Last week I felt like changing things up and took on a small (10.5"x13.5") portrait. About a year ago Meghan, a former student,
posted a Facebook photo of her very blond little daughter named Madeline. She and her family took a trip out west, and the photo was taken in Yellowstone National Park. I told Meghan I thought her photo was iconic and
she happily gave me permission to paint it--unfortunately she had lost
all of those photos during a recent computer crash.
Maddy is completely unimpressed with Yellowstone National Park. Old Faithful
is erupting in the background while an airplane contrail cuts across the
sky. That reminded me of a Steve Martin arrow-through-the-head. Her
fine hair is blowing all over the place
and she is wearing a white t-shirt and one of those plastic gold medals
you give kids. The bright sunlight is casting rather harsh shadows on
her tired little face, and I worked on that first. I masked off a significant amount of her hair--the masking fluid is shiny yellow, and it protected areas I wanted to stay white.
I posted my progress on my Facebook art page and was pleased to receive this lovely comment from Maddy's grandmother Barb:
"You
have captured our granddaughter's mood that particular afternoon. To
say the least it was a long camping trip for two little ones. You do
such amazing work, you have a true passion for art, and it shows. Thank you for painting her; of course we believe she is the most beautiful child."
Meghan loved the portrait too, and I can't tell you what a relief it always is to receive feedback like this, especially during the beginning stages when a painting can look awkward.
I painted some blondness over
the top of the rubbery yellow and allowed it to dry. Then I removed the masking fluid and worked to integrate
the resulting highlights with the rest of the hair. I also added the start of
a neck.
I covered a lot of ground the next day. The
light was a little too warm on this photo, but you can still get a pretty good idea of what I added, including her white t-shirt (the easiest item of clothing to
paint with watercolor), arms, ribbon, and a bit of the background. It
looks like Madeline is in the desert here. I had to paint the landscape a
warm gray first before adding vegetation.
I
spent the last day refining details and adding the medal, Old Faithful,
and lots of trees and plants, including some small yellow flowers.
As usual, I asked for Jeff's help in titling this. My working idea was
"I Deserve A Medal," which Jeff liked, but then he tossed out "Honorable
Mention" and we both cracked up. There's something good but kind of not
good about an honorable mention. I think Madeline's face really
illustrates that feeling.
This one is going to be packed with photos documenting the past few weeks--easily the most beautiful spring I've witnessed since I began living here. Jeff and I have been trying to improve our driveway garden over the past couple of years. Last fall I planted a few dozen tulip bulbs and was so excited to watch them bloom. The frilly ones in front are parrot tulips, and I painted the pink one recently. Backing them up are two rows of regular tulips that were supposed to be purple. I think my bag of bulbs was incorrectly marked.
But that's okay--I like these better. They're so cheerful!
We have lots of roses on the other side of this garden and are unsure about how to tame/contain them. The two large rose bushes throw out tentacles that climb up to the sky and then arch down, like dozens of this thing overlapping again and again.
The recent flood washed up a lot of logs in our neighbor's yard, and he set them out by the side of the road to be removed by the city. Jeff saw one of them and thought it might make a nice display element in the roses, so the two of us rolled that heavy thing down the street (Jeff did 90% of the work while I gave it a few kicks here and there) and installed it. We like how it looks semi-human, and I can't wait for those roses to bloom.
This is the east side of our weirdo house. The redbud trees are in bloom!
I love the redbud-blooming week the most.
It's followed by redbud-confetti week.
We have other flowering trees on the south side of the house.
This one is almost embarrassingly gorgeous.
Crab apples and dogwoods decorate the west side next to the garage.
Needless to say, Bun is a very happy little girl.
She mostly stays on the path during her supervised walkabouts.
And when it's sunny, sometimes she'll just lounge.
On rare occasions she becomes SUPER FIERCE MIGHTY HUNTING JUNGLE CAT;;;;
Ohh, the colors. I still can't believe I get to live here...
...with this amazing creature...
...and my sweet girl.
Too. Much.
PS Mom cut three inches from my hair a few weeks ago, diminishing that grizzly-bear-living-on-my-head feeling. Now it's more like I have a grizzly cub up there.
Jeff and I met on Match.com--ain't no shame in it!--and one of the things he liked about my profile was that I had answered the "What was the last great book you read?" question with The Grapes of Wrath. It was one of those books that had somehow slipped through the cracks of my reading life, and I remember finishing it while sitting on a bench in Chicago's Union Station. The devastating ending made me cry, and then I just stared at things for a while, a character Edward Hopper had forgotten to paint: Heartbroken Lonely Woman Crying Over A Book.
Anyway, one of the characters in that book is named Rose of Sharon, and I always thought that was so unusual--she has a preposition in her name! Last year we were shopping for plants to decorate our new patio, and I flipped out when I came across a rose of Sharon. The man who sold it to us said it was blue, which is not as common as the white and pink version, and after planting it, we waited for about a month for it to bloom. It's in the center of the above photo.
