Ashley Hackshaw, Author at Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

Sinatra, Concrete and Pinyon Crest

March 17, 2014 by Ashley Hackshaw

We drove up the hill today to Pinyon Crest to visit our friends Ann and Jeff and their daughter. They took us on an awesome tour….I felt like we got a full history of the area and all the homes. Here we are at the windsock point above Frank Sinatra’s old helipad:

We visited a concrete house that has been a project of another friend’s dad for a number of years. I’d heard about it over and over but had never seen it in person. It blew me away. I felt like I’d stumbled upon the ark or even the set of Mosquito Coast:

This might be one of my favorite houses ever. 16″ poured in place concrete walls. The shape is conducive to being a wind harp but I need to talk to the owner to do a little more research on that. The huge pipe was salvaged from an old ship and will serve as the water heater. The ceiling beams are set upon large industrial looking brackets. The smaller ceiling areas were poured with palm fronds at the bottom leaving a cool effect. (More about the concrete house here)

And there’s Sinatra’s getawat, in the middle of nowhere. It’s for sale if you have $4 million. It includes a heliport.

Boo got to ride in the back of a pickup. The highlight of her day.

We didn’t make it to Shumway Ranch. I’ll have to set aside a day for that soon. Nina and Steve Shumway were one of the last homesteaders in the area (maybe the last). I did find a photo of the Shumways in the September 1939 issue of the Desert Magazine. It took them 5 years to meet the requirements of the government before they got the deed to the property, and first they had to build a three mile road. That sounds like a lot of work. The ranch was given to the Living Desert and now just sits there.

(download the full PDF of the 1939 magazine here)

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Into Plein Air

March 14, 2014 by Ashley Hackshaw

I signed up for a plein-air painting class…it was an all-day workshop by a local artist named Diane McClary. I’ve always wanted to paint out “in the open air”….. I figured if I signed up for the class it would make me get out there because it was on the calendar.

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There were six of us in the class. Most of the other students are regulars. The workshop starts at 9am at the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument Visitors Center. First there is a demonstration by Diane, she does a value study in black and white first:

Then she does a version in color:

I think I should start an ongoing What I Wore series. I wonder if anyone would take it seriously:

What I Wore
Free red umbrella
99 cent sunglasses to match
Camouflage hat (brandless)
Apron left over from Boo’s beauty salon party
Red Converse
White t-shirt and jeans

It was fascinating to watch Diane paint. I think I learned more from her in just a few hours than I think I ever learned in my studio art classes in college. She talked us through every step and how she chose her colors for mixing etc.

The color recipes were very helpful, like mixing black and yellow to get green? That is just not intuitive unless you see someone do it:

I love the plain air easel and palette. It folds up and the paints will stay workable for a while. That makes things so much easier. Diane has a guide to placing your paint (on the supply list) on her website here.

Diane’s finished painting:

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We were positioned right at the trail head so we saw lots of hikers:

After lunch it was our turn to paint. Everyone else did a black and white version first. I like to get straight to the good stuff…I skipped that part. As Diane approached my painting I warned her that I was breaking the rules. She said it didn’t matter as long as I was having fun.