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.

Studio Assistant

Finished just in time to be included in my Jacksonville show, here's Studio Assistant. This is a 13.5"x10.5" watercolor that I thought I might finish in just a few days, but it actually took about twice that long. Jeff and I kept getting interrupted with errands, voting, family responsibilities, home improvement projects, etc. Also, there's a lot more to this painting than I had originally thought. Little containers filled with paintbrushes take some time! Bun was in fact the easiest part of this painting--I think this is the sixth time I've painted her. Example:

Bun has always enjoyed watching me paint. Back when she was very young, she liked to bat at the end of my paintbrush or pen...

Sometimes she'd even lounge on in-progress paintings.

Since then she has taken on a more supervisory role...

...and is now my toughest critic and harsh taskmaster.

(Apologies for posting that photo yet again. I'm just crazy about it.)

One day last fall Bun hopped up on my painting table, and she seemed to be posing for me. I took a few photos before she moved on to more pressing matters.

This photo captured Bun's seriousness and illustrated how surprisingly small she is. In certain situations, sometimes her head can appear to be too big for her body, and that is adorable.

The photo was great, but the lamp was in the way. So I edited and moved a few things to create a vertical composition.

Clockwise from the top left corner:

• Some (fake) poppies in a vase made by a grad school acquaintance--he gave it to me in exchange for a ceramic mask I had made.
• Metal sign with a giant letter R (used to advertise a Robert Rauschenberg exhibition). In my Match.com profile, I mentioned that R is the most attractive letter because it has it all: curve, straight line, diagonal. And that's probably the top reason why Jeff decided to contact me.
• Beloved Achewood comic strip discussing the awfulness of the Comic Sans font. Contains bad language.
• Bun
• The panel behind her seems to mimic her tabby pattern.
• My water container. The lid says "Fido" and claims to be made in Italy.
• Plastic ruler I can't seem to find at the moment.
• Raku turquoise dish holding paint tubes. I wish they were arranged more attractively.
• One of the first ceramic containers I've ever made--a blue string of pearls loops around it.
• My graphic design professor made the larger container, and he gave it to my watercolor professor, and he gave it to me. Inside: pencils, an old brush, a couple of screwdrivers, and a Ralph Wiggum thing you can put on your car's antenna.

Prints of this painting are now available here on Imagekind. But before you go, let's enjoy some Ralph quotes.

 

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.

Planets and Foil

Keeping me busy for the past couple of weeks: marbles on a crumpled sheet of foil. I had originally planned to paint marbles on a mirror, but obviously that was an exercise in futility as the marbles wouldn't stop rolling around. I thought the foil was a nice compromise: it was still mirror-like, but I was able to make little nests for each marble. The reflections were a lot more interesting than those on a flat mirror, and, of course, tougher to paint.

This painting is as large as I can go at 21"x29", and the individual marbles were so big that Jeff and I started to refer to them as planets. (There are indeed nine of them if you still count Pluto, and how can you not?) So instead of calling this Marbles and Foil, Jeff suggested I title it Planets and Foil. Good idea, Jeff!

Painting at the speed of one marble per day, I gloried in the weirdness of the marbles'/planets' swirls and sparkly bits. Jeff's daughter let me use some of her marbles for this, including the one I figured was Jupiter, the large orange and purple marble on the left side. This had an unusually reflective, almost metallic surface and took two and a half days to finish.

The mighty red one reminded me of a sneering Daffy Duck's beak. I started finding all kinds of things that reminded me of other things as I worked. You find yourself doing this when you stare at a single marble all day long.

I love this painting a lot, although it took some time before I felt like I really had something here. I finished all of the marbles first, and they seemed kind of flat until I added the foil. Once I painted the foil section directly to the right of the yellow marble and the hazy background shapes, the picture suddenly had some depth and different levels. The painting quickly went from ho-hum to(I think) one of the best paintings I've ever created.

A few days ago I used an iPhone photo of this painting to illustrate a blog post for my upcoming show. The great and powerful Roger Ebert tweeted about that post. As is always the case when he does something like that, new people came out of the woodwork and visited my blog, including my new friend Bob from Nashville. From here he landed on my art website, bought a painting, and in the email volley that followed, he bought Planets and Foil and commissioned me to paint a watercolor of his sailboat. Pretty sweet deal! I asked Roger what kind of percentage he expected to earn from this big windfall, and he said that he wanted Jeff and me to attend Ebertfest next month, kindly providing us with passes. Fantastic! Jeff is ecstatic that one of the movies is Joe Vs. the Volcano. I'm loving the fact that Patton Oswald volunteered to introduce and discuss Kind Hearts and Coronets the night before the festival proper begins. "What a mensch," said Roger of Patton.

