. . . is the current status of the latest oil painting. More branches, twigs, leaves, and some wildflowers remain. I might even draw a few more blades of grass. I like long grass.
That. . .
. . . book with which I have been helping a doctor-turned-author, Dr. William Winn, for almost seven years is now at the publisher! Tales of TB: White Plague of the North, should be in our hands in about 2-3 months.
After such a big project, I feel like lying in the long grass with Tucker.
and the Other Thing. . .
. . . I am now helping another author-friend, Louise Jackson, with a book, this time a novel. We worked together on The Visalia Electric Railroad and Trail of Promises, both now out of print. It is a privilege to use my editing skills to help folks, honed through about 60 years with my nose in a book.
Normally I think pretty long and carefully about what to paint, particularly when trying to build up a solid body of work for a solo show. I know that citrus, sequoias, Mineral King, foothills, and local landmarks are the most likely to sell. After all, I did come here to earn a living, not to just putz around for fun. It ain’t all that fun when it is 103°, painting in a room barely cooled by a swamp “cooler”.
I’m not complaining, just explaining.
This scene kept calling me back, so I finally decided to just paint it, even though it doesn’t really fall into any of the regular categories.
I love to draw with my paintbrushes. If I am listening to a good podcast and drawing, I hardly notice the heat. There will be an enormous amount of drawing with the bark on the trees, the chain holding the swing, all the branches and twigs, leaves, and of course, wildflowers in the foreground.
This tree with the tire swing is a mile or so above my house. I’m painting it because I feel like it.
The downhill lane isn’t convincing, the leafy bush/tree over Guardsman #2 is too yellow and looks like a cultivated roundie-moundie, and the growies in that center lane are too mushy.
All better now.
The decision is made: this painting is called “Four Guardsmen”.
Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers (now located in The Dome) and the store at the Silver City Resort 4 miles below Mineral King have been selling steadily for me so far this summer.
When times are slow, it is easy to start thinking: “I’m a has-been. My prices are too high/too low. I’ve saturated the market. It’s all over. I feel fat—maybe I should start singing.”
When sales are brisk, it is easy to start thinking: “It’s about time. I wonder if I should raise my prices. Finally, I’m starting to figure this thing out.”
The truth is that there are feasts, famines, surges, and ebbs. The economy is up, then the economy is down. (Mostly in Tulare County the economy is “downer” than in the rest of the country.) Sales are seasonal. It’s all part of the business of art.
All I can do is continue to paint the best I know how, and when sales are surging, keep producing for the wonderful stores that sell my work.
P.S. The sizes aren’t shown in relativity to one another. They vary in size from 6×6″ up to 6×18″ and 12×16″.
When it is hot (i.e. “summer”), I prefer to paint in little stages rather than in long sessions. The swamp cooler helps, but it isn’t A/C for sure and for certain.
This might be how it looked last time you saw it. “It” has the working title of “Keep Right”, and I am open to suggestions, because I don’t want to paint the sign that says “Keep Right”, which belongs on the lower left.
I didn’t show the steps between the photo above and the one below. Sometime after I thought it was moving in the right direction, I put another layer of sky over everything in the background. It was a little alarming, and I didn’t take a photo. After it dried, I redid the distant tree trunks, and rebuilt the greens back there. Then I moved to the foreground on the right side.
I was working from a terrible photo that I took through the windshield and then cropped vertically. When I started the painting, I changed my mind and started it as a horizontal painting. This meant that I set aside the printed photo and switched to the terrible one on my laptop. Aha! I see the downhill lane on the left! Now I needed to rearrange things to make sense instead of just slapping lots of greenery on the unknown spaces.
Something might be different in this photo but I can’t quite tell.
I took this last photo when I was tired of being hot.
There is more work to do, but it is beginning to look believable.
Summer lasts a little bit too long for my liking. In early July, I was tired of it. That is an unpopular view, and I accept my status as a weirdo in this regard. However, I soldier onward in the heat, thankful for the inadequate swamp cooler in the painting workshop, and the inadequate wall unit in the studio. When I am finished painting for the day, I stagger into the house and cool off in the most totally excellent central air conditioning.
