Boxing Day, Bonus Week

If you receive this in your email and want to see the photos, click on the title “Boxing Day, Bonus Week”.

Boxing Day is what the English call December 26, because that is the day all the unwanted and excess gifts get boxed up to donate to the poor people.

In America, people probably box up the extras and ship them back to Amazon.

That’s not what I came here to tell you. The week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day has always felt like a bonus week to me. It doesn’t really have any obligations, many people are not at work, kids are not in school, and it seems as if the entire world is just on vacation (and driving through Three Rivers).

So, this week I will write about topics that are out of the ordinary. Tomorrow I will tell you about being inspired by beauty. Thursday I will give you links to five internet places that I really enjoy and hope you will too. On Friday, well, let’s see. . . it’s close enough to the end of the month that it will be our monthly Learned List.

Next Tuesday I will return to showing you paintings in progress.

Thank you—Inconclusive Conclusions

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK THE TIME YESTERDAY TO TELL ME WHAT THEY SEE AND DON’T SEE IN THE EMAIL BLOG NOTIFICATIONS!!

Please excuse me for shouting. I am so touched by your responses and willingness to help.

In my attempt to see a pattern about who can and who cannot see photos in the email notifications, I learned this:

  1. Mac laptop – some can see the photos, some cannot
  2. Mac desktop – some can, some can’t
  3. iPhone – some can, some can’t
  4. iPad – some can, some can’t
  5. Android phone – all can see the photos
  6. Non-Mac desktop – all can see the photos

There must be some settings that we don’t understand on our iPhones, MacBooks, Mac desktops, and iPads. Now I might have to dig around on settings for Mac mail on every device they manufacture.

This hurts my apple-shaped heart. At least I know it isn’t a problem with my blog (using WordPress.org) or the subscription form.

One more thing: I sent out the blog post and left for the day. All your wonderful comments arrived, but I wasn’t at my computer to approve them. So, if you commented and wondered if it “went through”, it did, and once I approved it, it appeared.

You deserve a beautiful picture as a thank you for making it to the end of this post. (I hope you get to see it!)

Sequoias in Winter, 16×20″, oil on wrapped canvas

(I didn’t put the price because I don’t want you to think I am thanking you by trying to sell you something.)

Requesting Help From My Subscribers

My blog has a technical problem that I have been ignoring because it just seems impossible to solve. Today, I am giving it a try.

I am specifically addressing those of you who get notifications of blog posts in their email. Many of you think you are reading my blog when you are actually reading an email with the blog post in it, because you subscribed. (THANK YOU!) Almost everyone who reads my blog in their email cannot see the photos.

I have not been able to figure out why subscribers aren’t getting the photos in the emails. I no longer have a web designer; there is someone who helps me if I am in a pinch, such as getting hacked, but she has forty-eleven other jobs, and my website is not on the top of her list.

So, I have begun the unpleasant and distasteful task of trying to figure this out. Since most of my subscribers are even less techie than I am, this may not be possible. I might snatch myself bald or scream a little bit and then quit, but here is my first attempt.

Pippin is the most compliant of our 3 cats; Tucker is skittish and comical; Jackson is unfriendly and demanding.

If you are willing, please email or comment to let me know two things:

  1. Can you see the picture in this email notification?
  2. What device are you using? I need to know what brand (Apple or HP or . . .?) and what kind of thing it is (laptop, desktop, tablet, iPad, cell phone, etc.)

P.S. If you want to see the photos, you need to click on the title of the blog post as it appears when you open the email. It will take you to my actual blog on the internet where you can read the post and see the pictures. (The blog is a page on my website, www.cabinart.net) You can do this if you want to see Pippin in this post, but first, please answer my two questions above.

THANK YOU!!

A Pleasant Walk Through Exeter

A week or two ago, I had some time to kill in Exeter. (That is an unpleasant metaphor—forgive me!)

So, I went for a walk. We think we know a place because we drive through it, but walking is the best way to really take in our surroundings. It’s also a good way to find new ideas for drawing or painting. These aren’t necessarily subjects that will sell, but they will be useful to my drawing students who are learning to accurately see shapes, proportions, perspective, values (darks and lights), and textures.

First, I passed a park that someone once told me was called “Spit & Whittle”. However, there were no benches for old guys to sit on, so maybe I had the wrong park. However, I saw this curious structure, imminently drawable in my view.

I walked along a basic neighborhood street. The yards all had little lawns in front, some green, some unwatered, and only one lawn-parker. I wanted to relandscape, but no one requested my opinion. So, I just admired the view of Rocky Hill.

And of course there were some trains. Exeter is a little catty-wompus on a map because it was built around railroads, which follow the shortest route rather than an exact N-S-E-W grid.

