Your Central California artist is either lazy or tired this summer and only taking walks, not hikes. However, Trail Guy is picking up the slack and because of him, we can see Mineral King today.
Who Knew It Would Be This Hard To Paint?
This painting is called “Mineral King Morning”. I remember the light, the sound of the wind, the feel of the air. I thought this painting said it. It hasn’t sold, and people don’t really notice it.
I paint better now. I hope I paint better now. I hope I paint better every time I’m at the easels.
So, I retouched it, changed some colors a little, added a bit more detail.
I can’t tell any difference on the screen here. Maybe I’ll scan it again.
Who knew it would be this hard to paint?? I probably had an inkling, but usually enjoy a challenge and knew it was a good decision. Maybe. It may be the computer end of things that is the real challenge.
New and Improved Farewell Gap
Last year I did an oil painting of a standard Mineral King scene, Farewell Gap. It didn’t sell.
No big deal. I took it to shows and put it on my website. It didn’t sell.
What gives? I took it back to the Silver City Store this year and everything has sold so far except that painting.
Finally, I showed it to my friend Tall Cathy, who has been going to Mineral King her entire life, which is about 10 years longer than my life, plus she started at an earlier age. (i.e. Tall Cathy is a bona fide Mineral King Expert.) I asked her, “What’s wrong with this painting?”
She said, “Little Florence is too low”.
I said, “Shoot. I was afraid of that. Guess I’ll take it back to the studio and redo it.”
Little Florence is the peak on the left side of Farewell Gap, and it is lower than Vandever, which is the peak on the right side. Sometimes when you see it from a place other than the bridge, it looks very much lower. With 20,713 photos on my computer, I’m not going to look for the exact one I used for the painting. You can see the concept here:
Aside from the fact that normal people don’t lie in the grass to take photos, this is not the normal way that normal people view when they normally view Farewell Gap from the bridge. (There – have I successfully destroyed the word “normal” for you?)
Here it is in its new and improved version. Last year I photographed my paintings. This year I scan them. The color isn’t true either way. Look at the heights of the peaks – this is more of what people expect when they think of Farewell Gap.
Do you agree with this?
Somebody Went to Mineral King
But it wasn’t me because I was drawing The Cabins of Wilsonia. (I know not to begin a sentence with the word “but”. Thanks for your concern about my writing skills.)
And the weird spot on my camera is not there this time!! (Sometimes things do fix themselves, contrary to what my auto mechanic says.) I think this would make a wonderful painting, should I ever finish drawing The Cabins of Wilsonia.
No, this is not a weird spot. It is Trail Guy, happy to be retired, happy to be in Mineral King, happy to be eating lunch.
This is not the Trackster. It is a Pisten Bully. (I am not making this name up.) It is how Trail Guy and Ted got to Mineral King. Ted is in uniform. He is not retired. He gets paid to do the heavy lifting. Trail Guy is just an unpaid volunteer who happens to have tremendous equipment operating skills and experience. Please Ted, don’t run over Trail Guy’s lunch box. (It has happened, but it wasn’t Ted. He might not have been born yet.)
I Paint Better Now
See what I mean?
This was the largest painting I had ever done back when I did it. Can’t remember, but I think it was in 2007, after I’d been oil painting for about one year. I thought it was mighty fine indeed. This year I took a long hard critical look at it and came to the conclusion that I paint better now.
Maybe it is just my opnion, or maybe it is true. Regardless, it is my goal to invoke the same feeling one gets while sitting on the bridge in Mineral King and looking at Farewell Gap. I think this painting is closer to that. Here, I’ll make them smaller so they can be side-by-side.
“Better” is a somewhat subjective term. Perhaps it is more modest and honest to say that I like my work better now. It has more detail. I like detail.
Frankly, I am too chicken to ask for your opinions today!
Cluck-cluck.
Painting Farewell Gap Again
Are you asking yourself why I keep showing you the same scene, Farewell Gap, over and over again? I’m asking myself that question. The answer is that I keep painting the same scene over and over. The paintings are never identical, because that would be impossible.
- Farewell Gap XII, 8×10″, oil on wrapped canvas, $90, available at the Silver City Store AKA Silver City Resort
This isn’t the replacement version for the one that burned, but it is.
Oh please, what is with the doublespeak?
Whenever a painting sells at the Silver City Store, I rush to paint another one to sell. The selling season is very short at that location, and I can’t be lollygagging around. I painted this because Farewell Gap X sold.
Nice creative name, California Artist.
