Alizarine

Late Spring Update

This spring has been crazy. International travel, one-person show, looming medical test, backbreaking commission, exciting deck project--no wonder I've neglected my blog! So in an attempt to catch up and maybe not have to write a hundred thousand words in doing so, here's a little photo essay. While you read and look at the photos, I urge you to listen to Steal Away by Robbie Dupree, a song that has been on a constant loop in my head for two weeks, no foolin'.

 

(I can't get on board with the illustration here. I just can't. I don't like the way nearly all Japanese manga illustrators draw faces.)

Anyway, that song's been driving me up the wall, and I'm sorry if it's in your head too, now. There's no getting it out, like those Star Trek bugs.

 

GAH I CAN'T EVEN WATCH THAT!

Off to a bad start, sorry. Here's my update. Bun will make it better.

Last month, completely out of nowhere, a tornado warning hit while Jeff was taking a nap and I was reading. Jeff has a new app on his phone that alerts us to severe weather with a variety of sounds, a different one for every type of warning. The phone was making some noise, but sleeping Jeff and I ignored it because honestly Jeff has about 15 other phone alarms that indicate who-knows-what every afternoon (various calendar reminders and work stuff).

We eventually decided to see what was going on--the weather gave us no indication of impending doom, just some clouds, but indeed a tornado warning had been issued. Jeff scooped up Bun, I grabbed Pache and Q, and we headed to the bathroom. During the scooping process, my phone rang, and it was Melissa calling to tell us about the storm. She was in Champaign, some ten miles west of our house, and apparently actual funnel clouds were happening and headed our way. Here's one of the many photos I saw on Facebook almost immediately, most of them taken by former students who probably should not have been out chasing storms.

We rode out the brief storm with our big-eyed cats. It didn't last long and, as usual, seemed to skip right over us.

I keep meaning to write about my show in Jacksonville! I displayed my wares at the David Strawn Art Gallery during the month of April. This involved three long, 266-mile round trips in the Mazda: one to deliver the paintings, one for the opening, and one to take the paintings home. On the day of my opening, Jeff and I were up before sunrise and drove to the gallery. I gave a 6-hour workshop (watercolor still life) in the Strawn's basement classroom. I changed and put on my makeup in a gas station bathroom, and then we had an early supper with Mom, Dad, Poof, and Tyler before my two-hour opening. After it was over, we drove all the way back home, so that made for a very long but ultimately enjoyable Saturday. I've never had so many people attend one of my art shows and even managed to sell a fair number of paintings. Who knew that Jacksonville was such an artsy town?

Thanks to all of my friends and family who came to see the show. I was thrilled to see Kendra, Rob, Melinda, Kate, Mabel, Lars, Michelle, Grace, Jay & TA, and even Karen Icenogle, my high school art teacher! I hadn't seen her in a very long time, and she looked at me and said, "I love you." It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears.

In other art news, I've finally begun work on a commissioned painting that's going to take a couple of months to complete at least. It's a wedding present from a top secret groom to his top secret bride. The wedding is in September, so I won't be able to show it to you until then, which is a shame because this painting is, in a word, bonkers. I can tell you that it includes eleven people and eleven statues, and it takes place in a gold and red art deco theater lobby. The painting is huge at nearly three feet by three feet. That was too big for my studio table, so I've moved my whole production downstairs to our bedroom where we have a large desk. I blurred the reference image on my computer there, but I think I can show you a five-inch chunk that is in fact .8 percent of the final picture.

So it's mostly that kind of thing.

Bun loves the new setup because while I work she gets to sleep on the bed and do cute things like this.

Glass Gems 3 is currently on display in Dixon, IL, at The Next Picture Show gallery as part of the Illinois Watercolor Society's national exhibition.

I've been in IWS's last three national shows. That means I'm a signature member of the Illinois Watercolor Society and can now add "IWS" to my signature on future paintings!

Jeff, who appears to be throwing down a gang sign, and my parents came to the show with me and made the day very special.

Artist and judge Donna Jill Witty presented a terrific and dramatic watercolor demonstration during the show. I am the giant black shape on the left that seems to be absorbing all light in the room--I am almost as dark as those aliens from Attack the Block.

That was such a good movie.

In case you've never seen our house, here's what it looks like. It's a American Craftsman house with big boxes added to each end and is delighfully weird. The steps in the center lead to a massive, 760 square-foot deck that we never use and is a bit warped and dated. You can see a corner of it here.

About a month and a half ago, we began taking the deck out. Parts of it were so rotten and poorly constructed that it was almost a simply-lift-with-hands-to-remove kind of situation. Soon it was gone, and now we're dealing with the fun part: figuring out what to do with all of that new space.

We're going to have a table and chairs sitting atop flagstones on the right, a fire pit on the left, dark rock filling in, and a line of lighter rock dividing the space horizontally.

Here's a shot of the Adirondack chairs and fire pit (which I spotted at Menard's, majorly on sale). We put a ring of bricks around the pit and love the way it looks.

Below that will be a rock garden that mimics a dry stream with a bird bath.

Jeff arranged a lot of that on Sunday afternoon as I was taking a shower, and when I looked at it from the living room it instantly reminded me of a brain, which was unintentionally awesome.

We'll have some black mulch and new plants down there, including a rose-of-sharon and a dwarf burning bush, along with vines, grasses, and other flowers.