From downtown, there is a view of Alta Peak. There are also American flags, Christmas decorations, fall color in some trees, and markers in the middle of the street, warning against parking on an upcoming evening because of the Christmas parade.

Then I felt compelled to visit the building where my studio used to be. I paid for that brick step, so sometimes I like to just visit it.

It was a real privilege to be located in the building of the poppy mural.

And sometimes I miss being there in the heart of such a great little town, sharing space with a terrific gift shop (Rosemary & Thyme), enjoying the patio outside.

On my way to retrieve the pick-’em-up truck with its new tires, I passed this building. The details on older buildings are so charming, and always strike me as good subjects to practice drawing or painting. Bricks aren’t easy, nor is shrubbery but when one is learning to draw, it’s all hard.

Then it was time to go to the Courthouse Gallery CACHE to teach the final drawing lessons of 2023.

I love to teach people how to draw, love my drawing students, love this location in this little town that I also love.

Aw shucks, isn’t that just sweet?

And remember tomorrow, the little holiday gift bazaar at CACHE, from 10-4.

Thoughts About the Misuse of Words

Occasionally I feel the need to blow off some steam. Today is one of those occasions.

A friend once told me that editors are guardians of the language. Someone certainly needs to be—look what is happening to the world of communication.

Have you noticed that everyone is advised to “do research” now? No one I know is actually conducting experiments to learn what works or interviewing witnesses to learn what is true. Instead, we cruise through the internet, looking for opinions and ratings. How did we learn about products, services, current events in the olden days??

When did people stop being crazy about things, or simply enthusiastic, and become “passionate” about whatever topic they are pursuing? Did everyone read the same marketing material, the instruction manual on how to present oneself as sincere, earnest, and genuine? Someone has said that the secret to success is sincerity, and once you learn to fake that, you’ve got it made. Now it seems the secret to success is to declare that one is “passionate”.

When did giving become “gifting”? The verbization of nouns really bugs me. I personally do not “gift” people; I give to them.

Why did we stop graduating FROM places and now simply graduate places? Who started this ridiculousness?

When did “literally” lose its true meaning and come to mean its very opposite, “figuratively”? “I literally shot myself in the foot.” Oh yeah? How are you walking these days? Maybe you should have taken gun safety training more seriously.

Why do so many otherwise well-educated people insist on using the article “an” in front of the word “history”? It begins with a consonant, and the proper indefinite article is “a”. Really, I have noticed that those who have advanced degrees seem to be the most guilty of this. Maybe they think the real way to pronounce “history” is “istory”.

As you can see, I am passionate about language and have been since graduating high school, an historic event now; I literally have lost my mind doing research on the best ways of gifting you, my blog readers, with this vital information.

If you aren’t too disgusted by my diatribe, perhaps you will benefit from this information about the upcoming Holiday Gift Fair. (This is the proper use of the word “gift”.)

2024 Calendar is Here

This year’s calendar is photographs of Mineral King from the odd and beautiful summer of 2023.

“Odd” because the damaged road limited access to only a handful of intrepid cabin folks, but not the public. (Stay safe, all y’all, but you cabin folks are on your own.)

“Beautiful” because the winter had been phenomenal, with water running in every possible drainage and going strong most of the summer, the tallest grasses in memory, abundant wildflowers, and greenery through September.

I chose to not post about Mineral King in the summer because it just seemed wrong to rub people’s noses into the fact that it was gorgeous but inaccessible.

When it was time to choose the calendar theme, I decided to share the beauty that many people missed. Good idea? Bad idea? Everything is a mixed bag.

As the back of the calendar explains, seeing Mineral King at its most beautiful reminds us all that even when we can’t get there, this beloved place endures.

The calendar is $20 (including tax), plus $3 shipping for one, $4 for two, and $7 for three (shipped in 2 separate packages). If that sounds pricey, be thankful that I am not charging for those overpriced cardboard mailers, and that I am not charging the entire mailing price. Just wanted you to know this, in case you were thinking of making do in 2024 with one of those freebie calendars that advertise a business or show you places that you will probably never see.

There are several ways to get a Mineral King 2024 calendar:

  1. From me in person (no mailing costs that way) either just around, or at the Holiday Bazaar at the Three Rivers Memorial Building on November 18
  2. Order from my website store
  3. Visit the Three Rivers Historical Museum, either in person or on their website.
  4. Put an old-fashioned check in the old-fashioned mail to old-fashioned me (P.O. Box 311, Three Rivers, CA 93271)
  5. Be related to me and wait until Christmas

Best or Worst Critic?

“You are your own worst critic” is something I hear from time to time. That is actually a positive trait, because who else is going to be completely honest to help me improve my work?

Today’s post is one to help me think about how to make this painting be the best possible. This painting is a conglomeration of a stack of many photos, in an attempt to make it the most colorful that I can.

