Another Beach Day

Mrs. Texas and I chose to have a second beach day, this time in Monterey. While there for a weeklong painting retreat last year, I still didn’t have enough time to do all I had hoped. One of those things was to tour the Point Pinos Lighthouse, a place I painted while perched on the […]

The Central California Artist Went Back to Gilroy

Mrs. Texas was in California for another handful of weeks, and I felt compelled to go back to see her one more time. So, I did. (There is a lot to be said about driving a car that isn’t potentially on its last gasp.) We did a number of wonderful things, and I even did […]

Driving Through the Valley After my Show

Golly tamale, that Central California Artist must have run out of things to write. Nope. Rarely does that happen. I drove to Tulare to retrieve my art. It was very serendipitous to pass many vineyards at a time when I need photos of them for the current pencil commission. I like using my own photos, […]

A Few Mineral King Sights

Labor Day weekend was a great time to just hang out with neighbors. We had dinners together, hiked together, did projects together, and just enjoyed these multi-generational friendships. Since I try to protect privacy on the World Wide Web, I’ll only show you photos that don’t include people. Hmmm, a taco truck in the parking […]

Another Mineral King Hike (Mosquito Lake)

My adventurous and fearless friend K consented to hike with me and Hiking Buddy, even though we are no where near her level of competence on the trails. It had been years since I’d seen Mosquito Lake, and although I doubted my ability to tolerate foot discomfort that distance, we chose to go in that […]

Ten Things Learned in August (Plus What I Did on my “Vacation”)

Because we don’t have drawing lessons in July or August, sometimes my students say, “Have a nice vacation!” (One sings to me, “See you, in September. . .”) “Vacation”? Fall down laughing. This is what I did workwise in July and August: 2. The library’s card catalog stopped working online after the last “maintenance” session. […]

After the Storm (in Mineral King)

By the time you read this post, this will all seem like distant past. These photos are from the evening of K and my exciting Mineral King hike. I was pretty beat, but stumbled down to the bridge to see the muddy raging stream and to look up at Farewell Gap, with its sprinklings of […]

Trail Guy Hiked up the Farewell Canyon

I was in Gilroy. Trail Guy hiked anyway. I’m glad that my feet aren’t sidelining him. It has been a couple of years since I made it to the Franklin/Farewell junction, a place we refer to as the Wildflower Cafe, since it is a nice destination for lunch, particularly in early July when the wildflowers […]