Here's what it looks like so far (sorry about the bleached-out lighting situation). You can kind of see the flagstones under the table.

Jeff and I often find ourselves staring out the window at this scene multiple times per day, contemplating our next move.

I'm nuts about moss roses and have been planting lots of them. Hopefully no woodland creatures plan to eat them, such as...

Two years ago, we hosted a family of woodchucks. Last year we had foxes. This year our house has become a chipmunk sanctuary. I like to put seeds out for them, and as many as four chipmunks are eating seeds at any given time. The cats enjoy watching these little guys, especially Quixote, who gets incredibly worked up.

We also have some adorable juvie Canadian geese in the neighborhood!

On the food front, I've been trying various experiments in low-cal food that are pretty good but not great enough to merit blogging, such as:

and

And oh, my colposcopy? I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. To amuse myself during the procedure, which is essentially a super-pap, I altered Paul Simon's Kodachrome and sang it to myself with altered lyrics as Kolposcope.

 

Kolposco-o-ope! It gives us those nice bright colors, it gives us the--

You get the idea.

It was essentially no big thing and took maybe five minutes. My area of concern was miniscule, and my doctor told me everything that was happening as I looked up at the ceiling, silently humming my tune. I didn't even faint, and evidently they get a lot of fainters. The doctor told me that based on what she saw, I had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately I was instructed to have zero marital fun with Jeff for ten days afterward so I could heal properly, so that was was a complete drag.

After a few tense days, I called for my results and it turns out I'm basically in the clear. But anyone who gets any kind of abnormal pap test and has a colposcopy/biopsy at my hospital is sentenced to three additional paps during the next year, so I've got that to look forward to. But I have been assured that my test results look very good. The paps are just a precaution, and the hospital presumably has lots of big shiny equipment and snazzy waiting room furniture they need to pay for.

Let's end this on a cute note. Here's Hypatia, one of three cats who piled up on me after the colposcopy. I was recovering under the "wookiee blanket," and Pache showed a certain amount of bravery in climbing aboard, as she is afraid of the wookiee blanket.

Paris Part 7

Thursday was our last full day in Paris. We hopped on a morning RER train to take in the sights of Versailles. Jeff's health was beginning to deteriorate a bit, but he was hanging in there with the help of his French cold medicine. I kept a bottle of water for him in my purse, along with some cough drops. The weather was nothing short of ideal, at least, and Jeff knew his way around Versailles. It was my first visit.

The train was about half-full but almost eerily quiet, and the ride was so smooth it seemed like the rails had been buttered or carpeted...whatever. We basically floated over to Versailles during this half-hour ride. Upon arrival we had a quick breakfast, sharing a muffin, coffee, and orange juice, and then it was a quick walk to the palace's golden entrance.

I hadn't realized that a city was connected to the palace of Versailles--for some reason I had assumed that it was in the middle of nowhere. We arrived just as it was opening for visitors.

The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.

(That paragraph was from Wikipedia. I'm not much of a Francophile beyond its art and food, and I'll also admit that writing 1,500 words per day about Paris is wearing me out!)

Inside the gates: a massive courtyard formed by the U-shaped palace that faces the sunrise (Louis XIV was known as the Sun King, and this theme was repeated throughout Versailles). Jeff and I guided ourselves through the palace's beyond-grand rooms while reading quietly from his Rick Steves iPhone guide.

I tend to start strong in palaces, but after a while their gold-encrusted splendor and--I'm going to call it colored marble abuse--gets to me. The spaces are often so busy and vulgar that I can't imagine living in them. Versailles was no different, although the craftsmanship and time that went into the palace was not lost on me, and the paintings decorating virtually every flat surface were outstanding.

Chandeliers were everywhere. Since I enjoy painting shiny glass things, I thought it would be a good idea to photograph them for use in a future painting. Most of them didn't quite work out, but I do like the one above. I'm not sure if I'd want to paint it, though. You can see the kind of decoration going on in the palace here, but this room seems low-key compared with some of the others.

Say hello to Marie Antoinette's bedroom, every young girl's dream!

I'm not sure if those floral motifs were painted or embroidered, but either way that's a whole lot of work for some poor soul.

The hall of mirrors, seen here in a photo not taken by us, seems like the length of a basketball court, with seventeen huge, arched, west-facing windows on one side and matching mirrors on the other. At the time of its construction, mirrors were very expensive, so this gallery was a showstopper. And it's a showstopper now.

Since Jeff and I were there in the morning, the lighting wasn't as dramatic. You can kind of see us in the center of the photo. And you can really see Jeff here.

Lookin' pretty good for a sick man!

Jeff's previous trip to Versailles was in the afternoon/early evening, and he took a lovely photo of the moon rising over the palace.

Seeing that photo makes me feel sad, as Jeff was nursing a broken heart at the time, but at the same time I'm so glad he's with me now.

West of the palace: the formal gardens, the canal, and the rest of the grounds that go on for as far as the eye can see. As stupendous as the palace was, I took the vast majority of my photos outdoors that day. Early spring--what an amazing time to be there.

Dewy daffodils and tulips were in bloom in the formal gardens near the palace, and I mined them for future painting gold.

So fresh and beautiful!

It was like they weren't even real.

The dewdrops were so perfect it seemed like Versailles had employed someone to walk around misting the flowers all day.

I couldn't get over how peaceful it was, far from the bustling city, with an infinite number of trees and singing birds. It reminded me of Illinois, just a little bit.

