More Animal Encounters

If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way instead of being a link you can tap to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

My neighbor adopted 4 kittens, then gave one to her coworker. Now she has 3 black kittens, and we don’t know how we will be able to tell them apart, other than one has a permanently crooked tail

It is baby turkey season.

The deer are back, but so far are hanging out across the street from the kitten house, not yet in my yard (which is why there are a few geraniums in bloom in pots, not yet eaten).

We are seeing bear activity in the neighborhood ALREADY, because the bad bears didn’t get moved, retrained, or dispatched. They may have slept a bit (do foothill bears hibernate??) but now are back to their habits of dumping over trash cans. No photos. You’re welcome. We try to keep things pleasant here. (The royal we, because we have no staff here.)

In Three Rivers, we may not be able to control the critter-caused troubles, but at least we can make our own signs about how to drive and what to expect in our neighborhoods without someone calling a bureaucrat to tattle.

Animal Encounters

If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way instead of being a link you can tap to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Why is there a cat in my living room? Hello Pippin, AKA Orange Bob Square Pants!

While weeding, I saw this stripey slithery creature. 

“HEY MICHAEL WILL YOU COME LOOK AT THIS SNAKE FOR ME??”

“It’s not a snake, it is a lizard.”

“Oh. It is a very long lizard. Thanks.”

“I thought you would have been able to recognize that.”

“Nope. Thought it was a weird snake.”

(I didn’t notice the little feet until I looked at this photograph.)


While lollygagging in the house on a Sunday afternoon, this critter was lollygagging outside my window.

No deer photos. They are busy elsewhere right now. That is just fine with me. MY YARD IS NOT YOUR CAFETERIA!!

Finally, I recently read a fascinating novel, based on a historical incident, titled West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge. Excellent story!

Finish the Painting, You Slacker!

My blog seems to be back to normal, so if you are receiving my posts via email and can’t see the photographs, tap here to go to the blog on the internet.

For weeks I have been showing bits and pieces of this slowly emerging commissioned oil painting of what I refer to as the best parts of Tulare County.

One day I decided to stop dabbling and just finish it. Then my neighbor texted me, and when I looked up, I saw her across the street. We haven’t talked for awhile, so I went over and pulled weeds with her while catching up. Then there was this, that, and another thing before I remembered the day’s resolution: FINISH THE PAINTING (YOU SLACKER).

Eventually I realized that most of what remained was details, in other words, drawing with my paintbrush, which is my favorite part of painting.

However, there was still some difficulty in diving in, due to the nature of the fakery on the canvas. I wasn’t trusting my own experience to make the hills and groves look believable. 

What’s a Central California artist to do?

Pick up her brushes and begin, that’s what.

Here is the day’s progression of baby steps, tackling one section at a time (without stopping to pull weeds for about 5 hours straight).


The last step was to paint the edges.

After the painting is dry, I will flip it over and study it further. If there is nothing else left to do that will make any improvement, I will sign it, photograph it, and spray-varnish it. I will consult with the very patient Mr. Customer about a title, write it on the back, and pass it along to its new home.

There! That wasn’t so hard, was it? (Says The Slacker with a slight twitch. . .)

Painting, Wandering, Waiting, and Wondering

My blog seems to be back to normal, so if you are receiving my posts via email and can’t see the photographs, tap here to go to the blog on the internet.

I am slowly working on the commissioned oil painting, and wandering around the yard while waiting to hear about two mural projects (each with two murals) and wondering about several subjects.

Oil Painting Commission

Wandering

Sometimes while thinking about the painting, I amble around the yard.

 

Wondering

I am wondering if the host of my website will sort out the evil robot situation, if I will be able to make the oil commission match Mr. Customer’s vision, when I will hear about those upcoming murals, when I might be able to start, and why the deer haven’t eaten all these irises and roses.

 

 

A Conversation with Mr. Customer

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Mr. Customer and I had a texted conversation about his commissioned oil painting.

Me: Is this starting to look like what you are wanting?

Mr. Customer: It is!


