Author: cabinart

I Have Now Chosen

I began oil painting on March 8, 2006. Sometimes it is hard, sometimes it is really hard, once in awhile it is fun. Sometimes I even like a painting or two.

Oak Grove Bridge, 6×6″, private collection, 2013

2 classes at Michael’s (the craft store, NOT my husband!), 1/2 semester at the local junior college, reading books, watching videos, reading websites, following artists’ blogs, looking at paintings, asking friends lots of questions, painting and painting some more. . . what am I trying to accomplish here? Just trying to “find my voice”.

Paint looser. Paint tighter. Hold your brush like this. Stand to paint. Use only flat brushes. Use only the primary colors. Use every color you can afford. Never use sap green. Sap green is the best thing that ever happened to a palette. Never use black. Of course you need black! Paint on location. Forget about painting on location until you are further along. Just get the impressions down. Decide which edges need to be sharp. Paint in layers. Finish a painting with thick paint all in one session. Copy the masters. Work from your own photos. (“All realistic artists either work from photos or they lie about it”. –Jack White) Working from photos is horrible – no real artist would ever do that!

The conflicting noises are confusing me tremendously. Secretly (well, not any more now that it is on the blog), I’ve just wanted to return to the quiet of my studio and draw with my beloved pencils. Black, white, shades of gray, detail to my heart’s content, straight edges, measuring tools, magnifying glasses – PRECISION.

Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to a book called Start, by Jon Acuff. He delves into the stages that used to accompany a person’s decades: 20s – Learning, 30s – Editing, 40s – Mastering, 50s – Harvesting, and 60s – Guiding. (Sorry, those of you in your 70s and 80s – Jon ignores you, but I’m guessing that Guiding or perhaps Super Guiding might be the role then.)

No longer are people doing these steps in these particular decades. Instead, people are starting new careers and learning new skills at all ages. (I was 45 when I started oil painting, in case you are wondering.)

So, I’ve re-entered my 20s when it comes to oil painting, struggling through the Land of Learning.

A week or two ago, I decided I must have entered the Land of Editing. Why? Glad you asked! (All interviews either say that or “Great question!” It is better than saying “you know” twelve times a minute.)

I have decided that I WANT to paint detail and precision, using lots of layers, following similar principles that I apply in pencil drawing. I am editing out the noise that does not move me closer toward this goal. If I have to raise my prices, so be it. The paintings will be worth it.

Denis Millhomme is one of my painting heros. When I asked him to teach me, he said he didn’t know how, and that if he drew, he’d draw just like me. I’ve wanted to paint like Denis from the beginning of this journey into oil, and I know I never will (he has a huge head start!), but I can stop trying to be like all those painters who slam them out quickly. Denis doesn’t have to, and neither do I. So there, all you noise-making folks. I get to choose how I want to paint, and I believe I have now chosen.

This is one of the paintings I did where I took all the time I wanted, striving for perfection. I like it a ton, and so do the wonderful people who bought it. (Try not to lick your screen, ‘k?)

Oak Grove Bridge oil paintings

REMEMBER

Final Tuesday Cruiseday

Yep, I think I’ve taken this as far as possible. There was one other port, a quick stop in Victoria, Canada, and then a few more days at sea. (Why don’t people say “at ocean”? It is more accurate.)

The ship employs people to do stuff like this to keep passengers entertained.

I am more entertained by sitting here with my Glay-see-uh colored knitting.

I’m also very entertained by walking in circles on the uppermost decks. It is 1/3 of a mile around the whole shebang.

We often passed by this movie screen where this marmot or groundhog kept shouting “Alan”. (I have no earthly or oceanly idea. . .)

Look at my cute little Mama! She was still overwhelmed by the size of our floating hotel/mall/restaurant! This was at the docks in Victoria.

That city is a knock-out – the architecture, the gardens, the sunshine – Wowsa!

See what I mean??

That green sail boat was offering a “3 hour tour”. No takers in our crowd. They need a new slogan. (We all grew up watching Gilligan’s Island.)

Hydrangeas at the Empress Hotel just captivated me.

Shop windows in the Empress captivated my sisters.

steve

This fireman statue captivated my bro-in-law, the chaplain to the Visalia Fire Dept.

Trail Guy and I had a few maps, and this was a piece of architecture I just HAD TO SEE. It was wonderful on the outside, but our time was short, so we opted out of the inside tour.

