Juried Show Coming Soon

After my post called “Juried Or Judged?”, one might have gotten the idea that I don’t participate in such shows. In general, I don’t. Lots of artists develop a following by entering shows all over the country, paying entry fees, shipping art, paying to have it boxed and shipped back, hoping for prizes, hoping for sales, and likely, ending up discouraged and poor.

I don’t enter shows that are far away. I am a Central California artist, specifically a Tulare County artist who takes great pleasure and pride in finding the best things of this place I’ve called home for 63 years. (We may not qualify for a Trader Joe’s or a university or even for litter-free pothole-patched roads, but we feed the world and don’t you forget it!)

When there are local shows with nominal or no entry fees, shows that aren’t too much trouble to enter, shows that will keep my work and name in the public eye (where old and new customers can find me, because I came here to earn a living), shows that seek the type of work that I do (realistic subjects based in Tulare County), then I might be interested.

Such a show is coming soon. Artists are allowed to enter 3 pieces. It is juried because they have both standards and limited space. 

The last time I entered this show, my work was small and placed in a dark corner, which did not do it any justice. Many years later, my work is larger, brightly colored, and I have 7 pieces that I want to enter. I don’t know how to decide which 3 to submit. 

Maybe some of these will sell before the show; that’ll help me decide.

What is your Central California artist going to do?? Stay tuned. . .

2023 Calendars Available Here, $20 inc. tax.

 

 

Dabbling, Puttering, Inching Forward

This is a scarf, knit for a friend. The colors reminded me of her, and I couldn’t decide between 2 different yarns, so I got both. It is really a dark burgundy, but both the camera and the computer lie.

None of our three cats are allowed indoors. Oops. Is that Pippin in the living room again?

Stop puttering and get to work!

I have two 10×20″ oil painting commissions to complete and mail before Christmas. This is tricky to accomplish unless I put down the camera, put down the knitting, and plant my feet in front of the easels.

It might be tricky anyway, because the photos are less than stellar, less than clear, and full of murky indiscernible things. 

After getting the beginnings of both those oil paintings accomplished, I retreated to the studio for a bit of forward motion on the commissioned pencil drawing.

Inching forward. . . 

Five New Little Orange Paintings

5×7″ oil paintings of navel oranges on panels, sitting on a mini wooden easel have been selling well at Exeter’s Mural Gallery. One sold, the buyer requested another, and the gallery asked for 2 more. Those sold immediately, and the gallery requested more.

You can see the beginnings here on this post from earlier in November. 

I painted five more, moved them into the house to dry, and forgot about them! They were on a piece of cardboard on top of a cabinet that was above my eye level. They were certainly dry enough to scan when I remembered them.

These sell for $60 each at Exeter’s Mural Gallery. They look better in person, because in spite of a good scanner, the colors are never quite right on the computer screen. (You might have heard that here before.)

Calendars

2023, Mineral King HIKES, still available here: Calendars

To see the back of the calendar, you will need to click on the link.

Better When Scanned

 

Completed Oil Paintings, Scanned as Promised

These are the recently painted oil paintings of Mineral King and Three Rivers scenes, along with some poinsettias.

Honeymoon Cabin I, 6×18″, $165

Mineral King Alpenglow, 6×6″, $65

Mineral King Nature Trail, 6×6″, $65

Still River at Sunset, 8×10″, $135, SOLD 

Summer Hill, 8×8″, $108

Alta & Moro After a Storm, 6×18″, $165

Poinsettia 1 and Poinsettia 2, 5×7″, BOTH SOLD

Calendars

2023, Mineral King HIKES, still available here: Calendars

Gotta keep that back hidden from The Most Faithful Blog Commenter so you will need to click on the link to see it. 

Painting Three Rivers

Did you think I forgot these paintings? Not a chance; I have a little bazaar coming on November 19 in Three Rivers and need some appropriate merchandise (besides just 2023 calendars and cards and coloring books.)

Did I think you forgot them? Not gonna let you forget—don’t worry your pretty little head about that.

One:

(Please, do not sing about this.)

It is now finished, drying, and awaiting a scan so you can see the colors more accurately. The title is Alta Peak/Moro Rock View. (Yes, I know it is brilliant and clever and original.)

Two:

Just a bunch of yellow grass couldn’t possibly take that long, could it?

Yes, it could and it is. It isn’t titled yet. Perhaps “Yellow Grass and Live Oaks” would be appropriately creative and original. . .

