Monthly Archives: January 2014

Oops

I went through the 2 boxes of finished drawings and counted 258 + 4 that are in the hands of the cabin owners. (They commissioned me to draw their cabins and then I decided the drawings belonged in the the book). That made 261 total.

Then, I went through the book on the computer and counted every drawing. There were 260 total.

What does this mean??

It means that I have done a drawing but not put it in the book.

What is a pencil artist to do??

Ask for help, of course. I spent an hour or so going through the book on the computer and matching every physical drawing in the studio to every virtual drawing on the computer. My husband helped. He likes to organize stuff (except the stuff in the workshop, but he even gets into that once in awhile.)

Look what I found:

A drawing was in the book twice!
A drawing was missing from Hillcrest Road!
A drawing was missing from Lilac!

Wow. I’m glad I thought of doing this tedious inventory task. I wonder what other tasks, checks and balances, quality control measures there are that will make this book turn out to be the best book ever? I sure hope I discover them before it goes to the printer!

As a result of discovering 2 more drawings, I’ve added 2 pages to the book. This means I have to rework the Table of Contents, and that there is more room for the quotes that I’ve been squeezing here and there. It also means that I HAVE TO RENUMBER THE PAGES!!! I’m sure there must be a way to do this automatically on InDesign. Will it take more time to find out how to do this automatically than to simply do it by hand??

While I was looking at every drawing, I found three that just weren’t quite good enough. One has already been redrawn, but my husband made a suggestion that salvaged it. One just needed a touch-up, and it is the stone steps at the beginning of this blog post. The shadows didn’t make sense on the first version. The second one is below – it won’t be in the book, but now it looks good enough to sell.

Quotations Limitations

At the time of this writing, there are 40 quotations by YOU in the book. YOU means Wilsonia cabin owners.

Who knew that getting other people to do my writing would be so very difficult?? Look at this list:

Ask for quotes
Ask again, because not enough people responded.
Ask again, because people didn’t understand that I am not looking for history but for details about cabin life. Details, stories, thoughts, stuff about cabin life today.
Edit, because people submit paragraphs and pages in response to a request for “a few lines“. (Editing is fun – if I had a career do-over, I might choose to be an editor.)
Email the edited quotes, because I need people’s permission to rearrange their words if I plan to put their names on it.
Put the quotes in the book, mess with 2 different typestyles and 2 different formats, then scoot and resize and rearrange the page to accommodate the quotes. (This is not fun – if I had a career do-over, I would not choose computer operator.)
Decide if there are too many or if the subject matter is too redundant or if I am putting a dumb quote in because I really enjoyed listening to the person tell me about his life at the cabin or because I really like that person.
Toughen up a little inside so that when someone gets upset with me at not including his quote after the book is published, then I won’t be crushed by their disappointment.
Wonder if I should take all the quotes received that don’t fit and make an extra page at the end of the book. Or the middle. Or the beginning. Or on a hand-out sheet.
Decide that #9 is a poor idea, especially the handout sheet.

Anyone recognize this picnic table yet or the cabin behind it??

Thoughts About Having a FABULOUS Book

Sometimes I say I am working on a book, and sometimes I say I am drawing a book. Since 2014 began, I’ve been working on the written parts of The Cabins of Wilsonia.

The conclusion is written and edited. After I paid the editor, I realized that it needs to be read by someone who gave me some greatly helpful information about Wilsonia and wonderful ideas for the conclusion. He now has it, and I am hoping he doesn’t suggest any changes or additions. Stupid, because if I really didn’t want that to happen, I wouldn’t have asked him to read it.

When I worked in a print shop, I was taught that there are 3 elements to business: speed, price and quality. It is only possible to have 2 of the 3, never all of them.

I’m trying for all three here, but have decided that quality is the most important element.

My desire to have a FABULOUS book is stronger than my desire to either get it done quickly or to do it for the least amount of money possible. (I hope you all are saving up for your copies!)

Where is this Picnic Table?

Houston, we have a problem.

More than one, actually, but I can handle the others.

I had a scanner that seemed fine except for the fact that it is severely limited in size. After scanning about 30-40 drawings, I faced the fact that I needed to find a bigger and better scanner. Now I am having to rescan all the drawings done the first time. (Thank you for not pointing out my slowness to accept reality. I’ve been working on that for awhile. Sigh.)

In rescanning, I realized that I have a drawing of a picnic table from somewhere in Wilsonia. Which lane? It will appear in the chapter Cedar Lane because that is where it fits. But, where is this table??

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THIS PICNIC TABLE IS??

Thanks.