I took a photo of the first rose and saved the picture for a future painting. I started it a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't all that revved up to paint it at first, but after a day of work I was excited. I loved the light on the petals, and the variety of blues and purples I used to create the bloom was challenging.
I fine-tuned the white thing and added more details and texture to the petals.
Then I filled in the background with some bloopy, blurry colors, and I started the rocks in the lower-left corner. Most of the white areas would become leaves and branches.
Next
up: I spent a lot of time with that dry grass on the left side. It had
lots of different blurry colors going on. I texturized the rocks with purples, blues, pinks, and browns. Finally, I did some yellow underpainting
on the leaves, masked off the major veins (seen above as yellow lines) and added an
additional green glaze over the top.
More leaf work...
I
added a lot of details to the leaves and attempted to soften and refine
the veins. Leaves in direct sunlight called for bits of blue, permanent green light, and a whole lot of no-paint. The bigger/closer leaves required some micro veins. This process reminded me of the way I painted the colorful leaf from my Mushrooms painting a year and a half ago. The colors in the photo above are a bit too bright--I took the picture during a thunderstorm and got aggressive with it in Photoshop.
On my last day of painting, I added a branch and some grassy shapes in the center. Those were surprisingly complex and colorful. And then, as if on cue, our new scanner arrived in the mail!
Eleven years ago I bought a kind of so-what HP scanner that did a wonderful job with my watercolors and cartoons, and Bun liked to sit on it, too. When it died in 2009, I assumed it would be easy to find a replacement. But that was not the case--the ones we've tried since then can't handle subtle color changes or things like pastel colors outlined in black pen.
Last month Jeff did some research (and great things happen when Jeff does some research). He found a used Epson Perfection V30 for only $30. A watercolor artist had blogged about this scanner and showed how to configure the settings to work for watercolors. It seemed like such a great deal, especially when you consider that I tend to pay $12-$15 per big scan at FedEx. The only problem was that the vendor was in Hawaii, and the scanner had to endure a month-long boat odyssey and cross-country road trip before it reached us.
We set it up and scanned my painting (which was too big to fit) in two sections. Photoshop miraculously pieced them together--seamless! We were impressed at how the scanner even managed to pick up on the texture (or tooth) of my watercolor paper. Terrific!
And you can find prints of this new painting if you click here!
Imagekind has finally gotten its act together, and now my other new-ish floral paintings are available as prints, too!
Almost every watercolor I paint has a sweet spot--an area that makes me breathe easier once I've completed it. Sometimes this is a section that "makes" the painting. Sometimes it's the hardest part, and if I'm satisfied with it I think, Well, if I can paint that, the rest of this will be no problem. And sometimes it's one of the painting's unsung heroes that nobody ever points out as being especially good, but it's one of the places I focus on.
I thought it might be fun to explore some of these. Readers who are familiar with my work: see if you can recall the painting from which I've taken each chunk! Here they are, in absolutely no particular order (click on the links to see the entire paintings and read more about them, and click on the images to see them a little bigger).
Apple Blossoms: This is the best leaf I've ever painted. I like how the shiny spring green on the top contrasts with the velvety khaki underside.
Glass Gems 3: The area under the red gem seemed molten, and I loved playing with that color range.
Planets and Foil: I like the way this marble seems to be grinning, and I'm especially happy with the window reflection near the top-right. I painted it with pink-yellow-orange, and it felt weird at the time, but I think it really works.
Mushrooms: Ugh! Those little purple fingery things were so hard!
Abandoned Knowledge: Most people focus on the apple, but I'm happiest with this vinyl seat. This was a one-shot, wet-into-wet situation. I really had to nail it. At a juried exhibition a couple of years ago, I was told that the judge pointed at this part and said, "Yep."
The Graduates: This little blue pot was tough. The colors shifted from cool to warm in a very smooth way that, like the vinyl seat, required wet-into-wet. Similar color problems are happening with the plant, too. This whole painting has a lot of individual still-life moments.
Dale's Super 400. The couch my uncle Dale is sitting on had a bunch of velvety pillows, and that's a tough texture to achieve with watercolor. Plus one of them was floral!
Married With Cats. This is Bun's happy pose, and I liked how her tabby pattern makes her blend in with the rug. Plus cute little belleh, sweet haunches.
Mabel. The Roger Ebert book is to the right of this section--I think I did a better job on these books than I did with his, but whatever, he loved it! I was thrilled to paint the magazine that was shoved in there backwards near the left side of this chunk. It featured a truck ad, I think.
Dr. Terry Sherer: I thought this was a cool intersection of patterns: his plaid tie, checked shirt, and the studs on his leather chair. The chair's arm features yet another softly shiny surface that required wet-into-wet.
Art Theater: This painting was very dark, so the bright areas really popped. These are just some orange/yellow lights on the left side of the street.
Ruby Liberty Dragonfly: I like this whole section, but I'm especially proud of the disco ball-looking glass earring. It was hard to draw, and I had to consider each segment individually in terms of color choices. I had the 15-minute version of Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix on repeat as I painted it.
