Seven New Oil Paintings, Assembly-line Style

When Kaweah Arts closed in early January for a couple of months, I retrieved all my paintings. Kaweah Arts sold well for me in its three year span despite serious hardships: a plague, a fire, another fire, and a flood, each one leading to the closure of Sequoia National Park, which meant the flow of visitors to Three Rivers ceased. I went through my records of sales, and came up with a list of sizes and subjects that sold the best.

The average price was $145, and the most popular subject was sequoia trees, Sequoia gigantea, AKA redwoods (the common name) or “big trees” (local vernacular). Two other popular subjects were mountain range views and poppies.

I gathered seven blank canvases from 8×8″ ($100) up to 6×18″ ($165) and then went to my oh-so-lovely newly organized photo files. The efficiency. . .!

After pairing the photos with the right canvases, I then did some preliminary sketching. This isn’t something I normally do, but in the interest of painting quickly, this seemed like a prudent move. (Remember, I also need to produce 20-30 larger paintings for the solo show in October AND paint for the Silver City Store, which sells well for me in the summers when Mineral King is open to the public.)

Next, I did the boring tasks of assigning inventory numbers, and putting the hanging hardware on the back. (This is the sort of task that makes me wish I had an apprentice or an intern.)

All-righty, then! Let’s start with the assembly line style painting of the first layer to establish where colors will go and to cover the canvas.

Painting back to front means starting with the sky. The order of colors and placements doesn’t really matter at this stage, but it is wise to practice good habits whenever possible.
Green next, just using whatever is on the palette, but occasionally making dark/light adjustments.
Browns and oranges, same color family, plus yellow.

Looks like seven little messes that vaguely suggest what they will become, but with almost 18 years of oil painting, this is no longer alarming to me.

I hope you are not alarmed either. This is the most efficient way I know to paint, and these seven paintings will be finished, signed, dry, varnished, and scanned by the time Kaweah Arts reopens in March.

It’s all part of the business of art. (Just in case the Art World is checking in and judging my use of photos, let me explain that I took great care in composing those photos and have taken great care in cropping, blending, adjusting, and arranging the parts of each one of these paintings. So There, because working from photos is not wrong.)

Bumbling Along With One, Almost Finishing Another, and Finishing a Third

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.

Before
After

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.

A Nameless Rose Painting in Seven Steps

Step one: Slap some paint in the approximately correct colors in the approximately correct shapes and sizes on a 6×6 canvas: Outline, background, interior parts.

Step two: Detail the background but not too carefully because the rose is the star here. Just hint around at leafy shapes, using darks and darkers to suggest lots of greens.

Step three: Start on the rose, putting in the darkest areas of shadow that helps to shape the petals. (Pay no attention to the painting behind it on the easel, because I am not . . . I’m doing some productive procrastination here. )

Step four: work from the outermost petals inward. (Why? Because I am the boss of my painting and this makes sense to me.) You can see that I rotated the 6″ canvas so that I could visually follow the tip of my brush. This is called “drawing”; it’s how I paint details. The arrows show you the petals I worked on (so does the glare of wet paint) working from the outermost petals inward. (Why? Because I am the boss of my painting.)

Step five: Paint more petals, continuing from the outside toward the center.

Step six: work on the center with a tiny brush.

Step seven: touch up the lighter parts for more of a glow, and sign it.

There are more steps: let it dry, scan it, spray varnish so the shiny parts (with extra walnut oil to make the paint obey me) won’t stand out, give it a title.

Rose, By Any Other Name, No Thorns, Floral Perfection, Gordon’s Rose, any other ideas for this painting??

Hopeful Beginning and Messy Middle

If you receive this in your email and want to see the photos, click on the title.

When I begin a new painting, there is a sense of “oh boy, this is going to be great!”

When I am in the middle of a painting that doesn’t seem to be improving, I encourage myself that when I can add the details, it will improve. It’s just the Messy Middle.

