Drawing Because I Can

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Sometimes I draw simply because I love to draw. I try to hold back, because my flat files are full. When I have a good reason and know the drawing will not simply be stored in my files, then get outta my way.

(“Outta” is like “prolly” and “liberry”: words I like in spite of being an editor and a proofreader.)

An acquaintance did me a big favor, so I am drawing her cabin. 

I started several months ago, then set it aside because of paid work. My work priority order is this: 1. commissions with a deadline; 2. commissions without a deadline; 3. building up inventory of subjects that will prolly sell; 4. reworking paintings that haven’t sold; 5. whatever I feel like painting or drawing.

This one is considered to be Category #2. The customer isn’t commissioning me because she doesn’t know she is a customer. I am commissioning myself.

What does commission mean? That’s another topic for another blog post.

This is the drawing before I tackled it with Photoshop Junior to prepare it for eventual printing, which most likely won’t happen.

And this is after I converted it to grayscale and erased any errant lines or spots, most likely the result of a scanner screen that WILL NOT come clean, which is most likely the result of scanning paintings that aren’t quite dry, which is most likely the result of being in a hurry, which is most like the result of any number of unfortunate incidents such as not planning ahead, pulling weeds or taking walks instead of working, or choosing to draw something without a deadline instead of painting to build up inventory.

Where were we?

Oh. The finished drawing.

Now I am outta here.

Keep Thinking

One of the many pencil drawings from The Cabins of Wilsonia

Yesterday I told you of some good ideas that came to me while I was organizing my storage shelves. Today I will tell you of two that aren’t complete. They are good ideas in terms of how to spend my time and energy with my art business, but will take more thinking on how to bring them about.

  1. The Cabins of Wilsonia came out in December of 2014. Many of the 200+ drawings have sold, but many remain available. It is time to offer them at a deep discount, and then shred the remainder. They are doing no one any good in storage. Now I need to figure out how to best reach the people who are most likely to want the drawings. Keep thinking.
  2. Sequoia Natural History Association used to be the name of the outfit that stocks the ranger stations and visitor centers in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The name changed, the director I knew retired, and now I don’t know who to talk to about buying my prints and cards to sell in the Parks. They are doing no one any good in storage. Keep thinking.
Crescent Meadow, 11×14″ reproduction print, wildflowers colored one at a time, one after another after another. . .
Redbud Festival is coming soon!
The kittens are getting quite busy at 4 weeks old. They tried canned food and spent a fair amount of time walking in it. It was too gross to photograph. You’re welcome.

Final Final Cabin Thoughts, Maybe

Someone’s Colorado cabin –definitely not small, rustic or rude

There are three distinct parts to cabin-ness:

  1. The building itself – small, rustic, basic, simple, often without electronic amenities. (But wait! What about the cabin pictured above?)
  2. The setting – rural, semi-secluded, in the mountains, taking an effort to get to (But wait! Have you ever been up Highway 180 to Wilsonia? And do these cabins look semi-secluded to you?)

    A Wilsonia road

    A Wilsonia neighborhood
  3. The culture – slower, focused on people instead of technology; a place to play, recreate and relax, mostly outside; a place where meals and fireplaces become events in and of themselves; returning to nostalgic pastimes either of our youth or of some idealized youth of our parents and grandparents.

Outdoor dining is a big part of cabin life.

Napping is a big part of relaxing at a cabin

See? Outdoor dining

Even outdoor cooking!

Fireplaces are a huge part of cabin culture.

Eat and run??

It seems that the culture part is the strongest determining factor of cabin life. Some of our cabin neighbors have gathered in another location for several summers, due to illness of one of their group. One of them told me, “We do Mineral King things in Seattle, and Mineral King is present with us there.” (I probably paraphrased it beyond all recognition – Forgive me, Sawtooth Six!)

P.S. Most of the drawings in this post are part of the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, available here.

A Few More Cabin Thoughts

A Wilsonia cabin

The posts called Cabin Thoughts (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), were popular among my readers, generating conversations through comments, email, snail mail, and in person. Now that our cabin is closed for the season, I’d like to share a few more thoughts.