Me (knowing that he is a very encouraging and positive person and needing to verify things a bit further): I have made the mountains as perfect as I know how but I am faking the hills in front of them. The only place the mountains looked that clear and perfect and visible was from Rocky Hill, but from there the hills were just one solid ridge. Hence, fakery. 

Mr. Customer: Pretty darn close

Me: I aim for believability. No one memorizes the actual configuration of the hills, and most people only know a few specific peaks. But even those look different from every viewpoint. So as long as you are happy, then I am happy too.

Mr. Customer: I will be happy. Just so you know.

Yippee skippee! I am happy too!

Paint, Yarden, and Paint More

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

The commissioned oil painting of mountains is challenging. I paint a little, get stuck, try to figure out which photo is my guide for whatever section I am working on, paint a little more, and then take a break. Here’s how that looked a week or so ago.

Yeah, no problem, I got this figured out.


Wait, where am I? These rocks aren’t lining up with the right peaks. Where’s a pencil??

Yeah, I got this figured out.

Hunh? Time for a break. I’ll just survey things in the yard, pull a few weeds, decide the next priorities.

Does that mean yard priorities or does it mean oil painting priorities?

These weeds are sure pretty. But remember, one year’s weeds equals seven years seeds. . .

(Oh yeah? Then why do I have prolific weeds in the areas that I have been weeding for 24 years?)

The iris around the pillars are supposed to be prettier than the weeds, but they haven’t bloomed yet.

STOP IT! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PAINTING.

I walked back to the painting workshop but kept seeing beautiful things and weeds on the way.

Finally got back to work. 

Oh no. Now I have to figure out the foothills, again working from forty-eleven photos.

In case you were wondering, I LOVE to work at home, both in the yard and in the painting workshop. 

More Questions, and a Few Answers

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Yesterday I asked fifteen questions. Today I am answering a few questions that I didn’t even ask yesterday, along with a few answers to yesterday’s questions.

  1. When will the Mineral King Road be opened? After the County repairs its section (they chose a contractor who might begin soon), after the Park surveys its section, after Trail Guy and The (former) Supervisor do some work, after the Park grants permission to enter. 
  2. When will I begin the murals at St. Charles of Borromeo, the largest Catholic church in all of North America? No one knows. Yet.
  3. Will I get to paint two murals on a county library? No one knows. Yet.
  4. Why did my mechanic tell me not to drive Fernando to Oregon? Mark the Magnificent Mechanic said that 247,000 miles means anything could quit at any time.
  5. What did I do about the Microsoft Word problem? I learned it is incompatible with Mac, so the controls I was looking for never appeared. The man I am working with on a project lent me his HP, a clumsy machine that WORKED with Word.
  6. Why do companies discontinue products? Follow the money; maybe they are afraid of getting sued, maybe they can’t find the ingredients, but most likely the product isn’t delivering enough profit.
  7. What will my neighbor name her three black kittens? I vote for Jack, Mac, and Zach Black.
  8. Why am I not doing the Redbud Festival* this year? I have too many other responsibilities on Sundays, festivals make me tired, I haven’t prepared anything to sell outside of a few new cards, and I’d rather be home.
  9. Why do I have to restart my computer for AirDrop to work? It didn’t require this a few days ago; the people and robots and companies controlling our machines seem to delight in confounding us with their perpetual “updating” (which means meddling and complicating, so there).
  10. Why is the food truck for Quesedilla Gorilla in Three Rivers gone? Because they will be building a new non-mobile restaurant.

* Saturday and Sunday of Mother’s Day weekend, 10-4-ish, Three Rivers Memorial Building

Fifteen “Why” Questions

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Today’s post is question after question, interspersed with photos of flowers to take the edge off of all the unsolved mysteries of life.


