As I study some of my paintings and live with them, I see ways to make them better. So, I touch them up to improve them.
Just another peek into the work of a Tulare County artist, bumbling along here in Central California. Sometimes you just can’t tell on a computer screen because they photographed differently. Guess you’ll just have to trust me.
If you subscribe to my newsletter, you learned that I have some new cards for sale, and this post will be a refresher for you.
What do you do when it rains day after day?
Besides being a looky-loo at all the flowing water around Three Rivers, apparently I sit around designing and ordering new cards. Then I fold and package them, in three different assortments.
Bigger than my normal little notecards, these glossy cards are 4-3/4 x 7-1/2″, a package of 4 cards with envelopes for $20.
Three assortments:
If you order, I will pay the postage.
I also put together packages that have four cards with envelopes, all the same design. This is NOT on the website, so if you have a particular favorite and would like a package of just that design, let me know via email or phone or old fashioned mail or catch me somewhere in Three Rivers. Same price.
A drawing student of mine recounted a conversation she had with an elderly artist from here in Tulare County. She told him she was taking oil painting lessons from someone in the area, and the old artist said, “That’s not creative – that’s just copying”.
Ow. That struck a nerve with me. What is or is not “CREATIVE”?
To be clear, it was not the words of my student that caused me to say, “Ow”. It is the subject matter that causes me insecurity and doubt. My drawing student is a lovely person; by reporting this interchange, she opened up an opportunity to discuss it and examine why it is a difficult topic.
I draw from photos, almost 100% my own, and way more often than I like, I have to combine photos to CREATE the scene I’m looking for.
I also teach people to draw, by COPYING photos.
How else can they learn to see?
How can you be CREATIVE with graphite if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, drive a pencil in a manner that it is an extension of your hand?
How can you be CREATIVE with oil paint if you don’t know how to see proportions, understand values, mix colors, or drive a paintbrush in a manner that is an extension of your hand?
How is it not CREATIVE to take a color photo (or several) and make a picture look beautiful and interesting in black and white and shades of gray?
Sorry, Elderly Artist. I think you are nice and usually a friendly man, you mean well, and you paint prolifically. Your work may be CREATIVE, but personally speaking (which is the only way I can speak), I think your work is just weird.
So there.
P.S. This topic is reminiscent of the ongoing conflict between studio artists and those who paint plein air. I imagine there is a similar situation between those who read music and those who play by ear. IT IS ALL VALID, PEOPLE, ALL OF IT!
Today I am sharing pictures with you that are apparently unrelated and don’t have much to do with my art business.
This is just a peek into a few things in my life that are appealing to me, little spots of beauty that I automatically seek out wherever I am, including at the kitchen sink.
Do you do that too?
The commissioned oil painting combining two Tulare County scenes feels like a mini-mural. 18×24″ is HUGE when I am accustomed to 8×10″ or 6×18″.
Often I have pondered why it is that a mural feels sort of easy because of its large size when a large oil painting feels daunting. Is it the number of layers? the level of detail? An oil painting certainly takes longer.
My customer approved of sketch #2.
She is gracious and told me there is no rush. However, I am a bit of a “precrastinator”, a made-up word that is the opposite of “procrastinator”. It is much better to begin, to act as if there is a deadline, to be ready for contingencies, interruption, opportunities, and other emergencies than to just lollygag along, figuring it will get done when I FEEL like it. And losing momentum is a real risk – a customer can change his mind, or it could get too hot to paint. Besides, the sooner I finish a commissioned job, the sooner I get paid.
(There was a sign in a print shop where I used to work that said, “I work for money, not for fun; I want my money when my work is done.” I work for both.)
First, a little fun with Scout. She is sitting on Samson’s shelf. (He doesn’t need it any more. Sigh.)
Now it is time to get to work.
Such a basic beginning. I just draw the general stuff with my paintbrush.
To be sure of the shapes, sizes, proportions, and angles, it is easier to be objective when everything is upside down. The goal is to get a first layer on the canvas, something that I can correct with each successive layer.
That’s enough for the first second third fourth step of this commissioned oil painting. (The first was a conversation, the second was an exchange of photos and a sketch, the third was the second sketch with the approval to begin painting).
This is Chapter Two in the story of figuring out how to design one commissioned oil painting of two different Tulare County landmarks. As a Tulare County artist, I am pleased to have been chosen for the task.
The customer requested a different view of Homer’s Nose, and I have 5 photos from that point of view. This is the one we selected:
She also requested a view of the Oak Grove bridge with more visible rocks (i.e. less water). If you have followed this blog or my art for very long, you know that the Oak Grove bridge is my favorite thing to draw and paint, even when it is a little bit too hard. So, I have plenty of photos to choose from for this very specific request:
I know Spice Bush, but never heard of Mock Orange. Good thing I have friends with great photos who know far more than I do about many things.
And a photo I have of Spice Bush, but will probably take more because it is in bloom right now and is beautiful.
With all these visual aids, I drew this:
What will my customer say in response to this second sketch? More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . . Tune in tomorrow, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.
And here are today’s paintings, both commissioned pieces of Homer’s Nose, painted in 2014, each one 6×6″.