Emily and Cupcake: When my sister was little, I loved the way she looked when she slept, and a lot of that innocence is still there in this picture.
Last Meal in Italy: I painted this watercolor during a couple of snow days back when I was still teaching. I liked this white shell and the way it reflected the turqoise building nearby. Painting those tiny ridges was no joke!
Self-Portrait: I really need to scan this painting. What you see here is from a photograph, and in real life the titles, etc, are more precise. Anyway, this section was such a speed bump, and for a while there I completed one square inch per hour. But I loved the spines of these books, some with creatures and famous paintings and sculptures, some old and falling apart, and some instantly recognizable based on color alone. I painted this during my "I will never use masking fluid" phase, and I made myself paint around all of the white or light-colored words. That really slowed me down.
Treasure: This painting featured several orange glass beads that were incredibly tricky. The darker areas called for muted purple-orange-browns, and as with the earring from Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, the many diamond shapes had to be dealt with one at a time.
Sunflowers: When I see this part I instinctively squeeze my fingers together, mimicking it. I rarely work with this much yellow.
Wilting Parrot Tulip: The challenge here was to paint extremely bright colors in shadows. I toned them down a bit with some greens and browns, but they're still pretty blazing.
Hey, I enjoyed that! I have lots of other paintings I'd like to chunk-ify, so maybe this will turn into a series.
Imagekind update: as of right now (Sunday, May 5), it's still having problems, so in the meantime please visit my merchandise store for all your Cinco de Mayo/art-related needs. Thank you as always for your support!
After a month of gray-dominated paintings involving grandparents, I was overjoyed to return to vivid colors. In August I'm going to have a one-person show at the Decatur (IL) Area Arts Council. I had applied for a 2014 exhibit, but their August 2013 artist had to back out due to--I think it was a house fire...? Talk about one of my greatest fears. If our house was burning down, I know which paintings I'd try to save first, but I definitely wouldn't be able to rescue all my work. I can't even imagine how that would feel.
Anyway, the Decatur people asked me if I could display my work in just a few short months, and I said yes. So between now and then, I'll be producing as many new paintings as I can to bulk up my body of work. That kind of rules out creating month-long paintings like Treasure or Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, although I plan to paint more jewelry still-lifes for the show. But each of these paintings will feature four or five sparkly things instead of something like eighty.
But back to the flowers! This is a wilting parrot tulip after I had worked on it for a couple of days. I planted ten of these frilly, fancy tulips a year and a half ago and was beyond excited to watch them emerge last spring. They were even more beautiful as they wilted, and their petals created interesting and dynamic shapes. I took several dozen photos and saved this one, the queen of them all, for the next time I felt the urge to paint something floral.
That super-hot red is a combination of opera (out of control pink) and cadmium red light (stupefying orange). I can't tell you how pleasing it is to mix those two colors. Something scientific/magical happens.
I tightened up the petals a bit and added some freckly spots. The background came together quickly, and I painted some of that during my watercolor workshop a few weeks ago (also at Decatur). It's been a while since I've had an audience, and it took me back to my teaching days when students would watch me work. I took some photos of people at the workshop, and here is my favorite one:
On to painting two! This is a passion flower I spotted at Kevin and Natalie's home in Orlando. Jeff and I visited them last month, and as soon as I saw this strange blue flower/mini-spaceship, I knew I would paint it. To create its dozens of stringy blue petals, I masked off those parts and painted the petals and leaves behind them.
Next I worked on the flower's amazing center, a fun combination of magenta and acid green, and painted the petals a flat blue (with dark purple and white areas). I don't even want to know how many petals are on this flower.
I added shadows to each petal (painstaking!) and lifted some highlights with a combination of tiny brush/water/paper towel. That took the better part of an afternoon, and I fell into assembly line mode. Done, done, on to the next one.
And here's the finished product!
It was smooth sailing once I finished that flower, although I began to suffer from dark green fatique. The bud/pod and the little springy things provided some relief. Both of these paintings are 10.5"x13.5", and I'm eager to pop them into frames.
We've reached the part of my new-painting posts where I link to Imagekind and beg you to buy prints, but Imagekind has been having site-wide technical problems for several weeks (!!). They've assured their artists that they are working on solving the problems, but many of us are understandably disgruntled. I make most of my money in November and December with a little Mother's Day bump in the spring. So the timing here is bad for me, especially now that I'm in portfolio-building mode and not painting people's grandparents for cash.
While we wait for Imagekind to get its act together, I have this gifty alternative for you:
It's my CafePress merchandise store, and last night I spent three hours uploading images and creating new products for you to peruse and enjoy. I'm sorry, but I want that bag so damn much! Please consider supporting me by picking up a thing or two, and I'll let you know when Imagekind is back to normal.
Please like my Facebook art page if you haven't already! I update it every few days with in-progress paintings, and let's face it, commenting is easier there than it is here. No stupid Captcha thing, and I respond to just about everybody, too!
