7 Things I Learned in June
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- I could be doing something called “affiliate marketing” on my blog by listing products I use and like and then putting the link on the site so that if you click and buy, I would earn money. It is called “passive income”, but that term fails to take into account all the work of signing up and staying current with the various companies, along with doing all the copy/paste work on a blog post.
- There is a wildflower shrub, native to the west coast, and also the state flower of Idaho, called Mock Orange. It grows along the Mineral King Road, is in the hydrangea family, the genus name is Philadelphus and it is called Mock Orange because it smells good like orange blossoms.
Mock Orange, as pilferedpicked from the lower end of the Mineral King Road in early June. - If you swish oil around in your mouth every day, it could repair all your damaged teeth and gums. I thought this was an internet hoax, (called “oil pulling”, often done with coconut oil) until I talked to a neighbor who had been doing this and got the best dental check up of his entire life. Weird.
- There are insect repellent bracelets! Yeppers, and they look like curly old phone cords. Some company called “Gorgeous Ranch” makes them, says they are all natural (citronella, lemon grass and geraniol) and last up to 300 hours. I wore one and it might have worked! WAIT! I can try that affiliate marketing thing! See if this takes you there and makes me “rich”: They smell good, in case you are wondering. A box of twenty costs $11.99 on Amazon.
- Life is funny. At the same time I am paying someone big bucks to rebuild my website (Way Too Difficult for my website building skills), I designed a website for a friend (much simpler than mine). Check this out: www.sequoiavacationrentals.net
- I found a new enjoyable podcast by Gimlet Media. “Heavyweight” has a host who tries to resolve old problems or lingering questions. He chases down people, asks questions, and has a very direct but caring conversational style (but why do people cuss so much??) The description is “Jonathan Goldstein goes back to the moment everything changed”. Fun to listen and learn while painting or drawing.
- Also on Gimlet is a podcast called “The Recappery” by The History Chicks. They have three 2-hour episodes talking about a PBS version of Little Women. I found it more entertaining than actually reading the book, which I’ve done many times. These two women are so fun to listen to – completely unrehearsed, just talking about a program as we eavesdrop.
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Instruct Me, Please
Thirty-three years ago some friends and I tried rock climbing, that rappelling thing with ropes and harnesses. My friend was suspended over space and she looked up at the guy (with barely contained fear) who was supposedly teaching us and said quite calmly, “Instruct me, please!”
Today I want to instruct you a bit about subscribing to my blog, except I can’t!
News Flash: at 7:36 a.m. the Blog Subscription button reappeared! You may now subscribe (or resubscribe) to the blog!
For some reason, the dealio to subscribe to the blog has vanished. This means that you can no longer subscribe to the blog, until and unless I figure out what went wrong. You know that the word “update” is a euphemism for “complication”, yes? Well, something got “updated”, and in the process, the blog subscription dealio went away.
All I know to do is to advise you to go to the World Wide Web (might be Safari, might be Chrome–I hope you know what it is on your own computer or device), look up my website, and when you get to cabinart.net, then click on the word blog in the menu bar at the top.
All I wanted was to draw, paint, tell you about it, and sell some art. But, my life got updated.
So, to make up for my ignorance, confusion, chaos, and general ambiguity, please enjoy a picture of quiet and calm, something that I could use right about now.
Do You Love To Read?
No Mineral King today – I haven’t been for a couple of weeks because I went to Hume Lake.
I love to read. Do you?
Some of my favorite podcasts are about books and reading: What Should I Read Next, By the Book (the one with all the cussing), Just the Right Book, From the Front Porch. While listening to several podcasts recently, I learned of a PBS thing called The Great American Read. It is a book popularity contest, seeking America’s favorite novel. You can watch the 2 hours of the program about the books, and if you love books and reading, you will enjoy this program. Then you can vote for your favorite novel, which any reader knows is an impossible task. No problem – you get to vote once a day until the contest ends in the fall.
I didn’t vote because it requires a sign-up, either through FaceBook (not happening for this little gray duck) or via email, and I don’t want to put myself on another list. However, you might. Or maybe you want to do what I did after watching the program: read the list and count how many of the books you have read. I have read 36 of the 100, and a few of them are on my To-Be-Read list.
