Schizophrenic Weather

Recently I have been enjoying the green, wildflowers, and daffodils, sharing them with you all.

Wednesday morning, February 23, this was how our yard looked.

I heard a radio announcer say, “The Sierra is celebrating much needed snow”. I’m unsure how a mountain range “celebrates”, but I know we are very very thankful for any and all precipitation here in Three Rivers. Probably in all of California other than the upper north end of our bizarrely diverse state.

It is too dark to photograph snow around here. It only looks great when the sun comes out, but the snow disappears almost immediately.

Trail Guy has such a soft spot for Pippin.

My flowering pear is in bloom at the same time we get snow? THIS is why I love February!

The yard doesn’t look quite as sittable as usual. I’ll just stand—thanks for asking.

Twelve Reasons to Write Notes

Do you write notes to people?

Do you get notes from people?

Writing notes is now a rarity; people switched to phone calls, then email, and finally texting, where punctuation, complete sentences, and spelled out words are an oddity. (“The word is ‘before’, not B4. Around here we speak English, not Bingo.”)

Consider these reasons for writing:

  1. It makes people feel good.
  2. No one has ever cherished an email or a text.
  3. Mail is fun.
  4. You can practice your writing skills.
  5. You can practice your penmanship.
  6. It gives our wonderful postal carriers purpose.
  7. It makes gratitude tangible.
  8. You can use my notecards. 
  9. Sometimes people will email a response or even write a note back to you. 
  10. It acknowledges the fact that someone did something for you that wasn’t required.
  11. It keeps manners alive.
  12. It will set you apart from others.

Notecards available here: Cabinart/Store/Notecards

 

Lazy Listicle Two

This Central California artist has recovered her writing voice, although we (the royal “we”–ain’t no one here ‘cept me) are still waiting for an order of canvases to show up so that I can start painting poppies. Two are commissions, and the rest are just for general inventory.

  1. Poppies are in bloom and have been for a couple of weeks. It isn’t a “superbloom” or anything that will knock your socks off; the thrill is that they began blooming in January. This is helpful so that the new poppy paintings won’t look exactly like ones previously painted and sold.
  2. These chairs are made of something called “Polywood”, a long-lasting material fabricated out of recycled milk cartons. Polywood is American ingenuity combined with capitalistic sensibility, along with a bit of earth-huggery, and a good dose of practicality. (Maybe they can hire me to write ads for them.) The chairs cost a small fortune, but since we have spent several small fortunes on wooden ones that collapse, this almost feels like an investment rather than just a purchase. We have a very sittable yard.
  3. I have finally grown some food. Check out the broccoli! Too bad it is ready all at the same time.
  4. Mailboxes are situated all over our giant yard, an excellent method of storing tools. This is the latest one. Maybe someday I will give you a tour.In hindsight, I can see by these last 2 posts that I have spent a good deal of time outside in the past few weeks. We always need and want more rain, but if it isn’t here, I will just soak up some greenery and rays, and be thankful for the precipitation received in December.

Lazy Listicle One

Since I am not making art that translates well into blog posts, here is a list of random topics, unrelated to anything in particular. Lists are the lazy way to write.

  1. Three new stepping stones: they look so much better with grout than without. You can see that I acquired some yellow tiles. Want any? I have a box that is almost too heavy to lift, full of these 4×4″ pieces of ceramic sunshine.
  2. The narcissus (mini daffodils?) and/or paperwhites bloom in January around here. (I don’t know what they are officially called.)
  3. We have the sittingest yard!
  4. This will be a sweater. The yarn matches a skirt I found, which was a big thrill to this color junkie, especially since I took a chance by ordering them off the internet. They are the color of sequoia trees, which is a thrill to this simple-minded Central California artist.Tomorrow: Listicle Two.

Irrelevant

“Irrelevant“?

Yeppers, irrelevant.

What is irrelevant?

The things currently occupying the Central California artist’s days are irrelevant to the topics of this blog.

Why does this matter?

You probably don’t care about the things occupying her days right now, so the blog is going to be quiet for a short time.