Oh, it was tornado watch weather for sure. Wednesday afternoon Bun and I went outside to take in the hazy, finally legitimately warm weather. I took some photos, including this one of our sort of flooded backyard stream. Normally this stream is easily jumped or even stepped across, but thanks to a wetter-than-usual early spring, the stream has been wide and boggy for about a month. I've enjoyed watching Canadian geese, blue herons, wood ducks, and even beavers swimming and nosing around in it. Near the top of this photo and running from right to left is the Salt Fork river, and beyond that is our town's wetlands area. It's about the size of six football fields (totally guessing).
Bun lounged in the mulch near our daffodils.
I took photos of pretty blooming things. This bush was humming with honeybees.
These little guys were finally coming up. I'm so happy that spring is here!
Later on Jeff and I took a walk uptown. I wore a dress that showcased my unapologetically pasty white calves to motorists on Main Street and route 150.
While we were on
our relatively short walk, Jeff and I experienced the
following: a sauna-like humidityfest (seen above in red), a few steamy romantic sprinkles but no
clouds overhead (blue), a cheeseburger break while monitoring alarming new clouds
in the northwest (end of blue), some uneasy double-time walking towards home (purple), followed by flat-out
running from a very dark squall line and a sudden 20 degree temperature
drop (green). It was awesome.
It rained all night and Thursday--nonstop thunderstorms with torrential rain. I didn't take any radar screen caps while this was happening. Basically a massive, seemingly endless, chicken strip-shaped blob of yellow, orange, and red doppler radar was working its way up Illinois from soutwest to northeast. Here, let me illustrate that for you.
(The red dot there is our house. The chicken strip radar shape was even bigger than this, too.)
So northern Illinois was getting hammered, and we eventually got hammered as well. All of that water had to go somewhere, and flood watches and warnings were popping up left and right. Jeff and I usually shrug off flood alerts, but this seemed major, like one of those 100-year floods that we've started experiencing every five years or so. We live in the lowest part of the lowest part of Champaign County. Back in January 2008--Jeff and I had been dating for almost a month!--a combination of major snowfall and epic thunderstorms caused flooding so severe that Jeff and his daughter Melissa had to evacuate the house that Jeff and I live in now. There was a rescue with boats and everything. <--I'm making that more dramatic than it was, but still. Boats were involved.
Thanks to the U.S. Geological Survey, we were able to monitor the situation online. They have some charts that show how high the river is near our house--so glad that this site exists. Jeff knew from experience that anything over 19 feet meant that our sunken living room would flood. Anything over 20 feet meant that the rest of our house would flood. We went to bed on Thursday night looking at this chart.
And we were feeling like bad, bad things were going to happen in the morning. Jeff set his alarm clock for 2:00 a.m., saying we'd probably have to get up and start moving furniture and books out of the living room. At 1:30 we were awakened by a bumping sound--I'm not sure what that was, but Jeff sprang out of bed to look outside. I got up, too. The water level had risen considerably over the past few hours. Throbbing with adrenaline, we abandoned the idea of going back to sleep.
Thinking it might be a while before he could do it again, Jeff took a shower while I rather insanely put on some makeup (I'd taken my shower before bed). I guess I didn't want to be one of those bagged-out storm survivors you see on local news reports. I wanted to look like I at least had my act together once the cameras inevitably descended upon Jeff and me, area homeless flood victims.
During the pre-dawn hours we moved as much of our living room furniture and books as we could upstairs to my studio. Oh man, we have too many books. The cats were bewildered. As I went up and down the stairs 400 times, Jeff did what he could to rig up a sump pump outdoors in the dark. He monitored the rate at which the water was rising with a tape measure and did a lot of heavy lifting. At around 3:00 it seemed like we had done all we could do, and we were able to sit down and watch everything that was happening in Boston. What a surreal morning.
As the sky started to brighten in the east, this was what we saw.
The water was about ten feet from the most vulnerable corner of our house. "We're fucked," Jeff concluded, and we called both sets of parents. My folks wanted to come help us in some way or another, but they live on the west side of the state, where a number of roads were closed due to flooding. So they couldn't reach us. Jeff's parents live 45 minutes away, and they drove over in their truck. Jeff moved my car to higher ground (the school parking lot). Meanwhile, I promised myself that I would cry about this later and started packing a couple of go-bags. I couldn't get this silly but great song out of my head:
Jeff's dad drove to Champaign and purchased another sump pump--Jeff had the idea to set it up near the corner of the house along with our other smaller one. They eventually got it going, and then all we could do was monitor the situation. It was an awfully helpless feeling.
But happily the curve on the graph made it seem like things might be slowing down. At around 9:00, Jeff's parents didn't feel like they could stay much longer, as the one road out of our neighborhood was flooding. All we could do was watch and wait, and I called my parents about every half hour to let them know what was going on.
And I took some photos.
I fed the squirrels who are bottomless pits of seed-want no matter what's going on.
Yeah, there's no hopping across this thing.
Bun: WHERE ARE ALL THE STUFFS;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Freaky!
