Oops, I Forgot, Chapter Five

The idea was to show you all the paintings in my solo show at CACHE, one per day here on the blog, for the duration of the show. But, I forgot to show you all the paintings of Three Rivers! Today’s painting is the final in the “Oops, I Forgot” series.

MISSING PAINTING #5

Rachel’s Lake View, oil on wrapped canvas, 20×24″, $1300

It is available on my website store. Here is the link and the price here includes sales tax. (If you live out of state and want to buy the painting, just email me and I’ll sort it out for you.)

This painting is from a perfect photo taken by my friend and drawing student, Rachel on the way home from her job in Three Rivers. Lake Kaweah, Kaweah Lake, I never remember the real name, because around here we simply call it The Lake.

Oops, I Forgot, Chapter Four

The idea was to show you all the paintings in my solo show at CACHE, one per day here on the blog, for the duration of the show. But, I forgot to show you all the paintings of Three Rivers!

MISSING PAINTING #4

Comb Rocks in the Distance, oil on wrapped canvas, 10×10″, $216

It is available on my website store. Here is the link. and the price here includes sales tax. (If you live out of state and want to buy the painting, just email me and I’ll sort it out for you.)

This painting is from several photos taken on the BLM land, sometimes called “Case Mountain”, sometimes called “Salt Creek” in Three Rivers. Those craggy rocks are visible from many places in Three Rivers, appropriately named Comb Rocks because they resemble the comb on a rooster.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Trail Guy!!

Oops, I Forgot, Chapter Three

The idea was to show you all the paintings in my solo show at CACHE, one per day here on the blog, for the duration of the show. But, I forgot to show you all the paintings of Three Rivers!

MISSING PAINTING #3

Salt Creek Falls, oil on wrapped canvas, 16×20″, $650

It is available on my website store. Here is the link, and the price on the website includes sales tax, which is why it is higher than shown here. (If you live out of state and want to buy the painting, just email me and I’ll sort it out for you.)

This painting is from several photos taken on the BLM land, sometimes called “Case Mountain”, sometimes called “Salt Creek” in Three Rivers.

Oops, I Forgot, Chapter Two

The idea was to show you all the paintings in my solo show at CACHE, one per day here on the blog, for the duration of the show.

I told you about my virtual friend named Elisabeth, who posted a beautiful photo on her blog that reminded me of two of my paintings. Here is today’s missing painting, for you, Elisabeth (and my tens of other readers).

MISSING PAINTING #2

Take Me Home. . ., oil on wrapped canvas, 16×20″, $650

It is available on my website store. Here is the link, and the price on the website includes sales tax, which is why it is higher than shown here. (If you live out of state and want to buy the painting, just email me and I’ll sort it out for you.)

This painting is from several photos taken on the upper North Fork Road in Three Rivers.

Architecture at Asilomar

Many of the buildings at Asilomar were designed by Julia Morgan, the architect best known for designing the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. She is also known for many fine buildings in Berkeley, AND a building at the Springville Hospital (for TB) here in Tulare County, now torn down due to earthquake standards.

Pencil drawing of Wayside at the Springville Hospital

Roomie and I were assigned a room in The Stuck-up Inn.

Our room was shockingly small for two people and all the painting gear. The room assignments were a mystery, because some of the people who paid for a single room had rooms that were much larger. Weird.

It had rooms around a central courtyard, where I sat to paint one afternoon after I had a fight with my easel.

I thoroughly enjoyed the living room each morning before the sun came up. It was a place to be alone (so thankful no one else thought of hanging out there!), to stretch, to read, and to experience some solitude before taking a pre-breakfast walk at (or on) the beach and joining the teeming mass of painters.

In spite of the space limitations, I was completely charmed by the age and the details of the building. As Roomie said, it forced us to spend more time out painting. I was very thankful for the fact that we were so compatible.

Crocker Dining Hall
Main building/lodge/office/etc.

Next time, I will show you photos of the sunrises and other things that caught my attention in this week of painting in Monterey.

