wildflowers | Cabin Art

Wildflower Book Update

Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names

This is the title of my next book. “My next book” – What? do you think you are an author? Well, I make books, so maybe I am an author. My books are picture books, so maybe I am an artist who makes books. “Maybe”?

Sigh. It is hard to talk about oneself and sound informative and not self-absorbed.

Wait. I’m not talking about me; I’m talking about my next book.

Fine. Then get on with it, will you?

The design is solidified, finished, stick a fork in it and call it done.

The main blocks of words are the Preface and the Conclusion; both have been sent away for editing.

The cover’s first draft, has been sent to my designer nephew to make sure I haven’t made any gross errors. He said, “The layout is pleasing. It reminds me of some of my old calligraphy and lettering book covers.” I believe it was his polite way of letting me know my sense of style is out of date. I doubt that my customers will notice. They are all older than he is.

Next tasks: buy a bar code, write the back “blurb” (when did “blurb” become a word? AND I continue to puzzle over this most difficult task), rework the parts that have been changed during the editing, refine the cover design (oh boy, this involves downloading a template to use with Photoshop Elements on my old laptop, can’t wait), and finally, send it to the printer for one proof copy.

Work That Doesn’t Feel Like Work

In my normally slow month of December, I finally had the chance to work on my upcoming book Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.

It seems to be cooking along just fine, and then something goes wackadoodle with InDesign or the template ceases to do its templatish magic or it takes hours and hours to resize all the photos to the same effective PPI (you’d really rather not know) or some of the photos get corrupted and I have to keep moving the flashdrive back and forth between the 2 laptops or I realize the title page simply says “MK Wildflowers” instead of Mineral King Wildflowers . . .

You get the idea.

One morning I worked about 10 minutes on it and suddenly it was lunchtime. Then I put in about another 1/2 hour and it was dark out. Then another 10 minutes and it was 9 p.m. So, you see this is an engrossing and enjoyable project.

The worst part will be writing the blurb on the back. Have you ever tried writing about yourself? Don’t, if you are able to avoid it.

The plan is to have it in hand in April so I can do a book signing in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum before the Redbud Festival when people are in a wildflower state of mind. (Have you ever been in a wildflower state of mind? It might just be an idiosyncratic trait of this Central California artist.)

mineral king wildflowers wildflower book wildflowers

New Book Coming!

Friday’s post left you with a teaser. . . new book coming!

Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names is in progress. This has been a 2 year process of gathering photos and names. I’ve struggled through many boring white flowers and a zillion yellow ones that all look alike. I’ve gone a little nutso over blue flowers and recognized that red ones aren’t very common.

While hiking, I’ve realized that wildflowers are one of the big magnets for me. Sure, scenery is great, exercise can be fun if with friends or on a trail (I’m looking at you, Off Trail Guy) and who wouldn’t want to be outside in Mineral King? But all my choices for hiking destinations seem to be based on where the flowers are.

With a stack of about 6 wildflower books, I’ve been able to find common names for most of the wildflowers in Mineral King. Why does it take that many? Why isn’t there a wildflower book for Mineral King?

“If it is to be, it’s up to me” – I don’t know who said that, but it seems to apply here.

The book will have photos taken mostly by Off Trail Guy and me; the cover will be a fabulous photo from a fabulous photographer, one of my treasured hiking friends whose phone takes better pictures than my little Elph camera. It also might have something to do with her superior photography skills. . .

There is still a pile of work ahead on the book – more writing, editing, proofing, trying harder to find names for those unknown whites and yellows, and finally, figuring how and where to get it printed. Add into that mix the difficulties of working with Adobe InDesign on an old laptop, and there are probably 2 months between now and actual publication.

Here is a peek at an early draft of a two-page spread:

Obviously there is some editing necessary. Obviously it is not a scientific botanical manual. Obviously.

I hope this is a helpful and fun book for people who hike in Mineral King and love wildflowers, with inquiring minds that just need to know.

Mineral King Mineral King photography wildflowers

Mineral King Wildflowers

Because I went coastal last week, I don’t have any new stories to tell about my crazy life in Mineral King. (not truly crazy, just me exaggerating. . .)

Instead, here are 10 photos of Mineral King wildflowers for you to enjoy.

Mountain Pride (or Pride of the Mountains, depending on which book you read.)

Do you have a favorite? Do you know any of these by different names?

Mineral King Mineral King photography wildflowers

Paintbrush Gardening

Is it gardening when I am planting flowers with my paintbrush? Is it gardening when I am painting wildflowers?

