Learn, Schmearn

I accidentally took black and white photos on a day full of beautiful bright natural colors. This became an opportunity to learn how to use the colorize tool on Photoshop Junior (actually Photoshop Elements).

I am not impressed. 

Let’s try it with another photo.

Better, but still nothing to get excited about.

Now I will use the tool to adjust color.

This isn’t very good either.

What did I learn? That if I mess up and accidentally take black and white photos, it is a waste of time to try to make them look natural.

How about if I just stop messing up when the pictures are important?

Good idea.

Not on Purpose

Remember in the olden days when we took photos and didn’t see them until our film got developed?

We have gotten used to looking at them instantly, which is great in theory, but what happens when you are outside in the bright sun and cannot see the screen? Cameras rarely have eyeholes, and the ones that do are small, blurry, inadequate, scratched, or just dirty.

Additionally, if you cannot see the screen, you cannot see the controls on the screen. Sometimes this creates accidents.

A little over a week ago after a storm (not the snowstorm), everything was so beautiful that I laid down my paintbrushes and headed out with Trail Guy to see some natural beauty. The wildflowers!!

THEN, without knowing it, I had a camera accident.

How would I know? I couldn’t see the screen. When I put on some glasses and moved into the shade, I realized that the color was absent, so I randomly pushed the controls until color appeared again.

This flowering pear is the first to bloom in the neighborhood (mid-February) and the last to lose its color in the fall (sometimes late November). This photo might have looked okay in black and white.

It took quite a bit of button pushing when I got home to restore the normal settings. I don’t know how it switched to black and white and doubt if I could make it do that again, at least not on purpose.

Now I am going to experiment with something called “colorize” on Photoshop Junior. This is an opportunity to learn.

Peculiar Sights

Remember Peculiar Sights? I used to post peculiar sights as a regular feature on the blog, but somewhere along the way, I either stopped noticing or everything became normal. 

The photos from Mineral King were taken in late August and early September, obviously pre-fire; I have been waiting for awhile to gather enough peculiarities to put together a blog post.

  1. This little concrete building is the object of much speculation in Mineral King. One day someone is going to tell us what it was for and then we will know. It is up to the older generations to pass on their knowledge and up to the younger generations to keep track.

2. Yes, that is a cat. I was stunned. After I confessed to a possible Cat Disorder, the cat man graciously allowed me to take this photo. (A trailhead ranger turned them around – pets are not allowed in the National Parks on trails or in the backcountry).

3. This dog was just covering trail as if it had the right to be there. It wasn’t until I looked at my photo that I saw he was wearing socks. (Also turned back by the trailhead ranger).

4. Can you see the cat tail below the sparkly skirt? Is this peculiar, or is it the fact that this little bitty trooper walked 9.5 miles (and then wrestled with her brother and rode her bike when she got home)?

5. I don’t know what this is, which is what makes it peculiar. It is in Orange Cove, photographed in February of last year.

6. This is no longer a peculiar sight; turkeys run amuck daily in our yard (counted 36 on a march last week), but at the time, the scene struck me as something worth photographing.

7. This deer has an additional spike (look closely).

8. Excuse me??

And thus we conclude a look into some of the more strange scenes of my little world as a Central California artist.

More Peculiar Sights, here, here (9 years ago!),and  here (almost 10 years ago!!).

Autumn Break

Today’s post is a break for you from my normal bloviations about art.

Something red caught my eye on my commute* out to the studio last week.(Feel free to get a pumpkin spice something to accompany these photo.)

And this, which looks like a symbol of wildfire to me:

Meanwhile, Pippin has been very delinquent, refusing to come into the garages at night, running around like an unruly hooligan. This makes him very tired during the day.

Tucker has had a campout or two, but likes to wait outside my studio for me to finish work.

Two out of three, always two out of three. Jackson is hiding somewhere. When he appears, one of the others will go away. 

We all sleep better when there are three cats safely locked up in the outbuildings.

But wait! There’s more! Why are these August flowers still blooming in October? (Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth).

It was still raining ash and the light was still orange last week when I took these photos. 

P.S. Happy Birthday, Blog Reader Anne!

*50 yard walk? 100 yards? how about 35 seconds?

Mooney Grove V

Today let’s look at some of the more unusual pieces of Tulare County’s Mooney Grove Park. It will require a little bit of talk today.

Hugh Mooney often gets credit for donating the family’s acreage to Tulare County, but this sign says the Mooney family sold it the County for $15,000.

