As I write this post, the Paradise Fire (part of the KNP Complex fire) has been obscuring all views at home and giving me a passive smoker’s cough. It is threatening our cabin in Mineral King (mandatory evacuation) and possibly our home in Three Rivers (voluntary evacuation). 
How is a Central California artist to cope?
By painting her favorite type of scenery.*
This was how it looked when I last showed you.
See how the colors look now? This is before I began painting, and it has a funny tint due to the smoky orange light outside.
To help me focus, I flipped it upside down, flipped the photo upside down on the laptop screen, enlarged it tremendously, and proceeded to draw with my paintbrush. The goal was to be as accurate as possible, working back to front in the scenery, and matching the mountains to the best of my ability while squishing the scene onto a canvas of different proportions than the photos. (Trickinology, remember?)
When this is dry, I will add the windmachines, oranges, signature, and edges.
Then maybe I’ll go househunting in Lemon Cove where they don’t have wildfires.
Nope. I am NEVER moving again.
Yeah, I know, “never say never”. Been here almost 23 years and I truly do not want to lose this place or to move.
*along with answering texts, phone calls, and emails from many concerned friends, listening to Mike Rowe’s podcasts, continuing to pray in less than coherent phrases throughout the day, and hanging out with cats.