Author: corvidsketcher

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Coloma 2024

For eight years I have been part of my school’s ultimate overnight field trip to Coloma.

Coloma is the epicenter of California’s Gold Rush. It was in the tailrace of Sutter’s Mill, on January 24, 1848, that James Marshall “discovered” gold.

And the world rushed in to California, changing the state, country, and the world forever!

So in early May, two coaches carried 66 fourth graders, 18 parent chaperones, and three teachers on the three hour journey to the Gold Country!

This overnight trip is a lot of work. The paperwork, medical forms, medications, student group spreadsheets, and unexpected last minute changes make this trip a bit stressful.

But once we are on our way and we see our student’s journey from a Greenhorn to becoming a Sourdough miner, in the end I realize that creating one of their best elementary school memories, is really worth the blood, sweat, and fears.

Our Gold Rush town heading back to camp with Mt. Murphy in the background.

In the Gold County I’m an early riser and one way I get centered and prepare for a day full with students is to do an early morning sketch (featured sketch). A morning meditation.

This time I turned my sketchbook to the northeast toward the tallest peak around: Mount Murphy (elevation 1,932 feet).

I wanted to include the wooden gate that was once the entrance to the ropes course but is now the site of an acorn woodpecker nesting hole.

A female acorn woodpecker perched on the gate. The nest hole is on a vertical support off to the right.
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First Flights Over Aptos

Down a cul-de-sac in a part of residential Aptos I have never explored before there is a monument to aviation at the edge of a green field.

This is what these hidden monuments are for, to reminds us of the anonymous people who have loved, lived, and lost who had come before us. The ones, on whose shoulders we stand, that have changed the world in ways we don’t understand or acknowledge.

The plaque on the monument reads:

One hundred years ago, in the skies above this monument, three soaring flights were made on March 16th, 17th, and 20th, by an aeroplane- glider flown by Aeronaut and parachute dare- devil, Daniel John Maloney, which had been designed and built by Professor John. J. Montgomery.

The frail craft, weighing only 42 pounds, was constructed of spruce, wire, and fortified canvas, and had tandem-wings with a 24 ft. wingspan and a four sided tail. It was taken aloft here at the then Leonard Ranch by a smoke-balloon rented by Fred Swanton and owned by Frank Hamilton, to heights of 800 ft., 1,100 ft., and 3,000 feet. The longest flight lasted over 18 minutes and covered over 2 miles…From a letter by Prof. Montgomery to his mother…

My machine flew three times, each time better than the other and descended beautifully. Going in different directions under perfect control of the aeronaut, and landing in a spot selected by him as gently as a feather.

These flights were the result of 22 years of experimentations and flight testing by Professor Montgomery, beginning with his first glider flight in 1883 at Otay Mesa in San Diego and ending with his accidental death in 1911. Called the “Father of Basic Flying”, his successes and contributions to the development of flight were heralded by the world’s press at the time, but are now largely forgotten.

The plaque was erected in 2005 by E Clampus Vitus El Viceroy Marques de Branciforte Chapter 1797, E Clampus Vitus Capitulus Redivivus Yerba Buena #1, Hiller Aviation Museum San Carlos Ca,. Aptos Chamber of Commerce and Museum Capitola/Aptos Rotary.

Now the monument serves as a perch for western bluebirds and the green field is used by a murder of crows for foraging. Off to the right is an owl box that a pair of red-shouldered hawks use as a hunting perch.

119 years ago, a frail, 42 pound glider soared above this field. Now it has been returned to the true masters of flight: the gulls, corvids, and hawks that effortlessly glide above.

But if you look further above you will see the great grand children of Montgomery’s passions: the modern passenger jet on final approach to SFO and SJO.

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OSH and San Jose History

Grasshopper and I headed down south to the county of my birth (Santa Clara) to sketch in it’s biggest city (San Jose). Our destination was in Kelly Park: the San Jose History Museum’s History Park.

This open air museum has a collection of about 30 historic buildings, some original and others replicas. Streetcar tracks run down the streets and on weekends, a vintage street car operates. What drew my attention was a train (of course!)

Stepping back in time.

On a set of tracks is Southern Pacific 0-6-0 switcher No. 1215 attached to a consist of a green boxcar, and a SP bay window caboose (No. 1589). What attracted my sketching attention was the green boxcar with the words “Orchard Supply Hardware” painted on the side.

Orchard Supply Hardware or OSH was founded as a co-op in 1931. Its founders were 30 farmers, mainly orchardists and fruit tree ranchers.

The name “Orchard Supply” harkens back to the time when Silicon Valley was then called the Valley of Heart’s Delight and was covered in apricot and cherry orchards.