We walked (there was so much walking that day) to the palace's summertime getaway, and beyond that was Marie Antoinette's Hameau de la reine, a model village with a mill and twelve cottages, nine of which are still standing.

The buildings were small, quaint, and situated near a pond with ducks, geese, and a swan.

"Watch me Thomas Kinkade the hell out of this photo," I told Jeff before taking the following picture.

More gardens, more flowers:

Jeff waited patiently for me as I knelt down and snapped away.

He took some photos himself, including this amazing 300 year-old tree.

And I took this one.

During the week we were in Paris, we saw dozens of trees laden with fantastic pink blossoms that looked more like pompoms (see top photo). I couldn't get enough of them.

We strolled around Versailles for three or four hours before we left for lunch at L'Angelique, the fanciest restaurant of our trip, about a mile from the palace. Do click on that link; they have some great photos.

This was another situation where we guessed and pointed at the inscrutable French menu and put our trust in the chef. After we left, we noticed an English translation of the menu in the window and took a photo of it. I've marked the items we selected with J and K. (My dessert wasn't included on this menu, hence no K down there, but please don't panic. I totally had dessert.)

I love "Menu for everybody" at the bottom.

Let's see what they made for us! Please excuse any blurriness--this place was so nice and I was trying to be discreet.

This was Jeff's foie terrine with artichokes. Nice.

When I ordered this, the only word I recognized was "Iberico," and I thought "veloute" might mean something soft like velour. I was rewarded with a creamy watercress soup. In the middle were five or six small slices of what I declared "the best meat I have ever tasted." I thought it was beef and so did Jeff, but it was that famous Spanish ham, so tender I could cut it with a spoon, and so flavorful I couldn't quite believe it. Major.

Next Jeff had a perfectly cooked piece of fish with beans in a butter sauce (bonus foam). On the top was what we think was a fried zucchini flower.

Mine (below) was a charlotte of scallops, and the only reason I ordered a charlotte was because I have always liked that word.

It was so beautiful! The scallops were arranged into a cylindrical form on a bed of baby spinach. Inside the charlotte: artichokes in a tiny dice. It was topped with lime zest and surrounded by an ethereal lime-butter foam. Divine.

Finally, dessert!

Jeff--surprise, Jeff!--had pears with sesame nougat and prune jam. Some kind of caramel component was happening. I can't get over that dried pear slice. Pretty as this was, I was the big winner this time around:

I mean, you can tell this is awesome just by looking at it, no? Ice cream of indeterminate flavor. Whiskey? I don't drink, but it was lovely. Cinnamon/caramel brushstrokes. Chocolate rolls, tightly coiled, that burst into many shards when tapped. The star: a soft caramel dome containing chocolate mousse, and hidden inside that? Hazelnut filling. Basically everything good in the world is in that dessert.

And there was much appreciative murmuring and affectionate cooing going on at our table. Writing about this meal makes today's leftover tomato soup seem very humdrum indeed. Humdrum recipe available here.

We returned to Paris on the train. Sitting across from us were two young women from Turkey who were puzzling over a map. Jeff helped them figure out which stop they wanted. He received big smiles in return and a couple of follow-up questions such as, "How do you pronounce the name of that river?" I love watching Jeff be a hero.

We got off at Notre Dame, walked along the Seine, which is pronounced sen, by the way, and shared a gelato from the famous Berthillon on Ile St Louis. What a gorgeous day that was. The bridge where this photo was taken had a fence covered with padlocks with the names of couples on them. (Painting idea?)

We peeked inside Shakespeare and Co. (hi Terry), which was too crowded to really enjoy...

...but I took a couple of quick pictures of the books because that's kind of my thing.

The Metro was having problems that afternoon, so we walked the rest of the way home, a couple of miles. We picked up a tiny rotisserie chicken and some clementines along the way and snacked on it later that night in the apartment.

It was our last night in Paris, and Jeff was coughing in earnest once we went to bed. He did what he could to medicate himself, and he managed to endure the insanity of Charles de Gaulle and the plane ride home the next day without seeming to suffer too much. (He's on antibiotics and a cough suppressant now and is well on the road to recovery.) 

Jeff plans to write a guest blog here regarding the ins and outs of planning a trip to Paris and how he saved us money at virtually every turn. He truly was the brains of this operation, and I am so thankful for all the time he spent making sure we had a great vacation.

Thanks also to everyone who managed to wade through my ramblings. These trips seem more real to me once I've written about them, and I try to do that as soon as I can after we return. I don't want to forget anything!

You can find the rest of our trip to Paris using these links. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. And if you're so inclined, you can read about last year's Spain trip starting here.

Aggressive Spring

After an unprecedented week with temperatures in the 80s every day, flowers around our house are blooming earlier and faster than ever before. I stroll around the yard several times a day and see major new developments each time. This winter was shockingly snow-free, and I think if I had to come up with one word to describe spring so far, it's aggressive.

I'm not sure what these umbrella-like plants are, but a lot of them sprang up two days ago near the area where my Mushrooms painting took place. (Edit: Laura tells me they're may apples. Thank you!)

The person who built and lived in this house before us was a master gardener. She was apparently hog wild for daffodils, planting every variety imaginable, including these all-white ones. I took all of these photos between thunderstorms this afternoon, hoping that the muted light would help me capture details I wouldn't be able to see under direct sun. I was pleasantly surprised with results.

