Tag Archives: wilsonia streets

Not Yet Printed and Already Out-Dated?

There is one last drawing that needed scanning. I drew the cabin several years before I decided to make the book The Cabins of Wilsonia. The photo taken with my old digital camera just isn’t good enough for the book!

I called the customers/friends/cabin owners (all those roles and titles have blurred) to ask if I can borrow back the drawing. The wife and I discussed a trip to Clovis or a trip to Wilsonia. The drive to Wilsonia is prettier, and it is actually closer, so that’s how we did this.

It meant leaving Three Rivers at 9:30 and just blasting up and back quickly (Driving 245 down fast was FUN!!) because I needed to get to Exeter to work on the mural on Rocky Hill Antiques. After retrieving the drawing, I did a short drive around Wilsonia.

Look! The road signs used to look like this:

Now they look like this. AND I saw 2 roads that are NOT in the book – Kearsarge and Muir. it’s okay – there are no cabins on them. Probably used to be. . . sigh.

And this charming, mysterious, always boarded up, and never occupied cabin now looks like this:

Well! Who knew that the book would be outdated before it even goes to press??

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.

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”.

Brewer Lane

Brewer Lane is a very short street in Wilsonia. Officially, on the map there are 2 cabins on it. Maybe three. Hmmm, should have cemented that fact before writing this! When a cabin sits on a corner, sometimes it is hard to tell which street is part of its address.

This A-frame cabin is on Brewer. A-frames are very very hard to draw because there appears to be more roof than cabin. There are 4 A-frames in Wilsonia. This particular view doesn’t show too much roof, but it didn’t ring my bell. It might be because the porch is so simple, or because of the stacks of chairs. Guess you’ll just have to wait for the book to see how Brewer Lane will be represented!

Alta Lane in Wilsonia

This will be the first “chapter” in the book. Feels funny to refer to them as “chapters” because it is a picture book more than a word book. (Remember graduating to “chapter books” as a new reader?? It was a big deal!)

This pencil drawing was the header on the blog for awhile. Have you noticed that the blog is on its third header? This one shows the back side of a cabin on Alta Lane.

Here are my thoughts on Alta so far, just as random as you please:

1. I live on Alta Acres Drive in Three Rivers and can see Alta Peak from my house. Seems sort of far-ish from Alta Lane in Wilsonia.

2. It is Alta Lane, not Alta Street! That’s good – “Lane” sounds more rural than Street, and Wilsonia is definitely rural rather than urban or suburban.

3. What if the 2 pictures I chopped with my paper cutter need to be rescanned? I’ll have to redraw them!

4. There is another cabin on Alta I’d love to include but I don’t know where to put it. If I add a page to Alta, every page after Alta will have to be rearranged, and that is the bulk of the book. Hmmm, maybe put it on the Acknowledgements page or on the back of the dust jacket. Will there be a dust jacket?

Building a book takes so much thinking, deciding, planning and adjusting. . . I sort of remember this from The Cabins of Mineral King, but that was a partnership so the load was shared. On the other hand, getting to make all the decisions myself isn’t all bad!

The Streets of Wilsonia, Learned

After months and months of puzzlement, I’ve decided to consult the map and make a list. Brilliant idea, don’t you think? I’ve intended to do this all along, but now that there are only 20 drawings left to do, it seems like I can take a small break from my pencils and do something different.

But here’s the conundrum: when I am finished with my drawings, I’ll probably wish I was drawing instead of consulting the map, the thesaurus, emailing, working on the written parts, rescanning drawings and spending hours trying to figure out how to make Adobe InDesign behave.

Alta Lane
Brewer Lane
Cedar Lane
Chinquapin Lane
Fern Lane
Fir Lane
Goddard Lane
Grant Lane
Hazel Lane (Anyone met her yet??)
Hillcrest Road
Kaweah Lane
Laurel Lane (Is this Hazel’s sister or her aunt?)
Le Conte Way
Lilac Lane (Must be Laurel’s sister)
Lily Lane (Oh! There are three sisters??)
Lupine ??
Manzanita Lane
Mason Road
Meadow Lane
Palisade Way
Park Road
Pine Lane
President’s Lane (Just one president – his name was Woodrow Wilson, and don’t tell Glenn Beck about this, ‘kay?)
Sierra Lane (a younger niece, because everyone knows that “Sierra” is the new “Ashley”)
Tehipite Way
Tyndall Lane (Finally! a guy in the Lane family!)
Whitney Lane (another modern Lane cousin)
Willow Lane (whose mom was a hippie – was going to name her “Sunshine” or Rainbow” but got sober and switched to “Willow”.)

Learning the Streets of Wilsonia

The Cabins of Wilsonia will be arranged alphabetically by street name. That is the same order in which I have been drawing all these cabins in pencil.

This is on Whitney. Now I’m on Willow Street. Willow Lane? Willow Road?

