drawing | Cabin Art

A Few More Cabin Thoughts

The posts called Cabin Thoughts (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), were popular among my readers, generating conversations through comments, email, snail mail, and in person. Now that our cabin is closed for the season, I’d like to share a few more thoughts.

A dear friend of many years, Natalie, sent these thoughts, titled “What a Cabin Means to Me”. (Nat, I did a tiny bit of editing – hope it clarifies rather than changes your intent.)

Secluded from the general public and hard to get to

In the mountains

Small and rustic, having only basic amenities, and no room for isolation.

Not a second home, but more of a make-do-and-relax kind of place where there is no television or phone service. A place where you interact with family and friends by sharing meals, playing cards and other games, sitting by a fire, hiking, and just cherishing the quietness of the outdoors.

Once again, mountains, small, rustic, games, firesides, food, outdoors, friends and family appear. I think Natalie’s ideal cabin would separate her family from outside influences, causing togetherness among themselves. This is a theme I found multiple times. . . a desire to unplug and simplify in order to focus on the ones who are most precious.

Our Mineral King cabin is definitely a cabin but varies from Natalie’s thorough and excellent definition in several ways.

It isn’t hard to get to if you don’t mind the poor road, and it is highly visible if you hike a popular trail. (This is the World Wide Web, so I am being vague on purpose.)
It is a second home to us, but not in the sense of a home with all the luxuries you may be accustomed to (our first home is purposely lacking a dishwasher, microwave, garbage disposal and heated towel racks, and we’re just fine, but thanks for your concern).
The cabin no longer has a telephone; we tell people to leave a message on the answering machine at home, and we use the cabin neighbor’s phone to check messages. (This makes up for 36 years of cabin neighbors using our phone.)
Neither one of us likes to play games; in the evenings we listen to the radio, Trail Guy reads out-of-date newspapers that friends bring up to him, I read library books and knit.

There is no single definition of “cabin”, but there is a feel to a place that makes it a cabin. I will share a few more ideas about it tomorrow. Then, maybe I will be finished with this topic. (No promises, because after all, my business is called Cabin Art.)

cabin drawing

Little Boutique in Lemon Cove

Happy Birthday, Jim! (We’re still in the Fs. . .)

Ever been to Lemon Cove? If you’ve gone to Sequoia from Visalia, you’ve passed through it. I think of it as Lemon Curve. . . a few curves on the highway, and you are outta there.

There’s a little boutique at the Lemon Cove Womans Club (yep, that’s the real spelling) on Saturday, October 20, called the Harvest Boutique, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The Womans Club is on Highway 198, and it looks like this (if you first vacuum all the color out of life):

For the boutique, I’ve painted some new small citrus oil paintings, 4×6″ and 6×6″ (priced at $50 and $60 plus 8% California sales tax). Although this is LEMON Cove, there is more than one type of citrus art here, and please take note of the highly creative titles.

citrus art oil paintings

Two Gas Pumps

“Two Pencil and Colored Pencil Drawings of One Old Gas Pump” is too long of a title for a blog post, but it is more accurate than “Two Gas Pumps”.

Let’s review:

Drawing #1 of the Silver City gas pump under way.

Now, new pictures for you.

I can do a tiny bit better. #1 needs more separation between the closer and the more distant trees. Pump #2 needs to be a bit smoother. Both could be a bit brighter in the color department.

A bit more distinction to push the farther trees back.

Phew. I’m outta gas. . .

commission pencil work pencil drawing

On the Table and the Easels

In progress on my drawing table and on the easels:

This is a little tedious to draw because all the background foliage is just organized scribbling with lots of layers. I’ve been listening to things on the internet to keep myself from falling asleep.

There’s a story here. . . I’ll tell you later when I figure out the ending.

Oil paintings of 4×6″ pomegranate and 6×18″ Sequoia Gigantea/Redwood/Big Tree are now begun. What a mess, but each layer will bring improvement and renewed confidence in my skill. (I don’t paint well when it is hot out, and it was when I began these.)

Ever draw a gas pump? (Ever use one??) After the customer approves the pencil (graphite) part, I’ll spray fix it and then use some red colored pencils. The proportions were wrong – was I sleep-drawing? No worries – I corrected things and the finished product will be fine.

And on the chair behind me were these little hooligans, resting from their shenanigans.

In Progress, Pencil and Oil

It was still hot last week. I painted awhile in the workshop but didn’t turn on the swamp cooler. Probably should have. Painted slowly, quit early.

More layers on the store and foreground.

The camellia is coming along nicely, and when this layer is dry, I’ll add the tiny details.

I retreated to the studio and turned on the air conditioner. While listening to interviews with the very smart and entertaining Mike Rowe, I began this pencil commission.

I love to draw.

Drawing #1 of the Silver City gas pump is now under way.

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Pencil Drawing Commissions

My commissioning customer/old family friend told me in our correspondence that she was interested in a pencil drawing of the gas pump at the Silver City Store. If you have seen it, you might understand. If you haven’t, you might consider this peculiar.

What I consider peculiar is that earlier this summer, while delivering some more oil paintings to this popular place near Mineral King, I was struck by a particular view and angle of the gas pump; I took some photos without having any idea that Ms. Customer would make such a request.

We discussed these photos. I referred to the peak in the distance as Hengst Peak; she told me she grew up calling it Mosquito Peak because it is above Mosquito Lakes. I thought it was over Mineral Lakes, but there is already a Mineral Peak in Mineral King (well, duh). It is the one that looks like Sawtooth’s shadow, but I digress. And I defer to her greater history in Silver City, so for purposes of this discussion, it will be Mosquito Peak. Not that we are talking about the peak–we are talking about the gas pump.

Sorry.

But then she requested a photo showing the road too, so on my next trip up the hill, I took these photos.

More discussion ensued. More clarification. This is normal. . . these things take time to figure out on my end and to decide on the customer’s end.

Finally, it was time to do some little sketches to be sure that I am understanding her wishes.

Good thing she knows that I know how to draw. We’ll see if I caught her vision for the gas pump in pencil. Stay tuned, for as you know, more will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Just heard from Ms. Customer: “Yay! Keep going!”

commission pencil work Mineral King pencil drawing

Another Oil Commission Begun

A friend of Trail Guy’s family has been in touch with me via email, and we have been enjoying our correspondence. She recently decided to commission me for an oil painting and 2 pencil drawings, all related to the Silver City Store*. After a great deal of communicating, sending photos, clarifying, and just discussing things, it was time to begin.

First, the oil painting. The oldest photo we could find was from 1985. It is later than her time there, but certainly closer in appearance than how it looks today.

Good thing that she knows I can paint, because the beginning always looks very rough. This will take many layers because of the vast amount of detail.

*The Silver City Store is 4 miles below the Mineral King valley. People stay in nice chalets, smaller store cabins, or in private cabins, and they stop there for burgers, pie and (we hope) for oil paintings.

commission oil painting

A Good Idea

C and Friends, pencil drawing, 11×14, unframed, $200

About 2 weeks ago, I took the brave leap into admitting that I have unsold drawings and that it bothers me. I also admitted publicly that those drawings were heading to the shredder if unsold for another month. This is not something many artists are willing to discuss, but I am not normal. (Thank you for playing along with me as if I am normal – you are very kind.)

Apparently, that was a good idea because almost all of those drawings sold! And there is still time. . . as of the date that I am writing this post, there are a few left that someone is pondering. (Those are labeled “Sale Pending”, as if I am selling real estate.)

Sometimes I go through those flat files and look at the unsold drawings, wonder if I could do any better, alternate between dark thoughts such as “Why bother?” and “But these are good!”. Then I go around and around: Could I have drawn it from another angle? Should it have been cropped differently? Should it not have been cropped? Is the subject irrelevant to my “collectors”? (Why does that word sound so pretentious to me?) Did I not show it to the right people? Who are the right people? Where are they and how do I find them?

Then I shut the drawers and move on.

Telling The Blog about the situation was a good idea. Thank you for listening.

P.S. There are more. Maybe in the future I will have the courage to put them on the auction block (The Blog) or the chopping block (The Shredder).

drawing pencil drawing

Cabin Thoughts, Part 2

Mineral King, pencil, framed approximately 14 x 18″, $400 plus tax.

I looked up “cabin” on my Mac. The dictionary on my computer has fairly useless definitions as far as our discussion is concerned.

Cabin may refer to:

Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
Log cabin, a house built from logs
Cottage, a small house
Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
Small, remote, mansion (Western Canada)
Small, free-standing structures that serve as individual lodging spaces of a motel

Forget that. Where’s my real Webster’s dictionary?? Mine was published in 2004 rather than 1935. Oh good grief, look at this:

A small, simple, one-story house.

Willow Window, pencil. Is this a cabin? Nope, it is a bungalow. But it is a small, simple, one-story house. How do I know? Because I used to live there.

Kitchen Corner, pencil, framed, $150. Is this a cabin? Yep. How do I know? I live there in the summer. But wait! It has 2 stories!

A few folks checked in with their thoughts on what a cabin is. One suggested “primitive”; another said a place to get away from every day life; a third (and someone else I talked to in person) suggests that a cabin is a state of mind, “non-fancy” is a good description, and someone else added in a description of an ideal cabin. She used the word “spare”, which could mean an extra home or it could mean without clutter. (I’ve seen some pretty cluttered cabins, and I have lived in a cabin when it was my only place of residence.)

Come back tomorrow for more thoughts on cabins and cabin life; clearly, there is no clear definition of cabin, but there are many ideas about it. Clearly.

cabin drawing cabin drawings cabin life drawing Mineral King pencil drawing

Tough Decision, Part Two

There are many seasoned artists who freely share their experience with other artists. One of the nuggets I’ve gleaned through the years is “Get rid of your junk”. There is no reason to keep things around that do not sell or do not represent your best work.

The Cabins of Mineral King represented my best work in 1998. I draw better now, which is good; I would better have improved over the last 20 years or that would be a sorry situation. (That was an awkward sentence – anyone know a good editor?)

Still, the unsold drawings haunt me, take up space and just need to go away, either through a sale or through a shredder.

Before they go into the shredder, here is a chance for you to own an original pencil drawing for a peanut butter sandwich, as my dad used to say. I will consider offers, as long as they are not insulting.

One month from today, October 7, is the deadline on this batch of drawings.

cabin drawing cabin drawings drawing Mineral King mineral king drawings pencil drawing

Category: drawing