Here is a look at a hopeful beginning: this is a rose grown by my brother-in-law that just slayed me with its beauty. I took a photo thinking it might be helpful to one of my drawing students, but then I was captivated, captured, mesmerized, gone-zo. (See? hopeful!)

While I worked on it, the painting of the road hovered and lurked in the background, grousing, “What about me? When is it my turn again? HEY, Central California Artist, aren’t you supposed to be getting me ready for a show? Hunh, hunh?”

It was sideways on the easel so that I could visually follow the tip of my brush for more accuracy. I flipped the photo back vertical so you won’t hurt your neck.

Layer by layer, leaf by leaf, branch by branch, I think it is getting better.

Finished and Unfinished

Yesterday we saw two brand new paintings on the easels, looking like they’ll never get finished. Eventually most paintings do. Layer after layer, keep studying, figuring out what to do next and how to improve it every time I pick up the brushes.

Today we will see some finished and some unfinished paintings.

This is how the bright fruit painting has settled into its new home.

This is a good showing of the progression of my colored art: First I worked in colored pencil, then I practiced mixing colors by painting many pomegranates. Now I get a real kick out of mixing all colors, combining lots of photos, and just pantsing it on the canvas.

The new fruit painting for my friend/customer is completed, signed, and moved into the house for drying.

This is in the painting workshop just before I moved it into the house. I am very happy with this one and glad I did a new painting for my friend rather than just messing with the older one by changing some of the fruits.

There are three unfinished pieces waiting for attention.

I was hoping to keep this when it is finished, but I will put it in the 2024 show and it WILL be for sale. (I can always paint another one of my favorite type of subject.)
This one has had several do-overs and a very long time-out; I’m still not convinced that I can do the subject justice but I will continue to try.
First, the wire needs to be moved. Then I will commence to draw lots of golden colored ferns.

All of these paintings started out as the same sort of vague mess as the ones we looked at yesterday. Nevuh nevuh nevuh give up.

Beginning Two New Paintings

Here is a look at two new paintings, begun for the solo show in October of 2024. Seems very far away, but it takes awhile to paint enough pieces to fill a gallery on one’s own. I have about 30 available (several unfinished but in progress which I will show you tomorrow) so I need to paint another 10-20 pieces. I’m thinking 20 is better, because I paint small. Even when I think it is HUGE, such as 18×24 which feels ENORMOUS and takes FOREVER, it looks like a postage stamp in a gallery.

This one is 16×20. I can’t find the photo on my computer, don’t remember where or when I took this, and can’t really discern the details on the little photograph.

So why bother? It has wonderful light and the road pulls the viewer in.

It will involve some “artistic license”, and I will focus on the contrast between light and shadow. Slow layer after slow layer, lots of thinking and evaluating—that will be the process on this one.

I decided to do something different with something familiar, using a 10×30″ canvas that I had on hand. The sizes of canvas on hand often dictates what I paint. If it isn’t a tried and true subject, I keep the painting small. This is a tried and true subject, even if you can’t tell what it is at this early stage.

Can you recognize what this mess is?

Lots of painting ahead for your Central California artist as she plans the best way to show off the parts of Tulare County that keep her from moving to the beach. (As if she could afford that; besides, she’d miss Trail Guy.)

Feeling Fruity Around Here

Feeling fruity around here lately. A month or 2 ago, I painted this to decorate a banquet for a citrus marketing outfit.

A friend who has bought more of my paintings than anyone else saw this. She said, “If it doesn’t sell at the event, I want it!”

I took the painting to her, and she said, “I’ve been thinking. . . could you change one of these to a pomegranate? And include both kinds of persimmons?”

I said, “Sure, I can do that!”

Then I brought it home, thought it over, and decided to do a new piece for her. I dug through my fruit photos, looking carefully at the lighting and angles. Then, unlike my normal approach, I drew it out.

This is going to be good—colorful and well planned.

