Busy Weekend in Mineral King

Sometimes I need to leave Mineral King for the peacefulness of Three Rivers. MK is a very social place, and although I have decent social skills (please allow me this illusion), I am an introvert who needs a copious amount of solitude.

The hazard tree crew has been working in our neighborhood.

I love the evening light coming through to the corn lily and grasses. It is especially nice when these folks are present and have their flag flying. I’ve drawn that a couple of times.

I called the drawings “Dawn’s Early Light”, because most people won’t be familiar with the direction of the cabin or the lay of the land. The first one was done long ago when my web designer put watermarks on my art (as if anyone would want to steal it, or as if we could prevent such a catastrophic occurrence.) I think I used the same photo for both drawings.

There was no time for hiking, but Hiking Buddy and I took what we shall refer to as two different “morning constitutional walks”.

First one: Timber Gap/Monarch junction

Second one: White Chief/Eagle/Mosquito junction

Heading back (Timber Gap in the distance)

July and August are busy in Mineral King, particularly among the cabin folks.

Mineral King

AROUND HERE…and Sometimes a Little Farther

TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY!

Apparently my subtitle “…and Sometimes a Little Farther” was too long for the show title.

Your Central Calif. Artist Went to Hume Lake

Well, why not? It’s my blog and I can digress if I want to. It doesn’t have to be all about Mineral King, drawing, oil painting, and Three Rivers—okay, the beach, odd jobs, drawing lessons, the business of art, editing, or plein air painting either.

This is the eighth summer reunion with my childhood friend at her Hume Lake cabin. Hume Lake Christian Camp was established in 1946 on a lake in Sequoia National Forest which began as a timber pond. From there, logs were sent almost 60 miles downstream (to Sanger) on a wooden flume to be turned into lumber. Maybe it was called a “lumber pond”. . . I wasn’t born yet. The camp is a very active place, with over 300 private cabins on leased land above the conference grounds. The lake fronts the Christian camp with a 3 mile trail around it, a dam on the east end (weird to me that a lake drains east, but it goes into Kings Canyon instead of the Pacific Ocean), with a Forest Service campground, fishing, and two ways in and out of the area.

This is looking northeast, past the dam into the majestic spires of Kings Canyon.

A large amount of time was spent on this deck.

A fair amount of time was also spent indoors. It was a hot weekend. An entire day was spent waiting for a tree crew to finish limbing and dropping trees around the cabin; we needed to be present but it was somewhat treacherous outdoors.

There were several walks around the lake.

We had a nice afternoon on the lake. There were kayaks, paddle boards, canoes, but I pushed for a rowboat so I could do the rowing. Eventually my two pals couldn’t stand the idleness of passenger living, and I had to share the oars.

On a somewhat solitary walk around the lake (my companions declined but there were plenty of strangers), I left the trail and followed the road back to camp because I wanted to see the cabins on Forest Service land. (Does this surprise you?)

We had other adventures, much conversation and laughter, good food (but almost no sweets because we are all fighting sugar, which took remarkable restraint since Hume’s Snack Shack is known for its milkshakes), some excellent Bible teaching (it is a big deal Christian camp so there are always outstanding speakers available), and there were a handful of moments of What Happens at Hume Stays at Hume.

See you next year, Hume Lake (if my dear friend from childhood chooses to continue our tradition.)

P.S. OF COURSE it was a business trip, my first in Mom’s Car. (That’s the car’s name for now.)

Starting over Again

Like that song by Dolly Parton? Nope. Starting 2 new oil paintings of Mineral King (and finishing one other).

This is 3×9”, a new size I found in Salem at Michael’s. Visalia’s Michael’s doesn’t have any this size (or the 4×12”, which I quickly used to paint Sequoia trees.) This does not surprise me; the Central Valley of California usually gets lesser quality merchandise in its chain stores, of which there is an abundance (EXCEPT for Trader Joe’s, of course). However, we did get the largest Catholic church in North America, right in Visalia, although after a year of asking me to write and rewrite a contract to paint a mural, no contract was signed. In frustration, annoyance, exasperation, and a big injection of reality I raised my prices significantly. They gasped in horror, went searching for another muralist, and now, 2 years later, STILL NO MURAL.

Wait—we were talking about new paintings. This will be titled Mineral King Dusk #??

Here is a 6×12” of the classic Mineral King scene. Yes, upside down.

Layer #1 is now good enough to set aside for drying.

This trail scene, Mineral King Trail III, is now drying, awaiting a scan.

The color will be truer with the scan.

Why is it called “scan”, which is the first syllable of the word “scandal”? And why does it sound so close to “scam”?

I just work here.

Aaand, Another Day With Oil Paints

All Mineral King oil paintings on this day.

This:

Became this:

This:

Became this:

And this:

Became this:

And then it got almost finished and joined its siblings on the drying wall.

Jackson didn’t show up.