Totem poles, historic structures, fancy-pants architecture – Victoria has it all.

This wants to be painted. (On canvas! I wouldn’t paint the rocks!)

I really do go nuts over beautiful architecture. I don’t make it to cities very often, and am in awe when I do go.

Back on board, we circled the decks several dozen more times.

We entertained ourselves by watching Dave Letterman play miniature golf.

Golf is boring, but being with my family takes the edge off.

Around and around and around on the upper decks. Good thing that I love being outside and the color blue.

Finally, the cruise ended. We were instructed to put our luggage in the hall the night before. This is my trusty Samsonite, which has accompanied me to China twice. I can always find it in the sea of black rolies, always. It looks HUGE when stored in my workshop at home; next to other people’s suitcases, it is a cute little old thing. Doesn’t it make you smile? It does me! (Or are you smiling because I am finally going to be quiet about this cruise?)

White Chief is the Best Hike in Mineral King

It is steep, really really steep, but White Chief canyon/bowl/valley begins only about 2-1/2 miles out of Mineral King. It has so much variety – you can go short or far, there are natural caves and historical mining tunnels, and a zillion kinds of rocks, sink holes, a lake, some sort of ponds, and even some cabin ruins.

In August, there was an official hike to White Chief led by the experienced and well-studied Laile DiSilvestro. She is from a long time cabin family, so in addition to the facts that she studied, she has rich history passed down through the generations. She brought along great photos, and I learned more from her than I have learned in all my years of hiking to and around White Chief.

There were 9 of us all together. (Nice to meet you, Dan, Sandy, Lindsey, Rich, Dana, and Bryn!)

This is called “galina” and it is what got miners excited. They cooked it in smelters to determine which, if any, precious metals remained.

This is where we turned around on a simple walk to White Chief back in August. This time it was a real hike, with packs, food, water and walking sticks.

There are many holes in the ground, both man-made and God-made. The variety of rocks is wonderful! Some folks are drawn to shapes, others to texture, some to patterns, and me? Color, of course!

This is quite high in the White Chief canyon/bowl/cirque/whatever you want to call it. I’ve taken 3 different friends there, and each one got a Big Fat Headache (Hi Robin, Lisa and Carol!) Guess this isn’t a very friendly hike, and I’ve stopped dragging people there because I could run out of friends this way.

This is not a chunk of snow – it is marble! REALLY! I’m sorry I don’t have anything next to it for size, but maybe it is like an ottoman (but a very uncomfortable one).

We are the group in the upper photo.

This image is courtesy of the Crowley Collection and is included in “Mineral King: The Story of Beulah.”

Bryn and I sat here for awhile and visited while I soaked my foot. (Yes, just one of them.) This is an area that confuses me – in my memory it is ponds. At this time it was a slow moving creek. Hmmm – the altitude messes with my memory? Prolly.

P.S. Why did no one on the hike notice that Trail Guy and I were wearing our very special and available Trail Guy tee shirts with a custom Mineral King design??

hiking Mineral King Mineral King

Will Tuesday Cruisedays Ever End?

Yep. Next week. Promise!

After Juneau, we went to a place called the Tracy Arm Fjord. It is a narrow canyon of water with the Sawyer Glay-see-uh at the end. The ship cruises slowly up the canyon at some crazy early hour in the morning, and if you have any sense, you’ll disregard the fact that you were out exploring Juneau at 11 p.m. and get your arse out of bed at 5 the next morning to see this beautiful side trip. Further more, if you have any sense at that time in spite of being dangerously low on sleep, you’ll dress warmly for heading outside and upstairs into the icy wind.

The water was really this teal color. Really!

The icebergs really were this blue. Really!

Brrrrrr, where are we going?

Cool! Is that it? Can we get any closer?

Oh. Don’t want to be a sequel to that movie. Guess we won’t hear or see any of that famous “calving”.

That’s okay. I have a telephoto feature on this little camera.

This was Michael’s favorite part of the whole cruise. He spent the rest of the trip lamenting the fact that we didn’t get to be close to shore. The reason was that the casino couldn’t open unless we were miles out to sea. I finally told him to take it up with the captain.