I also love all the droplets on the flowers' petals. Very pretty!

I've spent the past six months waiting for these parrot tulips to emerge. For the first time in my life, I planted bulbs last fall. I'm especially curious about the parrot tulips because the website I bought them from promised me that they'll eventually look like this.

Does it get any prettier? Does it bring out the old Dutch master in me? Ohhh I hope they're that pretty because I want to put them in a vase and do something like this.

No pressure, parrot tulips!

Still more daffodils. Last fall Jeff's dad tilled our front garden. It had become overrun by lemon balm and other weeds, and luckily those haven't shown up again this spring. Unfortunately, the tilling disturbed dozens of daffodil bulbs, which we picked out of the soil and I replanted. Amazing how resilient they are! The tilling also seemed to wake up some tulips I'd never seen before. Last year we had two. This year we have around twenty, including the red ones at the top of this post.

Elsewhere around the house, our red bud trees are going berserk with fluffy pinky-purpleness.

The apple trees are set to explode next week...

...along with some young dogwoods.

Jeff and I have been making daily improvements around our deck and yard. Yesterday Jeff moved the swing to a more picturesque spot next to the "mother" red bud that produced the others. I wonder how old this tree is and marvel at its uncomfortable-looking L-shape and its ability to hang in there year after year. In the background: the Salt Fork river and some wetlands.

This is what we see from our bedroom windows.

Please excuse the blurriness on the left side of the photo above; I'm guessing that's a raindrop.

We have a mirror outdoors--it hides an ugly area near the corner of the house. Thus ends my tour of the yard.

Thanks for all the get-better messages for our now-toothless cat Hypatia, seen here with a doting Jeff. Well, thanks to my mom and the two of you who tweeted at me. She's doing a lot better and is back to being her goofy, gorgeous self. Incredibly, she's eating dry food! And now, so the other kitties don't feel left out...

...it's the dashing and handsome Quixote, who always knows exactly where and how to pose for optimal glamour...

...and it's my newest painting starring young Bun titled Studio Assistant. I hope to have it finished this weekend, just in time for my Jacksonville show. I'm becoming increasingly nervous about it and find myself sitting in hazy lighting situations and staring into space.

Happy aggressive spring, everybody, and here's hoping it doesn't turn passive-aggressive. Because I don't know what that would even look like.

Sunflowers

Here's a 10.5"x13.5" watercolor of sunflowers. It's really one sunflower and five petals of a second, but I feel like going with the plural for the title. Because of Vincent. The reference photo I used came from my former student (and current University of Wisconsin-Madison student) Mara. She took the photo a couple of summers ago and kindly gave me permission to paint it--I finally did that over the past few days.

I think sunflowers are kind of boring when they're in full bloom--too symmetrical and repetitive--but I loved the shape of this one that's just starting to open up. I made the leaves and stalk fuzzy with some white acrylic paint and a small messed-up brush. I normally don't like adding acrylic paint to a watercolor painting, but on this small scale that was the only thing that made sense to me. And I really wanted that sunflower to look fuzzy!

I wish I could add a button marked "animate" that you could push to watch the sunflower open up, time lapse photography-style. Instead, please watch this beautiful thing (with surprising but totally great Edward Scissorhands soundtrack!).

 

I wish I could remember Gustav Klimt's quote about sunflowers being the artists of the garden--I read it in college and I think of it whenever I see them. His idea was that sunflowers are the tallest flowers (and therefore different and therefore outsiders), and it seems like they are observing the smaller flowers when their heavy heads tilt down.

I may have added the different/outsider idea myself. I would also like to see a picture of a sunflower holding a sketchpad and drawing the other flowers. I'm sorry. The Edward Scissorhands music--which made me tear up, how about you?--is filling my head with twee and maudlin ideas.

gggggggggggggg <--Typed by young Hypatia, seen below (left).

Chicken Pot Pie

My friends, what is pie?

(Sidebar: one time I went to Germany to visit a friend, and while I was there I made a lemon meringue pie for a dinner party. One of the guests asked that same question: "What is pie?"

They don't know what pie is in Germany!

That will never cease to amaze me. I've mentioned it before.)

What is your mental image of a pie, those of you who know what one is? Close your eyes and imagine one. Dig, if you will, the picture.

Here's my idea of a pie: crust on top, some kind of filling, and crust on the bottom. Right? Right. Under no circumstances are the following two items pies:

On the left is a ramekin with filling and crust on top but not on the bottom. Probably delicious; not pie.

On the right is a baking dish with filling and let's say Grands!^® biscuits on top. Probably okay; not pie.

Call those two things something else, but stop calling them pies, please, especially if you plan to serve them to guests. Don't say, "Hey, come over! I'm making chicken pot pie!"...

 

...and present something that has no top and bottom crust. The second you mention C.P.P., people (well, me) will visualize a true pie and spend the day thinking about how great it's going to be, and when you deliver some casserole topped with a biscuit, a part of me will hate you, and I'm sorry. I just really love pie. 

Tuesday Melissa came out for supper, and I made a true chicken pot pie. I cut vent holes in the shape of an M on the top crust because who doesn't like a pie marked with their initial? All human beings who know about pie like that, but so few people ever receive a pie made in their honor. Bake a pie with a top crust and mark it with somebody's initial. Make one for yourself! HONOR PIES. It'll knock their socks off.

