January is behind me, and I have completed 103 drawings.
Charming rustic door looks even better since I omitted the spider webs.
Not all in January! I can’t remember how many I had finished when the year began, but I think it was around 85. I’m just guessing, because I didn’t write it down. On the January 11 blog post, #86 is on the table.
With 11 months remaining to complete the drawings for the book (a self-imposed deadline), I need to do 11 or 12 per month. This is possible.
I won’t be showing you all the completed drawings, because I want to ignite your fascination trigger of mystique.
What sort of weirdo psychobabble is this? I’m reading a book called Fascinate by Sally Hogshead. Interesting information, great writer! Wish I was on the Amazon affiliate program and got $ for telling you to buy the book, but alas, I am just rambling because I’ve spent too many hours alone in the studio, many days without internet access (gasp of horror).
I began the process of drawing The Cabins of Wilsonia by asking some questions. Today I’ll delve into #1 – Will anyone care?
This drawing of a sign on the side of a Wilsonia cabin sums it up quite nicely. How many times have you heard someone refer to “The Cabin”? Don’t all cabin owners use that terminology? And don’t they all say it with great love, longing and admiration?
Who am I fooling? “They” is “we” – I too have a cabin, although not in Wilsonia. I get it.
We who have cabins L O V E them. Our families do too. Our friends love to visit us at our cabins. Our acquaintances try to weasel in on the action. (You know what I’m talking about!)
So, yes, cabin owners care.
In addition to the cabin owners, there are former cabin owners, cabin visitors, and cabin wanna-be owners.
Most normal people write books. Normal doesn’t come easily to me, so I’m drawing a book. If you are fixin’ (learned to say that from my friends in Texas) to draw a book, where do you begin?
With questions, lots of questions. Before diving into a project of monumental proportions, it is good to know a little bit.
I admit it – shingle-siding is my favorite!
1. Will anyone care? Is there a market? Do I have an audience? Can I find the audience? Never mind, now we’re veering into marketing questions that will have to be addressed in another post.
2. Will anyone care enough to buy this book? Caring is one thing. Caring enough to spend hard-earned dollars is another level. Never mind, now I’m veering into accounting questions which I might just ignore for awhile.
3. Do I have the ability? Do I have the stamina? Am I able to plan, execute, problem solve, decide, find the necessary companies and people to make this happen? Never mind, now I’m veering into territory that makes me need to go lie down for a bit.
4. Do I have the right? Is this my book to create or is there someone more qualified? Will people allow me to have a peek into cabin life and learn enough about their particular community to give this book validity?
These are all questions I considered carefully before saying YES I WILL! YES I CAN!
I’ll share the answers I found for these questions in the next blog posts.
Have you ever drawn or written something in pencil and had it smear? It happens.
another pencil drawing for “The Cabins of Wilsonia”
As a right hander, I draw from left to right and top to bottom. If I have to go back over something, I put a piece of paper on the drawing and rest my hand on that instead of on the graphite already on the paper. (Pencils are made out of graphite and clay – the more graphite, the blacker and smearier the pencil. Just sayin’, in case you care about stuff like that.)
When a finished drawing gets framed immediately, I don’t spray fix it.
Spray fixative smells awful, and I’m not entirely convinced that in 100 years it won’t turn green or something else undesirable. And OF COURSE in 100 years my drawings will be worth a fortune for your grandchildren or great grandchildren!
But, when a drawing gets hauled around and shown to my drawing students and pulled in and out of its protective holder and put in and out of the scanner several times, it seems prudent to spray fix it.
You know how spray cans of stuff usually state a temperature range that is ideal for using the product? Uh, they mean it.
Last week I sprayed a couple of drawings early in the morning. The heat hadn’t been on in my studio, of course, and this is January during a bit of a cold snap. (cold for central California – stop sneering, those of you from Minnesota!)
Oh-oh. There was a puddle of spray in the middle of one of the drawings, and it sort of ran a little bit. I hustled the drawings into the house and set them on a teevee tray in front of the wood stove.
