Tag: Three Rivers

Cool Enough To Paint the Kaweah Post Office

(I don’t mean that I painted the building.) I am referring to the weather in my painting workshop, equipped with a fairly adequate swamp cooler, unless it is over 95 and/or humid.

Every year people say, “It has been such a hot summer!” as if that is news. Every summer in Tulare County is a hot one. My theory is that if it starts mild, you pay in September and October. This is the real world, muchachos, and you are in it.

Kaweah Arts had two oil painting versions of the Kaweah Post Office for sale. This is a quaint little old building three miles up the North Fork of the Kaweah River, which, until recently, was the smallest operating post office in the United States. Alas, it sold, and the new owner closed it. It is still cute and quaint, so I didn’t paint out the images on those canvases.

However, I decided that I could do a better job.

BEFORE:

One would think that I could just make this up without a photo after painting it about 20 times (if you count the do-overs, it is probably more). One might be right, but one isn’t going to know, because I won’t be attempting it AND I might not need to paint it any more.

DURING:

BEFORE:

DURING:

These are hard to photograph while on the easels. When they are dry, I’ll scan them for you (and for my records, of course.)

This is a first for the aloof Jackson. He has never inspected my work before.

No More Potatoes

There might have been a question about a river painting that wasn’t selling. It might have been: “Why do those rocks look like potatoes?”

The answer might have been, “Because you are hungry”.

However, Nancy at Kaweah Arts and I concluded that her customers tend to be visitors to Sequoia National Park who are more interested in paintings of sequoia trees than of an unfamiliar section of the river.

When it is dry, I’ll scan it and try to remember to show it to you.

“There is no try—only do, or do not.”

Be quiet, Yoda. I didn’t ask you. I didn’t even like your movie, so why do I know this? In fact, I don’t think I’d recognize you, so mind your own beeswax.

Sequoia painting Three Rivers

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Sometimes when a painting has been hanging around for awhile, I have to ask myself a question that is hard to answer: What is wrong with this picture?

This painting has been hanging around too long. It is the North Fork of the Kaweah River in Three Rivers, looking downstream from what used to be known (maybe still is) as The Airport Bridge with Blossom Peak(s) in the distance.

This is what might be wrong:

Blossom Peak(s) in the distance need to be more separate from the trees in front of them.
The main rock needs to be blurrier where it contacts the water.
The sky looks murky.

Stay tuned to see if those changes fix the painting.

oil paintings Three Rivers

Still Painting Mineral King in the Heat

For those of you who subscribe and read the blog post on your phone: if you can’t see the photos, go here: cabinart.net/blog.

Again, I say that painting elevation while down in the heat has no benefits, other than in one’s imagination. Sawtooth, visible from Mineral King in this painting, is 12,343′ in elevation; Three Rivers (where I live) is 1000′. They say (“they”? who is this?) that the temperature drops 3 degrees for every 1000′ gained in elevation. You can do the math if you’d like; I’m too overheated.

This isn’t quite finished. When it is dry, I will do some nitpicking, careful evaluating, and then will make corrections and plant wildflowers. Of course I will plant wildflowers—do not doubt me on this!

P.S. The color looks washed out here – does heat affect photography too??

Links to other posts about painting Sawtooth:

Mineral King Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings oil paintings Three Rivers

Odd Job, Chapter 4

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

This was the day for the careful work on my odd job of repainting signs for a subdivision in Three Rivers: a gray line around all the letters, and repainting the California quail.

Thin Gray Line

Mixing the color was fun, because I had success quickly. Color precision isn’t terribly important here, but I like to practice my skill. You can see the new gray around the S and the old gray around the other letters. Same, same!

The California Quail

These were harder. I couldn’t tell for sure about the colors, and this particular one had such a sheen to it that I began to suspect it was a decal rather than something that was painted directly on the redwood.

On the more weathered sign, it was clear that the quail were painted directly on the redwood.

The photo only showed the quail on the less weathered sign, which should have been adequate.
When I moved over to the other sign, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t able to duplicate the quail when I turned my back. It took a few flailing efforts before I realized they were facing the opposite directions.
I didn’t do a perfect job, but I was able to make them look believable.

Here are the two signs, finished as far as I am able.

Finishing

The lead man on the project knows that I don’t know how to finish these. Mendosign kindly emailed me with a suggestion to use wood stain with a red tint, saying that wood needs to breathe, and that the stain would easily wipe off the painted parts.