You can buy prints of Planets and Foil (any size you like, from wee to mural) by clicking here.

In case you missed the post about my show in Jacksonville, Illinois, try this.

If you like to click bossy little banners, here you go!

 

And finally, please send good healing vibes to our sweet little cat Hypatia, a.k.a. Pache, a.k.a. Pache-Pache, seen here during a goofier time when she was wearing her "too-pay." We took her to the vet a while back because she had a nasty cold, and as her doctor was checking Pache out, she discovered two badly infected molars and many missing teeth. She told us that dental problems like this were surprisingly common with cats and that the molars were probably causing her pain and would have to come out.

After her cold was over, we took Pache back to have her dental work taken care of yesterday, and while she was "under" the vet noticed bad problems with the rest of her teeth. They all had to go! Poor baby Pache-Pache has no teeth now! We brought her home this morning, and after some understandable, brief freakouts with the other cats and an entire afternoon spent napping by a sunny window, she seems better. She's curled up next to me right now, enjoying the warm breeze of my laptop's fan. Pache's doctor said that she should still be able to eat with her Muppet-like mouth--plenty of cats do it. Still, what an ordeal for our tiny cross-eyed girl! I feel so bad for her!

Jeff thinks she looks like the Abominable Snowman.

Sigh. Here's the bossy banner one more time.

Please come to my show!

I'm excited to announce that my watercolors will soon be on display in a one-person show at the David Strawn Art Gallery, including this brand new painting called Planets and Foil. (Info about this painting is coming soon, and I know they're not planets.) The gallery is at 331 W. College Ave in Jacksonville, Illinois, which is a small-ish college town located between Springfield and St. Louis.

The show opens on Saturday, March 31 from 6-8 pm. Want to see me give a five-minute mini talk about my work? Be there at 6:30. See the woman on the far left (photo found via Google image search)? That'll be me, and I hope one of those other people will be you.

Apparently a friend of a friend passed my name along to the powers that be at the gallery, and they invited me to display my work. I've never been to the Strawn before, and I couldn't find many photos of the gallery's interior except for the one above, but I do know the building looks like this:

I'm already crazy about this place.

I'll be giving a (sold-out) watercolor workshop at the gallery most of Saturday--similar to the one described here--and the show opens that evening. It will be a long day for me, but hopefully it will also be a lot of fun.

I'm hoping the gallery's regulars will attend the opening, and I know my family and some area friends plan to show up, including such Alizarine superstars as Poof, Jeff, Mom, Dad, Tyler, Terry, Melinda (possibly Kate and Mabel too), along with other fabulous people possibly unbeknownst to you such as Kendra, Zinnia, Chris, Jenny, Rob, Melanie, my young penpal Grace, Jay, TA, Annie, and hopefully many more people to whom I sent postcards. Bun will not be there, but she does star in three paintings, one of which I am working on right now.

And I'd love to see you! Please, if you are in the area and are the least bit curious about my paintings, come to the show. It's free!

You'd better believe we'll have refreshments including unnamed mystery snacks provided by volunteers, soft drinks, and fancy fancy wine. Come for the art, but stay for the snacks and especially the harp music that will be rocking the gallery all night long.

If you can't attend the big opening, my work will still be at the gallery during the month of April (click here for hours).

One of my new paintings, Glass Gems 3, will be at the gallery for the opening, but after that I'll need to take it home. It's been accepted for the Illinois Watercolor Society's national exhibition, which is terrific, but unfortunately there's some overlap with the Strawn show. I will replace the original with a print that will look just like it, thanks to the wonderful printmakers at Imagekind. Please visit Imagekind if you would like to purchase a print of any of my paintings--see this post for details (scroll way down).

Thanks as always for reading my blog, and I hope you can come to my show! (Excuse the bossiness of this banner.)

The Graduates

I'd like to introduce you to my club! Meet Annabelle and Emily, a couple of former students of mine. When I made the decision to end my teaching career and become a full-time artist last year, these two missed me and took the initiative to form an independent art club. I'm calling them co-presidents. Co-queens!

We meet at Cafe Kopi, a local coffee shop, four times a year (at the start of each new season). At our meetings, I give my former students new projects to work on just for fun, and then we sit around talking about our current artistic endeavors and anything else that comes to mind. We also enjoy coffee drinks and homemade snacks. Like most clubs, this one started out kind of big and has since reduced in size to its hardcore, founding members.This little club has touched my heart, and I've enjoyed mentoring Annabelle and Emily.