The other fruit painting I recently painted as a gift, I did without any real planning. I just pantsed it, trying this and that with paint, having fun with color.

I like it, and so does the recipient. Yeah, yeah, it probably would have been better to plan it. Sometimes I just rebel.

P.S. Good thing I painted a new one because the original, Citrus Row, sold at CACHE’s Holiday Fair!

Bright Fruit and Sequoia Trees on the Easels

After a chunk of time away from the easels, I was very happy to return.

First I got to finish the fruit painting that will be a gift. (I will be GIVING it, not “gifting” it.)

This is wet, photographed here in the box I used to carry it into the house to dry.

I started this quite awhile ago, working from a photo shared with me by one of my drawing students. The ferns had been nipped by frost, turning them golden.

Although I am working from a photo, I am rearranging the trees. Here is a photo of the photo, which I am looking at on my laptop while painting.

My hope is to make those ferns perfect. Just perfect. But there is lots to be painted before I get there.

The new paintings won’t be at the Gift Fair but there will be plenty of merchandise to choose from.

Best or Worst Critic?

“You are your own worst critic” is something I hear from time to time. That is actually a positive trait, because who else is going to be completely honest to help me improve my work?

Today’s post is one to help me think about how to make this painting be the best possible. This painting is a conglomeration of a stack of many photos, in an attempt to make it the most colorful that I can.

These are my thoughts as I study the painting:

  1. The two pomegranates look good, which makes sense because I’ve painted many pomegranates.
  2. The orange needs a bit more brightening.
  3. The tangerine is a good idea, but doesn’t look quite right; maybe it is Sumo, maybe a mineola tangelo. (Are those even grown anymore?)
  4. The hidden plum is a little weird with that highlight–maybe it should just go dark.
  5. The upper left plum looks almost finished, only lacking some highlighting on the left side.
  6. The grapes need more variety in their color, along with highlights on the left edges.
  7. The lemon needs better color, highlights on the left, detail in the stem. (I took away the shading from a previous iteration because the light source was on the wrong side.)
  8. The persimmon looks too red here, but that might be the way it photographed. Worth checking. It needs detail in the green thingie, called a “sepal”, and the green is wrong.
  9. Both pears need detail; the yellow one has been shrunk and only has a base coat, and the green one lost its freckles.
  10. The peach needs fuzz and it needs those ghost grapes to get buried.
  11. It won’t take long to finish the apple.
  12. The background needs the glow to be more subtle so it doesn’t look like a halo around the plum and grapes.

Good thing there is no deadline on this. It’s a great exercise in making things up and keeping them believable. It is also a great exercise in patience, in reining in my natural bent to git-‘er-dun. So much in life is better when we see it as an opportunity to learn rather than a nuisance.

Here you can see I improved the background, light on the upper plum and grapes, the tangerine, persimmon sepal, the flower ends of the pomegranates (in spite of thinking they were finished), the green apple. Of course, it is wet and shiny so doesn’t photograph well.

Perhaps I am my own best critic, rather than worst critic?

Great Western Divide

The Great Western Divide is the name given to the ridge of peaks seen from the top of Moro Rock in the Sierra Nevada. On this side, water drains west and on the other side, it drains east .

I haven’t painted this before, at least not from this view. The mountains show in the distance of many of my citrus/foothills/mountain scenes, but only once did I try to make them perfect. And that was tricky, because I worked from many photos, piecing the range together, and then faking the hills.

Why did I fake the hills? Because they were different in every single photo, because each photo was taken from a different place. There is no place besides an aircraft where you can see the entire width of the Sierra Nevada.

Here we go. . .

At the end of the painting session, the light was a bit too low to be accurate on both the colors and the shapes.

So, I photographed it the next morning in the bright sunlight. Looks washed out because the wet paint is reflective.

When it is dry, I will scan it, and then, as always, I will tell you it looks better in person.

The Great Western Divide, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×12″, $125.