A dear friend of many years, Natalie, sent these thoughts, titled “What a Cabin Means to Me”. (Nat, I did a tiny bit of editing – hope it clarifies rather than changes your intent.)

  1. Secluded from the general public and hard to get to
  2. In the mountains
  3. Small and rustic, having only basic amenities, and no room for isolation.
  4. Not a second home, but more of a make-do-and-relax kind of place where there is no television or phone service. A place where you interact with family and friends by sharing meals, playing cards and other games, sitting by a fire, hiking, and just cherishing the quietness of the outdoors.

Once again, mountains, small, rustic, games, firesides, food, outdoors, friends and family appear. I think Natalie’s ideal cabin would separate her family from outside influences, causing togetherness among themselves. This is a theme I found multiple times. . . a desire to unplug and simplify in order to focus on the ones who are most precious.

Our Mineral King cabin is definitely a cabin but varies from Natalie’s thorough and excellent definition in several ways.

  1. It isn’t hard to get to if you don’t mind the poor road, and it is highly visible if you hike a popular trail. (This is the World Wide Web, so I am being vague on purpose.)
  2. It is a second home to us, but not in the sense of a home with all the luxuries you may be accustomed to (our first home is purposely lacking a dishwasher, microwave, smart teevee, garbage disposal and heated towel racks, and we’re just fine but thanks for your concern).
  3. The cabin has a telephone; we turn it off at night and there is no answering machine, and no, you may not have the number.
  4. Neither one of us likes to play games; in the evenings we listen to the radio, Trail Guy reads out-of-date newspapers that friends bring up to him, I read library books and knit.

There is no single definition of “cabin”, but there is a feel to a place that makes it a cabin. I will share a few more ideas about it tomorrow. Then, maybe I will be finished with this topic. (No promises, because after all, my business is called Cabin Art.)

Did You Know I Have Another Blog?

Join me at the table in Wilsonia (figuratively speaking, of course.)

I have another blog. It is called The Cabins of Wilsonia, because that is the title of a book I wrote/designed/drew/published in 2014. Here is the link to the blog, and it will open in another tab. (Thank you, Sharon!)

While I was working on the book from 2011 until it was completed in 2014, I regularly posted about the process and progress. Then the website stopped working, as tech is wont to do. (Isn’t “wont” a weird word??)

After a few years of ignoring the site, it got repaired, but I didn’t have much to say. The book was published, and I stopped spending time in Wilsonia. (I have my own place in Mineral King, and my husband actually likes me and wants me to be with him there.)

Then I had a chance encounter with some Wilsonia folks, so unexpected and delightful that I felt compelled to write about it. Hint: it happened on the Mineral King Road. (You can read about it here.)

After that, the ideas and words began flowing again. I don’t know how long this little writing spurt will last, but you are welcome to visit my other blog and even subscribe. (I promise it won’t be five days a week of posting.)

P.S. The Cabins of Wilsonia is available for sale here. It used to be $80 and is now $50, because book prices are wont to price drops several years after publication. 

P.P.S. STOP WITH THE “WONT” TALK ALREADY!

P.P.P.S. Your Central California artist is wont to sometimes obsess about words.

2 Items, One Personal, One Business

I love lists. Today’s contains one personal item and one business item.

  1. Today we have 2 kittens coming from Tulare. An employee of Sequoia National Park will be delivering them on her way to work. One is all black; one is a tuxedo. They are already named, but perhaps we will choose other monikers. (Isn’t that a great word for “name”?) We cannot stand the state of catlessness for another day. If the Tulare person can catch the other 2 litter mates, we’ll take them also. If the place where Perkins and Samson came from produces more kittens, we’ll take them too.
  2. My other blog, The Cabins of Wilsonia, was in a coma for several years. I let it lie there, wounded and neglected. Who wants to make the sorts of phone calls it takes to figure out such things? Not this Central California artist, nosirreeBob. Then, I got some weird emails about the site, the type of emails that are “phishing” for information, so I finally made the call. Now the website has awakened, awoken, woken up and I wrote a new post. I’ll start posting there again, but this time just once a week, the way the Internet Smart People suggest. I might even try to promote it on Instagram and Pinterest. . . nah. Prolly not. To celebrate the return of The Cabins of Wilsonia, let’s have a Wilsonia cabin drawing!

This is a commissioned drawing that I did after the book was published.

What am I talking about? The Cabins of Wilsonia is a book I published in 2014. It took 4 years and ton of learning. They are still available on Amazon, here on my site, and tomorrow at Anne Lang’s Emporium from 10 a.m – 4 pm. I’ll be there for First Saturday Three Rivers. My friend Sam the Gourdist will be the featured artist, at the Three Rivers Arts Center! Go, Sammy-Sue!!

Drawing Architecture in Pencil

Drawing architecture in pencil is my favorite thing. Since this drawing is gone, I get to redraw it. Second chances, opportunities to improve, do-overs–all good things.

This is how it looks after about three short sessions with my pencils. Cabin closing, oil painting, teaching drawing lessons, taking inventory and planning for shows, editing, book design, blogging, these things all cut into time to do my favorite thing. But, pencil drawings don’t take up a lot of room, there is no palette to secure or brushes to clean. (More reasons why pencil drawing is my favorite thing.)

Would you believe these roofs all belong to the same structure? This cabin in Wilsonia contains some of the most interesting architectural oddities and details of any of the cabins. I hope to see it up close and personal next summer!

Do-Over

I get another chance at a do-over!

A customer asked to buy three of the original pencil drawings from The Cabins of Wilsonia. One of them is gone, so I offered to redraw it for him. He agreed.

The one he wants redrawn isn’t one I felt very proud of. Maybe I got sloppy in the midst of 272 drawings (can’t remember the actual number). Maybe I draw better now. Maybe it didn’t reproduce as well as I had hoped. Maybe I did a poor job prepping it for printing. Maybe my standards have been raised or tastes have changed.

Maybe it is all in my head. 

Here it is:

I can’t wait to redo this! (Have I told you how much I love to draw, especially architectural scenes?)

Almost Done Designing a Book

“Done” designing a book? Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

When did we start substituting the word “done” for “finished”?

Who cares? I’m almost done!

Here is what remains on my book design project for Louise.

  1. Learn how to design the back cover.
  2. Design the back cover, making sure it is prepared properly for the printer.
  3. Figure out how to get a bar code, and how to place it on the book.
  4. Figure out how to send the book to the printer.

That’s it? Maybe. Louise and I found a chapter with the final paragraph missing, and some weird computer business on the table of contents. Always something more to deal with in this business of book designing.

We, that is Louise, the 3 people who commissioned her to write their story and I, will receive one copy from the printer before we have the whole batch printed. We’ll pass it around, and each one of us will mark it with a different color, if there is anything to mark. Then, we’ll get it printed.

When I have permission, I will tell you the title, a summary of the story, and show you the cover.

Now I need to find a quiet place to contemplate matters of consequence such as being almost done with designing a book.

Willow 11
Pencil drawing from The Cabins of Wilsonia – a woodshed? an outhouse? a toolshed?

More Designing a Book

I thought I knew what was necessary about designing a book, because I designed my book The Cabins of Wilsonia.

That book involved preparing pencil drawings using Photoshop Elements, a few pages of text, all the frontmatter (that’s Book Speak for the pages of a book that are not the main part that normal people read), the backmatter (bet you can figure this one out yourself), the cover, captions and quotations. Oh, and chapter titles, page numbering, and all the little adjustments and details that no one notices in a book unless they are wrong.

A dear friend and author needed help with some photo editing on a book she was writing. I volunteered. It was very fun. Together we improved about 200 photos. This morphed into the actual copyediting of the book. It is pure pleasure to work with my friend.

As we got deeper into the project, I learned that the author and the 3 people who commissioned her to write their story were planning on using an assisted self-publishing company to get the book print-ready.

When I learned how much that would cost them, how many unnecessary extras they had to buy along with the book design, and that price did NOT even include any books, I was appalled.

So, I offered to do it.

Fall down laughing. . .

I’ll carry on tomorrow. For now, I need to take some deep calming breaths, and contemplate matters of peacefulness.

Pencil drawing of cabin door from The Cabins of Wilsonia.
Pencil drawing of cabin door from The Cabins of Wilsonia.