oil paintings | Cabin Art

A Fun Day at the Easels

As a pencil artist, with drawing as my first artistic love, a fun day at the easels for me is when I finally get to the stage where I am able to “draw” with my paintbrushes. This is considered a bad thing in the Art World; all I can think of to respond to that is that the Art World is missing out. So there.

But I am not missing out. If I persist, persevere and nevah nevah nevah* give up, I finally get to draw with my paintbrushes so that my paintings look like MY paintings and not something I picked up from an internet video.

This one still needs work, but now I can work on it without gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw.

SHHH, REMEMBER THIS ONE IS A SURPRISE.

What does this need (besides better photos with more visual information)?

Gotta** see those angles correctly, not drag my hand through the wet paint, and be able to see the tip of my brush in order to draw well.

Closing in on it. . . one more session ought to do the trick.

Tucker is a bit indifferent to paintings but would like to know if there will be treats soon.

Finally, I am pulling out all the stops with this one, painting it because I want to, not because it is a commission or because there might be a market for it. If is sells, fine, but if not, it will be exactly at home in my kitchen. There is no deadline, but I have to be careful to not lose momentum, lose heart and then lose interest. These are some of the risks to working alone at home, away from the Art World, but risks I’m willing to take.

Just living on the edge. . .

*This is something that Winston Churchill is reported to have said. He meant “never”, but being a Brit, he pronounced it “nevah”, just like Anthony Hopkins.

**”Gotta” is a word like “prolly” and “liberry” – fun to say, funny to write, and perhaps a teensy bit worrisome to the reader about the validity and authority of the writer.

I’ve shown you all twelve paintings at Anne Lang’s Emporium; if you want one and don’t want to drive to Three Rivers, let me know and we can work out the details (such as Paypal or a check in the mail, the Postal Service to you. . .)

Creeping Incrementalism

“Creeping incrementalism” sounds like the frog in the frying pan. In the case of this Central California artist, it is the way I am currently approaching paintings. Maybe if I just paint in increments, telling myself along the way that I can just do a little and quit any time, then at least a bit of progress will happen.

Whattsa matta??

Sometimes I don’t want to paint. I’d rather be in the house knitting or in the studio drawing or in the yard raking leaves. If I approach work with the attitude of Just Do A Little For Now, then maybe I’ll get involved and forget that I don’t want to be there.

Why don’t I want to paint? This might be a question for a licensed therapist, or a life coach, or a sympathetic friend to figure out. Never mind for now. Let’s have a look at paintings that are improving in small creeping increments. (Creeping? Why this word??)

The Cabin Scene (shhhh, it is a surprise!) a commissioned oil painting

The sky has been retouched, the mountains and distant forests too. (The colors are a lot different due to the lighting on an overcast day.)

With a new photo of the cabin, even though the shutters were closed and there is snow on the ground, I was able to determine the placement of details.

The Citrus Row, which obviously needs a better name.

You can see that I am not locked in by the photo. And maybe you can see that maybe I should be locked in by the photo. Maybe just locked in. Or locked up?

Geraniums, because I like this

It has been so long since I began this that I forgot about the actual physical photos and instead was painting off my computer screen.

The power went out once, it was sort of too dark to see when it came back on, and I just started making things up. Prolly time to put away the brushes for the day, eh?

Today’s featured painting at Anne Lang’s Emporium (and these look much much better in person than on screen):

Sunny Sequoias #35, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×6″, $60

citrus art commission oil painting oil paintings

Told You So

Last week I told you that I don’t like the pumpkin painting in progress. Paintings in progress aren’t often inspirational, but this one didn’t seem hopeful at all. Something about the arrangement of things or the colors just wasn’t ringing my bell.

A friend brought us a bag of various citrus fruits. It was an AHA! moment for me, so I arranged them on the kitchen table in various formations. (This could be worthy of several paintings.)

It is both a relief and a weird feeling to scribble over the top of a painting that is getting close to completion.

Scribble scribble like a bumpkin, who’s that scribbling on my pumpkin?

The color of the actual fruit is much nicer than appears on the photo and on screen.

This is going to work. . . told you so!

Today’s Anne Lang’s Emporium featured painting

Redwood-Dogwood, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×6″, $60

citrus art oil paintings

Layered Pumpkins

Does “layered pumpkins” sound like a recipe? I guess it is a recipe for an oil painting, but I still don’t know if the efforts will be worth the finished result. Instead of trying to get this painting finished in one delusional pass over the canvas, I am building it up layer by layer. This is because I am making some stuff up and don’t know what I am trying to accomplish.

Here are the steps so far:

I started with a blue background because blue is the complementary color of orange and I thought it would be brilliant and beautiful.

