Family Fun July 2023

Can't Help Falling in Love soundtrack (played by sister Susan on Cello with Cubase midi additions by me) is the perfect expression for how I feel about family.  With daughter Amber Taylor and family visiting from their current home in New Zealand, a delightful reunion with the entire Bay Area family occurred!

Hot Days at the Beach in Marin County

During prior heat waves it made sense to escape the temperature by driving to the beach.  A search of my beach photos led me to hot days at the beach in 2017 and 2021.  But the 6 days in September, where the temperature exceeded 100 degrees for 6 consecutive days, was too much.  The only way to survive without air conditioning was to just lay around the house with the fan on.

Memory Juxtaposition Oil Paintings

In the Order in which they have been painted: Three oil on canvas 18x24 paintings of the three youngest of five sisters

Top to Bottom

1.  Freckle Face:  Young Lucy, in a photo taken by the late, great, E.A. Autrey in 1957 at Paradise near Santa Barbara juxtaposed with a more recent photo shot at Drakes Beach in April, 2015 in Pt. Reyes National Seashore

2.  The Eyes Have it:  Young Elsa, photo by E.A. Autrey shot in 1959, juxtaposed with a photo shot at Kehoe Beach in Pt. Reyes, September, 2015.

3.  May Morn:  (The title is a play on the painting September Morn by Paul Emile Chabas, although in this one the girl is wearing a bathing suit)  Young Susan, photo by E.A. Autrey in 1956, juxtaposed with a photo shot at Lake Cachuma the last time I visited Santa Barbara in September, 2017.

A Day at North Beach Video

Family having fun at North Beach in Pt. Reyes, May 2021.  Soundtrack includes The Swan by Saint-Saens and Bernard Romberg cello music played by Susan Manata, and the original composition Elegy by J.L. Autrey with Susan Manata on cello and J.L. Autrey on piano. 

Little Gull: Lost at Sea Book Now Available in Print (in full color) as well as in a Kindle e-book Format

An Interview with the Author of the book Little Gull: Lost at Sea

Interviewer:  What is the story behind the story of Little Gull: Lost at Sea?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I wrote and illustrated Little Gull in 2019.   I love to go to the various beaches in Pt.Reyes National Seashore and am always amused by the sea gulls.  We are also lucky here in California to witness whales migrating past various sites on the Pt. Reyes peninsula.  So I came up with a story that included sea gulls and whales.

Interviewer:  Is there any significance behind the names Greta Gull and Wanda Whale? 

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  No, I just thought Greta Gull (GG) and Wanda Whale (WW) sounded good.

Interviewer:  I remember you telling me that your first book, Little Cloud, had a message of friendship and you hoped it would instill awareness of climate change, however subliminally.  Are you trying to do that again with this new title?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I used to write little morality short stories when I was very young.  I was strongly influenced by Aesop’s fables (still one of my favorite books).  So, yes, I have a tendency to add some little positive takeaway in my writing.  In Little Gull, that is a bit tempered.  Although it is fine and good to make friends with strangers, and even to count on them to help you out in a jam, it’s not a good idea to take any kind of serious risk hoping someone will always be there to rescue you if things don’t work out.   

Interviewer:  Can you tell the reader a little bit about your illustration process.  The artwork in Little Gull looks different from that in Little Cloud.

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Again, I wanted to make both a digital and a print book so needed to make as much of the art vector based to reduce the file size.  Drawing water with mathematical lines and curves, however, turned out to be really hard.  So, I took original photographs I shot at the local beaches and converted them to traced vector images for the backgrounds, and then painted in Illustrator on top of the converted photos.

Interviewer:  What source material did you use for your illustrations?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  All of the birds and ocean scenes are based on my photographs.  I’ve never had the good fortune to see a humpback whale breach, however, so I had to go searching for a lot of other reference to draw the various whale pictures.

Interviewer:  What do you hope is the take away of your reader?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  First and foremost, I hope the reader is entertained.  Secondly, I hope the message of friendship and the benefits of helping others resonates.  And finally, humans have created a mess filling up our oceans with plastic and other garbage.  It is killing off the creatures who live in and depend on the sea.  So, I hope to raise awareness to this problem as a little added benefit.

Top to Bottom Photo Reference:
Page 16 Photo shot at Limantour Beach in Pt. Reyes, 2017
Page 24 Big wave photo shot on Seymour Island in the Galapagos, 2017
Page 30 Photo shot at North Beach in Pt. Reyes, 2012
Page 4  Birds at the beach photo shot at McClures Beach in Pt. Reyes, 2016

Through Inverness on the Way to South Beach in Pt. Reyes National Seashore

The Road to the Beach

Another beautiful day at Pt. Reyes National Seashore.  More photos in my Shutterstock portfolio here:  https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Lucy+Autrey+Wilson

Going to Kehoe Beach Digitally

Since I'm not at the beach today, I'll have to go there with this memory of Kehoe Beach last September.

Having Fun With Photos

Three nymphs and a kingfisher in Pt. Reyes.

Oak Tree

Which is better:  A) Oak Tree photoshop composite with long ago pen & ink & marker drawing of San Francisco as seen from Mt. Tamalpais (top) vs B) Oak Tree original drawing done at Pt. Reyes National Seashore (bottom)?  Can't decide!