In about a half an hour, they had both dried, and the papers had sort of curled up. QUICK, put a weight on those things!
My husband, AKA Trail Guy, was quite concerned about the puddle. “Hey, there’s a wet spot on that picture!!”
I thought, “Oh well, live and learn. 143 drawings to do, 144, what’s the diff?”
But, I was Very Relieved that it turned out okay. (Nope, not the drawing pictured above. I’m not telling you which one had the near miss!)
If you are a studio artist, one who works inside a building at a drawing table with a giant magnifying light and a T-square, you begin with photographs.
I must have photographed this cabin 2 dozen times. Each time I was certain the light was better than the last.
In the summer of 2011, I stayed in Wilsonia 3 different times.
The Jeffrey Shooting Stars were so gorgeous, and that is not something that I can depict in pencil.
Every day (except on the two when I was really sick, but let’s not talk about that) I was walking the streets of Wilsonia. I needed to become familiar, really familiar with all the cabins and all the streets.
Did you know there are 21 28 streets in Wilsonia? Did you know that there are 212 cabins?
That’s a lot of walking, and a lot of cabins, and a lot of photographs. I was in Cabin Artist Heaven – every where I looked, there was something wonderful and new to see, photograph and draw.
You might be new to my art. If so, you might not know that my art business is called Cabinart. I began drawing the cabins in Mineral King, working strictly in pencil.
I love to draw!
Any questions so far? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! (At the top of the post, it says “Leave A Reply”. You can click this and ask or tell me anything you want me to know.)
Okay, if you start counting with the Gordon’s A-frame, then the Coll-Inn Too is #2 and this is actually #3. But since I can’t remember drawing the Gordon’s cabin, I still think of this as #2.
My friend Sara called to see if the Wilsonia folks could auction or raffle a certificate for a drawing of a cabin at one of the annual meetings. Since I am CABINART (that is the name of my studio because originally all I did was draw cabins), I said yes. She bought a certificate for an 8×10 drawing, and it raised some money for the community.
Jack and Alitta were the recipients, and they were both delighted and delightful!
I thought it was Gus and Barbara’s “Coll-Inn Too”. Turns out I drew Pat Gordon’s A-frame on Chinquapin before I knew anything about Wilsonia! I don’t remember, didn’t take any photos, have no memory of it. I’m grateful to Pat for reminding me that I drew her cabin!
However, the first cabin I REMEMBER drawing is the Coll-Inn Too. I don’t remember how Gus found me. He emailed me photos, I asked for more. He emailed those. I asked for more. He send more. I probably asked for even more. For some reason, maybe because I was too busy or too lazy or don’t charge enough for commissions, I didn’t drive to Wilsonia and look at the cabin with my own eyes.
Despite all the difficulty I gave to Gus, we had a great time communicating about the details of his cabin. He and Barbara had a zillion notecards printed with the image, and it is rumored that thank you notes are sent for any and all reasons so they can get those cards used!
I did make Barbara’s happy bear look grumpy. We discovered that he does look grumpy from the angle I drew him! She forgave me, and we are friends. 😎
This blog is the go-to place for current information on the upcoming book “The Cabins of Wilsonia”.
Here I will show you drawings in progress. But I won’t show you all of the drawings, because I want you to have some surprises when the book is published.
I will keep you updated on how far along I am in the 230+ drawings for the book, I’ll share some of my photos, your stories, and the inside business of self-publishing a book while simultaneously earning a living.
It is my hope that you will enjoy this blog and share it with family members, friends and cabin neighbors.
You will be able to comment, ask me questions, and read what your fellow blog-followers think.
You can see that I’ve chosen the Finck’s cabin as the header for this blog. This is because it cropped well to fit the space well. (On the original drawing, there are taller trees.) I may change the top drawing from time to time, because sometimes I just like variety.
So, welcome! Check in regularly, comment, email me, stay in touch!