I have a one-person show coming up at the end of March, and I wanted to add a new, big portrait to my collection, and...I can't remember what made me decide to paint the girls, other than obviously I needed to paint them. They're so beautiful. Annabelle reminds me of Natalie Portman here, and Emily's more like Nicole Kidman coloring-wise, so that contrast was wonderful to play with.

But in the end, this painting is actually a tribute to my favorite movie about teenage alienation, Ghost World. If you don't know what Ghost World is, here you go.

 

Annabelle is Rebecca, Emily is Enid, and I guess that must make me Seymour.

But back to the painting.

This is the painting after two days. The girls are gazing out a window in the coffee shop. Annabelle has a sort of dreamy expression, and Emily seems a little skeptical, maybe.

A couple of days later, I had started to add their surroundings. Painting portraits can be a little stressful, so I worked on their faces in the morning when I had fresh eyes and the background in the afternoon as fatigue set in.

The cafe has red doorways that were delicious to paint. Cadmium red light is a miracle color. A blurry man who reminds me of Paul Gauguin sits outside at a table beneath an awning decorated with colored lights.

I told Annabelle and Emily to wear something that would be challenging for me to paint, and they did not disappoint! Plaid and floral patterns are no joke but are so worth the time. You can see the beginning stages of Annabelle's buffalo check shirt on her rolled-up sleeve. This was no ordinary watercolor plaid shirt. The colors were such that I had to paint each square individually instead of layering glazes. In other words, it was hard. Emily's shirt would have been easier to paint had the print been bigger. The tiny roses were tedious!

I saved the table for last because I knew it would go quickly. The reflections involved a lot of wet-into-wet sections, and the damp paper did a lot of the work for me.

During my last days of painting, I told Jeff that the background reminded me of "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" by Charles Demuth.

"You think in color," he said. I guess I do!

And I also have a big announcement.

In the past I've offered two of my paintings as giclee prints (Burano Glass and Poppies), which are exact digital copies of my paintings on watercolor paper. I'm excited to announce that I've branched out: now you can buy ALL of my paintings as prints.

All of them, including this one!

I've joined a site called Imagekind, as you can see on the sidebar to the right. I have an actual ad on here!

My galleries are at http://KellyEddington.imagekind.com .

Imagekind allows you the freedom to buy prints in a variety of sizes and formats. Maybe you want The Graduates to be iPad-sized. Maybe you want it to be a poster. Maybe you want it framed. Maybe you don't. Maybe you want it on expensive paper. Maybe you want something cheaper. Maybe you even want to see it on a canvas. You can do any of these things! A couple of my friends have purchased my prints from Imagekind, and they report that the process is fast and easy. Imagekind ships internationally, too!

Note: I'm not going to get rich off this venture, but every little bit helps. I'd like you to think of this ol' blog as your Watercolor 'n' Recipe NPR or your Watercolor 'n' Kitty PBS, and baby, this is my pledge drive! Have I given you a recipe that you use all the time now? Have I posted a painting you'd like to see on your wall if the original wasn't so freaking expensive? Would you like to help me buy Bun's high fiber food and expensive drugs that keep things moving along? Please consider buying one of my prints. You'll get something new you can hang on your wall and you can feed and drug my cat!

Double Note: If you buy a print for $20, please know that I will receive $10. I earn an additional 15% commission on any frames, so if a frame costs $100, I'll receive $15. It takes a while before I'll see the money (to give customers time for returns), and if you buy something I won't automatically know that you did it. So feel free to leave a comment here or talk to me on Twitter (@kellyeddington)!

Triple note: the settings that pop up automatically are the ones I'd personally suggest (Hahnemule Torchon paper is the most like watercolor paper, for example), but you can change them at will. Hate the frame I've selected? Want a different mat? Do what you like!

Quadruple note: the premise to the cartoon below is that the man was making cool donuts shaped like planes.

Please buy my doughplanes. Thanks in advance!

Cheap Cioppino a.k.a. Cheappino!

A couple of years ago I posted a recipe for cioppino, a tomato-based seafood stew that was easy to make but a little expensive. It is pronounced like this. My recipe called for a pound of shrimp and a pound of scallops, and if you buy those around here they'll cost about $15 plus they'll be frozen and sometimes even a tiny bit funky when defrosted. I'm lookin' at you, scallops. Unacceptable.

But we still want cioppino all the time (and so does Bun).

