Working in Mineral King

With all those posts about Mineral King, did you wonder if I am still working?

Thank you for your concern. It may look as if I am just loafing in Mineral King, taking bad photos, and wishing it wasn’t smoky.

HOWEVER, I spent some valuable time with a very savvy artist friend (Krista Fulbright, who has her work at CACHE right now—don’t walk, RUN to see the show). I showed her all my paintings for my upcoming show at CACHE (opening date Saturday, October 19) and she gave me excellent honest input as to how to improve the body of work.

Every piece I have is a landscape with a single exception.

I asked Krista if I should just leave this one out, and she said yes, or choose 2 more subjects to go with this. WHAT? PAINT MORE? Maybe.

I took a box of photos to the cabin, and sorted through to find possible companion pieces. A former drawing student/good friend/cabin neighbor and Trail Guy shared their opinions as I tried several combinations. (Didn’t have the painting with me —just one of the reference photos).

All the photos (and a little saucer of pistachio shells)
This collection is based on color.
This collection is based on round blue containers of round objects.
This collection is based on citrus.

I haven’t decided yet. First, I need to polish, refurbish, and refine about 4 or 5 other paintings.

So, you can see that I sometimes even work in Mineral King.

ABOUT THE FIRE: The Park has closed Mineral King to recreational activity, including trailheads, trails, and campgrounds. There is also a possibility that the road may close before the end of the weekend due to “fire front slowing backing down closest to the road in the general Lookout Point area.

This, That, and the Other Thing

This. . .

. . . 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.

Because I Feel Like It

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.

So there.

Any questions?

I have one for you: WHAT SHALL I NAME THIS??

Quickety Fix

What’s wrong with this picture?

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”.

19 Oil Paintings Sold in May, June and July

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″.

Inching Forward in the Heat

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.

Continuing to Paint in Summer’s Heat

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.

Painting in the Summer Heat

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.

Fast Sequoias

What does “fast sequoias” mean?

It means that my sequoia paintings sell quickly and sometimes I have to paint more speedy-quick-like-lightning, chop-chop, andalé andalé!!

It looked like this:

Skies first, then take them outside to begin drying while I go do a few chores.

I hung one on the studio door to dry, and the other one in a less photogenic location.

While the paintings were outside in the ever-increasing July temperatures, I was in the swamp-cooled workshop, mixing browns and greens.

When I had the basic shapes covered in the base redwood colors, I began detailing one at a time

It was getting too hot to keep stopping for progress photos, so here is how things wound up at the end of the painting session.

One was shipped to Texas; the other might still be available at Kaweah Arts (in the Dome in Three Rivers, river side of 198/Sierra Drive.)

A Pair of Long Hot Days, Part Three

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.