Sometime during the late morning hours, and after coming within a couple of feet of the house, it seemed like the flood had stopped rising. Bun wanted to see what was happening, and she sat on our deck in the cold watching the water for five minutes as if hypnotized and bewitched.
Slowly over the next couple of days, the water receded. We both felt so relieved.
Meanwhile, one of my paintings was in the Skip Watts Memorial Exhibition in Springfield. I even won an honorable mention along with some money! The reception was Saturday afternoon, but Jeff and I were too wiped out to drive all the way over there to attend. And anyway on Friday I had informed one of the people in charge that we were dealing with flooding, and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to leave the house. So I was sad to have missed the show, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Instead we watched a lot of teals and coots glide around our backyard, and that was pretty wonderful. The light was always lousy while this was happening, so I didn't get any photos.
And here's what our backyard looked like this morning. After the flood all the colors came out, as somebody once said. I didn't have my promised cry, as it turned out, but Saturday morning I enjoyed a celebratory post-traumatic-stress migraine. It's a fun little custom of mine. We also went out and had pizza.
Last month I completed a couple of portrait commissions that shared dual themes: family and gray. On the left is a portait of my brother in-law's grandparents, and on the right is a painting of a college friend's son and father.
Both contain a whole lot of gray paint, and honestly that is my least favorite color to work with because I mix up to seven colors to create just the right shade. I was taught to mix my grays rather than add water to black--I don't use black at all--so it is a chore. Also it was March, and the weather was utterly depressing. But a paying gig is a paying gig, and I was happy to create these portraits for Tyler and my pal.
Tyler's family is from northwestern North Dakota, just a few miles from the Canadian border. His grandparents, the perfectly named Alice and Milo, were photographed at a wedding in late December. It's the last photo taken of the couple--sadly, Milo died about a month later. This 20"x16" painting will be a surprise gift for Alice.
I
asked Tyler to write a little something about his grandparents, and
here's what he had to say: "Their names are Alice and Milo. They were
married for 66 years. Grandpa farmed for so long he actually used horses
at one point. Grandma was a teacher at a one room school for a while.
She made quilts, gardened, canned her own food, and cooked for a small
army on a daily basis. They weren't exactly flashy, just incredible
people."
The reference photo and pose is super traditional, but the novelty of painting such sweet, elderly
faces is made this portrait interesting. And Tyler's grandmother looks so much like him! Tyler's only request was that I move Milo's glasses up on his nose a bit. This was kind of tricky--in the original photo, the glasses covered important eye details that I had to make up.
Nearly everything about Alice was easy to paint. Her skin, hair, and dress were so light, and light colors take less time to paint with watercolor. All the wrinkles and folds provided convenient stopping places as I painted. It's kind of hard to explain this if you don't paint with watercolor, but trust me when I say that older skin is infinitely easier to paint than young skin. I liked painting Milo and Alice's hands, especially that little skin fold Milo's thumb makes as it pushes into the back of Alice's hand. (I'm easily amused.)
The
last things I had to paint here were Milo's (gray! hard! pinstripe! harder!) suit, tie, and rose, along
with the background. I especially enjoyed painting the shiny blue tie,
and the rose had a droopy petal in front with a light area near the bud
that added some interest. I gave the painting a blue drapey background. Tyler and his siblings are thrilled with the painting, and I'm not sure how or when he plans to deliver the portrait to Alice, but I hope she likes it! It was an honor to paint these two. 66 years--how inspiring is that?
My
friend L. asked me to paint this 20"x16" portrait of her son Sean looking up
at her father with admiration. She planned to give the original to her parents. Sean and Grandpa had spent some time sledding
together on an overcast, typical Illinois winter day. Grandpa had hip
replacement surgery over the summer but was sledding again by Christmas.
That immaculate sled is over sixty years old! I created the reference image above by combining two different cell phone photos. I also moved Sean a little closer to his grandfather.
Little Sean's face was only about an inch tall, and grandpa's was only a bit larger, so once again I had to use my tiniest 000 brush. I think Sean's expression is what makes this painting work, so I painted him first. Note the little snowflakes in his hair and on his nose. What a cutie!
Their ruddy faces
are by far the coldest I've ever painted, and I had a good time adding
extra pinks and reds to their skin. I eventually darkened grandpa's teeth a bit--always a touchy thing to do, especially when they're so small. I sent these shots to L. ("Perfect!") before working on the rest of the painting.
Clothing, sled, snow, background trees... I masked off the big tree and painted the background, starting with a drab blue-gray that you can see near the top-right corner and adding lots of thin, mostly bare trees over the top. I liked painting the woodgrain on the sled. Woodgrain is one of those textures that are easier to reproduce with watercolor than other mediums.
Finally I added the big tree and the grass peeking through the snow. L. was so happy with this painting that she decided to keep the original and give a print to her parents.
I don't make a lot of print money from portraits like these--most people don't want to buy pictures of people they don't know--but if you're interested in seeing examples of my portraits/prints, click here. You can also see works in progress by liking my Facebook art page.