Mr. South Fork Estates thought there was a risk that it would make the painted parts look grubby. He will call a painter friend in Visalia for some advice.

So, they will figure it out, and I am finished.

Bye-bye signs. Thank you, TT and TG!

custom art Three Rivers

Odd Job, Chapter 3

Yesterday’s post about refreshing 2 signs left you hanging. I hope the anticipation of today’s continuation didn’t disrupt your sleep last night.

After applying 2 coats of the rim color, some confidence began developing. Time to tackle the narrow yellow line. You can see the old color in the middle; I put a bit of white on the left, and some brighter lightfast yellow on the right.

The yellow needed some red, along with a touch of white.

You might be able to tell that the upper yellow is now better, but since the lightfast yellow is transparent, it needed a primer coat beneath. No need to color fuss here because the goal is to make it look good.

As I painted the narrow line with white, I realized that the wood is quite splintery. This means that getting a smooth edge isn’t going to happen the entire distance on any of the sign. But, it is a sign, not a piece of fine art to be viewed closely.

With the warm weather, swamp cooler blowing, and big doors open, the paint dried quickly. I could paint one sign, turn and do the other, go back to sign #1 for the second coat, and then turn and second coat sign #2.

The white letters seemed like a good next step. These also soaked up the paint and required 2 coats. The rough edges bothered me at first. Then I remembered that this will be viewed from inside people’s cars, until they stop noticing at all. After 5 hours, I felt an unavoidable slide into Idiotland, where Sloppy, Stupid, and Careless all reside. Besides, my cheater-readers kept falling off when I leaned over the sign, and then I painted a blue streak on my face by accident.

So, that’s all on this Three Rivers custom art project for today. The quail and the narrow gray line surrounding the letters will require a strong focus (and a better fitting pair of cheater-reader glasses).

custom art odd job Three Rivers

Odd Job, Chapter 2

Because I am an artist in a small town, I get asked to do a variety of things.

This keeps me growing, learning, and becoming more capable of doing more odd jobs. Still, I start out a little unsure of where to begin and unsure of my abilities to git ‘er dun well.

The outer rim of each sign is a grayish blue, or perhaps a bluish gray. It looked pretty straightforward, both in the mixing and the application. I put these 2 colors together and made the gray on the top of the lid.

You can see that I tried a few versions.

Because my gray had a purplish cast, I put in a smidgeon of yellow, which is opposite purple on the color wheel. (The ArtSpeak word for that is “complementary color”, as in “complete” because its presence completes the 3 primary colors which can be blended to make every color in the world. Not white. White is the absence of color.)

A touch more white, and then it was close enough.

Clearly I had to be very very careful because Pippin was underfoot.

Let’s continue tomorrow, shall we?

custom art Three Rivers

Painting in Church, Again, Chapter Two

Yesterday’s “Painting in Church” post ended with Music Man turning on the stage lights for me. He also said it was as if I had read his mind in how the mural extension should look, and he had a suggestion for extending the ridges that was altogether excellent.

I felt a little bit stuck. Maybe a few branches extending to the left of the door are in order.

This is hard. I don’t know what I am doing.

That’s it for Day One. I was getting sloppy and stupid, a dangerous state, particularly when combined with having slept poorly the night before, skipping lunch and being a little bit lazy.

I really thought I could do the left side in one morning and the right side in a second morning?

Fall down laughing.

Tune in tomorrow. . .

Three Rivers Three Rivers mural

Poppy Peeping

The poppies and other wildflowers were at at their peak on March 11. Three friends and I took the afternoon off to go fill our eyes.

First, we had to empty our wallets to fill the gas tank. Welcome to Three Rivers.

Then we headed down around the lake, and up Dry Creek Road, all within eastern Tulare County.

This last photo shows Terminus Dam in the distance, which creates Kaweah Lake. The flowers weren’t fabulous right there at the Dry Creek Preserve, but it was clear and green, which is pretty fabulous on its own.

We never did get out amidst the flowers but stayed on the shoulder of the road, and actually did no trespassing whatsoever.

I must be finally growing up.

poppies Three Rivers Tulare county

March in Three Rivers

When we get some rain in February or early March, it is so beautiful in Three Rivers that it almost causes physical pain to leave. The brilliant spring days are just a tiny blip on the year long calendar, dominated by heat, drought, and brown.

The flowering pear tree in front of my studio is pretty 2 times a year. It is a leaning tree, and I wonder if that was caused by 13 years of Perkins scratching his claws while pushing on one side of the tree.