I changed my mind and decided a dull grayish-blue would make the pumpkins look better.

Then it became apparent that the only thing to make the pumpkins look better is to work on them. In this series of photos, you might be able to see that I have worked on the pumpkins one at a time, working from left to right across the canvas. By the last photo, everything is wet and reflective, making it hard to appreciate the strong colors.

I don’t like this painting. Why not? Dunno. Can’t decide. It will need to enter an extended time-out so I can either mull it over or decide to just turn it into something else.

Maybe I’ll just start a new painting, this time of a subject that suits me better.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . .

P.S. Today’s painting at Anne Lang’s Emporium (AND TIME IS PASSING QUICKLY FOR YOU TO EXPERIENCE HER FANTASTIC TURKEY MELT SANDWICH – DELI CLOSES DEC. 1, SO HURRY HURRY, I’M NOT KIDDING!!)

Mineral King III, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×10″, $125

oil paintings

Two Different Approaches, One Similar Result

Layering in multiple painting sessions? Or pushing wet paint around in minimal painting sessions? Does it matter?

Texture on the distant forest. I just make this stuff up because real life is much too messy to duplicate.

Trying to be careful with color and light placement means paying attention to detail instead of saying, “Oh well, I’ll catch it on the next layer.”

Okay, let’s just git-‘er-dun.

Sunny Sequoias #35, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60 + Calif. sales tax

And here is the one that I completed in 2 layers.

Sunny Sequoias #34, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, SOLD

No matter the method, the Sequoia Gigantea trees get painted convincingly on 6×6″ canvases, and eventually they will sell for $60 each (plus tax, because it cost a ton of money for California to pay for its wildfires.)

The other challenge is getting the photo/scan on screen to look the same as the painting looks in person. (WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE? I NEED PEOPLE FOR THIS!)

P.S. Today’s painting at Anne Lang’s Emporium

Sunny Sequoias XXX, oil on wrapped canvas, 6×6″, $60

P.S. TODAY’S FEATURED ANNE LANG’S EMPORIUM PAINTING

Oak Grove Bridge XXV, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $60

oil paintings Sequoia painting

Two Different Approaches

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATHRYN!! (It is today, yes. . .??)

I am a pencil artist. With the exception of portraits, I am able to draw almost anything in a manner which pleases both me and my customers. I love to draw.

Oil painting is much more difficult for me to achieve the results I want. I could quit a painting at almost any stage, and my paintings would fit someone’s idea of a decent piece of artwork. But I think my customers, collectors, friends and blog readers expect a certain level from me.

(Art is so subjective – good, bad, mediocre, genius, or why bother?. . . “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.)

I prefer realism, combined with great light, accurate details, attractive colors (as opposed to repellant ones) and believability. No big deal, eh?

Sometimes I start a painting with heavier paint and a deluded notion that I will be able to finish the painting in one session. Later I end up seeing missed spots, weird colors, and ways to make it better, so it ALWAYS takes at least one more session. This approach only works on forgiving subjects, so I don’t try to copy the photo, but just use it for guidance.

Other times I decide that there is no rush, multiple layering is the best way to paint, I will take as much time and as many layers as necessary to turn the painting into something that I am happy to sign. Depending on the subject, the calendar, and the number of paintings in progress, this approach takes 4-8 layers. (EIGHT?? I MIGHT DIE OF Git-‘er-dun by then.)

There are other ways to approach oil painting – plein air (standing outside in the shifting shadows and sneaky sunlight with bugs chewing on me and wind threatening to topple the easel), palette knife (thick clumps of paint smeared on with a palette knife as if one does not have access to brushes, for Pete’s sake, WHY?), and those are just the ones I can pull off the top of my noggin.

WHERE ARE MY PENCILS?? I NEED TO DRAW.

Stop it. There are 2 oil paintings of Giant Sequoias to paint, so you need to stay at the easels and focus, you doofus Central California artist.

Sometimes I have to parent myself this way.

P.S. Anne Lang will be closing her Emporium in Three Rivers on Dec. 31. She has 12 of my oil paintings. As a way to encourage you to visit her place (this is the LAST week of the deli – you MUST go have a turkey melt!), I will be posting one of those paintings per day while she is still open.

Kaweah Post Office XIII, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×10″, $125

oil paintings Sequoia painting

Cabin Scene Continued

We last saw the cabin scene oil painting when I was confused about the conflicting light sources:

With each successive layer, cohesion and coherence gets restored. (Aren’t big words great?)

I’m still missing the details needed to confidently paint this side of the cabin. My photo is outdated, and I have word out to some people who might have the necessary visual information.