Meanwhile, back to reality:

Big Oak Tree

Did you know that Tulare County is home to the largest oaks in the country? The valley oak, quercus lobata is not what this big oak tree is. I found this tree somewhere along Dry Creek Road. I didn’t get close enough to know what kind, but I can tell by the shape that this isn’t a valley oak. It is unusually perfect, almost symmetrical, and all without ever having been pruned (except when cattle chew on the lower leaves.)

Sky and distant ridge.
Distant waves of wildflowers, closer blades of grass.
Added wildflowers, a rock, more blades of grass and a few limbs because I couldn’t wait to get to that tree.
Details in the grass, another rock, and details in the dirt.
Finally started on the tree.
Am I finished? Time will tell.

Once it is dry, I will sign it, paint the edges, and either photograph or scan it, so you can see it with its brighter and more accurate colors.

One of Tulare County’s Pretty Places

Remember seeing this 16×20″ mess first layer?

I think it will be a good one. I combined about 4 photos on Photoshop Junior* to see if my version of this scene was better than reality and concluded that yes, indeedy it is, or it will be if I can execute it with excellence.

Let’s go!

I am choosing to not show the beginning photos for a couple of reasons.

  1. I don’t want any input as to whether or not I have chosen the correct elements in the correct sizes and placements. Sometimes I do want input; this time I do not; that could change. . .
  2. I want you all to judge the painting on its own merits rather than whether or not I can accurately copy a photograph.

Phooey. I can see 3 shapes that look wrong right now. “Wrong” in that they don’t look fully natural or believable, because I am only judging this painting of one of Tulare County’s pretty places on its own merits, not while looking at any photos.

*Photoshop Elements is the “easy” version of Photoshop.

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?

A Little Painting on a Big Painting

 

English is a strange language. In the title, the first “painting” is a verb; the second one is a noun. This makes for a fun title, and perhaps it incites a bit of curiosity on the part of you, O Blog Reader.

I painted “Yokohl Oak” in 2020 and showed it in two separate solo gallery shows. People liked it, particular local bike riders, who told me, “Hey, that’s the Bike Tree!” To me it was simply a beautiful oak tree along Yokohl Drive, and I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to recognize it if I drove past it again.

Alas, it didn’t sell. I put it in the 3 other galleries that regularly and steadily sell my work, and it didn’t sell. One astute friend told me it was lacking in my normal amount of detail. Really?? This looks excessively well-detailed to me.

Oh. He meant on the tree itself. It is too smooth for an oak tree. My drawing students agreed when I took it back home for a touch-up. I often run things past them, because they always tell me the truth. Besides, it lets me know if I am teaching them to be discerning, to truly see things accurately.

This got called “The Bike Tree” by a few different people, so I figured I’d just go with that theme.

Then I started adding more texture to the bark on the tree.

After that, I tried to photograph it.

The light was wrong, making shiny spots and making the color wrong. I rotated it multiple ways, cropped it, edited it with the photo program on the laptop, and finally decided it will have to wait to be photographed another time. 

In the meantime, this is the new and improved “Yokohl Oak”, after I did a little painting on this big (24×24″) painting.

P.S. Yokohl is the name of a valley in the foothills just east of Exeter in Tulare County. For awhile, there were big plans to turn the area into a self-contained town, but the combination of local protests and drought shut that down.

If you came here for Mineral King news and are disappointed, you can check the Mineral King website to see if anything new has been posted.

 

Painting a Frugal Pear

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

What is a “frugal pear”?

So glad you asked.

I regularly read a blog titled The Frugal Girl. In April she posted a beautiful photo of a perfect pear. I asked her permission to paint it, which she graciously granted. 

Even though I often tell you that this is an art business and I have to paint the things that customers and potential customers will be interested in, occasionally there is an irresistible picture or subject, and I cave in.

One layer of paint would be very frugal, but I can do better. I signed it prematurely, but I was able to add another layer and preserve the signature.

Frugal Pear, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $65 (plus sales tax if you live in CA and shipping if we aren’t traveling in the same circles.)