Words in a Book of Drawings

A picture is worth a thousand words. This means my book will be the equivalent of 265,000 + words. Is that long for a book? Normally they are measured in terms of pages. The Cabins of Wilsonia will be about 168 pages long, perhaps a little less.

Here is what words are being written or have been completed:

dedication
preface
introduction
descriptions of some street names
editing the quotations (SEND ME YOUR STORIES NOW Time is running out!)
acknowledgements
conclusion

Sounds simple enough, but look at the things I have to consider:

Accuracy of information
Accurate interpretation of people’s intentions in telling their stories
Good writing skills (I have an editor, a professional who edits for a living.)
ZERO tolerance for typos
Consistent design within the written parts – Oh My Goodness, Adobe InDesign is the most non-intuitive program ever devised. All those options mean there are zillions of ways to make errors of inconsistency within the design and zillions of opportunities to forget how one did a thing so no idea how to undo the thing.
Proper placement in a book. Did you know that one of the marks of a self-published book is improper placement of information?

The Cabins of Wilsonia may be self-published, but any Joe Average looking through it isn’t going to know that “Cabinart Books” is just little ol’ me.

Perkins tries to sit on my lap when the laptop is there. This hinders my typing. (And this photo was taken last spring – may we PLEASE have some rain NOW, PLEASE??)

Blue Things and Sunshine

Now that the drawings are finished (with the possible exception of a couple of do-overs and some frou-frous for wordy pages), it is time to work on the written parts.

But first, let’s take a little break and enjoy some sunshine.

blue things and sunshine

What do we have here?

First, the chair is my redwood throne, made by Bob Kellogg of Three Rivers. I noticed 2 of these chairs on the deck of a cabin on Fir Lane (FINALLY know what to call these streets!) and was aghast, nay, HORRIFED to see they had been painted. When I reported it to Bob, who is in the category of My Amazing Friends, he said he was the one who painted them, because they are not redwood. Always good to go to the source.

Next, there is a lovely blue garment, a congratulatory gift for completing the drawings in 2013. I LOVE blue, particularly this shade, and THANK YOU, PAT!

But wait! What else is blue? It’s a new briefcase to carry my laptop back and forth between the house and the studio. The old one developed holes on the bottom, and then the zipper permanently unzipped itself. It did pretty well considering I got it for free for joining the Book of the Month Club back in the 1980s.

I thought I could sit in my throne in the sunshine while wearing my new blue top, and work on the written parts of the book. Nope – it was too warm and too sunny too see the screen.

painted chairs

P.S. I’m sure that tree is leaning because Perkins The Outdoor Cat has been scratching on the same side, trying to push it over since it was planted in 2002.

P.P.S. (I think that’s the right to indicate a second post-script) I KNOW the studio needs painting. I’m busy putting together a book. Priorities, priorities. . .

Chinquapin Lane

This is a short street. It contains one of four A-frames, the cabin of a long-time acquaintance who is now a friend, and a cabin owned by the National Park Service. The cabin owned by the NPS is architecturally interesting, but it won’t appear in the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, because there aren’t enough pages available to put in cabins that won’t increase the sales of the book.

This is a business decision. Occasionally I am able to overcome the “it’s my book and I’ll draw what I want to” attitude and do what is best for the bottom line.

Fear and the Building of a Book

I know how to draw in pencil, and I know how to draw cabins. In spite of having put together The Cabins of Mineral King, I have a little bit of fear. It doesn’t paralyze me. Instead, it keeps me on my toes.

The fear is that the book might look like “loving hands at home”. In order to avoid this dreaded description, I plan to hire a book designer as a consultant. Hopefully, he will prevent me from making any lame-o mistakes.

Okay, Mrs. Book Builder, gaze upon the lovely blue shutter and think calming peaceful thoughts.

Cedar Lane

Cedar Lane will be Chapter 3 in The Cabins of Wilsonia. It is one that I added new drawings to and redesigned. This caused a general scooting around of every successive page. Every time I look through the photos of Cedar, I vacillate between adding more and leaving it as is. Remembering how much trouble it is to scoot successive drawings and redesign every successive page is enough to make me say to myself, “Self, STOP IT”.

Two Hundred Sixty Five Pencil Drawings of Cabins

Made it! 265 pencil drawings for the upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, finished. (Unless my drawing student make me change something, because they are “mean” like that.)

The last cabin on my list, on Willow Lane.

This doesn’t mean that there won’t be more. The drawings might not be enough, or horror of horrors, there might be too many. There are a couple more that I would like to draw, but don’t think I can fit them in.

I’d also like to put little ones here and there to enhance plain pages like the Table of Contents or Acknowledgements.

That may look good, or it may not. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.