Long History of Notecards

Visalia Landmarks (missing one picture—I think it was End of the Trail)

Before I started my art business, notecards were a side hustle. I worked in a print shop, so it was easy to get cards printed. The printshop was in Visalia, so it was easy to distribute card packages to a variety of stores.

Tulare County Landmarks covered Lindsay, Visalia, Exeter, Porterville, and Tulare

Times change. Email came along and people gradually lost the habit of writing notes by hand. Some people still buy cards, mostly from me in person or on the internet, because almost all the shops that sold my cards have closed.

Backcountry Structures

Instead of variety packs, I began packaging the cards with all the same design. This eliminated the need for a label on the top or an insert showing the pictures inside.  Instead of having to print 500 or 1000 cards of each design in order to hold costs down, it is now possible to print 100 (or even fewer) at a time.

Sequoia National Park (missing a picture – what was it??)

The printing process is now computerized instead of mechanical. I email my designs to a local printer and only go there in person to pick up the finished product. Other designs get sent via the World Wide Web to some unknown printer in some unknown location, and I can order as few as 10 of a design.

California Missions – missing San Juan Bautista and San Luis Rey

Instead of selling them resale, I now allow a handful of trusted places to sell them on consignment. Although consignment is a nuisance, it is better than not having them in the public eye. Consignment is the only method that makes cents, because my costs are too high to make a profit selling them wholesale. (“Sense”, I know—couldn’t resist.)

Kings Canyon National Park (missing a picture—what was it?)

It takes a lot of time checking the inventory, restocking and trying to keep track of what has sold, what has and hasn’t been paid for, making and remaking lists for the vendors. Sometimes a vendor puts a sticker on with the sales tax, sometimes a sticker without the tax. When they decide a certain design isn’t selling, I replace it with another design and then have to repackage the cards with irrelevant stickers. It isn’t horrible, but it certainly isn’t profitable either.

Sequoia National Park—something is missing but I don’t know what it is
Special Mineral King set as a fundraiser for the Mineral King Preservation Society
Mineral King—what was the 5th picture?

More about notecards tomorrow. 

Mineral King in January

I didn’t go. Trail Guy and the Farmer went for a day. Here are three photos for you, along with a peculiar sight.

That is the Honeymoon Cabin. (If I painted it this way, no one would buy it in the summer.)

This is the Crowley family cabin with Farewell Gap in the background. The snowy lump to the right is Big Rock.

This is a Trackster. (I think we have outgrown ours and are now willing to sell it. Are you or someone you know interested?)

Finally, here is a peculiar sight. When Trail Guy handed me his camera to put the photos on my computer, I said, “Did you mean to take a photo of a snow doughnut??”

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!!).

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.

Ten Things I Learned (and Relearned) in January

  1. Feather-leaf lavender now grows in my herb garden. I had never heard of it or seen it before. Yep, planted it in January and yeppers, I used a gopher cage in the ground.
  2. Life without sugar – ugh. I relearned that this is hard, unpleasant, and without benefits. After 3 weeks, I decided why bother. (“Does dark chocolate count? 72% is barely sweet,” she whined.) 
  3. In order to do my Wilsonia book, I bought inDesign. It would not work with my new laptop, so I continued to use it on my old one. Now it won’t work on my old laptop either. You can’t buy InDesign anymore—you have to subscribe for $21/month, which is $252/year!!! Enough to make a preacher cuss, I say.
  4. Labor isn’t taxed in California UNLESS it is working on gold. What?? Yeppers. Got my wedding ring resized, and paid tax on the labor. Yes, I quizzed them about that. (Sure is shiny now!)
  5. I’m not as smart as I need to be. Every time I format a book (that means putting all the information into a computer program so that it is perfect-looking, so that it can become a real book), it feels as if I have never seen the program before. Adobe InDesign is designed for people who spend all day, every day, tapping on a keyboard and staring at a screen. It is not designed for people who format about one book per year.
  6. I learned that if I delete photos on my phone, they disappear off my computer. This is highly inconvenient. I don’t want 30,000 pictures on my phone – that is a nuisance. Because I didn’t understand the connection, I have lost records of completed paintings – only 1 of those many Sawtooths remain in my photo files, and who knows how many others are vamoosed. 
  7. I learned that on my phone, I can go to Albums, Recently Deleted, and then select and recover photos. The hard part about this is that some of my paintings look like photos and it is difficult to tell what I am seeking when it is the size of a postage stamp.
  8. I FOUND A NEW WEB DESIGNER! She is right here in Three Rivers! I have worked with and enjoyed her for years but didn’t know that she could do the techie things that I need done. 
  9. For my subscribers who aren’t getting photos in the email notifications of my blog posts, you need to unsubscribe and then resubscribe using this link.   When you get the email confirmation, click on it, and then you should start seeing the photos again. 
  10. Finally, I learned that it is actually possible for me to run out of things to post to my blog. First time since April 15, 2008. I wonder what caused my brain to empty?

You can see that this month was dominated by tech. The month wasn’t all bad—my friend and I recently resumed walking together after a severe collapse of discipline, beginning with the fire in September.

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.”

 

New and Improved

Sometimes I reevaluate paintings that I don’t like, trying to figure what bothers me. Sometimes I also reevaluate paintings that haven’t sold in a timely manner in spite of traveling to different locations. Sometimes paintings that have traveled develop flaws, scratches or unexplained booboos.

All of these situations can eventually be remedied.

A painting that has been in several locations without selling recently got returned to me because of a weird mark. I could easily fix the flaw, but I wasn’t ever particularly pleased with the painting.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I like it better now.This is the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, a mini-museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society. The painting is 6×18″, it is oil on wrapped canvas (framing unnecessary), and the price is $165 (+ 8% California sales tax). 

 

Elephants in Three Rivers

Yesterday, Blog Reader Sharon commented, “The Alta Elephant has a verrrrry long trunk today”. Another friend told me at “Images of Home” that he has never quite figured out what “the elephant” is. I didn’t want to take a Sharpie pen to my painting but tried to ‘splain it pointing with my finger.

Here is a visual aid for you all who wonder what I am talking about. “The elephant” is circled in green. His trunk goes down. (On a clear day, this typical Three Rivers landmark is visible from both Exeter and Visalia, although at a somewhat more oblique angle.)

My elephant is facing the same way, but his trunk goes up (and his ear is a lot bigger and his two most visible legs are matched and his feet are red and he has a tag and a longish tail and . . .)

Here is another elephant for you, also with an upward trunk. The pencil is so you may appreciate the preciousness of this guy’s diminutive size. (He also has a tendency to do a faceplant when not propped against something.)

Good grief Charlie Brown. Some Central California artist needs to get productive so that she has something relevant to share with her blog readers.

P.S. There is a 2nd public elephant in Three Rivers, fashioned from a blue tarp over the top of an old pickup. NEVER MIND! IT IS A PIG! Someone made it for the Burning Man Festival a number of years ago. It is not exactly elegant or subtle or classy, but we are an eclectic burg here in the foothills of Tulare County. Nope, I don’t want to waste any film on this one. Yep, I said, “film”; it is a euphemism for time and computer space.