Sometimes I go walking in the mornings with my good friend. Occasionally we see a garbage bear.
Then I come home and paint.
I added wildflowers to the 8×8″ oil painting of Franklin Falls in Mineral King. They are mountain pride, arnica, and Indian paintbrush. Although they were not in either reference photo, I’ve seen them all at Franklin Falls. Being the boss of my painting, I took artistic license. Here it is, drying on the wood pile stack.
Having finished the smaller paintings destined for the Silver City Store, I returned to building up a body of work for the October-December show at CACHE.
Like most of what I have chosen to paint lately, this isn’t easy. Look at my reference photo, taken from inside the car. Traffic stopped briefly so at least it is focused.
The working title is Keep Right. Although that is very good instruction to drivers heading to Giant Forest in Sequoia as they approach the Four Guardsmen, I am doubting my ability to make the sign look good. Besides, we live in times when people tend to be highly sensitive, spring-loaded in the offended position, so out of deference to those folks, I will think of another title.
Or you can think of another title. . . I’m not easily offended, and love to hear good ideas from my tens of readers, most of whom are friends in real life.
I wasn’t kidding when I said it was hot. Look what happened while I was painting.
Wow. What a sensitive little snowflake. It was only 103° that day.
Last year when sales were almost non-existent, I forgot what it is like to arrange a painting schedule around the heat and the limitations of a swamp cooler. Now I remember. Everything has a downside and an upside. Last year up—no painting in the heat. This year up—good sales.
All set up, ready to begin, early in the morning.
I finished the 6×18 bridge and took it out to the woodpile for drying.
Then I got sidetracked polishing the door handle. Good thing I’m not on anyone’s time clock.
Next: Franklin Falls. This is 2 miles up the left/east side of the Mineral King valley, a pleasant walk with only a little bit of uphill, followed by a cold wade across the creek, unless you are inclined to rock hop, which I am not. I have 2 photos, neither of which is ideal, and neither of which is square.
That’s okay. . . I know the place pretty well, and I know what people expect to see.
When something is full of fiddly detail that can’t be exactly duplicated, because of ridiculousness and cramming 2 rectangles into a square, I just find the things that matter most. The rest can be fudged.
If you’ve been to Franklin Falls, I think you’d see that this is becoming recognizable and believable.
In discussing this painting with Hiking Buddy, I told her that it is sort of colorless, all greens and browns and grays. She wisely said (reading my mind), “That’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a few wildflowers”.
Off to the woodpile for drying; the flowers will go on nicely once it is dry. Or not nicely, but if it is dry, I can wipe them off and try again.
On day two of my Mineral King oil painting biathalon, I started early, actually feeling kind of excited to try a new scene.
I was so into the details that I forgot to take very many photos of the progress.
Call me “Butter” cuz I’m on a roll!
Next?
These two would most likely be too wet to scan, so I had to photograph them more carefully. The wildflowers at Timber Gap painting will need some skewing on photoshop to straighten it out.
Feeling accomplished, and because I began so early on Day Two, I decided to see if I could get one more painting finished.
Nope, guess not. But 4-3/4 paintings in two very hot very long days was a good dent, and I got them to the store at Silver City in time for the hoped-for Independence Day rush.
After I carried the first painting outside, I just grabbed the next canvas in the lineup. It is an unusual view of the Honeymoon Cabin, which is a tiny museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society. It is either the 2nd or the 3rd best selling subject of Mineral King oil paintings.
I carried this one out to the woodpile, nay, wood stack because it is so very neat, and put it alongside the first painting. Two down, four to go, and only one more day to paint. What’s a Central California Artist to do?
Put the palette and brushes in the freezer, and go home for the evening, that’s what.
Both paintings were dry enough to take to Silver City 2 days after painting them.
The saga of a Mineral King oil painting biathalon will continue tomorrow.