  1. Why do website hackers use evil robots to mess with my little bitty nothing-burger site??
  2. Why do young people drive fast when (in theory) they have lots of time left?
  3. Why do old people drive slow, when for them the clock is running down quickly?
  4. Why is Microsoft Word so hard to use, with very unhelpful “help”, and the people in the forums to help don’t read the questions but just slam out a non-answer?
  5. Maybe the real question is this: why is Microsoft Word so popular when it is so difficult*?
  6. Why is the food truck for Quesedilla Gorilla in Three Rivers gone?
  7. Why is “gorilla” such a popular word in marketing: Quesedilla Gorilla, gorilla tape, gorilla glue…?
  8. Why is it that the more ways there are to communicate, the harder it is to get answers to questions?
  9. Why do charities waste so much money on printing and mailing solicitations for money to the people who already support them?
  10. Why do people spend so much money on bottled water when we have the cleanest tap water in the world?
  11. Why were we pushed to use plastic bags in grocery stores when paper comes from a renewable resource?
  12. Why do companies discontinue products without having a replacement ready to go or to recommend?
  13. Why am I not doing the Redbud Festival this year?
  14. Why didn’t CACHE get the grant?? No one could possibly have worked harder, done more research, been more careful about how it was worded than our most excellent board president.
  15. Why do I have to restart my computer in order for Airdrop to work? Every day, day after day, restart, restart, restart.

Today I have questions. Tomorrow, I hope to have a few answers, but most likely not for any of these questions.

*I want endnotes to start renumbering with each chapter, not run consecutively throughout the entire book I am working on. . . some Know-it-all on the Microsoft Forum answered my query with this: “The thing is that for many people Roman numerals become a challenge once they get above iii. This does include highly-educated academics.” Excuse me?? 

And I Thought I Knew These Mountains

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

After figuring out how to get the right third of the mountains correct, I worked my way back across the canvas, using a darkish blue to delineate the parts I could see. I marked the center of the picture be able to gauge my progress.

Wait! Where is Moro Rock?? It didn’t show up well from the top of Rocky Hill, and I forgot to be sure that it appears in the painting. I thought I knew these mountains. Recalibrating. . .

Why didn’t I know that the other 2/3 would be just as confusing?

Just my usual approach—the triumph of hope over experience.

Time to study all the photographs again and make some new sketches. I needed to see the section from Sawtooth north to Castle Rocks, and then the farthest north section from Castle Rocks to Moro Rock. Each photo had different information, and some were just useless. This made it easier, because there were fewer solutions to choose from.

I made the contrast weirdly strong in order to see details, and also put a few lines on some of the photos. Here are just two samples of what I was working from:

 

Sometimes there is a longer distance between Sawtooth and Homer’s Nose, sometimes Sawtooth barely shows, sometimes trees block peaks, and the light is always different, causing changing shadows that make it hard to recognize peaks.

There comes a point when decisions have to be made and paint must be applied. So, suck it up, buttercup, and make some progress here.

I believe these mountains are correctly placed, correctly sized, and accurately shaped. 

The next step could be either to detail the distant mountains or to get all the foothills accurately placed.

Accurately placed from which viewpoint?

I thought I knew these mountains.

 

 

Deciphering a Mountain Range

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

The mountains in this oil painting commission need to be accurate.

I thought I had it all figured out, and then I got confused.

Are you confused also? These photos are all a little bit different, possibly getting incrementally more accurate, but probably looking identical to you.

In the photos, sometimes it looks as if Sawtooth is close to Homer’s Nose, and other times it seems as if there is more distance. Sometimes Sawtooth looks shorter than others, with the point barely visible.

What is going on here??

I have been gathering reference photos from different viewpoints, at different times of day, for a few months (years, actually). The views change with the viewpoints. That’s should have been obvious. 

Instead, I focused on whether or not I could see the mountains through the smog or the clouds.

Up until now, it hasn’t mattered that I have been faking the mountains that I can’t recognize or name.

So, I looked at a photo from my friend’s balcony, a photo from the freeway, and a photo from the top of Badger Hill, and one from Rocky Hill.

Then I sketched each one so I could understand the differences.

Now I know the distances that need to be between the peaks to emulate the view that Mr. Customer wants, and because of the annotated photo, I should be able to make the complete and correct shapes.

This stretch of mountains is just a third of the painting on the upper reaches. I will need to do this on the other 2/3, and then I get to start deciphering the hills and the groves. Maybe I can make that part up. Maybe I will have to.

I thought this would be an easy job because of the familiarity of the subject. . . no such thing.