I chose the sizes, paired the canvases with the photos, assigned inventory numbers, titled the pieces, attached the hanging hardware to the backs, and primed the canvases. And thus we conclude a random roundup of the business of art, as defined by me. I wonder how other artists go about their business? On artists blogs, they all sound so professionally successful, discussing plein air outings (oh shut up, that is so hard and I don’t know how and I am a studio artist and if I am outside it will be to hike, walk, prune or pull weeds), or packaging up things to deliver to galleries (galleries, schmalleries – this is Tulare County), or showing off big deal sales to a local hospital or courthouse or university (Hunh? those places spend money on art, big money on originals?? Not in Tulare County), or fancy commissions (I paint wooden geese and or draw barns), or shows in nice places (I do them in Art Centers without plumbing, the local Remorial Building, or in people’s stores or backyards).
HaHa. I live in Tulare County and they don’t.
Oops. Sold two more Mineral King paintings recently so I may need to recalculate! Customers keep depleting my inventory. . . what’s an artist to do except keep painting??
I googled “middle-aged bloggers” and found several. One site posted an invitation for middle-aged bloggers to comment and put their site links in the comments, so I clicked through and read some of them. They are sort of boring. Lots of talk about why they started blogging, talk about their grandchildren, their new lives with their husbands gone, new grandchildren, new phases of life with new retirement, and clothing and hair color. Lots and lots of talk about staying young, dressing well, finding your style, whether or not to color your hair, staying positive. . . boring.
Scared me. Am I that boring? Why do they have so many subscribers and comments when they are boring? Why do I not when I am so witty, original, clever and entertaining? (Oh, and humble about my bloggery skills too. . .)
Life’s not fair. (My dad used to ask the rhetorical question, “Who said life has to be fair?” I once said this to a friend, and she replied, “I don’t know; was it Benjamin Franklin?”)
Several acquaintances and a few friends have expressed a desire to blog, and then nothing happens. They think I am “a-MAY-zing” for blogging so often, so consistently, so long. Well, they already have jobs; this is part of mine.
Because I am producing things that no one needs in a county where art is a definite luxury, because I am not on Facebook or Twitter or any of those instant and constant connected things, because I work in isolation and do not have a public studio, because there are only a small handful of galleries around here (and all are non-profit and run by volunteers who are not motivated by sales), because I choose to focus on Tulare County, I MUST do something public. Blogging is that something, and it suits me.
Many bloggers are now producing podcasts. I won’t say “never”, but I will say “probably never”. This is a trend, and I am too busy painting, drawing, teaching, figuring out various methods of marketing, doing shows and open studios and demonstrations and workshops, and of course, blogging.
I’ve got to keep being me, because all the other roles are already taken. I have too much to say, too much to show, too much to explain, too many thoughts about being a full time, self-employed artist in a poor, uneducated, rural county.
After all that, you deserve a treat. How about a nice cup of tea?
I have 3 nephews. 2 of them are “creatives”, one an accomplished graphic artist supporting a wife and 2 children, and the other about to start his junior year in college as a music major. Might be performing arts, might be music theory. . . can’t remember exactly and embarrassed by asking him too often.
Music Nephew and I have been having an email conversation about “the arts”, and he mentioned how a musician friend of his gets in the way of his own success. I responded with something that I think you might enjoy, Oh Blog Readers (all 4 of you or so. . . maybe 6 or 7, but I still don’t know how to access or read the blog stats).
Most of us trying to make it in the arts are usually in the way of our own success. I’m gradually learning to redefine success. I know I don’t want to spend hours and hours on social media trying to build up a following, so I’m not – that’s success. I’d rather have real people that I know just happily following my blog and thinking of me when they have an art need – they do, so that’s success. I also don’t want to do the crazy hard work of building up a body of work that might appeal to galleries, which I’m not, so that’s success.
My life’s work is to discover and display the good things of Tulare County, a place I love to hate and hate to love. Sigh. Thus, the mixed ideas about success – I am portraying this place, but sometimes I want to live somewhere with a less hostile climate, cleaner air, and richer more educated populace.
If you made it to the end of this bloviation, you deserve a reward. Here, have a look at a successful pencil drawing of a bridge.
Sometimes, while painting in Three Rivers, in Tulare County in Central California (not LA, not San Francisco – NOTHING like the stereotypical California), I am just minding my own business, painting along, staying calm and focused, and then stuff happens.
Smoke? I smell smoke. Hmmm, there are ashes. . . that’s worrisome. I don’t hear sirens, so I keep painting.
Just painting some fruit here. After all, California is the land of fruit and nuts, and Central California is where most of it originates. No big deal – just oil paint on canvas. I’m fine. I’m calm.
Painted a raven too. I’ll tell you more about that in another post. Just painting along,
HEY! BOBCAT SIGHTING!
Um, Perkins, my Sweet Sixteen year old cat, it would be good for you to lie low on the front porch right now.
Whoa. Good thing I keep my camera with me in the painting workshop building, door open for smelling smoke (no sirens, no worries?) and sighting cannibalistic wild felines.
Allllrighty then, if all is calm, focused and just fine, explain why that raven is upside down.
Shut up.