That was a small craft which was able to get closer to the glay-see-uh because it could navigate safely through the icebergs. I think it could, because I didn’t hear any news stories about sinking ships in Alaska. Of course, I didn’t listen to any news. Why would I? Part of a cruise’s magic is to escape!

What Do We Do In Mineral King?

Sometimes in Mineral King we just hang around the cabin, knitting, splitting wood, reading, playing a game called Mancala (I don’t like games but this is a tradition with my annual guest PC, and besides, the marbles are really beautiful), and baking pies in a wood stove oven.

Then we say, “What are we doing?? It is a beautiful day, and we could be out on a trail!”

Sometimes, a hike is just too much trouble. Pack up food, water, be prepared to be gone the bulk of the day, find a walking stick, do you need a poncho or parka, which camera shall we take, can I fit in this knitting in case I’m just sitting around?

So, we opt to not take food or water and just go for a walk.

Look Ma, no packs! It is just a walk, not a hike, after all.

A mighty steep walk. Some parts of the trail to White Chief are so steep that I have to do them on my tip-toes, because it is hard for my feet to bend at the angle of the trial.

As we were heading up the trail, I kept wondering, “Who Moved My Chief?”

Okay, that’s far enough. Can we go back now? It looks sort of as if it might rain.

Good camouflage, Miss Deery.

Weird sky, weird glowing light on Sawtooth, which is behind the darker peak that we call “Sawtooth’s Shadow”, even though its real name is “Mineral Peak”.

Final view of the trail as we hurried back to the cabin – aren’t those walking sticks interesting? Handy if you are heading out, but they won’t keep you dry in the rain.

PC LOVES the rain! I can tolerate it if I have a decent parka or poncho, and Trail Guy HATES to be caught out in it. The whole gamut of rain opinions resides in our cabin, but we are all immensely grateful for any water that falls from the sky.

hiking Mineral King White Chief

What Is The California Artist Doing?

Perhaps you’ve been wondering if I am still a California artist. Cruising to Alaska, having fun in Mineral King; is this chick even working any more??

I am working diligently on The Cabins of Wilsonia. You can follow the progress on my other blog, called The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Sometimes my own cleverness just slays me.) Actually, you can follow my thoughts about the process, because I’m not showing everything I’ve finished. Gotta have a little mystery, so people will want to buy the book!

My drawing quota for August has been met, and now it is time to work on some commissions.

I have 2 cabins in Wilsonia to draw that are outside the scope of the book. This is good, because income is good. This is not good, because doggonit, I will have 230+ cabin drawings and now I’m adding to the + side of things!

Nope. not complaining. It is tricky to choose the exact cabins and views that will please the cabin folks and also keep the book from looking all samey-samey on every page.

The entry-way door of this cabin is interesting to me.

It is also interesting to the people who own the cabin, but they are more interested in seeing the cabin in its entirety. So, I’ve done a couple of sketches so they can choose. The differences between the two choices are subtle – can you spot them?

cabin drawings California Artist commission pencil work drawing The Cabins of Wilsonia

Cruisedays, Tuesdays

This is Chapter Six of Fun Things I Will Never Do Again (Unless Someone Else Pays) or “My Alaskan Cruise”.

Juneau might have been my favorite stop. This could be because we were there the longest of all the ports. After visiting the Mendenhall Glay-shee-uh, we went up Mt. Roberts.

Mt. Roberts has a tram, which costs $31 and zips you to the top of a mountain above Juneau. Not us – we are Trail Guy and Mrs. Trail Guy.

We meandered through the streets of Juneau, following a map I got back in the 1980s when I thought I might move to Alaska. (I was an idiot, but let’s not think about that too much.)

juneau

These folks in Juneau really take advantage of the long days of sunlight during the summer. We loved seeing the results of the gardening efforts.

steps

Steep streets, steps everywhere.

I was pleased and amazed to see this very place, same view, in the overpriced book that the cruise ship sold about the various ports of call on our journey.

falls

When we got out of the neighborhoods and closer to the trailhead, this was the view.

stream

This is probably just a stream. Looks bigger than the Kaweah River!

typo

Hmmm, that would get your attention in the winter. (There’s a typo in the sign. . . just sayin’.)

steep

It was steep, muddy, uphill and 2.5 miles to the top where the tram is. There are more trails at the top, but we were muddy and sweaty and done. However, we started pretty close to sea level, so this sort of hike wasn’t nearly as huffy-puffy as hiking in Mineral King.

view

Nice view of Juneau below!

really-nice-view

Really really nice views up there!

little-ship

Hey! There’s our ship!