Mineral King Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

Mineral King, Just a Few Photos

Today’s post is just a handful of photos in Mineral King. I recently went to Hume Lake instead of Mineral King but understand that my audience prefers seeing and reading about Mineral King. No offense to Hume Lake people—just accepting the identity of my blog readers. The first best summer of my life was 1978 at Hume Lake. Then my first summer at Silver City (4 miles below Mineral King) in 1985 became the Best Summer of My Life (and that was even before I met the love of my life.)

Mineral King has rustic and unique cabins. I recently had the opportunity to spend time at almost every one. It was a work thing: another cabin owner realized the need for propane tanks to have their cabin numbers visible on the tanks. We discussed press-on numbers and stencils; hand-painted numbers were the simplest solution. Nope, no photos of the numbers, just two photos of things that struck my fancy.

Rustic, but undergoing a few repairs. Those stone steps really grabbed me (not literally—don’t worry!)

Unique—the light was uncooperative but if you study this, you’ll see that the chimney was built to abut this boulder.

Why is this horse standing with his front feet in the trough? Some questions just don’t have answers.

This road leads to the pack station, then becomes a trail. In the olden trails (when Trail Guy was just a boy), people could drive past the pack station and even go up to Crystal Creek and cross it! In their cars!

Maybe I’ll do a post on Hume Lake. . . more will be revealed in the fullness of time.

A Day with Oil Paint

There really are only so many potential titles to a repetitive blog topic. This could be “A Day at the Easels”, but I chose to paint flat on the table, or holding the canvas in my hand. It could be “A Day with an Audio Book”, but then I’d have to make a book report.

Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

Paintings are selling steadily at the Silver City Store; the main subjects are the Crowley cabin with Farewell Gap in the background, the Honeymoon Cabin, and Sawtooth. I wanted to paint something DIFFERENT, and after my recent hike to White Chief, it was an easy choice.

This isn’t White Chief but it is the trail to White Chief. I took a nice photo of Trail Guy with three cabin neighbors as he led them to White Chief (they haven’t spent much time at their family cabin—as a result, they needed a guide*). Because I don’t know them very well, it seemed prudent to keep their faces off of the World Wide Web. However, I thought the trail was quite nice in and of itself.

Break time! Oh look, there’s my favorite cat, Tucker, “hiding” in the tall grass.

This may look finished to most folks, but it wants another layer and more detail to satisfy your Central California Artist. (It is 8×10” in case you are wondering how I got so far in half a day of painting.)

Now, it’s time to paint White Chief. This is not how it looked in early July, although it could be how it looked in early July of a wet year. Can’t remember. . . I’ve slept since then. Besides, Trail Guy took my reference photo for this 8×10” painting, so I wasn’t there.

Yeppers, right on schedule, Jackson showed up and meowed at me. When I didn’t respond, he was fixin’ to bite me, so I hauled his 20+ lb. self onto my lap for a bit. He pretended to enjoy it, but put his claws in me** so I would just feed him already.

Like the trail painting, this requires another layer and more detail.

It was an altogether satisfying day of painting, one that flew by with that audio book. (Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate, in case you are curious.)

*They could have simply followed the trail but they would have missed out on a wealth of information.

**Not mean-like, just that thing cats do when they purr. He isn’t mean when he bites, only insistent and bossy. Downright domineering, actually.

Mineral King oil paintings Shelterwood

Three More Improved Oil Paintings

Plein air is a good way to start a painting. It is also a good way to hang out with artist friends. However, all my plein air attempts require much attention later in the painting workshop.

After- Ocean Avenue Beach, 8×10”, oil on canvas panel

After – Garrapata, 8×10”, oil on canvas panel

Alta Over the Kaweah River, 8×10”, oil on canvas panel

Three Improved Beach Paintings

All three of these paintings were done plein air. I finally completed them in the painting workshop at home.

After – Carmel Beach, 8×10”, oil on canvas panel

After — Asilomar Beach, 8×10”, oil on canvas panel

After – Lovers Point Park, 11×14”, oil on canvas panel

Many Aspects to the Business of Art

Maintenance

Tony finished my steps. That man is an artist, in addition to knowing how to make these the most comfortable for the situation while incorporating existing elements.

Framing

I will be showing some pencil drawings in Around Here and Sometimes a Little Farther. Pencil drawings require framing. Although I prefer drawing over painting, that framing business is not fun.

Spray-painting mini-easels for little paintings on panels

Remember when I painted a bunch of 5×7” beach scenes on panels? Some will be displayed (and sold, one always hopes, “one” being me in this case) on natural colored easels and some on blue easels.

Improving paintings

My dear friend Louise is so helpfully honest when I think there is trouble with a painting. (She helped me with my first mural here at home!) She encouraged me to shrink that stack of haybales, so I did it first with Photoshop and sent it to her. It passed inspection by her excellent eye, so I fixed it on the painting. When it is dry again, I’ll scan it again. (This version is before I finished fiddling around with several parts.)

Painting new things

A friend sent me a photo of his country property. I thought it was so beautiful that I painted it on one of those little 5×7” panels. It’s too wet to scan.