The Real California

This week you’ve seen some beautiful green and flowered photos of Three Rivers. These are the sights that inspire this California artist, and I love sharing them with you.

While I am working in the green hills, my other half is at a higher elevation with an entirely different climate and color. Every work day, he puts on green pants, drives an hour up a gnarly road (or more, depending on conditions and an endless construction project) and climbs into a yellow machine to fight the white snow. (See how I think in colors?)

He doesn’t always work alone. And in case you are wondering, the square thingie on the back of the Big Yellow Machine on the right is called the doghouse.

That’s our friend John up on the snow bank. He is the co- owner/publisher/reporter/photographer of the local paper. He went along to photograph the snow removal operation.

And a Third Walk to Remember

Spring is the height of beauty, stunning views, super-saturated color, and altogether inspiring scenes in Three Rivers. When it is taking place, it seems to be the only season that counts. When it is over and I still want to paint it, it feels fake, out of place, inauthentic. That is all the more reason for this California artist to go ga-ga over this glorious time of year! We had a late cold storm last week and the low snow called me out with my little camera.

Looking downstream on the middle fork of the Kaweah River

Looking upstream from the same bridge. The snow is covering the foothills; the clouds are covering the real mountains.

One mile downstream from the bridge is the best patch of Owl’s Clover, castilleja something or other.

This is called Dichelostemma  capitatum; I thought it was in the brodaeia family, but my wildflower books might be wrong. Its common name is Blue Dick. I don’t know why Richard is depressed, but he certainly is handsome!

Hidden Gardens Teaser

Hi. If you haven’t gotten your tickets for the Hidden Gardens Tour, you still can. It is one week from today. And if you are wavering, I’m hoping these photos will whet your appetite and push the doubts away.

In addition to painting on location, I will have a few paintings with me. A percentage of the proceeds from the sales of those paintings will benefit our little Three Rivers School. Have a sneak preview:

A California Artist

Call me “Butter” – I’m on a roll! Here is more information about being a California artist. (Are you tired of this subject yet??)

Michael and I took a walk a few days ago. It was a gorgeous spring day, although it was still technically winter. Here are some photos to show you what inspires me, as an artist in California, forsooth, a California artist!! 😎

We may be the “Golden State”, but in March, California is very very green.

We have more oak trees in Three Rivers than I can seem to learn. And the Kaweah River is a continual source of inspiration.

Look! The California state flower, right in my territory, just waiting for me to capture it on film and later paint it. I AM A CALIFORNIA ARTIST!

Okay, I will try to give this a rest. Thank you for your understanding, support, and agreement. (Are you listening, Google??)

South Fork

Maybe March is my favorite month instead of February. It is so green and the redbud are in bloom, along with lupine, poppies and a great variety of other wildflowers. Michael and I drove up South Fork Road, which follows the South Fork of the Kaweah River (hence, the name). Something that always just twists my sense of geography is the clear view of Homer’s Nose from the upper end of that road.

We stopped 4 miles from the end of the road and unloaded our bicycles. It was a long slow pull to the campground, but oh so very pretty.

There were lots of choices.

We stashed our bikes and headed toward the water.

Clough’s Cave is on the other side of the river and used to be open to the public. I had never seen it, and Michael had described its location to me at some time in the past. We followed our noses (and a trail of litter), which led to getting sort of bluffed-up and no cave. We slid back down, thought it out, and found the abandoned trail to the cave. It is slippery with oak leaves and acorns, and several places made me question the wisdom of following it to a closed-off cave. A few cave-wreckers have caused the Park to seal the cave off from the public.

If you climb some rocks and then lie on the ground, this is what is visible. If you turn around, this is what you see:

Lots of textures, snow on the peaks, the canyon winding its way upward, and even a belt of black oaks still without leaves. Tulare County is so large in acreage, so vast in its variety of terrains, with far more to explore than I have days off!

C Words

Eighth in the series “Thoughtful Thursdays”

(yes a bit out of order – why WordPress didn’t publish this as scheduled is a mystery to me. Why I didn’t notice is perhaps because I was doing other things – I need people for this!)

Two of the most common ways to earn a living in art are consignment and commissions. They are not at all the same, but I am discussing them here in the same article because those two large “c” words are often confused.

Here are the definitions: consignment is an agreement to pay a supplier of goods after the goods are sold. A commission is an order or authorization for the production of a piece of art.

Consignment means that the artist provides the store or gallery with work that is not paid for until a sale is completed. The advantages to the artist are that she doesn’t lose control of her pricing and can reclaim her work if it is needed somewhere else. The disadvantage is that things can become shopworn, keeping track is added work, and sometimes it can be hard to collect one’s money.

Commissions are orders for custom work. This is a very important part of earning a living as an artist, especially in times when people are spending cautiously. The advantages to the artist is that she is almost guaranteed a happy customer, and there is a check waiting at the end of the job. Two disadvantages are that the artist isn’t freely creating from her own ideas and often there is a deadline. Occasionally a commission customer will say these magic words “You’re the professional!” or “No hurry”.

Since we are learning “c” words here, allow me to add one more: conversation. This word means an exchange of words, not orders and not money. Despite repeated experiences with this reality, my greatest talent still remains counting my chickens before they hatch.  For the first several years of my business, I got so excited when someone told me he’d like me to do a specific drawing for him. I was counting eggs, chickens and dollars, forgetting that until money exchanges hands and there are photographs on the table, it was simply CONVERSATION. It never hurts to remember those chats and even follow up with a phone call or an email. That is also part of the business of art.

Colors in Three Rivers sells some of my paintings on consignment.

A lady of great taste commissioned me to paint this apple.

Painting in the Studio

It is cold out. Today I needed to do work in the studio and also paint (and run around, but that isn’t part of this story). My studio is a little office/gallery where I do paperwork, phone calls, packaging reproduction prints and cards, and, believe it or not, actually draw! When I began painting, it seemed prudent to keep that mess away from my drawings and paperwork. We have a workshop with lots of windows in the front half, and it is a fairly mess-proof place. That is not exactly right – it is full of messes, but it doesn’t matter. As I said, it is cold out, and it made sense to only heat one building. So, I did 5 miniature paintings because they seemed to be the least likely to create a mess.

These are 2×2″ – miniature, for sure! The purpose of these little poppies is to sell at Colors for the First Saturday of March. March 5, Three Rivers, to be specific. The theme is. . . POPPIES!  I know. duh.

‘Sploring

Sometimes I am just amazed (there’s an overused word!) at the places there are to discover here in Three Rivers. Today Michael and I parked at the uppermost marina on Kaweah Lake (or is it Lake Kaweah?) and went walking upstream. This is an area that only recently became part of the lake, due to the raising of the dam about 4 years ago. There were profuse yellow flowers, most likely mustard.

Looking downstream toward Slick Rock.

Mustard?

The elephant was visible. This might make a nice painting.

That is some tall mustard!

Looking upstream toward Blossom Peak and Crystal Hill might also make a nice painting.

This would make a nice painting. I might use this foreground and substitute Blossom or Alta in the background.

This is cool but makes me sad. Wouldn’t it just be the worst to lose your home? All the area where we were exploring used to have homes, and they got eminent domained for the raising of the dam. Sigh.