It is rather astonishing and somewhat disappointing to me that I don’t have the details of every cabin memorized. One would think as an artist. . . but one would be wrong.

I just bumble along like the rest of the world. So, enjoy a closer look at the left side of the painting. It might be finished, sort of, maybe, but then again, I might want to continue adding details.

That’s what pencil artists do with enough time when handed oil paints and tiny brushes.

commission oil painting oil paintings

Making a Cabin Scene

Happy Birthday, Shirley!!

Making a cabin scene is different from just making a scene.

A cabin owner requested a painting of her cabin as a gift for her husband. (He only looks at the blog when it is about Mineral King AND she forwards the link to him, so I’m not ruining any surprises here.) She wants it to include a view that normally doesn’t show with the cabin, and requested a square format.

Because this is a little difficult, all this mind-reading, designing, and putting together things that aren’t normally together, I didn’t make a scene but began with sketches.

If you recognize this cabin, SHHHHH, IT IS A SURPRISE!!

She asked for square, so I showed her two squares plus a 6×18″ and this cabin painting; she agreed with me about this size and shape working well for her idea.

I thought I was out of this size of canvas, so I ordered some more. After they arrived and I was putting them away, I saw that I already had some that size. Someone around here could use an assistant, or perhaps a better administrator. Oh well. . . they won’t go to waste.

Yeppers, it fits, so get some paint on this canvas!

They all start ugly. No need to be afraid for me or the painting or the customer or the husband. No one will need to make a scene. (But wait! Is this creative??)

Starting with what I know, I put paint on Farewell Gap in the distance.

The trees are next. They are just a mass of greens with some variation in the values (ArtSpeak for lights and darks).

A risk of this sort of photo-combining is that the 2 photos might have the light coming from 2 different sources. Would the customer or the viewer notice? I might be able to cheat, but it might bug me forever. So I began reworking the color on the mountains, because it is easier than figuring out how the cabin shadows could be reversed. I pushed more paint around until my fingers got cold and my efforts felt ineffective. This is far enough for now.

Realizing the problem of conflicting light sources almost caused me to make a scene, but that would have only served to upset Tucker and Scout.

commission oil painting Mineral King cabins oil paintings

A Sore Subject

A drawing student of mine recounted a conversation she had with an elderly artist from here in Tulare County. She told him she was taking oil painting lessons from someone in the area, and the old artist said, “That’s not creative – that’s just copying”.

Ow. That struck a nerve with me. What is or is not “CREATIVE”?

To be clear, it was not the words of my student that caused me to say, “Ow”. It is the subject matter that causes me insecurity and doubt. My drawing student is a lovely person; by reporting this interchange, she opened up an opportunity to discuss it and examine why it is a difficult topic.

I draw from photos, almost 100% my own, and way more often than I like, I have to combine photos to CREATE the scene I’m looking for.

I also teach people to draw, by COPYING photos.

How else can they learn to see?

How can you be CREATIVE with graphite if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, drive a pencil in a manner that it is an extension of your hand?

How can you be CREATIVE with oil paint if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, mix colors, or drive a paintbrush in a manner that is an extension of your hand?

How is it not CREATIVE to take a color photo (or several) and make a picture look beautiful and interesting in black and white and shades of gray?

Sorry, Elderly Artist. I think you are nice and usually a friendly man, you mean well, and you paint prolifically. Your work may be CREATIVE, but personally speaking (which is the only way I can speak), I think your work is just weird.

So there.

Working from a photo isn’t creative? Working on a canvas of different proportions than the photo isn’t creative? Figuring out the arrangement, filling in the gaps, figuring out a new background–not creative? And turning this ugly beginning into something attractive isn’t creative?? It might not even work out to be worth the effort. . . an artistic adventure. . .

P.S. This topic is reminiscent of the ongoing conflict between studio artists and those who paint plein air. I imagine there is a similar situation between those who read music and those who play by ear. IT IS ALL VALID, PEOPLE, ALL OF IT!

oil paintings Tulare County artist

Squishing a Meadow

How does one “squish a meadow”?

One layer at a time, with oil paint on canvas, a 6×18″ canvas to be specific. Canvases this size and shape have become popular; they seem to fit well into odd spaces for people. I can accommodate this.

This is how Crescent Meadow in Sequoia National Park looked about 2 weeks ago.

The proportions are different in this photo than on a 6×18″ canvas. Can I squish this into a horizontal format? Can I stretch it out and remain believable? Sure. This is a forgiving subject, not an architectural exactitude where I have to artificially elongate things, maybe shorten the height and add a few windows. That would be neither forgiving nor believable.