I told you these cruises are all about the ship, right? We had a tiny sense that we were out there on our own during our long day in Juneau. I’d like to go back and stay a week or two.

Oh – about the tram? We spent $20 at the top of the tram, and showed our receipt, which worked as a ticket for a quick and thrilling descent back to the port.

Juneau

Wood Stove, Pies, and Friendship in Mineral King

(Today’s post is about cabin life in Mineral King rather than hiking. If this is boring to you, tune in again next Friday.)

In a former life, I was a baker. Pies were the specialty of the outfit where I was employed. It was a long time ago. Now I only bake pies for special occasions, and it amazes me that one pie makes the same huge mess as 8 or 12 pies do.

For 27 years there has been no oven at my cabin. Last fall, Trail Guy and Cowboy Bert remedied the situation.

We have some once-a-year neighbors in Mineral King, and over the course of the last 28 years, they have become cherished visitors to the cabin next door. Our friendships have progressed to the point where they are now comfortable hanging around in our back yard! Last year I knew they were coming, so I baked them a pie.

This year, I baked them 2 pies in a wood stove oven!

It was a big project. My dear friend PC peeled and sliced the fruit, I rolled out the crusts, and Michael operated the stove. Honestly, it took all three of us.

We had to rotate them very carefully and thoughtfully. It sounded something like this:

“Don’t open the oven yet. There is one in the back right corner and one in the front left. Pull the front one out and set it on the stove. Then rotate the back right to see if it is getting dark. If it is darker than the front one, take it out. Put the former front one in the back right, but make sure the darkest part is toward the front of the oven. Okay, GO!”

“Did you reset the timer? How many 10 minuteses has it been? Do you think we can pull them if the crusts look brown?”

The apple pie took 50 minutes and the peach pie took 40. I think both needed more time, but the peach pie got sort of burned-ish anyway. No one complained. All were complimentary. I don’t much like pie (unless a thing is ice cream or dark chocolate, it is rarely worth the calories to me), but I certainly enjoyed the ~~project~~ process.

It was Cathy, my bona fide Mineral King Expert friend who thought that inverted colanders would be good cooling racks. She was right, of course.

P.S. Homemade pies in a wood burning oven are good campaign props, don’t you think? If you live in the Everett school district, vote for Ted Wenta!

cabin life Mineral King wood stove

How to Enjoy and Use This Blog

Big fat happy THANK YOU to those of you who return to my blog, over and over.

Based on some emails I’ve received, it is time to go over a few things to help you enjoy this blog.

1. Some of you have asked me how to comment.

This is tricky. Some of your computers don’t show the same page view that I see. There is a sentence at the end of each post that reads “Be the first to respond” or “no responses yet” or “# of responses so far”.

This is true unless you are my amazing friend Nikki. I don’t know why her computer shows her a different view. It isn’t personal. Computers are just weird like that.

If you click on those words (hover over them – see your cursor turn into a little hand? This means you can click on it), it will give you a window or a box or something that allows you to type in your comment or question.

Then, it will probably look as if it didn’t work. This causes some people to submit two identical comments, because they think the first one didn’t work. Don’t worry – it goes into a spam folder, and then I go find it and approve it. If you submitted two, I delete one. If you misspelled words, I fix them. I’m just weird like that (sort of an auto-correct function that comes with my brain.)

2. Some of you only care about a particular subject, such as Mineral King, or drawing lessons.

You can either type the subject into the search box (if your computer is kind enough to show it) or you can scroll down the main page until you see the word “Categories” on the left side; just click on the particular Category that interests you and you will get pages of post headlines, most current on top. You can click on the headlines that blow your skirt up.

3. Several of you have had a little trouble on the main website with the shopping cart. You click on a buy button, and nothing happens.

How annoying! This is because after you choose what you want to buy, you need to click on the word “Cart” at the top of the page. That will show you what is in the cart.

Okay, hope that helps. Feel free to try the cart (you can always close the page if you didn’t really mean to buy something), try the commenting system (you can always close the page if you didn’t mean it), try the Search box, or try clicking on a category that interests you.

Thanks for stopping by, thanks for making it to the end of this instructional post. Here is your reward: