Just a Regular Work Day

Well, not exactly regular, because it involved gathering paintings from Kaweah Arts and pricing them for the Redbud Festival. But that is all part of the business of art in the life of your Central California Artist.

I started 3 new sequoia paintings so that Kaweah Arts has back stock.

Then it was time to drive to Kaweah Arts to collect paintings that might sell at the Redbud Festival. I gathered all except one, because it was hanging on a hanger that I couldn’t figure out how to operate.

I piled all the paintings according to size and attached price stickers. No matter how I do this, they don’t stay on. I did it anyway, because someone(s) else would be minding my booth for me on Sunday and I wanted it to be easy for them. Sunday mornings at the Redbud Festival have historically very low attendance, but it would be wrong to leave my booth unattended while I attended to my responsibilities at church.

This doesn’t look like very many, does it? There are about 30 here, stacked on the desk.

Something happens when I am seeing them all together and studying them up close and in good light: suddenly, none of them look quite good enough. Sigh. I hate that.

It was a beautiful day, and I worked with the studio door open.

Then I painted some more until it was time to set up for Redbud.

The plan was to get all the structures in place and then take the paintings and other merchandise on Saturday morning. It was so very windy that we just unloaded the display pieces and headed home. I didn’t take any photos of the wind for you.

About the paintings: if I mix up and paint each color across three paintings at once, it goes a bit faster. It’s a continual struggle to not spend too much time on paintings, because the prices have to be sensible for the tourists, and the stores keep 30%. I often hear that my prices are “too low”, but it is good to be realistic about Tulare County. Besides. . .

I use pencils, oil paintings, and murals, to make art that people can understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

Redbud Festival Today

This is not a redbud; it is a calla lily, blooming for the first time in 25 years in my yard.

Hey, friends. Today was Day One of the two-day Redbud Festival in Three Rivers. This year it has returned to the Lions Roping Arena, a great big outdoor space. There is good signage leading to it, but in case you are wondering, cross the Kaweah on North Fork Drive (just before Sierra Subs), go about a mile, turn right, cross the North Fork of the Kaweah, and turn left. Follow the dirt road to the arena. (It’s dusty, but you don’t need 4-wheel drive or a pick-em-up truck.)

It was a little hard to leave in the morning with the sun shining through the lobelia blooming on my front porch, but sometimes an artist has to do what she has to do.

There aren’t a lot of vendors, and attendance was low. This sounds bad on the surface, but as a introvert with decent social skills, I liked have plenty of unrushed time to converse with each visitor. I met some fine folks, and I reconnected with other people I hadn’t seen for awhile. There was a man with a guitar who played and sang a few songs each hour, very pleasant, not loud, and I found myself singing along because many were songs from my era (the ’70s). There was food for sale, but I didn’t get any because I don’t like to be caught with my mouth full while working my booth.

The pointed canvas top is the Redbud Garden Club’s booth, selling plants behind my booth.

All in all, it was a pleasant day, and I sold enough to hold my head up and return for day two.

You might enjoy stopping by tomorrow, Mother’s Day.

Official hours are 10-4, but I will have some booth neighbors minding my booth until I can get there, maybe around 11:15 or 11:30. (I have responsibilities at church first.)

At the beginning of the day, happy to be set up.
I took a photo of Trail Guy taking a photo of me.

Back to Business – The Redbud Festival!

I’ve been telling you about Texas so eagerly that I almost forgot to tell you about the Redbud Festival. It is traditionally on Mother’s Day Weekend. This year it will return to the Lions Roping Arena in Three Rivers. I haven’t participated in a few years, but this time your Central California artist will be back, Lord willing, the Creek, etc.

Oil paintings, notecards, coloring books, Mineral King Wildflower books (very few remaining), and of course Wilsonia books will all be available for purchase in my booth.

Screenshot

Three paintings, two discomforts, and two jobs for Pippin

Three paintings

I was able to add the branches on the left and sign the painting before heading to Texas.

After getting some input from a smart and honest artist friend, I tackled this one again. It is much better, but it needs to hang around for a bit before I decide if it is good enough to sign.

This painting of the Honeymoon Cabin has been with me for three years, and I have wondered how to improve it. When in doubt, add details. . . it might not be the best solution, but it is my default position.

In addition to adding details, I refined some edges and brightened some colors. Now I really like it (but it is still for sale.) The improvements will be more visible when it is dry and photographed with more care. At 18×36″, it is way too big for the scanner.

Two discomforts

It was hot in the painting workshop, which meant mosquitos. I put a vase of lemon geranium (it has “citronella” in the official name) by the easel, but supplemented its weak efforts with repellent. (Sigh. Scratching bites anyway.) Summer’s coming, and the painting studio isn’t very comfortable in the summer. That’s why I poured it on all winter and spring.

Two jobs for Pippin

In addition to the heat and the mosquitos, I had the added bonus of listening to Pippin growl over a dead gopher and then crunch it for awhile. Nice job, you fantastic hunter! He has two jobs in life: be cute, and keep gophers from wrecking the yard.

One Final Peek at Spring in Three Rivers

May Day! Happy May Day, which I think traditionally includes flowers. (Then why do captains of planes and ships yell “MAY DAY!” when they are about to crash?)

A few days before I left for Texas, I spent a day working in the yard. Whoooo-eeee, it was hard to leave home.

Tucker joined me in the herb garden. He likes to meet me there for coffee in the mornings.

Snowball bush
Snowball up close
Tucker
Pippin
Jackson
On the slope behind the house

Good thing it was almost dark when I left home because otherwise I might have been tempted to cancel the trip.

Farewell to Spring in Three Rivers, Part II

By the time you are reading this, I hope to be on a flight to Texas. The way flights get cancelled these days, who knows? I could be sitting in a airport, fuming. I hope you are not fuming; instead, I hope you enjoy these last photographs of the most beautiful month in my yard and around its edges a bit.

Stop scratching your screen—it won’t make the scent of the lilacs come alive.
“Lilac” and “lavender” —two words for light purple with origins in very scented flowers, both in bloom at the same time in my yard.
Dutch iris all around my yard, and just a few with the yellow parts; not my favorite, but certainly nothing to ignore!
This one was falling over, so Trail Guy picked it, added fairy lanterns to the vase, and put it on the kitchen window sill.
This is a tiny weed/wildflower down the street; this is the first year I’ve noticed it.
Lemon geranium was taking over the herb garden chair. Too bad you can’t smell this.
I pruned it, and then put many clippings in pots to root and share with friends.
It makes a little pink flower. If it doesn’t look like a normal geranium to you, that is because this is a true geranium, not a pelargonium. (As if you care. . .)

Man oh man, the hillside will be all brown and/or weed-eated by the time I get home, and the Lady Banks rose will be finished, and so will the lavender. . . it is SO HARD to leave home, especially in the spring. (But I haven’t ever visited my dear friend in Texas during the 30 years she has lived there; I always wait until she comes here for a reunion, so it is past time.)

Farewell, spring in Three Rivers; hello Texas!

Farewell to Spring in Three Rivers

Maybe. Maybe not. However, I am heading to Texas tomorrow*, and when I return, I think the green in Three Rivers will be finished, or close to it.

My dear friend the Texan and I planned this visit to coincide with the blooming of the Texas bluebonnets (a variety of lupine). I think someone miscalculated, but I didn’t want to bump my trip earlier because there was just too much to adjust, AND I didn’t want to miss spring in Three Rivers.

So, let’s just enjoy the last hurrah of spring in Three Rivers. I might post while in Texas; I might not. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Instead of doing his business, this tom kept stepping on the hen’s tail while strutting around.
Bird’s Eye Gilia
Ithuriel’s Spear
Middle Fork of the Kaweah
Jackson, you will miss sleeping at my feet while I paint. No more campouts, you delinquent! You’d better be around when I come home.
Pretty Face
North Fork of the Kaweah
North Fork of the Kaweah River with Blossom Peaks in the distance.
White Crown Sparrow

I hate leaving but am so eager to see The Texan, another dear friend who is also a Texan, and yes, The Silos in Waco.

P.S. The Things I Learned post will appear on April 30. The Blog Equipment allows me to schedule posts ahead of time.

*Normally I would not post about being gone in real time on the World Wide Web, but the house won’t be empty so no squatters will take up residence while I’m away.

Spring in Three Rivers

In the middle of a day of painting, I took a short walk.

Last year at this time, we were preparing for a wedding. I spent a fair amount of time preparing the yard where the wedding was to take place. This year I revisited the site, and the cows remembered me. When they saw I was weeding a little bit, they came to the fence to ask for treats.

These are some of the weeds I pulled to feed the beeves. They could also be considered wildflowers

This one was the most assertive.

Since it was a workday, I didn’t linger, but I did enjoy more wildflowers on the stroll back to the easels.

Redbud is actually pink, or magenta, or purplish pink, not red.

Watching Deer or Oil Painting?

It’s kind of hard to focus on painting when this is outside the door.

Apparently, I’m not the only creature to appreciate spring in Three Rivers.

This little herd is just one body short of a baseball team. It looks as if this is a deer park, rather than my lawn. Actually, it isn’t even a lawn; we stopped watering it a decade or more ago. Water costs too much here. I love it green, but I’d have to work more and sell more instead of staring at the deer if I wanted to keep it like this through the summer.

Besides, lawn mowers will be outlawed in California in 2025. . . we don’t want to wear ours out if there can be no replacing it. (California is a special kind of stupid.)

We’ll look at the oil painting aspect of my life in the next post.

Painting Spring in Spring

We had a beautiful spring day before spring arrived. Instead of being out enjoying spring, I was inside painting a picture of spring.

First, I varnished four newly dried paintings.

It was definitely an open-door sort of day.

The view was distracting, but I needed to be focused on the scene on the easel.

This is what remains: details on the distant trees and shrubs; lower section of rock, grasses behind left-side lupine; MORE WILDFLOWERS!

Sigh. I’d like to be out on the trail instead of in the painting workshop. However, the foot trouble has a good side because it keeps me planted in front of the easels when I have many paintings to finish of Tulare County’s prettiest places.

Spring is here in our world of Three Rivers, and it is almost here on the calendar.