Three:

Mixing colors for this one has been fun. My paintings tend to be all greens, grays, and browns, or nothing but orange (poppies and oranges, over and over).

How about calling it “Three Indian Grindholes on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River in Three Rivers at Sunset”?

Nope. It is only an 8×10″ oil painting, so there isn’t enough room on the back of the canvas to write all that.

Part of the business of art is coming up with good titles. I’ve got some thinking to do.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Laurie!

 

Making Three Improvements

Improvements

I brought home the paintings from Silver City that didn’t sell over the summer. My good friend helped me evaluate them honestly. I need the opinions of honest good friends, regular people rather than Educated Artist Type people, because regular people are my customers.

First:

Remember this?

I redid it like this:

Immediately someone said, “I want that!” However, I know her pretty well, and she is a talker and a dreamer. It ain’t a sale until money exchanges hands, and no money exchanged hands. So, I added a flag.

I’m certain that was the missing element.

Second:

Why didn’t this sweet little 6×6″ of aspens along the Nature Trail sell?

Because it didn’t have wildflowers!! (After this photo, I repaired the big red blob and changed my signature back to white).

Three:

Why do I still have this little painting of alpenglow on Vandever?

Because it wants brighter colors and more detail, of course.

The business of art requires honesty, realistic looks at sales and what customers want.

P.S. They’ll look better when scanned, and even better in real life.

 

A Short Painting Session, 3 Photos of 2 Paintings

I was able to slip another hour or two of painting into my other responsibilities.

Using the leftover blue and gray sky colors, I mixed a bit more Distant Mountain Blues and Grays in order to detail the mountains on two paintings. Both of these paintings feature Moro Rock and Alta Peak, standard landmarks seen from many places in Three Rivers.

The colors look a bit off in this photo, so I carried it outside. Then the colors looked very wrong. Nope, this is not being painted for Disneyland’s Small World (and please do NOT start singing.)

This view of Alta Peak and Moro Rock is from Kaweah Lake in early winter. In this scene, the lake is low (and behind the viewer) and there is some snow in the mountains because winter hasn’t begun in earnest.

It appears that winter has begun in earnest early this year!

My colored pencil artist friend from Kansas, Carrie Lewis, requested a guest post for her blog on last Saturday, so I wrote of my experiment using colored pencils in Mineral King, A Plein-Air Experiment.

2 Photos of 4 Paintings in Progress

November is my busiest month, workwise. Commissions, selling the 2023 calendar, the Holiday Bazaar, supplying the places that sell my work, planning for some (maybe) murals, working with an author as we close in on a 5-year project* together (he is writing, I’m editing)  . . . 

So, I paint when I can fit it in, mostly in 1-3 hour sessions. 

It is necessary to be efficient in these sessions, so I do things like mix up some sky colors and then do just the skies on all four paintings of Three Rivers scenery.


But then I couldn’t stop listening to a certain song, so I kept hitting repeat and painted some mountains. It was a logical next step because I was able to mix those sky colors into Distant Mountain Blue (but not too distant).

I’d like to put a lot more detail into these mountains, and probably want to put as much detail as possible in the entire  picture. But for now, it is time to stop playing the song over and over and over. . . .

*The project began when the writer asked me for some illustrations in September 2017.  Here are three posts about those illustrations. One, Two, Three.

Sold in August, September, and October

Sequoia, citrus, Mineral King. . . all the usual subjects one would expect from an artist in Tulare County. However, I have heard Morro Bay referred to as “Visalia West”, so maybe the beach scene is Tulare Countyish. (I wish). The pomegranate is colored pencil, something I haven’t tried or sold in many years.

I try to show this in sizes that are proportionately relative to one another here; closies count.

Just because, here are links to previous posts of Sold art.

Sold in Summer

Sold in April and May

Sold in February and March

New and Improved

NEW

Here are three new oil paintings of oranges (thank you, Captain Obvious). Each one is 5×7″, on a board or panel, and comes with an easel for easy display on a shelf, $60, and available through the Mural Gallery in Exeter. (Actually, only two are available because one is spoken for, but I don’t know yet which one.)

IMPROVED

These two oil paintings of the Kaweah Post Office have been reworked, lighting corrected, detail added, fuss, fiddle, fix. The top one will go with me to the Holiday Bazaar (scroll down) at the Three Rivers Memorial Building on November 19 (unless it sells first, 6×12″, $125). The second one will return to Kaweah Arts for sale there: 8×10″, $125.

P.S. They always look better in person. I’ve decided to not embarrass myself again by showing you the “Before” version against the “After” version.