I've been offered a one-person show at the Decatur Area Arts Council in August, so over the spring/summer I will be busy completing new work to fill that big gallery. But after that I will be able to take on more commissions like these. If you're interested in having me paint something for you, please read this and send me a message any time!
The night Jeff and I returned home from Orlando, all stocked up on groceries, cuddling with the cats, and awaiting the snowstorm, I hate to say it, but my husband became a little whiney.
He wanted donuts, you see, and we had neglected to pick up any of those when we were shopping, but he didn't feel like getting back in the car and returning to the store. And anyway, the donuts they'd have to offer wouldn't be the apple-cinnamon donuts upon which we gorge once a year at a local orchard.
I'd been sitting on a Pioneer Woman recipe that seemed like it would be similar to those local orchard donuts, only shaped like muffins, plus no deep-frying. I'd been sitting on it for over a year! The reason I hadn't made it yet: too much butter. Too effing fattening. I'd glance at the photos of her "French breakfast puffs," study the one where she's rolling muffins around in two sticks of melted butter, and scoff. Obscene. It's like they've never even heard of cholesterol out there in Oklahoma or wherever.
But after a few failed crock pot experiments (thank you so much, Pinterest), I wanted to make something that I was confident wouldn't suck in every way, and I wanted to prove to Jeff that muffins are worthy of his love. I made that sat-upon recipe the next morning and fed them to a mind-destroyed Jeff.
They are evil perfection. They are the bastard children of muffins and donuts. We're calling them mufnuts.
The only way we can justify making them is to eat one mufnut per week. We have frozen the rest (they reheat beautifully in the microwave) and--I say this with pride--we still have a small stash in the freezer.
The next weekend Jeff felt the need to dazzle me with breakfast.
His recipe's original title: the unweildy Crunchy French Toast with Cap'n Crunch Coating, which we shortened to Cap'n Crunch French Toast. This further devolved into Frunch Toast.
Jeff substituted a loaf of white bakery bread for the recipe's challah (it's expensive around here). The recipe produced enough custard to soak a dozen slices, i.e. the entire loaf minus the heels. We elected to bake eight--oh yeah, you bake this!--and freeze four.
It took about 30-45 minutes for Jeff (with light assistance from me) to produce the Frunch toast. It's now our go-to French toast. No question about it. And look: you get 8 pieces all at once! Plus you are left with a mostly-full box of Cap'n Crunch, which you love but never buy!
IT WAS SO FANTASTICALLY CRUNCHY.
You'd think that the Cap'n Crunch flavor would dominate, too, but no. It reminded me of the time I made Nigella's Nutella cake, which required an entire jar of the stuff along with other rich ingredients (shocker, I know). When I tasted the end product, the Nutella flavor had all but disappeared. Unnerving. That is sort of going on here with the Cap'n Crunch. You get a bit of the flavor but a ton of the texture.
We each ate a couple of pieces and froze the rest of the baked Frunch toast along with the aforementioned four pieces of raw Frunch. When microwaved later, the baked Frunch was not crunchy anymore, but it still tasted good. We haven't baked the raw Frunch yet, but I'll let you know how it goes.
I think this recipe would be great if you're serving a crowd at breakfast. Serve it with a side of mufnuts!
Nah. Do one or the other. You don't want your guests to think you're a murderer.
Jeff and I learned about Roger Ebert's death last Thursday about an hour after everybody else did. We had spent most of the day away from our computers and were enjoying one of central Illinois' first truly springlike afternoons, reprising our role as The Couple That Walks Around St. Joe Holding Hands.
Jeff found out first. We were sitting in the living room and getting set to watch Justified when he gasped. "Roger Ebert died," he said, looking up from his iPad sadly. Oh no. Instinctively my arms and legs bent in toward the center of my body--sort of a seated fetal position--as sadness swept over me.
My Facebook and Twitter notifications started erupting with "you're the first person I thought of when I heard" posts, and I responded to them for a few hours. Thanks so much to those of you who contacted me--Roger would have appreciated the immediate, easy way people were able to reach out to each other. I would love to see a map of the world dotted with those whose lives he affected and the amazing web of connections he spun between us.
As some of you may know, Roger and I were Twitter and email friends. Not wanting to waste The Great Man's time, I only communicated with him when I had something on my mind that I thought he would appreciate. And he would contact me as well. My Gmail says we had 92 conversations.
One of my favorite exchanges with him was in 2011 regarding the movie Crumb, a documentary I've loved and rewatched on VHS countless times. I had received the Blu-ray edition that included Roger's commentary track for Christmas. I listened to it as I painted one day and told him about how I appreciated his insights and how great it was to hear his voice for a while. We talked about R. Crumb's brothers and their "stupid mother" (Roger's words). It was fun and more than a bit surreal to talk about one of my favorite movies with Roger Freaking Ebert.
He especially liked it when I sent updates about nature, farming, and the weather in this part of the state. I live a few miles from his boyhood/college hometown, and I'd let him know when the corn was sprouting and show him photos of things like a cluster of mushrooms I'd found growing beside a tree stump in the yard.