What does this have to do with being an artist in the Central Valley of California?
Nothing.
Will you tell me 2 things? 1. Which ones you would vote for and 2. how many you have read off the list. Inquiring minds need to know. (I am an Enneagram #5 and a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies – you may need to do some reading to understand this stuff.)
Here is today’s painting: Reading Rabbit, AKA “Salt & Light”, an oil painting on board. It isn’t for sale, because I like it too much to sell.
Random Information
Sometimes I have a head full of random facts to tell you that don’t want to wait for the end of the month round-up of things learned in the month.
- The Oak Grove Bridge, my favorite subject for drawing and painting, will be “retrofitted”, a fancy term that means reinforced to make it safe while keeping it as its same beautiful self. This is a huge relief to me; I was picturing myself chained to the bridge to prevent its destruction, wondering if anyone would bring me dinner or mosquito repellent, and wondering how much it would cost to be bailed out of jail.
- I visited Hume Lake for a few days with a friend from childhood at her cabin. Still the Sierra Nevada, but very very different from Mineral King.
Hume Lake, from on the water - There were wild iris blooming there – what?? They bloom in early May along the lower part of the Mineral King Road in the shady drainages. Hume is around 5000′ in elevation and they were in hot dry places. My friend thought it was a bit odd to keep photographing them. Perhaps it was. . .
- Her cabin kitchen was retro and charming.
- The dam on the lake is historic and impressive.
Dam creating Hume Lake. - I missed my kitties and continue to wonder how I will tell Piper from Tucker when Tucker is grown.
Piper is tired from rolling in the dirt, and Tucker thinks his tail is a toy. - Before I left, I began a new pencil drawing.
Pencil drawing with a touch of color for the upcoming 2019 calendar. - I love to row a boat and was tickled that neither of my friends wanted to take over the oars.
These are kayaks; my friends and I were the oldest people on the lake and the only ones in a rowboat. We were also the only ones singing. - The painting studio is a mess, but a recovered couch and chair will happen soon.
Is this mess a place?? And thus we conclude a list of random information.
Today’s painting for sale:
Sunflower, oil on 8×8″ wrapped canvas ready for hanging without a frame, $108 includes sales tax
Sit On It
Have you heard that thing “Sitting is the new smoking”?
Hogwash.
Been thinking about chairs recently. My cabin neighbors are replacing some living room furniture, and it would be awful if their old pieces went to the dump. My couch needs recovering, so why not cover theirs from the ’40s and dump mine from the ’80s? And if I move a chair from the living room to the studio, I can put theirs in the living room. . .
This blue chair from the living room could replace this red one in the studio. The red one is very hard for people to get out of, so this makes sense.
The red chair is outdoor furniture. (What kind of dork puts outdoor furniture inside? This kind of dork, that’s who.) Sorry, the wooden chair isn’t for sale. I could draw it for you. . .
Today’s art is of chairs, all pencil or colored pencil drawings:
I could keep on going, but this is just getting embarrassing. What is the deal? Am I a closet sitter??
Things I Learned in May
- There is something called “Allergic Pneumonitis” that you can get from breathing the dust of certain tree bark and sawdust. I learned this the hard way.
- When bad things happen, such as Allergic Pneumonitis, the best question is “What does this make possible?” What it made possible was uninterrupted time for me to work on my new website. Not ready yet, but I sure have been learning how to operate new computery things behind the scenes.
- Roundworm makes kittens have round bellies. (You are welcome.)
- Manx cats are an unnatural, human perpetuated “breed” of cat. There are “stumpies” with a stub of a tail, and “rumpies” with no stub whatsoever. Sometimes they happen by accident; sometimes breeders try to create these creatures. The “rumpies” often are undeveloped in many critical body parts. I’ve heard that when cats are born this way without either parent being like this, that it has to do with malnourishment in the womb. Whatever it is, I won’t be making the mistake of choosing such a creature again. Sigh.
- One of the best memoirs I have read in awhile is Educated by Tara Westover. WOW and WOW. I must have learned something. Mostly I was completely captivated by her courage, toughness, fantastic writing, and brilliant mind.