Oh hush. It is my way of painting series. If you stop being so snotty to me, maybe I will show you the progression of paintings of this subject.
Why do you think we’d want to see that?
‘Cuz it is interesting to see growth. Then you can gloat at how horrible I used to paint and ask me for a refund or a redo of the paintings you bought from my “primitive” stage.
But what is with the doublespeak?
Farewell Gap X sold, then it burned up in a cabin fire. I am painting Farewell Gap XI to replace Farewell Gap X for the survivors of the fire, and Farewell Gap XII replaced the sold piece in the store.
Alllll-righty then.
Is There An Echo In Here??
What is the visual equivalent of an echo? A shadow? A reflection, perhaps. . .
Is there a reflection in this studio? A reflection of Mineral King, to be exact? Because I see an awful lot of Mineral King Oil Paintings drying on your wall!
Seems that way. Mineral King is de ja vu all over again.
Same scene, different viewpoints.
Same bridge twice, different paint jobs, different directions.
Same cabin, different times of day, different times of year.
Same place, favorite view, over and over and over. Mineral King oil paintings, on miles and miles of canvas. Mineral King, Farewell Gap, over and over and over. Instead of the California artist, I am the Mineral King artist. Perhaps I should change my tagline in this blog.
Nope. Oranges and poppies don’t grow in Mineral King.
Are you tired of this view yet? (that question is for you, the reader, not me, the California Artist!) Tell me about it here.
Memorial Day Weekend in Mineral King
Wow. Mineral King on Memorial Day weekend has a reputation for being cold. It was 27 degrees much of the time. I’m not making this up. Here, see eleven photos with an occasional comment. (What? you expected me not to have an opinion??)
Loved the backpacks collecting sunshine beneath the flag. We always fly the flag when we are at the cabin. It is a Mineral King tradition, and we are just following suit, because, well, lots of reasons.
The sunshine was short lived. It turned to rain. Very cold rain.
The next morning I looked out the window at this view. “Hey Honey, you going riding?”
“Uh, no, gotta find some firewood so we can keep warm and make coffee.”
“Okay, I’ll just stay inside and look out the window and load up the wood stove and the fireplace and take photos out of the window and dream of summer.”
- Mineral King cabin
I did take a brief walk. Very brief.
That’s Retired Road Guy and Cowboy Bert
Then the sun came out and it was still cold!
Sunshine on my flag!
Did you spend Memorial Day weekend in a memorable manner with a flag?
What you want to see
After I got over the thrill of drawing what was really in front of my eyes, I began to want to make better pictures. Real life is messy; artists get to clean it up. It takes practice to draw what isn’t really there, to make up a tree that you didn’t see, to show the edge of the porch that was previously hidden, to work from multiple photos taken from slightly different angles. It is almost impossible to work from photos taken at different times of day from different distances and at different angles. This often requires the skill of a mind reader, and I have learned to say no to some of these requests. But to a certain degree, I can create what we prefer was there.
When someone asks me to draw a house and provides a perfect photo, I have been known to ask why they want a drawing when the photo says it all. The answer is usually that pencil is so beautiful. This is a thrill to my little pencil-loving heart!
Here is the main photo of Farewell Gap again:
Here is a painting in which I scooted things ever so slightly to suit myself.
If you are standing on the bridge at the end of the road in Mineral King, you are probably just in awe of the view. Your brain knows there is a stream underfoot, a cabin sort of close, and Farewell Gap in the distance. Not very many people outside of careful photographers ever realize that there is no place to stand where all three line up for a complete photo! So, when I draw or paint this scene now, I make the necessary adjustments. Until this blog posting, I have never admitted such treachery and deception in recordable form!
And here it is in pencil from 2005 when I really started becoming bold about deceiving the world! (yes, I exaggerate to make a point – try not to get all worked up here!)
What You Really See
As we learn to put on paper what we really see instead of our symbols, it is shocking to learn how much is really there and how it is really shaped or sized. Drawing upside down is one tool; tracing the basic elements and only looking at the tracing instead of the photo is another tool. Another way to simplify what is in front of our eyes is to squint, and the detail fades.
You saw an example of Farewell Gap as it was interpreted by someone who didn’t see or chose to ignore reality. Here is a drawing I did of Farewell Gap a long time ago when I was still bound to photos. It was such a thrill to put on paper exactly what I saw that I didn’t have any interest in editing or creating. I was lost in the joy of “I CAN DO THIS!”
This is not the actual photo from which I worked – 1994 is too long ago for me to be able to put my hands on that exact piece of paper! However, here is the photo of Farewell Gap for comparison purposes: