Mineral King | Cabin Art

Odd Job

As an artist with a lengthy reputation of reliability and skill in the same county for several decades, I get asked to do many odd things in the name of art. It is just part of the business of art.

Some friends have a painting of Mineral King by a long-deceased relative, someone who wasn’t very familiar with Mineral King. They didn’t like something about it, and asked me if I could change it. I enjoy challenges like this, so I said yes. The back of the painting is signed with the year 1964.

My friends’ beef with the painting is the scary face in the rock.

The lump on Farewell Gap really bothered me.

Little Red Riding Hood is seriously out of proportion; the upper body is too big for the lower body.

Lumpectomy performed on the right flank of West Florence (and Bearskin added to Vandever).

Now Little Red Riding Hood will be able to hike better.

Mucho Bettero. My friends reassured me that Great Aunt Whose-it won’t haunt me for messing with her painting. Someday in the future, someone may retouch my paintings, and to them I say, “Go for it!”

oil painting

Going Bigger

In the post “Eight Things I Learned in October”, #3 said, “It is time to think about painting larger.”

Doing rather than just talking is something I value, so. . .

. . .I began a larger painting, and am slowly coming to understand the reason it feels necessary. Most of my paintings are 12×16″ and smaller, with a handful of 18×24″; this is fine for the art and craft fairs, but not so fine if I ever want to get into galleries. Do I? Not sure, but it can’t hurt to be prepared. (What I’d really like is for the hoped-for boutique motel to come to Three Rivers and buy my paintings!)

Here we go – 18×36″, practically a mural in my world.

Working from a previous version of the same scene, 6×18″, on my laptop screen.

The proportions of 18×36″ are different than the 6×18″, so I am struggling a bit with placement and sizes. I can do this!! (One would hope so, since I have painted the scene about 3 or 4 dozen times).

Looks as if we will be on this for awhile.

I need a bit more gratification, a quicker sense of accomplishment. First, I’ll go outside and enjoy some fall colors, try to get a sense of something other than “OH NO WHAT HAVE I BEGUN?”

Tomorrow you will see my quick fix to fulfill the need to complete something.

Mineral King

Good Season at Silver City

Yesterday the gate to Mineral King shut for the season.

Since 2010, the Silver City Store at the Silver City Resort, as they are now officially called, has been selling my oil paintings. 2019 was the best year ever!

6×6″ remained the most popular size (it costs the least), the Crowley cabin with Farewell Gap in the background remained the most popular scene, with the Honeymoon Cabin, my favorite Oak Grove Bridge and Sawtooth running neck and neck in second place.

Have a look at a few of the paintings that sold. I’m not showing the most popular scene because the other ones need a chance to shine too. (Except for the bridge, because you know it is my favorite subject to draw and paint.)

P.S. We also sold quite a few packages of Mineral King notecards (assortment of 4 pencil drawings) and many Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.

Thank you, Silver City Resort/Store!

Closing Up Mineral King

We closed our Mineral King cabin for the season. It is always a mixed bag, like most things in life. One last weekend, but a cold one with lots of work. One last time with friends, with some wondering if everyone will make it through the winter. One last look at things before the snow comes, hoping the snow does come.

(The Mineral King Road will be open until Wednesday, Oct. 30.)

It was cold. Is this a stalactite? Nope, it is a reverse icicle.

Trail Guy and I went to the Honeymoon Cabin to close it for the year. It is the little Mineral King museum, as opposed to the larger one in the Three Rivers Historical Museum.

This is the tree where I sat to paint a few times this summer.

And this is the scene I painted several times. The colors and light are sure different in October than in July or August.

Bye-bye, little cabin-museum. See you next summer.

Doesn’t this look gloomy, melancholy and cold?

. . .and doesn’t this look colorful, warm and bright?

The fall colors were good, but not great. This particular area usually has the brightest colored aspens, and this fall was no exception. (But I’ve seen them much brighter in past years.)

This is how it looks across the stream toward the Nature Trail. Some leaves gone, some bright, and a few aspens still green.

HEY KITTIES! We are home for awhile! (Tucker is shy and hiding, as usual).

A typical morning scene in our yard in Three Rivers, always a treat.

More Mineral King in the Studio

I’ve been looking forward to painting in the painting studio/workshop for a few weeks. Going to Sandy Eggo, working on the mural, time in Mineral King – all good things, but still things that prevented painting in the studio. Life is a series of choices and consequences.

Mineral King

Painting Mineral King in the Studio

This is a commissioned oil painting of Mineral King. The Friend/Customer wanted a painting to fit a particular space and match some of her other paintings. This magical scene was her decision, and I am happy to comply.

Here we go, step by step.

From the top: the original reference photo, the reference photo that her other painting came from, first layer of the 6×18″ painting, a print of the other time I painted this scene.

What’s going on here? I already like the painting! Normally I just hold my nose (figuratively, not literally) at this stage of a painting.

Maybe something I learned in the plein air painting sessions is improving my studio painting. (Or maybe this is just a magical scene.)

Mineral King

Signs of Fall in Mineral King

A few cold days arrived in early October, so Trail Guy went up the hill to make sure our water system and cabins were faring well. (Yes, “cabins” plural, because he looks after many of our neighbors’ places too.)

This is what happens when you leave a sprinkler running during a cold spell.

We went up together the following weekend, and it was still cold. It was colder inside the cabin than out, and we built a fire in our fireplace for the first time this year.

The morning sun came in and helped warm the place up to about 60 degrees. Or maybe it was 55.

Hiking Buddy and I spent a fair amount of time slouching on the couch while the men did various maintenance chores in our neighborhood. We did manage one walk to experience the beginning of fall colors.

The farmer spotted these yellow flowers under a shrub. The yellow petals are crunchy. I don’t know how my summer wildflowers look in the fall; I’m guessing buckwheat.

We went off trail (of course) and found this platform from the mining days when there were many cabins in the area. Can you tell it is a platform? Might need to be there in person.

Trail Guy spotted this spider web so I passed the camera to him. As a knitter, I appreciate the symmetry, but not so much that I would have chosen to photograph this.

One of the main signs of fall in Mineral King is that the Spring Creek Bridge is gone for the season. It wasn’t hard to cross with a stabilizing hand or two from an accommodating husband (or two).

Look! Bigelow Sneezeweed STILL IN BLOOM below the Honeymoon Cabin. This is the last remaining vestige* of summer in Mineral King.

The Lower Mineral King Road

I went away for 6 days and missed a blogging appointment. While I am sorting out my thoughts and photos of the time away, here is a post from about 2 weeks ago, the last time I went to Mineral King.

The flume has a leak or something, so there has been water in this little drainage a few miles up the road ALL SUMMER LONG!

It takes us a very long time to navigate the road because we get to stop and talk to friends who are heading down.

The Tar Weed has been thick and early this season. This is the windmill by the historic Sweet Ranch.

The potholes at Squirrel Creek have run ALL SUMMER LONG!

There is a weird vine that grows over shrubs on the lower road. I never notice it until fall when it looks like fuzz-balls.

Another Do-Over

When I was new to oil painting, I was bound to photos. That is the best way for me to learn – mix the colors to match the photo. Finally, after many years of painting, I have developed the ability and confidence to just make scenes look as good as I am able.

P.S. This is Mineral King, which I am sure you figured out.

Mineral King

Mineral King Wildflower Quest

A friend told me about a new wildflower by Crystal Creek, so Trail Guy, The Farmer, Hiking Buddy, and I went to see.

When she described the flower, I said, “Sounds like Nettleleaf Horsemint”. But she didn’t remember a serrated leave edge, and I can rarely resist the call of a new flower.