- Maeve Binchy has been my favorite novelist for many years (I named a cat after her). In May I discovered Monica McInerney, whose characters are as complete and stories are as engrossing as Maeve’s. (The only drawback is that she treats sex like a spectator sport. With paper books, unlike audio books, one can flip past the parts that don’t enhance the storyline.) Family Baggage might be the best I’ve read of hers so far.
- Lots of successful people listen to talks over and over by people like Zig Ziglar, Og Mandino, and Brian Tracy, all motivational speakers who help people set and make goals. I learned from one of those guys that “We become what we think about”, and that we have to write down goals and read them every day and think about them. But what I really learned is that I am fairly goalless, just drifting along on auto pilot. This is a topic for further exploration in another blog post down the road.
- Ever heard of “bullet coffee”? I have no idea why it is called this. People put coconut oil or butter in their coffee, sometimes running it through a blender. I had no idea why they would do this, since I am still stuck with one foot in the land of Fat-Is-Bad. But I learned that the fat slows down the caffeine in one’s system. Hmmm, why isn’t it called “time release coffee”?
Sometimes Piper just needs to park on my briefcase and join me as we contemplate matters of consequence. P.S. I forgot my resolution to show my paintings regularly, so I’ll start again now.
Hot Wheels
Does it seem as if I am obsessed with Hot Wheels? My older sister’s first car was a ’68 Mustang, which was thrilling after only having giant station wagons and farm pickups at our address. Then I discovered Honda Accords, and have owned nothing but since about 1981. (This topic doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the business of art, but I do like good cars, and this is my blog. So there.)
My friend has a great looking 2007 Mustang convertible. Her mom bought it for herself on her 80th birthday, and my friend inherited it.
Samson liked it.
It appeared in my coloring book.
It was parked outside the workshop when I handed my friend the binder of drawings for the first coloring book. She is a quiet person, and when she was finished looking through the pages, she looked outside and calmly said, “Did I see my car”? I’d like to be calm, but I probably said something like, “HAR HAR HA HA HA IT SURE IS!”
And I like it.
But, I still wouldn’t dream of owning a car that my mechanic of the past 35 years won’t work on. Foreign Auto Works in Visalia only works on Honda, Acura, Toyota, and Lexus. So, Hot Wheels is just for fun, not something I aspire to. And it is fun, indeed!
Remember
Remember with thankfulness.
Back to the Easels, Sort Of
After spending a weekend at the Redbud Festival discussing and hanging around with my oil paintings, it was time to resume painting. I have 6 Mineral King paintings to complete before the show at the Silver City Store on June 30. There’s plenty of time. . . good thing, because the distractions continue.
Before beginning to work on the remaining 6, several other paintings needed to be retouched. I noticed that a few skies had some green paint smudges. How did this happen? Probably by moving them around before they were fully dried. But I had to be very very careful, because these four were hovering around my work space.
This painting of a Big Tree seemed to not be quite right to me. I reblued the sky, brightened the highlighted edge, and put a tiny bit more light green on the ground.
Meanwhile, these guys wanted to know what was going on over their heads.
Then I finally began working on the 6×18″ of Timber Gap with lupine in the foreground. Wow, tedious stuff.
But, plenty of interruptions kept me from falling asleep at the easel.
Trail Guy stopped by to visit with the kittens. Then he did a bit of yardening.
It was a sad day at the easels, because it was our last day with Maeve. We were correct in our assessment of her state of unhealthiness. She is a sweet-natured little fuzzball, but she isn’t going to ever grow up right. Cats with no tails and no stubs of tails often have trouble, and she was one of those types. We took her to the vet yesterday to have him do the deed, and THE VET TECH ADOPTED HER!! She will know what to watch for and will be able to get Maeve the help she needs when she needs it.
We were blessed to have this little kitty in our lives for 2 weeks, and now are ready to see what happens with the others. Tucker and Scout are our buddies, but Heidi hisses whenever we reach toward her for any reason. Maybe we’ll change her name to Hissy. Little Miss Hissy-fit.
