil painting when I was confused about the conflicting light sources:

With each successive layer, cohesion and coherence gets restored. (Aren’t big words great?)

I’m still missing the details needed to confidently paint this side of the cabin. My photo is outdated, and I have word out to some people who might have the necessary visual information.

It is rather astonishing and somewhat disappointing to me that I don’t have the details of every cabin memorized. One would think as an artist. . . but one would be wrong.

I just bumble along like the rest of the world. So, enjoy a closer look at the left side of the painting. It might be finished, sort of, maybe, but then again, I might want to continue adding details.

That’s what pencil artists do with enough time when handed oil paints and tiny brushes.