(Photo not available, but trust me, it was cute.)

So this pie is comfort food of the highest order. It's from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I've already made it twice since Christmas at Jeff's request. I love it too, and after Melissa returned to her apartment, she Facebooked the following: Now I just want endless amounts of chicken pot pie...*sigh*

The Pioneer Woman's recipe is for a top-crust-only-pie-that-is-not-a-pie, and she made it in a pie pan/casserole dish that's bigger than mine. The recipe made more filling than my pie could hold, something like two cups, but that was no big deal. I just kept it warm while the pie baked and spooned it alongside each piece (see extras in the top photo).

It's not the easiest thing in the world to make, but pie never is. You will not be a fan of the time-consuming fine chopping that's involved. Once you start making this pie, people will demand that you keep making it. 

But come on. You've got to admit that my honor pie idea intrigues you.

(Unrelated: Bun is a stern taskmistress as she supervises the painting of Glass Gems 3.)

 

INGREDIENTS

• Top and bottom pie crust <-- However you want to make it: if you go with my recipe here (scroll down), use the version with the 3 cups of flour that I've written in blue pen.
• 3 celery stalks
• 3 medium carrots, peeled
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 large onion
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2 cups chicken, cooked, diced or shredded <-- Lately I've been buying big packages of 8-9 bone-in chicken thighs, which taste chicken-ier than breasts and are cheaper. I remove the skin, top them with 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of one lemon, and salt/pepper, and roast I them in a glass baking dish at 400 for 45 minutes. We eat some and save the rest for stuff like this.
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 chicken bouillon cube (optional) <--used it
• 1/4 cup white wine (optional) <-- used it
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp ground thyme <--used regular non-ground thyme
• 1 tsp kosher salt or more to taste
• black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 400. I went with 425 as that's how I bake any pie that has my kind of crust.

 

Begin by finely dicing the fresh vegetables, celery, carrots and onions. Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add the onion, carrots, celery and peas. Saute until the vegetables start to soften, a few minutes (mine always seem to take longer than that). Add the chicken and stir to combine. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables and chicken and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring gently.

 

 

Pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly. Stir in the bouillon cube and wine, if using. The flour will combine with the chicken to create a delicious gravy. Pour in the cream and stir. Allow mixture to cook over low heat, thickening gradually, about 4 minutes. I went a few minutes longer to further thicken the sauce. Season with thyme, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. Be sure it's adequately salted!

 

 

Make and roll out your top and bottom crusts (see link above). Lay the bottom pie crust in the pan and load it with the filling until it's level. Do not heap on much more than that. Roll the top crust out to 1" larger then the pan. Place the crust on top of the chicken mixture. Press the crust gently into the sides of the dish to seal. Work as quickly as you can here. The heat of the filling will make the top crust kind of hard to deal with as you seal it to the bottom crust.

 

 

Cut small slits (I.E. MAKE AN HONOR PIE WITH DECORATIVE INITIAL) in the top with a knife. You might want to work the slits into bigger gaps. I've found that skinny slits will try to seal themselves back together while the pie is baking.

 

 

Cover the outside edge of the pie with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 12-15 more minutes, or until the pie has a little color on top. But not too much. We're looking for "healthy glow," not "tanorexic."

 

 

Let it cool for 10-15 minutes and serve with extra filling. Some filling will inevitably ooze out after you cut into the pie. I like to tip the pan at a slight angle to encourage the ooze to get back to where it once belonged as it cools with mild success.

 

 

 

 

Cover and refrigerate the leftover pie. Individual slices (with extra filling) will reheat nicely in the microwave.

 

PS It finally snowed! I made a celebratory crazy cake and, since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a quick mocha ganache topping:

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped or in chip form
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 5 ounces heavy cream
• tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel (decoration)
• handful of white chocolate chips (decoration)

Put chocolate and espresso powder in a smallish bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering (small bubbles will appear along the edge of the pan). Do not boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and wait for two minutes. Whisk the mixture until you have a thick, glossy ganache. I let mine cool and thicken for about ten minutes. Pour and smooth over your cake and decorate it (or not!).

Thanks to my sister in-law Shanna for my new cake stand. I love it so much!

Mushrooms

In the same vein as my crab apples, here's a 10.5"x13.5" watercolor of some mushrooms I found growing next to a tree stump in our yard. They were hidden under some leaves, which I cleared away just a bit. This revealed all kinds of sticks and other dark plant material that was in the process of becoming our state's beautiful black topsoil. (I've known international students who have been astounded by how black our dirt is here, including one who cutely took photos of it.)

Speaking of students, when I was a high school art teacher, kids always wanted to draw, paint, and sculpt mushrooms. I assumed that most of these kids were druggies and encouraged them to become inspired by, I don't know, one of the trillion other subjects available to them on this planet. "But I don't know what else to draw! And I just really like mushrooms!" I'm sure you do.

Also they're way too easy. Come on.

Gee, what are you going to make next? An ashtray? An incense burner? A cylinder with an odd little tube coming out the side?

Mushrooms. Sheesh.

So anyway, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to paint some mushrooms!

And what a lot of work this was. I got obsessed with every square inch of it. That colorful leaf near the top took two days to finish and was challenging to say the least. Painting the mushrooms made me happy. The little ridges look difficult but they're actually pretty satisfying to create. There are so many tiny things going on here, and they're the kinds of details you never notice, like what's happening in the gaps between the leaves and the little fly (can you find it?). I tried to do them justice, but that meant mixing tiny amounts of hundreds of different colors, I'm guessing.

