mid-July 2026
Things are changing so, I am a bit off-kilter. I spent much of June cat-sitting—11 days total, six cats; a quick trip home to pick the last of the plums; two blissful days at Stony’s house, reading and feeding fish in the lovely garden.
3 red, 3 black, 3 spotty, 3 w tails; last of the plums, on a plinth; Stony on my lap.
A had a little sick at the end of May, cured by a day trip with e, shopping for cheese, eggs and meat at Valley Ford, feasting on fish and chips on Bodega Bay, Duncan’s Landing and the beach. Later a visit to Santa Rosa to go thrifting for unnecessaries. I got a mini fridge that appears not to work but had just the cord I need for the Panasonic dubbing cassette boom box my neighbor put out on the street. Listening to Comsat Angels and Salem 66 and Terrible Party, almost analog. I’ve been searching for one for centuries, I don’t know what happened to my old tape deck. I lost so much the year Steve died, no real concept of what I would need here in the future. Word for the year was “shed”. Oh dear, did I. I can’t play my LP’s because I gave away two sets of good speakers, both of which I thought, “oh, I have those others”.
I’m booked for the forseeable here, van-lifing in Westy, taking care of Art. He needs a lot of help around the place. Today after I made breakfast of eggs, cheese, shiitakes, wakame and avocado I did spiderweb patrol and swept out the front third of the house, cleaned the fronts of some drawers and buttoned up the kitchen. Behind the wood stove I found another mouserat corpse. We have an abacus to keep count, 11 so far (two voles) that we can remember, usually found near or under my chair. Sometimes the fog gets chilly, even in summer, and I build a fire in the wood stove and do a ritual burn of old papers and tax forms.
I don’t prioritize time to putter in the Roofing House, but I have my painting table pretty well set up, and finished the 100 FEET sign last month. I have a list of half-baked ideas I am gathering and rat-proofing supplies for. I started sketches for the Saline Valley painting on that 4ish x 10ish watercolor block. It gets hot in the van in the afternoons, so the little shotgun shack in the shade is just the place, I’ll be there soon. The other night the sky was streaked with gorgeous pink; photos don’t come close. I have a painting from the Sierra workshop sketchbook that has the right feel, might dig that out later. Thought it might be posted here somewhere in the past, but no. There are lots of paintings that haven’t shown up here, I’d guess.
Centipede, 100 FEET; pink-striped redwood sky; mends in the popup screen mesh.
It’s also great to be able to park Westy in my old space. I can do some quasi-camping. It’s dark and quiet, I sleep good there. While I had the screen open so I could mend the zipper and some little tears, raccoons got in and stole a baguette and spread sticky maple sugar all over the dashboard, floor mat and windshield– I won’t make that mistake again. I did a revamp of all the cupboards so I can critter-proof snacks into the fridge. I found some cans there I need to make my way through. I ate some tomato soup just past the expiration date, found “emergency” evaporated milk marked “best before 2020”. LOL, wasn’t everything.
Perspective
7.26.24
I sat on a bug, or a spider, or a bee nest, and I have a big red spot on my azz. When I get up in the morning I wander to the dining room to get coffee, and find myself in line for oatmeal, or french toast, or eggs and bacon. I yield, and eat, and chat with my classsmates, but I’m fregging deaf. There is a pastel class going on, and the pieces displayed by the patio door are wonderful. I’d like to do that.
Wifi is also wonderfully absent here, so I will post this when I get home. I keep my phone off, and when I turn it on, there is 7:27. It’s a magical YES.
At Yuba Pass for what was supposed to be a Very Sad and Alarming view of the effects of Climate Change, and a campground that has been closed due to falling trees–i only saw the wonderful thick stands of new baby trees filling the open spaces where the old guard had fallen. A visceral picture of the terrible beetle infestation, and not enough freezes, but maybe youth will win. The wind howled and a falling branch told us we were out of our league, and it was Very Scary, so we skittered back down the trail. There was cell phone service up there, and I got 14 texts asking please won’t I send money to support the latest political dog and pony show–aaak, no. I am not looking forward to going back to that mess.
It’s so warm, I brought a lot of clothes for the possibility of chill, not much for the sunny days and warm nights here. I sleep on top of the down comforter most nights, with the pop-top up for ventilation. Even swimming a bit, tho it is not my comfort zone I get out there.