“Street” to me implies town or city. I think these “streets” should be called “roads” or “lanes”. Some are, some aren’t. It is getting on time to figure each of them out.

I wonder if I can name them all in order. Here goes:

Alta, Brewer, Cedar, Chinquapin, Fern, Fir, Grant, Hazel, Hillcrest, Kaweah, Laurel, LeConte, Lilac, Lily, Lupine, Manzanita, Mason, Palisades, Park, Pine, President’s, Sierra, Tehipite, Whitney, Willow.

Now I will look at my book design and see which ones I missed. I’m sure i will make me scream.

ARRRRRRUGGGGGGGGHHHH!

Goddard. Deepest apologies. You contain the cabin of the folks who used to own my home in Three Rivers.
Meadow! What is the matter with me? I can see it from the cabin where I have stayed twice. (Never mind the fact that it only officially contains one cabin. . .) Tyndall, how could I forget Tyndall?? I think I actually drew a cabin on Tyndall before I even did my book on the cabins of Mineral KIng. Plus, I know a kid (male child) named after this peak.

Once I begin working on the computer design, perhaps I will be able to name them all. Meanwhile, 25 of 28 isn’t too shabby.

Neal Won!

As an aside, I have an Unca Neil (yep, that’s how we say and spell it), had a friend named Niel, and now I have a friend named Neal who won my little contest. It was a “name that street”, based on a pencil drawing for the upcoming book The Cabins of Wilsonia.

(sorry to be so redundant – rumor has it that Mr. Google can find a site easier if I repeat the important words like “pencil drawing” and “cabins of Wilsonia”.)

As I meet and talk with people around Wilsonia, I often have questions about various cabins and lots. It has been very surprising to me to hear, “We never go to that part” or “I only know my immediate neighborhood”, or “I don’t really know the street names”. Maybe my book will help with some of that by creating interest in other neighborhoods.

But I digress. Neal knew exactly where this drawing is:

It is looking down Pine Street. Since I am not naming cabins in my book, I don’t name them on the blog either. I believe in protecting privacy. Besides, cabins change owners in Wilsonia, and if I name a cabin and then it changes hands, my book will be quickly outdated. Nosirree, I’m going for timeless.

What did Neal win? A package of notecards with this image on the front:

Way to go, Neal!!

Jeffrey Shooting Star Amidst More Street Confusion

The Cabins of Wilsonia will be in one color of ink. I’m drawing the cabins in pencil, and graphite is gray. This means the book will most likely be printed in the gray ink that most closely matches the color of the pencils.

All the photos from which I am working are in color. Sometimes I have convert one to black and white, because otherwise it is hard to tell if it will look any good in pencil.

For example, a cabin with bright blue shutters normally is known and appreciated for its bright blue shutters. How will that look in pencil? Will the drawing just look so-so?

The meadow that can be seen from Sierra Lane/Drive/Road (see? I can’t figure out this Wilsonia street designation!) is awash with Jeffrey Shooting Star in early July. It is fabulous. Of course, the color is the fabulous part.

You’ve probably seen these. They like to grow with their feet wet.

I photographed a cabin on Alta, looking across that meadow from Sierra. (If I just say the name without the designation of Avenue/Way/Street then there is no confusion.) I thought it was a great way to show off the cabin’s superior location.

However, if the big deal about the view is the color, is there a point to drawing it in pencil?

I think the light across the meadow in the lower photo makes this second view the clear winner.

And those Jeffrey Shooting Stars? They can be our little secret. We wouldn’t want 100s of looky-loos flooding Sierra Lane and turning it into Sierra Highway each July.

What’s Going On Here?

List Lady Here. A progress report, thoughts on building a book, and new information about the arrangement of Wilsonia streets for you:

This cabin on Park Street/Lane/Road/Avenue (just kidding on the last one!) is an architectural design repeated throughout Wilsonia. There were 5 cabins like this. Now there are 4, and one has been remodeled so isn’t immediately recognizable as the same design. Do you know which cabins these are?

All the drawings are finished for June. Yes, you read that right. This is so I can do all of July’s drawings in June. What’s going on here? July is going to be extraordinarily busy for this California artist. If I don’t draw ahead, I’ll fall behind.
I found someone who calls himself The Book Designer. He is a book designer. (Duh.) He helps people self-publish their books. (If they pay him.) I feel greatly reassured that when the time comes to make some difficult decisions such as cover design, typestyles, and finding a printer, The Book Designer will be my new best friend.
Has anyone else besides me noticed all the streets in Wilsonia that begin with “L” are going east and west? This is confusing at times. When I think of all those L streets, I’m flipping through my mental Rolodex, reciting Laurel, Lily, LeConte, Lupine, Lilac. . . sometimes they are alphabetical, sometimes they are random. But I just figured out that they ARE alphabetically arranged in Wilsonia, beginning in the southern end of the community! There’s an AHA! moment!