I posted this painting on Facebook when I finished it last week, and a few people thought I was making up some of the colors, especially the ones on the bright leaf. Those people don't live in Illinois. Most of my Illinois pals agreed that this year the foliage was just this colorful. Lurid, even! I showed Jeff's daughter Melissa my reference photo last night, and she said I should put it on my blog.

So while I pumped up the colors somewhat, in real life that leaf was still pretty loud. :)

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and I'll have a few more fall paintings to add to this series.

Crab Apples

...At least I'm pretty sure they're crab apples.

This is a 10.5"x13.5" watercolor of whatever that tree is near our garage. The fruit is very small--smaller than cherries--and it sticks around long after the leaves have fallen and turns a lovely peachy color. I've found recipes for crab apple jam and the like, but I don't want to pick them because they're so cheerful on the tree and a much-loved pop of color during the winter months. I'm also pretty sure robins eat them when they return in the spring but the ground's still frozen and no worms are about.

The painting took about a week to complete.  I painted the crab apples first because let's face it, they're adorable.

The blurry areas in the background were created using the wet-into-wet technique: I wet down each blurry section with water and dropped paint onto the wet surface, letting the colors run together. The branches and fruit in the foreground are a little tighter. To make them I put down some wet-into-wet preliminary colors, and let those sections dry before glazing over the top with deeper colors and details and adding textures with a mostly dry brush.

Here's the painting nearly finished. I still had to work on some of the branches and pump up some of the background areas with a little more color.

I thought about selling this, but it looks so great in our kitchen.

Jeff and I painted it a couple of weekends ago and added some fabulous succulents. The paint color: "barrel," which is apparently a name somebody came up with by flipping and pointing randomly in a dictionary. I think of it as "M*A*S*H," a show I can't watch because I find it visually depressing and ugly. But the paint totally works in our kitchen and dining room, and I am crazy about it. It's only when I look at "barrel" as a color swatch that I start hearing this:

 

(I couldn't find anything better than a "guy taping his television while somebody says 'Roberta' in the background" version, sorry.)

Things I like about the opening credits:

• the truck with the red cross on it moving from right to left
• the babes running toward the camera seem pretty badass
• that camo-net stuff at around 0:25

Things I don't like about the opening credits:

• depressing overhead shot of the tents or whatever they are at 0:12
• the ugly M*A*S*H font
• the guys running upstairs that just make me tired
• TOTAL POOR POSTURE between 0:30 and 0:34--I realize it's necessary but it is unappealing to watch, and Alan Alda seems especially ape-ish
• Alan Alda's shirt and hat
• the close-up of Alan Alda as seen from the patient's point of view
• super ugly Jeep ending
• the rest of it

In animal news, our backyard foxes have been especially active last week. Two of them, possibly a male and female, whom we normally see at dusk or before dawn, were playing on the deck and lounging in the leaves in broad daylight. Whenever Jeff and I spot one, we call out "FOX" to alert each other--all work stops--and we start taking pictures. These three are from Jeff.

If they've taken over last year's woodchuck den, as foxes are wont to do, an entrance is under our back porch.

Sorry about the blurriness, but they were chasing each other and they're really fast.

I hope they stay! We've noticed a decrease in the number of mice we see in the house, and it's got to be because of the foxes.

In indoor animal news, I took photos of our cats posing with Julie Klausner's book, I Don't Care About Your Band, which is hilarious. I love Julie's podcast, and last week she asked her listeners to send in photos of their cats with her book. She ended up making a slide show of listener cats, which she played during her recent live show in New York on Thursday. Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin was the soundtrack for the slide show. So please play this while you peruse the following cat photos.

 

It's been sure nice talkin' to you, Bun.

Art Show at Culver-Stockton College

"I'm not sure why, but I just don't want to blog about my show." -- me, every day since August 23.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable and borderline paranoid, and last night I finally figured out why: my paintings are on display and people are looking at them. 

Normally my paintings are safely tucked away in their owners' homes or occupying the nonjudgmental walls of our house. Until I recently framed them, eighteen of my watercolors were stored in a portfolio in my little studio, looked at by no one but me maybe once a month (to make sure they were okay).

But it's strange to know that 225 miles away, in the art gallery of a small liberal arts college, three dozen of my paintings are being seen by the eyes of strangers. Those people are reading my stories about the paintings on the title cards next to them. Most dauntingly, those people are talking about the paintings and judging them. That's just what people do. And it's going on now, and I don't get to listen to a word of it, which is undoubtedly for the best. Admittedly, I put my images up on the internet all the time and it's no big deal to me, but somehow this is different.

I don't have children, but I bet I'm going through the same emotions that parents must feel when they send their kids off to school for the first time.

Sprinkled on top of this: the nagging idea that I don't even deserve to have a show like this in the first place. Because who am I? I'm just some woman who quit her job so she could paint! Someone (I can't remember who! who was it??) recently said that having a one-person show was the art equivalent of having a book published. It's like people are reading the book that I've just started to write!

Hence the eerie silence on this blog over the past couple of weeks. Sorry about that. But now that I've been able to identify the simple problem--strangers are looking at my paintings and it's freaky--I think I can write again.

And did you see the photo up there? They put my name on the window with letter stickers and how cool is that?