I’m extremely pleased with the work i have done, going from picky-detaily to fast blasts with a big brush. I have my colors sorted, and having this tight schedule- up and out by 9 AM, is quite refreshing. A hike, a sit-down, a chat, some painting, swimming, lunch, more painting, then back to camp for dinner. The food is so good, but meat is scarce, and not a potato to be seen. Outdoor showers in the dark, and a good sleep across the bridge in my little tree pocket by the creek.
Leaving tomorrow–It’s all downhill from here.
reading: The Coming Storm, Bruce Catton
Laws Field guide to the Sierra Nevada by John Muir Laws with 2700 illustrations!
Sketchy and squirrely
3.3.24
I ordered some handmade black squirrel brushes online, on the advice of a youtube watercolor tutorial. I recently also got an assortment of fine liners and riggers, they are fun. Turns out the #3 hand made squirrel brush is my favorite. Fat, fluffy, and a nice point, although I have pulled a couple of hairs . . . The point is so fine, I could add hair lines and detail and shadow to this old drawing circa 4.16.2020. It’s the view out the window in Canyon from my old chair by the woodstove, a month into the lockdown.
A friend once commented that I have a Hoard of brushes. They are not a hoard. I use them. Well, some of them. I have been looking for a chopstick rest to lay damp brushes on, and somehow came to the realization that a wooden soap dish would do the trick. I found two different hand made versions, one in cedar, one in poplar.
I’m also doing a few portraits here and there, getting over my acquired shyness about pencils and yes, the forbidden eraser. I’m working three different sketchbooks at the moment. I have been slowly filling an old Moleskine. Nicknamed “Squirrel”, begun circa 2012, it has a lot half-baked ideas that I am attempting to make sense of from here in the future. There is the $2 Goodwill hand me down from the 2022 post-Christmas thrifting binge, and this mustard paper ring-bound sketchbook I got from Viki.
I’m not putting much effort into getting decent photos. I feel it’s all works in progress. I plan to paint multiple versions of this landscape. I have other paintings of that era, the trips to Diaz Lake and Lone Pine, on the way in and out of Saline and Death Valley, the Panamints and beyond. It is a magical place, at a magical time of year, the Eastern Sierras in October, and the cottonwoods turning golden. Perhaps I’ll go there again, maybe soon.
July 2021
I had to get a new phone, and I bought a used iPhone 6 because of memories I have of the big billboards all over San Francisco when it came out touting the excellence of the camera. I had set up the old iphone as a dedicated camera in the Roofing Haus, but the update on my laptop means it is suddenly no longer compatible. This makes for some new and complicated photo-sharing shenanigans vis-a-vis what I thought would make things easier, still have to figure out the wifi and cloud situation.
There are drawings I don’t have photos of, photos on my two phones that aren’t on my laptop that I guess I have to email to myself–things disappear into the cloud–it’s so confusing. I draw and paint something nearly every day, I don’t know where all the photos are.
Here is a recent batch that came through. The standing cat was from a video of feral kittens being fed by a spoon to get them used to humans. I get a lot of ideas from videos or stills I find online. I am taking classes on Domestika, and screenshot pages from videos of my teachers’ sketchbooks.
standing kitteh 
adolfo serra landscape 
flapper dresses
We are booked for the Cotati Accordion Festival September 26. The theme is roaring back to the 20’s, so I am planning to put together a flapper look. I am walking everywhere now, may be able to dance a bit, zydeco for sure, polka, maybe. I used the BIG sketchbook Leila and Sara gave me for Christmas 2009 to draw these flapper girls, from an unattributed photo on reddit.
I continue to glean random images from old scrap and image files, using various sketchbooks and materials in multiple ways. One thing that stays steady is my increasingly relaxed brushwork, to the extent that I am doing more freehand waterbrush-and-ink drawing, rarely penciling in a preliminary drawing.
On the other hand, I spent about four days completing this color pencil copy of a mysterious photograph I had stapled into a landscape format bound book years ago, from a fashion/food/flower art show??
cute jacket 
picasso 
Wm De Morgan tile
And at random- this big sloppy painting of a cute jacket I saw in a movie; a copy of a Picasso that I did last October for one of my Domestika classes, just before wet weather drove me out of the Roofing House for the winter; waterbrush and ink on mustard paper of someone else’s sketch of a William de Morgan tile.
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