These are my thoughts as I study the painting:

  1. The two pomegranates look good, which makes sense because I’ve painted many pomegranates.
  2. The orange needs a bit more brightening.
  3. The tangerine is a good idea, but doesn’t look quite right; maybe it is Sumo, maybe a mineola tangelo. (Are those even grown anymore?)
  4. The hidden plum is a little weird with that highlight–maybe it should just go dark.
  5. The upper left plum looks almost finished, only lacking some highlighting on the left side.
  6. The grapes need more variety in their color, along with highlights on the left edges.
  7. The lemon needs better color, highlights on the left, detail in the stem. (I took away the shading from a previous iteration because the light source was on the wrong side.)
  8. The persimmon looks too red here, but that might be the way it photographed. Worth checking. It needs detail in the green thingie, called a “sepal”, and the green is wrong.
  9. Both pears need detail; the yellow one has been shrunk and only has a base coat, and the green one lost its freckles.
  10. The peach needs fuzz and it needs those ghost grapes to get buried.
  11. It won’t take long to finish the apple.
  12. The background needs the glow to be more subtle so it doesn’t look like a halo around the plum and grapes.

Good thing there is no deadline on this. It’s a great exercise in making things up and keeping them believable. It is also a great exercise in patience, in reining in my natural bent to git-‘er-dun. So much in life is better when we see it as an opportunity to learn rather than a nuisance.

Here you can see I improved the background, light on the upper plum and grapes, the tangerine, persimmon sepal, the flower ends of the pomegranates (in spite of thinking they were finished), the green apple. Of course, it is wet and shiny so doesn’t photograph well.

Perhaps I am my own best critic, rather than worst critic?

Old Drawing Leads to Family Reunion

This blog post is just a short report on a personal topic. Trail Guy and I attended a 99th birthday party for his great uncle. The invitation came over the phone, so I didn’t hear the address or the time. I knew Great Uncle lived next door to a friend’s house, which I drew a number of years ago, figuring that Trail Guy had the address in his head or written somewhere.

He asked me what time we needed to leave because I wanted to do two errands while we were down the hill. I thought that because it was a lunch party that it was at noon, so I did some calculating, built in a little buffer, and said “quarter to eleven”.

After the second errand, he said, “Now what do you want to do?” I said, “We have the right amount of time to find the house, because we don’t know which side of our friend they live on”. Indeed, more than plenty, because the party was at one! Oops.

I thought he had the address, and he thought I knew the time.

So we went to CACHE and spent some time looking at the exhibits and the art.

Drawn so long ago that the landscaping was different. (2008)

When we decided to head toward the party, I followed my memory to the house I had drawn. Alas, it had been 15 years, and the signature birch trees which were to be my landmark were nowhere to be seen. We drove around the block, and then parked near the house that I was fairly certain was the right one. (Silly me, all that assuming, and I even didn’t look at the drawing first either—simply relied on memory). A neighbor came out on one side and asked if we were lost. Turns out that we weren’t lost after all; the party house was on the other side of the house that I remembered. By then, all we had to do was watch to see where cars pulled up with people we knew.

Great Uncle’s wife of perhaps 10 years read a sweet poem she wrote, and then Great Uncle recited a poem he wrote. What a story: engaged, then broke up because he didn’t want to leave a fiancé behind when he served in WWII. They married other people, and when both were widowed, they reunited and finally got married.

This photo was completely unposed and does not do justice to this handsome couple.

After the toasts and poetry, Trail Guy and I joined up with his favorite cousin outside. Favorite Cousin’s son had driven his mom and her husband to the reunion. He and I sat on the edge of the pool with our feet in the cold water and got acquainted. He was a delight to talk with! He said something profound, that first he attributed to Banksy, and then after looking it up (EVERYONE has a phone), we decided his version was clearer and simpler.

Everyone wants to be an artist, but no one wants to learn to draw.

-Cousin Jake

P.S. Happy Birthday, Laurie!

Eleven New Things Learned in October

Unspiced, 6×12″, SOLD

Long month; many new ideas, thoughts, trivia, and items of interest for you.

  1. Old coffee grounds do NOT act as fertilizer; instead, the caffeine (yes, even in used grounds) acts as an herbicide. (I read this in a science magazine.) This could explain the poor growth in the planting bed by my front porch. . . 24 years of using an herbicide instead of fertilizer. . . oy vey.

2. The creature that I was certain is a vole is almost certainly a gopher, according to Trail Guy. None of the animal reference books at the cabin have gophers in them, so how was I to know? By asking Trail Guy instead of consulting the books, of course.

3. Have you heard the saying “Someone got a wild hair” to describe random or risky behavior? Turns out that the saying is “wild hare”; I wonder why an untamed rabbit causes people to go rogue.

