If we are around the same age, you might remember when going on vacation meant stopping the newspaper and having the post office hold one’s mail. Yesterday I returned from a week in Mineral King to 2 full answering machines, real mail at home, real mail in my P.O. Box AND a pile of email! Aren’t we supposed to be feeling the effects of technology simplifying our lives?
It was a working vacation, as you can see by all these little canvases drying on the back of the cabin. More came later, but this is all you get to see for now. Something new is coming, and as usual, more will be revealed!
The List
To make a oil painting here is what I have to do:
- paint it to establish the shapes and colors and get the canvas covered
- repaint it more carefully
- paint it again
- put in the tiny details
- name, number and record it on 2 lists
- sign it after it dries
- photograph it
- add a wire
- enter it on the computer and do all the prep to post it on the blog and on the website
- add it to the website
- varnish it
Did I hear someone say “charge more!”? Nah, not until I can’t paint fast enough to meet the demand. There is this bad economy happening out there (hard to see the difference here in Tulare County yet), and I want to be able to offer people a good deal! Currently I have 12 paintings in some stage of this process. This one is waiting to dry so it can be signed. 
Honeymoon Cabin III – oil – 8″ x 10″ – $80 
Just for fun, this is the first picture I posted on my blog. It was called Honeymoon Cabin II (note the maximum creativity in the titling process). It appears that perhaps my abilities to paint and to photograph my paintings have improved!
While it is raining
The rain means that I paint at home instead of on The Wall. It is a little hard to mix colors accurately, but I will bravely soldier on. Here are three finished pieces.
Poppies VIII – oil – 6×6″ – $36
Sawtooth II – oil – 11×14″ – $154
Yes, you have already seen this Sawtooth but now it is really finished. (I might be the only one who can tell the difference, or maybe Sharon can too because she even knew where I was standing in this view!)
Flexible schedule
Guess what?? We projected the mural tonight and it is ready to paint!!! Had to, because it is going to rain on Thursday and Friday. Look! There were some tall young men who were very very helpful – Jarson, Joshua (I think that was Mr. Blue Shirt’s name!) and Jared, who is one of my drawing students. That is Mickey securing the ladder with his foot.
Betsy can draw well – she has been helping me on this project from Day One and got the entire event organized at the last moment today! 
These guys look like clowns, but Bill is the president of the Mural Team who changed his schedule to get ready this evening on a moments notice, and Larry? he pushed the scaffolding along real well!
These are the official Mineral King Consultants who made sure everything looked accurate. Good thing they were here and noticed that everything was getting smaller and lower instead of larger and higher! (that projection method has some weak points.) 
The maquette (model painting) was a great help to correct for projector distortion and verifying accuracy. 
And this is the final panel of the 10 required to cover the entire wall. Unfortunately, there is about 5 feet of wall remaining on the left side, so tomorrow I will be looking through photographs to decide how to fill that space! All that planning and still a bit of a gap – flexible schedule, flexible design!