Growing up in the 1970s in Sunnyvale, our house was built on a former apricot orchard. We even had a remnant tree in our backyard. There were still orchards on the edges of housing developments. The agrarian past, back then, did not seem so far away. Now it has all but disappeared.

OSH was part of my childhood. The second president, Al Smith, was a huge rail fan. He even had his office in a caboose. Starting in 1975, each year OSH would put out a calendar with paintings of trains. There was always one in our household.

In the 1960s Smith petitioned the city of San Jose to install a sign for OSH but he was denied. He did not give up. Instead he bought a boxcar from Southern Pacific and put it beside one of his stores on a rail siding. He then painted it bright green and painted “Orchard Supply Hardware” in big letters. This boxcar is now in the History Park along with a 1950s neon sign for the store. I sketched both (featured sketch).

After sketching the boxcar and neon sign we walked around the park looking for a new perspectives.

I chose to sit across the street from the replica of the Pacific Hotel. In the background is a half-scale replica of San Jose’s Electric Light Tower. The original 1881 tower was 237 feet tall. In 1915, the tower was damaged in a windstorm and it later collapsed.

While I was sketching I struck up a conversation with an elderly volunteer who had been volunteering at the museum for the past 20 years or so. We reminisced about the valley’s yesteryears (am I really that old!!) and we reflected on the changes to the South Bay. During our conversation I was well aware that it was volunteers like her that keep the hidden history from disappearing forever.

And she is a retired teacher, but of course she is keeping fleeting history alive! That’s just what teachers do.

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Sunset Reservoir

I live a hop, slip but not even a jump from San Francisco’s largest reservoir: Sunset Reservoir.

This terminal reservoir was completed in 1960 and has an impressive capacity of 270 acres. To put this into context the sides of the reservoir are four blocks north and south and two blocks east and west. The surface area is 11 acres.

The reservoir is covered and fenced off. Over half of the reservoir is blanketed in 25,000 solar panels. The Sunset Reservoir Solar Project started in December 2010 and has tripled San Francisco’s solar generation capacity.

The irony is that the Sunset is the foggiest part of the city.

Some of the 25,000 solar panels of Sunset Reservoir.

While the reservoir itself is not a sight to behold, the northwest corner (featured sketch) affords some of the best views in the Sunset. Along the embankment are walking paths and at the northwest corner are a line of benches.

The bench-view to the north. I can almost see the Farallons. These paths are popular with dog walkers.

Here you can look out to the west towards the Pacific Ocean and on a clear day, you can see the Farallon Islands perched on the horizon like a large, gray battleship.

The views to the north as just as stunning taking in Golden Gate Park, the Richmond District, the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands, and Mt. Tam. On really clear days you can see outer Pt. Reyes.

Looking north down 27th Avenue towards the Golden Gate from one of the walking paths.
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Mill Valley Depot

I love exploring local rail history and finding relics of the past that are still standing like the Northwestern Pacific Depot in Mill Valley.

The Northwestern Pacific Railroad’s logo still adorns the Mill Valley Depot.

The depot was constructed in 1929 in a mission revival-style. It replaced a previous depot that also served as the terminal for the railroad in Mill Valley. The first train arrived here in 1890. It was also the terminal for the Mt. Tamalpais & Muir Woods Scenic Railway, also known as The Crookedest Railroad in the World because of its 281 curves.

From the depot the three car train would be pushed up the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. At the summit, after enjoying some of the best views in the Bay Area, passengers would then board a gravity car for the downhill journey back to Mill Valley.

A replica of a gravity car is on display in the plaza in front of the depot. The depot is now a coffee shop and bookstore.

The gravity cat replica with the NWP Depot in the background.
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Portola Valley Sketches

Saturday morning found Grasshopper and I in front of the Our Lady of the Wayside Church in Portola Valley.

Before us is the 1912 chapel designed by Timothy L. Pflueger in a Spanish Mission Revival style. Plflueger is best know as a designer of art deco movie palaces such as the Castro, Alameda, and Paramount Theatres.

The chapel is believed to be the first building that Pflueger designed, and he was just 19 years old.

I immediately understood the language of this building, having sketched all of California’s 21 Spanish missions (and a few Mission Revival buildings like the Burlingame Depot). This chapel is influenced by Mission Dolores in San Francisco. The arches, bell alcoves, tiled roofs, and angled buttresses were like sketching an old friend.

After sketching the chapel and adding watercolor, I looked at the California Historical Landmark plaque. Our Lady of the Wayside Church is Landmark No. 909.

Our next stop is another California Historical Landmark in Portola Valley. In this case: Casa de Tableta, Landmark No. 825.

Now known as the Alpine Inn, this building was a tavern and gambling joint for the Californios on their way to the coast. In was eventually bought by an American where it served as a roadhouse and a saloon. It is one of California’s oldest drinking establishments, having opened in about 1852.