So Jeff came up with a compromise: ditch the shrimp and scallops entirely and load up on the much cheaper tinned mussels. He became obsessed with mussels after he took a business trip to Belgium a few years ago, by the way. That country ruined french fries (frites) for him, too. We try mussels at every restaurant we can, and they've even inspired a painting.

The tinned mussels that we buy are a far cry from that kind of thing, but the red oil they're packed in really makes this dish great, and we found we don't miss the shrimp and scallops. We bought the mussels at Meijer, a Midwestern superstore similar to Wal-mart. The package looks like this, and we bought two of them for around $1.80 each:

Jeff says, "These are by no means the best mussels you can eat. But for the price, they impart a lot of flavor and have a good mouth-feel." Here's what one looks like (sorry about the blur):

Yesterday afternoon Jeff and I threw the cheappino together, let it mellow out on the stove, and ate it that evening with a baguette (Artisan Take & Bake French baguette, which was terrific).

I suggest you pair the cheappino with some cheap pinot.

 

Or not! I don't know anything about wine.

REVISED! INGREDIENTS

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 C chopped onion <-- this was one huge Vidalia onion, but it's more like one or two regular ones
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 medium stalks celery, finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (8 oz.) bottle clam juice
• 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
• 1/2 C chicken broth
• 1 T red wine vinegar
• 2 1/2 t Italian seasoning
• 1 t Old Bay seasoning <-- optional, I just felt like tossing some in
• 1/4 t sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (10 oz or so) can baby clams, undrained
• 2 (small, sardine-like) tins of mussels in spicy red pepper oil
• 1/4 C chopped Italian parsley
• salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil in a large dutch oven or similar soup pot.  Add the onion, red pepper flakes, celery, garlic, and a little salt and pepper.  Saute until the vegetables are soft.

Add the diced tomatoes, clam juice, tomato paste, chicken broth, red wine vinegar, Italian seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, sugar, and bay leaf and heat through.  You can let it simmer for a while if you've got other things going on.  The sauce will thicken a bit.

Add the clams, mussels, and parsley.  Let everything heat up and adjust salt and pepper, if necessary. 

You can eat this immediately or you can let the flavors marry for as long as you like on the stove.

Even without the shrimp and scallops, your big-eyed cat will still totally want you to share this with her.

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).

Glass Gems 3

More than any other painting I've made, this one looks like it would taste incredible if licked, like some kind of Willy Wonka fantasy candy. But I've got to think that saliva would do bad things to a watercolor.

These are, once again, glass gems, a.k.a. the stuff you can put in floral arrangements and aquariums. Under ho-hum circumstances, they look like this:

But stack them next to a window and get them under the right kind of lights and they become magically delicious. I've said this so many times: I love what light can do to glass.

I've been obsessed with this painting for two weeks. It's as big as I can go at 21"x29", so each gem is about the size of a dinner plate. I had fun with the crazy variety of colors in this one, from Opera to Permanent Green Light, which I almost never get to use. The white, eye-like ovals are my small table lamp. You can see my hands in the bottom gems and window reflections at 9 o'clock on a lot of them.

Obviously (or not?) I have to use photographs for this kind of painting. I can't imagine our cats seeing a pile of these things--which are hard to stack--poised on the edge of a table and not feel the need to knock them over. In case you missed this photo of Bun helping me paint, here's what my setup looks like:

 

I use my laptop to zoom in on micro-details while Bun glares at me. That's because Bun is old school, I'm afraid. While I am loyal to what I see in my photos, I tend to pump up colors and edit the image as I work. Each whole gem took a day to paint, and each had its own abstract weirdness with which to contend, so I was never bored.

The red gem seems to be the brains of this operation--part of it actually kind of looks like a brain--and it influences its neighboring gems. My favorite section of the painting is in this neighborhood:

Like Bun, Jeff sometimes checks in to see how I'm doing, and his top comment for this painting was, "Aliens." (Jeff is alien-school. He has an entire bookcase devoted to science fiction.) He likes the pink gem on the left which is probably the weirdest one.

Taste the rainbow!

I think Glass Gems 3 is a prime candidate for a giclee print, and I'm currently toying with the idea of offering it in two sizes, small and large. If I wanted to offer a near full-size print (around 21"x29"), the end cost to customers would be at least in the $100-$125 dollar range (***guessing***) if I wanted to make any kind of profit. Smaller prints would be in the $75 range. I really think this deserves to be big, though. Even unframed and just tipped against my studio wall, it has quite a presence. Please let me know if you'd be interested in jumbo gems (or small gems), and if enough people respond, I'll get going on that!

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!