Mineral King | Cabin Art

Making Two Paintings Better

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.The other day I just sat in front of these two Mineral King oil paintings with Tucker shedding, purring, and slobbering on my lap. While holding my favorite cat (sorry Pippin and Jackson, but I have known your uncle a year longer than I have known you), I studied the paintings carefully, wondering how I could make them better.

The answer usually lies in better contrast, and shaggier edges. Not that shaggy edges are always the answer, but in this case a few edges were a bit smoother than real life.

Never mind. Just look now and see if they look better to you (bearing in mind that they are now too wet to scan and that they always look better in person).

Each of these paintings is 8×8″, and I spent way more time on them than justified by the $100 (+tax) sales price each.

It is probably time to raise my prices. That is hard to do, because people are just trying to keep food on the table and gas in the car, and art is not a necessity. (It is for me, but I think you understand my point.)

Seeking Calm at the Easels

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Sometimes life is hard. Oftentimes life is hard. Even if my own life is wonderful (and it is), life around is less than wonderful. Friends are suffering, the world seems to be on fire. I could list the worrisome items, but you probably have a similar list.

So, I will simply continue to seek calm at the easels.

I hope that seeing the progression of this Mineral King oil painting brings a bit of calm to your world.

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Mineral King After a Summer Storm

If you read this blog through an email subscription on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Last week there was such a storm in Tulare County that the marina at Lake Kaweah experienced some real destruction: the docks slammed around, wrecked houseboats, the docks broke apart or sank or both, and five houseboats also sunk. Now they are just in these large jams and people can’t get to them. What a freak of nature storm.

I was down the hill; Trail Guy was up the hill. The evening after the storm, he took these photos in that beautiful glowing light called “the magic hour” by photographers everywhere.

A couple of days later he took these photos out on the trail. This first one is white flowers that I have never seen before. Maybe I saw them and thought, “White, meh”. But I don’t remember.

Mineral King

Another Cold Weekend in Mineral King

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Some cabin folks across the creek registered lows of 20 and 21 degrees on their thermometer over the weekend in Mineral King.

Here is a little visible evidence.

A cabin across the creek from us keeps a sprinkler running, and it made a large patch of ice.

My ax froze in its bucket of water. We put it there when the handle gets loose so that the wood swells. (Froze my ax off?)

Here is the neighbor’s ice patch after the sun did its job.

The weekend was beautiful and clear. The parking lot was full of cars wrapped to keep out the marmots.

This marmot wasn’t interested in cars because he lives under a cabin.
The cold flattened the corn lily, AKA skunk cabbage. This mule belongs to The Park and is not interested in staying in the corral.

Crystal Creek was low. Nothing was melting up in the high country.

Brrr. We came home early where the weather in Three Rivers was moderate and comfortable.

Mineral King

Are You Really Painting Sawtooth Again?

If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.

Yeppers, another Sawtooth oil painting. Sawtooth is visible from the flatlands of Visalia on a clear day and is the signature peak of Mineral King. It has recently become the most popular of the Mineral King subjects that I paint, and a few weeks ago, someone commissioned another version of the “Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint” view. This is number 8, and the first one in the ratio of 1:3 (6×18″, vertical).

As usual, I started with a scribbly base, and then put in the sky, working my way closer and closer to the front.

Suddenly, I was confused on all those mountain ridges, so I dropped into the stream to pick apart the rocks. I photographed the stream in order to see the rock formations at higher water, before the seasonal growth obstructed my vision. I don’t understand water flow well enough to convincingly make this up.

This represents an afternoon of work, trying to perfect the detail on the first pass, knowing full well that I will need to make corrections as the other parts get completed. And then those “other parts” will need to be corrected.

It would be satisfying to spend as much time on every painting as I am on this one. But paintings don’t require the level of detail that pencil drawings do, it isn’t cost effective, and for the most part, my customers don’t even recognize that level of intense detail. (Not everyone is as near-sighted as I am, albeit it with strong cheater-readers these days.)

Links to other posts about painting Sawtooth:

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Trail Guy Hikes For Us

Who is “us”?

You, me, anyone who reads the blog but isn’t retired or on vacation in Mineral King. While I was painting walls inside Three Rivers buildings, Trail Guy went hiking in Mineral King.

He went up toward Timber Gap, and then to Empire, but not to the top, just a loop that gives good views.

While he was there looking at the mountains, I was painting the very same peaks in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum.