Maybe Hugh used that rifle to shoot squirrels. They are certainly a plague on the place now. Active squirrel holes are rampant.

What’s this? A platform to put a thingie for Frisbie golf, which can now only be called “disk golf”. There is an entire course for this popular game on the north side, but I saw the gizmos (“holes”) in other areas too.And here is another platform which used to hold a statue called “The Pioneer”. The plaster statue crumbled. (End of the Trail in plaster was traded with the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City for a bronze version).

There are 2 hills in the Park on the east edge. They were created with the dirt dug to form a recharging basin in the park. The formation is useful as an amphitheater, and one hill has a disk golf “hole”. When I went to Redwood High School, I used to look through the fence at a little log cabin that appeared to be abandoned. It was. After I grew up and became The Central California Pencil Artist (a self-ascribed title), the Boy Scouts reclaimed it, disassembled it, moved it to Mooney Grove, and reassembled it. I drew it as a fund raiser to help pay for the enterprise. (I wonder if I still have a copy of that drawing. . .)

Finally, I leave you with this Peculiar Sight.

Tomorrow we will conclude our tour of Tulare County’s Mooney Grove Park.

Mooney Grove Tour I

This is a virtual tour. Enjoy it from the comfort of your easy chair. No viruses to be spread this way.

Mooney Grove Park is 100 acres of about 50 types of trees. The Valley Oaks (quercus lobata) make up about half of the tree population. The land was sold to Tulare County in 1909, with the agreement that only dead or dying Valley Oaks could be removed. Meanwhile, many new trees have been planted, a few of which I recognized, some that I learned about, some that surprised me, and all of which contributed to the specialness of this interesting and beautiful place.

It helped that I was working there during March, my second most favorite month. The grounds were green and many trees were in bloom.

Stop talking, Central Calif. artist, because we want to see some photos.

Okay. Photos. No more talk. Just pictures of a beautiful park in spring.

Any questions? To be continued Monday.

Old Calendars

In 2012 I made my first calendar. It was an experiment, because a calendar has a short time to sell, and when it is over, a business is stuck with unsellable inventory. The calendar sold well enough, 100 turned out to be the right number, and I have continued making calendars ever since.

When reviewing the calendars, it looks as if they are random. In fact, each calendar represents the previous year’s focus (or obsession). There are photos, paintings, and drawings.

2013 – I didn’t save a picture of either the front or the back, so I don’t know what it was about or what I named it. I ordered about 10 or 20 at a time because I didn’t know how well it would sell. (Obviously I didn’t know much that year.)

2014 Tulare County calendar
2014 – Back when I only had about 15,000 photos, I was able to go through and select 12 for this calendar without too much trouble. But what did the front look like?
2015’s calendar was my best oil paintings that were horizontal and of Tulare County subjects. I called it “Beautiful Tulare County”. Again I ask, “What did the front look like?”
2016’s calendar was pencil drawings of Tulare County (of course) cabins–Wilsonia, Mineral King, Camp Nelson. Why didn’t I save a picture of the backside??
2017 front – the calendar was a blend of drawings and paintings.
2017 calendar back “The Bridges of Tulare County”
2018 was Flowing Water, because in 2017 we had a most welcome wet winter and the flowing water was to be celebrated.
2019 – was very fun because I got to draw 11 new pictures and figure out ways to incorporate color.

2019 still has many of the original drawings available. Want any? None are framed. All are 11×14″ or 9×12″. You can make an offer. If it is too low, I will not take offense but might counter-offer. (Normally those sizes sell for $200-275 before tax).

What will the calendar for 2020 be?

Mineral King Wildflowers!

Of course it is about Mineral King wildflowers, my current obsession. It is in progress, so you will have to restrain yourselves until it is for sale.

This year it will be $15 if ordered by October 1, and $20 if ordered afterward.

Little Get-Away

What is going on? At the end of June, I hadn’t been to Mineral King, but I did visit Hume Lake. This has become a tradition with a friend of mine from childhood. (“Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other PLATINUM!)

This is the now historic dam that forms Hume Lake, built for harvesting timber, for the lumber industry, a vital piece of our world, and thankfully, a renewable resource.
There is a fantastic view of the high country of Kings Canyon National Park across the lake.
The wild azalea were in bloom while I was there. We don’t have those in Mineral King.
Hume Lake is perfectly smooth in the morning.

More tomorrow.