As time passed, his email messages became shorter--sometimes just a
sentence or two, but always cordial and often humorous. Ignatiy Vishnevesky explained why his notes were so brief in his
wonderful letter to Roger from a few days ago:
"You communicated largely through your computer, but you typed slowly,
your hand hovering over a key before pressing down. It could take you
thirty seconds to type out a sentence."
He wanted to include it in a blog he was writing and credited me there, mentioning (incorrectly) that he owned two of my paintings. I sent Roger a quick "I'm pretty sure you just have the Art Theater" message, and he responded with,
I believe I have that one and the child with the book shelf. I've been in the hospital so it's hard to say…
Anyway, I feel like I have 2. And it sounds better :)
Cheers,
R
Sometimes
he'd send emails to me accidentally--meant for other people--and I'd
let him know. In February I got one containing some
confidential information regarding Ebertfest and his health. He had some big, wonderful plans for the last day. I told him his secret was
safe with me and he called me a dear friend. Imagine!
It's hard to describe what it's been like to have known him even in my minor way. He had over 800,000 followers on Twitter and followed 255. I had the extreme good fortune to be one of them. Whenever I tweeted something, I asked myself, "Is this Roger-worthy?" So there were no "going to the library LOL" tweets from me. He was my writing's conscience, the little voice I heard and continue to hear before I hit "post."
Just when I thought he wasn't reading this blog anymore--the man was beyond busy--I'd get a comment (!!!!!!) or a retweet. He even read at least one of my recipes. He made my month when he told his Twitter followers that "damn it, she's right" when I ranted about how most fruit crisps contain too much fruit and nowhere near enough crisp. Roger Ebert cared about the fruit-to-crisp ratio!
So the past few days have been loaded with Roger memories.
I was in the right place at the right time when he discovered my watercolors. He gave me confidence to pursue my dream. I've made new friends because of him. I've sold watercolors and prints because of him. He gave me the idea for one of my best paintings. He sent me messages from the hospital asking me how I was. He told me "I'm there with you--thank God for Jeff" during my cancer scare.
I was lucky to have met him in person two years ago. He looked at me and applauded. He wrote in his notepad that I was an artist and underlined it. I'll never forget it.
Roger did so much for me, and he didn't have to do any of it. But he did. He did, and I'm one of many, many people who have been saying things like this over the past few days. I can't thank him enough, but I think the best thing any of us can do to remember Roger is to try to be as kind, thoughtful, and appreciative of beauty as he was.
It's the last day of March, and we're finally seeing signs of spring around here. I've been working on commissions this month and haven't been all that motivated to write, so here's a chatty recap for you with lots of photos.
Last weekend Jeff and I visited our friends Kevin and Natalie and their little daughter Victoria. Jeff used to work with Kevin--they produced educational software over a decade ago. By the time I entered Jeff's life, Kevin and Natalie were living in Chicago, and we'd stop by when we were in town. Natalie was a veterinarian at the Brookfield zoo, and a few years ago she was offered a job at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando. So our friends had moved to Florida, bought a house, and had a baby since the last time we'd seen them, and we were eager to stay with them for a long weekend during the tail-end of our lousy Smarch weather.
Last Thursday morning we flew out of Indianapolis, which is an easy, 90-minute drive along I-74. I had never seen this new airport and was impressed.
The atmosphere was that of a medium-sized mall on let's say a Tuesday morning--surprisingly quiet and laid back and with jovial workers. We killed some time sitting beneath an art installation of dangling blue shapes that seemed to suggest planes in the sky. I asked Jeff what he thought they were. "I don't know, clouds?" I said they reminded me of an illustration I had seen in a book from my childhood of a Portuguese man of war. It looked sort of like this, only much more ominous, and I remember being intrigued by its weird name and aura of pure evil.
Anyway, that's what that installation brought to mind.
We flew down to Florida on Southwest. About an hour before we took off, a woman approached us and asked if we would keep an eye on her teenage daughter, who was on our flight and flying for the first time. No problem! The girl (Emily) was quiet and just the right amount of nervous. She sat behind us on the plane, and I answered her questions and looked over my shoulder every once in a while to make sure she was okay. The flight was uneventful but, predictably, loaded with kids and babies, one of whom wailed nonstop for thirty minutes before we landed. I felt bad for the little guy, but it was excruciating. Once we landed and came to a slow crawl on the runway, the exasperated-sounding flight attendant announced with perfect comedic timing, "Well we're HERE." Big laughs. We helped Emily find her family once we were in the airport, and then we rented a car. Public transportation: not an option on this trip.
But oh, the green and the warm and the SPRING and the humid! The non-bumpy toll roads and the palm trees and the smell of cut grass! What a difference. Wind in our hair, we GPSed our way to Kevin and Natalie's house. Kevin was there to meet us and gave us a tour.
Kevin and Natalie are wonderful gardeners and, in the short time that they had lived in Florida, had transformed their yard into a thing of beauty. I could not get over this giant tree festooned with Spanish moss.
This is their impressive koi pond--did I ever write about our koi pond incident late last fall? A (supercute) mink ate amost all of our fish. We noticed him swimming around in there, otter-style, and were delighted until we realized our fish were gone. Kevin and Natalie have some robust koi that we coveted, but they were hiding near the bottom from some predator birds when I took this photo.
They even have a pool and a lanai! With deck chairs and a hammock! Jeff and I were looking forward to putting in some serious lounge time out there. The interior of the house was lovely, but I didn't think to get lots of photos. Instead I was hypnotized by plants like these.
Jeff and I played with pets Molpe and Leile, whose names I am undoubtedly misspeling. Please correct me in the comments, Kevin. [EDIT: their pup's name is Líle Altaithedóttir, because of course it is. Thank you for chiming in, Kevin!]
Molpe is just fantastic.
And Leile [EDIT: Líle Altaithedóttir] is a big bundle of doggie love and joy.
Soon Natalie and Victoria arrived, and we had a fabulous fondue dinner/dessert.
Victoria is into Disney princesses--we concluded that no matter how cool the parents are, this has become a non-negotiable rite of passage for little girls. There's just no getting around it. Victoria entertained us with many, many costume changes over the next couple of days.
Kevin takes care of Victoria on assorted weekdays while Natalie is at work, and on Friday we accompanied them to a small playground followed by a great little indie BBQ spot called Yellow Dog Eats (above), where we ate THIS:
It's a pulled-pork barbeque sandwich with brie and a cranberry drizzle of some kind. Jeff and I lost our minds. It was absolutely delicious. I've shown that photo to Jeff several random times this week, and it's like a punch to the gut.
Later we had some ice cream because who can resist the lure of a building shaped like an ice cream cone?
I loved Victoria's expression here.
Back at Kevin and Natalie's house, Jeff and I lounged poolside for about an hour while Victoria napped and Kevin got dinner going. And this dinner was something special.
Looks like we've got some red sauce...
...homemade pasta (Natalie also worked on this)...
...and how about a giant loaf of homemade bread?
By the way, this is what part of their pantry looks like:
I took a crazy number of photos. STORAGE LUST.
Natalie came home early after working on a lion (imagine!) and made some cookies with Victoria. Around this time I checked the weather forecast for Illinois, and guess what? A named storm--Virgil--was set to hit with 5-8 inches of snow on Sunday, the day we were set to return home. Not wanting to experience a repeat of this, Jeff and I did some scrambling. He arranged for us to fly back on Saturday, and I informed my folks that we wouldn't need them to cat-sit for us that day.
Disappointed that we couldn't spend Saturday at Animal Kingdom (where Natalie would be able to show us cool behind-the-scenes stuff), we made the best of the situation. I got in a lot of playtime with Victoria, who fell in love with me and started calling me Mama Kelly because I am really really good at make believe. I also helped Natalie bread and fry slices of eggplant for what was to be a truly spectacular meal:
We ended up going to Epcot to watch end-of-the-night fireworks. Natalie was able to get us in for free, so why not? I had never been to Disney before, and this was just about all the Disney I needed. Sorry no photos--Victoria was in her stroller and flat-out demanded that I and only I would be the one to wheel her around. At one point she glanced back and was highly annoyed to see that Jeff was helping me push. So I had my hands full, but honestly, you've all seen photos of Disneyworld. The fireworks were impressive, and thankfully it stopped raining. We were home by around 10:00, and I was amazed to see how quickly we were able to exit the parking lot. Clearly that place knows how to handle crowds.
We thanked Kevin and Natalie very much for their hospitality and left late the next morning--we had an easy, smooth flight and drive back from Indy--and the next day, this happened:
And also this:
We had received a foot of snow by the time it was all over on Monday.
But that snow was basically gone on Friday, and Bun enjoyed some time outside.
For the first time in two years, a medium-sized snowstorm hit our town yesterday, and today as Jeff and I wolfed down our lunch, I mentioned that I wanted to make a snowman. Surprisingly, Jeff was into the idea--"Let's do it now!" Of course, we couldn't do the same old played-out normal snowman. We made a snowBun.
It took us a little while to get on the same page as to how this snowBun would come together, but soon enough we established the Garfield-ish main form and began fine tuning it.
I messed around with the photo settings on this one to make the profile more visible.
We took turns making the face--I roughed in the main shape and eye sockets while Jeff refined the ears and added the features. He was charmingly businesslike while I emerged as the project's cheerleader.
It's my belief that if Bun had existed during Biblical times, people would have created golden idols in her image. So it was all too appropriate for Jeff and me to make a snow sculpture of a creature that we basically worship every day.
That face cracks me up.
This is the view of our snowBun from the house. She's not long for this world--this weekend we'll have highs in the fifties with a good chance of rain.
But this was so much fun, and for about an hour we felt like a couple of kids. We came inside soggy and gleeful. Bun groggily hopped downstairs, glanced at her giant likeness out in the yard, and demanded some wet food.