How short?

Until your Central California artist is able to return to her easels.

When will that be?

She isn’t sure, but if she thinks of something that might interest you, she will post again whether or not she has returned to her easels or drawing table. (Nothing is wrong—fret not!)

But we will miss her!

It is her hope that absence will make your heart grow fonder, rather than out of sight, out of mind.

Can we have a photograph as a little temporary good-bye gift?

Sure.

We saw that one just last week!

Don’t you think it is so very cute?

But we want something else. . .

Okay, how about this one.

I will be back soon—thank you for your patience!

Nothing to See Here

Because  I have been hard at work editing 2 books, and also formatting one of them, there isn’t much to show you.

Here, have a look inside my studio where I am parked with my laptop for hours at a time. It is nice to be surrounded by art that I like.

Jackson stopped by for a visit, but he would not stay still. He just pretends to like me in case I might feed him.

Sometimes I get distracted by light and shadow.

The mug says, “. . . and thou shalt have dominion over all the beasts, except, of course, for CATS.”

 

A Birthday Walk

On Trail Guy’s birthday, we went to Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park, which is as far as people are allowed to go right now. It has been about 2-1/2 weeks since the last storm, but the road isn’t cleared because the equipment is broken and there aren’t enough operators or mechanics. At least that’s what they say. When Trail Guy was Road Guy, there were no excuses—the road was kept open, no matter what. Period. No time-off. Sigh.

Fretting over the present is not why we are here today. We are here because there are sights to see, such as this ugly burned area.

Moro Rock as seen from Hospital Rock; steps go up the side you cannot see from here. Advertisement: I have a pencil drawing of this, available as a reproduction. Might even still have the original buried deep in a file.

This elderberry shrub survived the fire.

Castle Rocks: if you look across the middle fork of the Kaweah River from atop Moro Rock, you will see these distinctive rocks. Or you can skip the climb and take the Moro Creek Road to see them, as we did, especially when the Park is mostly unavailable. 

California bay laurel trees make bay leaves, the kind used in cooking.

We walked up the Moro Creek Road, which takes you to the Middle Fork Trailhead.

I love me some green.

That footbridge down there is called the Buckeye bridge because you get to it through the Buckeye campground. A long time ago, Trail Guy was part of the crew who rebuilt the bridge. A big flood took it out the following winter and it had to be rebuilt yet again. (He wasn’t part of that rebuild.)

Alta Peak’s elephant is at a more oblique angle than the way we see it from Three Rivers.

The green arrow points toward Alta Peak; the blue oval is around Triple Divide Peak (separating 3 drainages: Kings to the left/north, Kaweah to the west/toward us, Kern to the right/south); the red oval is around Mt. Stewart.

Heading back, looking down toward the valley.

In addition to loving green, I love me a good stone wall.

And thus we conclude our birthday walk of 3.3 miles in the foothills of Sequoia National Park, just above the little town of Three Rivers, in Tulare County, California’s flyover country.

Sincerely,

Your Central California artist who takes walks instead of painting or drawing these days but plans on getting back to work eventually.

 

A Walk With a Mission

Why am I showing you this? Because I am not working on any art projects at the moment. (Pictures of two book editing projects wouldn’t hold your interest—you’re welcome.)

Further, I won’t be revealing the location of this walk, because we were trespassing. Forgive us our trespasses. . .

I was on a mission. The last time we took this walk, I spied a classic cabin—stone chimney, board and batten siding, very simple.

Who cares? Your Central California artist.

Why? My business is called “Cabin Art”. And I have been walking in this neighborhood for 23 years, so it is quite thrilling (and puzzling) to see something for the first time, something clearly old that has escaped my notice.

I talked to a couple of people who know the area and received a couple of possible explanations for this intriguing structure. It is down there somewhere. (Trail Guy brought binoculars).

THERE! See it? It is so far down a driveway that it is not at all visible from the road that I walk.

Mystery solved. After that, we had a shouted conversation with our friends on a lower section of road.

Alta Peak was crispy clear.