This is Ranger’s Roost, AKA Mather Point, looking through the timber of Timber Gap. When you are looking at Timber Gap, it is the bump to the left/west. The Mather Party came over Timber and saw Mineral King. I drew the cover in pencil and colored pencil for a book about it, but I haven’t read it. I just look at the pictures. (This was a second edition—the original drawing on the first edition went missing so the publisher commissioned me.)

There were a few flowers: shooting star, Western wallflower, phlox.

This is the rock outcropping on Empire that gives the false impression of being the actual peak. It is a favorite for enjoying alpenglow in the evening light.

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Mineral King Is Now Open

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional cabin opening weekend. It is when Sequoia National Park unlocks the gate, and people begin backpacking and camping. Some years it feels like summer; some years it does not. This year was snow-free, but it did not feel like summer.

The classic view

This section was stripped of willows and other shrubs in the fire prevention efforts last fall. (I spent a ridiculous amount of time going through my photos to find one of how it looked before it got pruned to no avail.)

Monarch Falls and Creek are flowing well.

This is “Iron Falls” along the Nature Trail.

This is Iron Falls as recently painted.

The dandelions were prolific, bright, and charming (because they are not in my lawn).

This is the view of the stream that I painted 7 times over the winter in the Sawtooth oil paintings, and I took this photo in hopes that it will assist me as I paint #8.

This is painting #6 of Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint.

As now seems to be the norm, there were dogs coming both up and down the Nature Trail with impunity. No one reads the signs, and no one cares. (There is a dog in this photo, although it is sort of a “where’s Waldo” type of view.)

We had a super clear day to walk up to Crystal Creek and the wind was quite icy.

This is the section that I think of as the Yellow Tunnel in the fall. The cottonwoods were just beginning to leaf out.

Crystal Creek was doing its normal spread into about 4 shallow branches.

Thus we conclude my first visit to Mineral King for 2022. May there be many more!

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Early Season Mineral King

This post comes to you courtesy of Trail Guy. He took the photos for us to all enjoy.

This is Empire Peak.

This is Timber Gap, to the left of Empire. Farewell Gap isn’t entirely visible in the next photo, but you can see Little Florence Peak, which is on the left side of the gap.

This is the view from the Timber Gap trail.

These are five-spot, an early flower.

And these are violets. Yes, I know they are yellow, but I didn’t name them.

Another view from the Timber Gap trail.

And these deer are just now remembering that people start showing up this time of year.

Mineral King

Revving up the Mineral King Painting Factory

I prefer short pithy titles, but The Google likes the long ones. Who cares? Me. Just wanted you to know why my titles are longer than they used to be.

It is time to start producing paintings to sell at the Silver City Store, AKA Silver City Mountain Resort.

I randomly chose various sizes from my canvas storage shelf, wired the backs, went through my photos and chose scenes that I either hadn’t painted before, or ones that were a new take on an old subject. Of course, almost everything I paint in Mineral King is a repeat because I know what sells and that is what I need to be painting. I came here to earn a living, so SHOW ME THE MONEY.

Such a sell-out. But if I wasn’t, then I’d need a job, and I’d rather do some repetitious painting (and push to improve each time) than be a waitress.

I drew this bridge at Cold Springs Campground in pencil, a snow scene, but have only painted it once before (that I remember).

I have never painted the mini falls along the Nature Trail (the mess on the right is going to be those little falls, AKA “Iron Falls”).

I’ve never painted Franklin Creek about a half mile or so below Franklin Lake but always appreciate this view with the water, wildflowers, and the light. (That’s the lower painting, 6×18″, still quite a mess).

I have painted the Honeymoon Cabin many times, but I don’t think I have done it from this distance.

I’ve painted the trail several times, but from a different location each time. This might be a new vantage point.

Sawtooth. Yawn. The trail will help. There will be wildflowers.

These seven paintings are very very loose and messy right now. Some days I don’t feel like drawing with a paintbrush. My style of oil painting works best with several layers, so the drawing layer will eventually appear.

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Productive Painting Day

Look at all these canvases! It is time to figure out what to paint of Mineral King in order to have inventory to sell at Silver City Mountain Resort, more commonly known as the Silver City Store, informally called by locals, “The Store”.

First I randomly chose a variety of sizes. Seven canvases seemed like a good number to begin with, 6×6″ up to 6×18″, including 8×8″, 8×10″ and 10×10″.

Then I sorted through my photos and chose subjects that were familiar and added a few more scenes that I haven’t tried before. Some will need to be cropped or stretched or somehow manipulated to fit the chosen canvas shapes.