Three weeks ago, Jeff and I packed 24 paintings into the trunk and back seat of the car (Jeff's 2004 Mazda 6) and took off for my parents' house, en route to Canton, Missouri. Each framed, plexiglassed watercolor was separated from its neighbors by cardboard and towels/blankets. We decided to take I-74--see the purple line on the map--instead of a more direct route to western Illinois because it was the smoothest road. I cringed whenever we hit an unavoidable bump. Would the paintings shift and scratch each other during this 300 mile odyssey?

Early in our trip west we passed this guy. I decided that his superhero name would be The Yellow Jacket.

One of my favorite landmarks on this most boring of drives is a giant DeKalb operation near Farmer CIty, which is the name of an actual town in Illinois.

That photo does not do it justice, but please know that this place is enormous. In my book, anyplace that is intimidatingly big and makes me wonder what goes on inside earns the distinction of CONCERN, as in, "We just passed the DeKalb concern." I actually look forward to seeing the DeKalb concern, and this should give you some idea of how uninteresting I-74 is.

We hit a nasty thunderstorm west of Peoria that forced us to pull over for a few minutes. Normally I love a good storm, but watercolors plus more water is a scary combination, and I imagined one of the frequent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes hitting our car, splitting the roof open, and rain pouring in and destroying my pictures. Also, we'd be electrocuted. I'm not buying the idea that cars are safe places to be in electrical storms.

After a side trip to Macomb to pick up the Mabel painting, which was being housed by her grandparents, we arrived at Mom and Dad's house at around noon. They were going to help us take some extra paintings down to Canton in their car. The weather was sunny and pleasant, and the drive was uneventful save for one hilarious carnival food idea Jeff and I had. It's too dirty to write about.

Once we found the art gallery on Culver-Stockton's very small campus, the Great Unloading began.  Gallery director Debbie Myers, a small crew of students, my pal and C-SC associate professor Terry Sherer, Jeff, my folks, and I made short work of getting the paintings into the gallery. The number of pictures emerging in a steady stream from our two-car caravan brought thoughts of clown cars to mind. Then we went right to work placing the paintings throughout the gallery, setting them on the floor. I had been given a floor plan of the space months in advance, so I was able to plan my show. I wanted to put my portraits downstairs and the florals, still lifes, and Burano pictures upstairs. Do I need to say that Jeff was amazing when it came to helping me make instant, Sophie's-level Choices when it came to my art? Because he was amazing.

Debbie and Co. then had 48 hours to hang the paintings. I didn't have to lift a finger, but I did give them a whole lot of cookies. Jeff and I were given a complimentary guest room on the building's second floor, a cute little place featuring the following print:

After looking at it for a while I Facebooked:

"We're in Culver-Stockton's complimentary guest room. The art on the wall totally says 'sex.'"

Jeff commented:

"However, the two twin beds provide a compelling counter-argument."

With two days to blow in a small town (pop. 2000) in the middle of nowhere, Jeff and I had to work to keep ourselves busy. Terry, whom you may remember from such paintings as...

...kept us amused. We love spending time with him.

Activities included:

• a side trip to Iowa City with Terry for sushi and a lecture about Haiti
• a side trip to Quincy with Terry for German food and a look at the city's beautiful homes, and
• a side trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, i.e. Mormon Jerusalem, sans Terry, who was teaching. Some photos!

Jeff looking iconic by the banks of the Mississippi River.

The rather beautiful Nauvoo temple.

Butterfly stalking.

But really, there was not much for us to do during the day, and I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my recreational reading because of the dreaded gallery talk I'd have to give on Thursday night. To make things easier, I had put together a PowerPoint presentation on my work and I had planned to give the talk in a nearby classroom. I spent all day Thursday memorizing what I was going to say to...the five people who would show up? None of my friends who might have wanted to see the show lived in the area, and anyway it was a school night, so I had no idea how that was going to go, either. A few hours before the show's opening, Jeff and I (mostly Jeff) hooked up my laptop to the existing system and dealt with the classroom's faulty projector.

Wondering how tired I must have looked, and instinctively knowing that no one would take photos of me during the show that I could later use to illustrate this blog, I snapped a quick self portrait in the semi-darkness.

Here's a better picture of me (taken by me in our house last month) with my apple blossoms. Hopefully I looked more like this on the night of my show.

The opening itself was wonderful, and I even managed to sell some work! Culver's president, its visual arts chairperson, and fine arts dean attended and had kind, generous things to say about my paintings. Art students and a smattering of local people were also there, along with a surprise appearance by my Uncle Ted and Aunt Terri.

I'm in no position to say whether I did a good job with my speech, but Terry told me, "You wowed them." He reported that one of the cute artsy girls said, "I want to be just like her." My parents, who had never seen me teach, were able to watch me talk about art and engage with young people for the first time, and they haven't stopped talking about it. The whole night whipped by in a lovely flash, and then it was over, and then I had to leave my paintings for a month. And then the aforementioned ennui set in.

Sidebar: I got the word "ennui" in a state Spelling Bee in 8th grade, and I spelled the heck out of it.

So here I am back at home. Bun continues to thrive--thanks everyone for asking about her. Saturday she wedged herself into a very small basket. Pardon my thumb; she wasn't in there for long.

After spending his birthday helping me schlep art all over the tri-state area, as opposed to having fun in Spain, my husband is happy to be home, too. Thank you very much for all you do for me, Jeff!