There it is again! Why haven’t those people asked me to draw it? Don’t they know who I am??

It might make a nice painting, if I include the backdrop. I’ve heard the people are quite reclusive, but the strangest coincidences regularly occur when I am curious about a building. I learned the names of the owner, and next week, someone by the same name who I know is related started drawing lessons. More will be revealed. . . or not.Looking down canyon, you can see the air quality deteriorates. But oh my, the GREEN!

This is not the river. Just sayin’. (That is a handy little cliché).

A POPPY ON JANUARY 9!! Excuse me for shouting. This is Very Very Early. But wait! There’s more!

BUSH LUPINE TOO! Guess I was too excited to focus the camera, not that one has the option on a PHD* type of camera.

*Press Here, Dummy

Avoiding the Mess in the Studio

Since finishing the indoor murals, I haven’t been working on any art projects worthy of posting. Instead. . .

. . . Trail Guy and I dismantled the show “Images of Home” at Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery. It seemed as if we were taking home as much as we delivered back in November. That is because we were. Whenever someone retrieved a sold piece, I replaced it with something else.

I have a remarkable friend, since kindergarten, who possesses many decorative items and the ability to arrange them beautifully. She did this all around “Images of Home”, so when I dismantled the show, I took a few photos of her things (without any understanding of what many actually were). My friend took the stark edges off the show, and I am very very appreciative. It is said that “opposites attract”, and while I was appreciating her enormous quantity of pretty possessions, I recently culled my own decorations down to one box. Look at this stuff! (I piled much of it on this table; the other three photos were things left in the gallery after I moved all of this).

I spent a bit of time weeding my baby poppies, which started appearing in November this year (last year it was January – all based on rainfall). Pretend you don’t see Pippin because he thinks he is hidden. Can you identify the poppies among all the other plants? I finally stopped trying to weed, because the tangled roots were causing me to wreck the poppies too. It was really just an excuse to be outside in the sun with the cats.

Trail Guy and I took a walk. I didn’t take my camera but did take the phone because I wanted to clock our distance (4.3 miles, thank you for your interest). Who actually cares? I am simply making excuses for the poor quality of these photos, but of course, if you are reading this on your own phone, they are probably all too small to see the quality anyway.

This is a neighbor’s front of house view.

We saw the first wildflowers of the year. Tiny and unnamed, but still quite heartening.

There were little fuzzy clumps of green moss.

The clouds cleared briefly off the top of Case Mountain in the distance.

All great slide shows end with a sunset. So, I climbed up on the bench around our chimney for this photo later that afternoon. It is alpenglowish, something I have painted multiple times. (And as long as it continues to sell, I will continue to repaint it.)

Thus we conclude the tour of a show dismantling and a little walk in Three Rivers. May your days be merry and bright. 

Oops. That was last month.

And you are welcome for not having to see the mess my studio was after all the art and merchandise was returned.

Remarkable Drawing Students

I have said many true things about my drawing students, mostly about how they are so kind and encouraging to one another. 

Here is another truth: most of my students are remarkable. They are eager to learn, highly creative, and have many interests. Most take drawing lessons because they have another line of art in their lives and want to be more accurate. They pick up the basics quickly, and then they keep coming because it is so fun to have people to draw with, a time set aside, and of course, help from me.

Look at what two of my students have done on their own.

C (not the “C” of email drawing lessons) loves to watercolor, and she has gotten quite proficient at urban sketching. She also has made a highly original Christmas card for several years, which her kids turned into, I kid you not, COCKTAIL NAPKINS!

Another student, M, found something online about painting on teabags. When she told me she was doing this, I said, “Oh dear, let me get you some paper!” Look at the Christmas card that she gave me:

She lets used tea bags dry, carefully opens them up and empties out the tea leaves, and uses watercolors and ink to create these one-of-a-kind teensy beautiful (and yes, weird) paintings. (I will get her some paper any time she asks!)

I really admire my students and feel so proud of them for taking what they’ve learned about drawing and applying it to their other forms of making art.

You can learn a bit more about drawing lessons here. Lessons