It doesn’t matter – sounds good in a blog post title and sort of works.

This is one of the popular 6×18″ sized canvases, begun with a few spots and slashes of color. I showed you these first 3 pictures in a post earlier this week.

Now for the more recent progress of this oil painting of poppies and lupine:

There needs to be grasses across some of the flowers for it to look real, but I can’t do that while the paint is wet or the grasses will be orange and purple. There is a messy poppy in the center (from left to right but sort of higher than center from top to bottom) that demonstrates the folly of this maneuver.

Now it is finished.

Foothill Wildflowers, 6×18″, $150 plus 8% sales tax in California

And, I know you are dying to know the state of our cat situation.

Piper is happy and oblivious to the fact that we have just completely altered his life.

How have we altered Piper’s life? Look what we did yesterday:

We went to the ranch expecting to choose two kittens and brought home FOUR.

Three tortoiseshell females and one solid black male. OH NO! HOW WILL WE TELL WHICH ONE IS PIPER WHEN THE NEW ONE GROWS UP??

oil paintings poppies wildflowers

May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers in some parts of the world; in Three Rivers, it is more this way: With April heat, May flowers are beat.

That’s okay. I can paint my own flowers.

This is going to take longer than expected. Most paintings do.

I build the background around the flowers, then touch up the flowers.

There is so much variety, and I’m trying to make it look natural rather than arranged.

I think this is finished! I titled it “April in Three Rivers” and sent a photo of it to a lady who expressed an interest during the Studio Tour. She wants it! I can paint it again for you- 8×10″, $125 plus tax.

That was so fun that I began a similar one, this time in the horizontal format.

But wait! What is all this?

This is how it looks when there is a stack of new paintings ready to begin. Sky is the farthest thing in a scene, so it goes on first.

oil paintings Three Rivers wildflowers

April Distractions in Three Rivers

I tried to oil paint last Friday but the greenery and wildflowers overcame my sense of duty. So, Trail Guy and I drove up North Fork Drive to the end.

After telling Trail Guy that I’d heard the flowers were great up North Fork and staring out the window a bit, he said, “Let’s go now!”

The road was longer, rougher, narrower than I remembered and all very worth the drive.

This is Yucca Creek at the end of North Fork Drive.

That’s one narrow little footbridge over a massive old culvert pipe.

Heading back down has a view of Ash Peak with a blooming yucca and bush lupine.

Looking over the edge down to the North Fork makes one glad to not encounter any oncoming traffic on that narrow road with no turnouts.

Poppies are yellower in the wild than in my yard.

The poppies on the hillsides are what gave California its name of “The Golden State”. (Bet you thought it was the gold rush)

I love Fairy Lanterns, AKA Satin Bells. Pink isn’t my favorite color, but it is rare enough in nature that it stands out.

After we got back home, I painted a little bit more. There is this commissioned oil painting of Sawtooth for a very patient customer, and it would be good to make progress.

Sawtooth’s shape is improving, and it is acquiring colors and texture.

Then, I got distracted again and thought that wildflowers would look great on a 6×18″ canvas. Can you see the possibilities here? (Put on your rose-colored glasses with me!)

commission oil painting sawtooth oil painting Three Rivers wildflowers

Easel Time

Have you noticed that the word “easel” is pretty close to the word “easy”?

It’s merely a word illusion. Nothing easy about being at an easel.

This fact, combined with April as the most beautiful month in Three Rivers, has made it even less easy to plant my feet in front of the easel recently.

But, as I pointed out in the Eight Things I Learned in March blog post, often we must parent ourselves. (“STAY IN YOUR ROOM UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED YOUR MATH!”) So, I planted my feet in front of the easel in spite of the distractions.

Wanna see some of the distractions? I know you are interested.

Two brodiaea, Wild Hyacinth and Pretty Face, along with Common Madia

Forget easel time and painting for today’s blog. See you on Monday. . .

Three Rivers wildflowers

Trail Guy’s Favorite Mineral King Hike

Sometimes I have to be down the hill, feeding Samson, watering the yard, blogging, drawing, taking care of business, fulfilling promises. Meanwhile, Trail Guy the Retiree is in Mineral King, hiking and taking photos for me to put on my blog.

His favorite place to go is White Chief. Mine too, unless it is the junction of the Franklin/Farewell Gap trails, or Farewell Gap itself. The lakes might could be, but we don’t go there much so I can’t remember. (I might could go there, but I’ll prolly be down the hill at the liberry instead.)