If you're in the Canton, MO, area for some reason, my show will be up until September 23. The gallery is open M-F, 9-5.

Gelateria

I'm calling my newest painting Gelateria, pronounced jell-ah-ter-EE-a, which is where you can buy gelato*. Gelato is something you should eat while you're in Italy if you want your entire concept of "good ice cream" to be ruined forever. Trust me: if you've never had gelato, you don't know what good ice cream is. And I'm not bragging here. What's happened to me is tragic. Ever since I've eaten this stuff, no American ice cream comes close to measuring up. I am doomed to be forever dissatisfied.

Plus it's so beautiful! The Italians' presentation of their gelato puts our ice cream shops to shame. You're not going to see chunks of hard ice cream at the bottom of some big cardboard-y bucket in Italy.

No. You're going to see voluptuous, swirly mounds of perfect-texture ice cream decorated with fresh ingredients and little name cards and dripping with sauces.

So that's why I wanted to paint it. This is a big painting, around 20"x28", and it took me a couple of weeks to finish (although last week was crazy around here; I think I had one good painting day). I started in the upper-left corner and snaked my way around to the cherry-topped behemoth in the lower-left corner. Here's the painting at the end of Day 2.

I wish I would have taken more in-progress photos. Where was my mind? I must have lost it after painting seven Elenka dipping spoons (what are those called, exactly?).

Painting the chocolate sauce was so satisfying. I painted the vanilla ice cream first, with its blue and yellow shadows, and after it dried I topped it with fudgy brown paint, almost exactly the same way you might apply hot fudge to an actual sundae.

I knew the swirls and ridges in each flavor of gelato would be challenging but no worse than anything else I've painted lately. I painted the melon gelato a couple of days ago while Jeff and Melissa watched Rango in the living room directly below my painting table. I listened to my iPod in an attempt to drown out the movie's beyond-obnoxious soundtrack, but I could still hear the movie's explosions, stampedes, and, I dunno, volcanoes, earthquakes, and rocket launches roaring below me. I could also feel them through the floor. I have never painted under worse sonic conditions, but I was behind schedule on the picture and wanted to catch up. So that melon gelato was painted by one highly annoyed but stoic woman.

This picture concludes my 4-month painting spree in preparation for my show at Culver-Stockton College eleven days from now. CSC is in Canton, Missouri,a small town in the northeast corner of the state. More info about that is here:

http://www.facebook.com/ev​ent.php?eid=23135170690198​5

If you can make it, please come to my opening on August 25 at 7:00 p.m.! All of my new paintings and some of my older ones will be on display. I realize that most of my friends (a) live 200+ miles away, (b) are teachers just starting the school year, and/or (c) are parents of young children just starting the school year. But if you live in or are visiting the tri-state area and would like to look at a whole lot of my watercolors for free, I'd love to see you there! The show will be up until September 23.

*Plural of gelato is gelati, and I dislike the sound of that word so much that I had no other choice than to call this Gelateria, although that word kind of bugs me, too. No reason.

In animal husbandry news, Bun continues to thrive after her visit to the U of I Veterinary Teaching Hospital about a month ago. I'm so happy with her progress! I almost hate to say this because I don't want to jinx it, but her procedure seems to have fixed her other problems, too. We're managing her condition with meds and special food, and she seems so much happier. Here Bun is sitting at our dining room table, where apparently we have all kinds of magazines lying around. We were eating homemade sushi, which was relevant to Bun's interests.

Another thing Bun is loving: watching water in the bathroom sink.

Quixote digs it, too.

Finally, earlier this week Jeff and I visited the Prairie Fruits Farm, where we purchased some goat cheese and their exceptional peach sorbet, which we'd rank right up there with Italian gelato but not quite as this was sorbet and sorbet is easier. While at the farm, we had a brush with goatness.

Eggplants

Ha! I did it. Four paintings in two weeks. I saved these eggplants for last because I figured they'd be the fastest/easiest to complete, and I was wrong. They were every bit as time-consuming as the other three, but at least the color palette was limited here. Want to see what my paint water looked like at the end of the first day?

Behold!

"It looks like Prince in liquid form," I told Rob, a friend and fellow fan. It also looks like it would taste absolutely delicious and should be poured into a fancy glass and decorated with multiple goofy garnishes.

I'm always drawn to the bins of shiny eggplants in the produce section of any grocery store, aren't you? Is there a more beautiful-strange vegetable? I enjoyed painting the eggplants' irregularities and light-colored longitudinal streaks. As with my watercolor of cream puffs, I think this picture looks best when viewed at a distance; up close it becomes abstract in a hurry. But I love how aggressively purple it is. Right now it's propped up against a wall near a couple of my Burano paintings, and my eyes go to that little badass first every time.

But maybe that's just because it's new.

In other news, my unimpressive attempt at tomato gardening took a tragic turn earlier this week when my single plant and its lone tomato were ravaged by caterpillars. I have titled the following photos--a diptych, if you will--Nature's Bounty.

I assume that the caterpillars exploded before they were able to finish the tomato.

Bun update: she's basically back to normal, hooray! Here she is sitting on Jeff's lap with her brother Quixote and her sister Hypatia in a touching photo I've titled Suffer The Little Kitties To Come Unto Me.

I love Pache's face there. And here's a bonus shot of her adoring Jeff.