On August 27, 1976, the Alpine Inn made history when a group of scientists from Stanford sent an electronic message from a computer while in the picnic area of the inn to Boston. This message, according to the plaque on the building, marked “the beginning of the Internet Age”.

The beer garden was calling my name, but it wasn’t opened for another hour!
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China Camp Sketching

I took a weekday off and enjoyed a Wednesday morning sketch at China Camp State Park in eastern Marin County.

I headed to the old shrimp fishing village and walked down the pier to look for a good sketching perspective.

China Camp from the end of the pier.

It looked like the beach to the southeast looked best. I walked down the beach and found a picnic bench and started my sketch.

A fishing boat with the pier in the background.

Along San Pablo Bay there were many Chinese shrimping camps that fished for glass shrimp in the tidal waters of the bay. The camp at China Camp was founded in the 1880s and at one time contained 500 residents from Canton, China. The shrimp were brought ashore and dried at China Camp and then exported to China.

In the early 1900s, laws were passed limiting the amount of shrimp fishing in the bay, thus reducing the population of China Camp. By 1914 only the Quan family remained and they continued to fish for shrimp.

The Quan family continued to live at China Camp into the new millennium. They built a cafe and rented out boats to sports fishermen. Frank Quan lived in his cabin at China Camp until his death in 2016 at age 90.

The site eventually became a state park in the 1970s and one of the conditions of the site becoming a state park was that Frank Quan was permitted to remain living in the village.

While the Quan family is gone and China Camp village is a ghost of itself, fishing still continues on in San Pablo Bay in the form of the ultimate king fisher: Pandion haliaetus, the osprey.

A few stops up the road from the village is Buckeye Point. Jutting out from the point are pylons of a former pier. On one of these piers is an active osprey nest looking like a long legged bunch of sticks. Amid the bunches of sticks I could see the white head of an osprey.

Osprey nest sketch, Buckeye Point.
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Sunset Sketchers at the Columbarium

I’ve been wanting to join my local sketch group, Sunset Sketchers, for a weekend sketch and it was fortuitous that Sunday’s location was San Francisco’s Columbarium.

I have been to the Columbarium many times and I have even sketched it a few times.

It is here that my grandparents and father are interred.

In all, we had about 15 local sketchers show up on a cold Sunday morning. The group consisted of a few architects and designers and artists sprinkled with some sketchers for sketch-sake. I’m not sure which group I fit into.

I found a bench and started to sketch the imposing lines of the 1898 Neo-Classical columbarium. The building is very ornate and I was trying to keep my sketch loose and at the same time take a little Sketcher’s Liberty and simplify or leave out certain complex elements.

I was soon joined by another sketcher and we sketched and talked about gear and materials and future sketching trips. I finished my sketch (featured sketch) and I went into the Columbarium to warm up and visit dad and my grandparents.

We still had some time before we all met up for the “throw down” so I decided I wanted to sketch the exterior from another perspective. I walked down Loraine Court and sketched the entrance with another Sunset Sketcher (our organizer) for perspective. This time I went really loose with no pencil undersketch. The whole quick sketch was done in brush pen and then painted loosely.

My loose brush- pen sketch with a Sunset Sketcher for scale.

At 12:30 we had the “throw down” where all the sketchers laid their sketches down and it was great to see the columbarium through other sketcher’s eyes.

We all talked about our sketches and shared insights into our process. Comments are allowed but only of the positive variety. You aren’t even allowed to talk trash about your own work!

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Nevada County Sketching

I have spent a lot of time in Nevada County visiting my mother in Penn Valley. I love to explore this deeply historical part of the Gold Country and there seems there is alway something new to visit and sketch.

And so it was that I found myself on a chilly but sunny morning on the first day of my Spring Break, sketching a statue of a draft horse at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley.

The massive statue is called The Gentle Giant by Todd Andrews and represents a draft horse hitched to three logs. The statue is highly kinetic for a static statue. The horse is straining to pull the logs, perhaps uphill. I hoped I was able to capture some of this energy in my sketch (certainly my spelling had much to be desired).

Sketching at the County Fair.
Turns out I was a day late! Darn.

On another morning I headed out to sketch a piece of narrow gauge rail equipment that had recently been put on display near the Sacramento Street exit from Highway 49 in Nevada City. This is a wedge snowplow from a narrow gauge logging railroad. It found it’s way to Yosemite Mountain & Sugar Pine Railroad in Fish Camp. It was burning in a fire on August 30, 2017 where it’s wooden parts were destroyed. It was donated to the Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum in Nevada City were is was restored and put on static display on the site of the former Nevada City narrow gauge depot.