Reading Rabbit is an educated bunny, not to be confused with a wild hare.

4. Did you know that very few people value their hubcaps? I’m certain there must be a study, a poll, or a survey that confirms this. I have sent photos of the found hubcaps to the place where Mineral King folks get their news, and NO ONE CARES. They recently went into the trash.

5. A friend of mine is frugal almost to the point of absurdity; I have learned many things from her through the years. (The Queen of Cheapa) A recent adventure in frugality was fixing her own tooth when a crown fell off. She bought dental cement online, rinsed with peroxide, dried the tooth, and reapplied her own crown. I wonder how long it will last; if I hear more, I will include it on another Learned List for you.

6. Enzyme cleaners in tablet form for contact lenses have become impossible to find. ‘Tis a mystery.

7. Everything is a process. Want insurance? Start making phone calls, working through “phone trees”, leaving messages, waiting. Want to do something with your phone? Start making phone calls, leaving messages, listening to robots lying to you about “your call is very important to us”. Need a medical appointment? Be prepared to be on hold, to hear multiple reassuring messages about how much “we care about your health”, and then plan on getting multiple phone calls to “preregister”, to “verify”, to “confirm”, and to “prepare”. My opinion is that everyone is overloaded with precautions that waste everyone’s time, all in the hopes of not getting sued. It all comes down to lawyers and insurance. Further, big companies are difficult to deal with.

8. If you switch cell phone providers, you have to get a A. transfer PIN, B. account number (which account #??), C. unlock your phone from the previous provider. I emboldened C because the new provider neglected to mention this and many hours were wasted on the phone with the new provider trying to establish the reason for the new phone’s inability to work. The phones are still locked after more wasted time with the old provider, our old nemesis Huge & Rude (and incomprehensible).(See #7 and then find our new vocabulary word on #10)

9. The Clover Creek Bridge in Sequoia National Park was NOT built by the Civilian Conservation Corps; it was built by a construction company before the CCCs came into the Park. Additionally there is another one like it that most people just fly over without actually seeing: the Marble Fork Bridge (the creek after it runs through Lodgepole campground). You can learn more about these bridges on Tulare County Treasures.

10. A friend sent me this most excellent new word: “ineptocracy”. (see item #7) Look at the definition, and see if you can relate:  Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead, are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

11. Here is a little gift of a link to a very touching story on Tim Cotton Writes: The Last Impala.

Perhaps you could use a peaceful seasonal image after all that information. I am happy to oblige.

Ten New Things Learned in September

There is a common thread running through this month’s list. You will see what I’ve been focusing on learning lately.

  1. Our front yard has a creature in it. It’s a vole. I’ve never seen one of those before.

2. A friend showed us these inflatable solar lights from REI. Sounds like a great way to not use propane at the cabin, but the lights themselves run from about $30-$50, depending on the size. Inflatable!?!

3. Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé is a book that has inspired me to change the way I eat. It is well-researched, well-written, and makes a ton of sense. Here it is on ThriftBooks (I got my copy at the library).

4. CACHE is starting a new quest to gather money to have longer hours. Their attempts to secure grants have been unsuccessful, so they will be asking 300 people to give $100/year for two years in order to be open more hours. This makes much more sense to me: the local people who care will be more involved if they feel responsible for helping to keep it running. You should see the museum now—it is fabulous, nothing like the normal small town history museums! CACHE = Center for Arts, Culture, & History, Exeter, and their website is here: CACHE

5. I learned how to transfer a pattern from a picture on the computer to a life-size outline on a wall.

6. Xylitol is a zero calorie sweetener made from the bark of birch trees. (Birch trees?? Who figured this out?) It is supposed to work on a 1:1 exchange with sugar in baking (too expensive for me!), and the reviews are mixed. Glucose Revolution says it might still spike your glucose (how?? why??); other sources say it is a great substitute without side effects. I think it tastes better than stevia (but I still prefer real sugar, so there!)

7. Monk fruit (what in the world?) is the favored non-sugar sweetener these days. I haven’t tried it yet.

8. Currants are difficult to pick, and when you run them through a juicer, they make orange goo rather than juice. If you want to make jelly, pick way way way more than you think you need, boil them awhile, then mash them in a colander for a long time to let the juice appear. Or, you can dig a hole in your garden and bury the entire mess.

9. Did you know that buffalo are classified as bovines? I didn’t know either, until they were listed as possible subjects to enter into the current exhibit at CACHE, called “A Bovine State of Mind”.

10. I heard somewhere that only 18% of Americans now attend church regularly. I’m not sure how “regularly” is actually defined here; I go native/rogue/heathen in the summer, and then attend regularly when the cabin is closed for the year. I love my church.