Alizarine

Bunny, our beloved cat, 2001-2014

Hi readers--I'm back. If you were waiting for me to update this blog and had almost given up, thanks for sticking around. I fell out of writing around the time my YouTube channel started to ramp up. It simply took on a life of its own, and all of my creative juices that were not being consumed by painting went into producing those time-consuming videos.

Also it's been a tumultuous winter and spring for Jeff and me. Back in December we decided that this four bedroom house was too big for just the two of us. We bought a piece of property and plan to build a smaller house in the woods near Mark Twain Lake in northeast Missouri. This spring has been all about simplifying what we have and preparing our big house for sale. Our initial plan was to sell the house quickly and begin building, well, NOW, but we're having trouble finding a buyer. As you may know, our house is unique, and it's going to take a unique person/couple/family to take it on. Finding them is going to take some time.

And then...Bunny.

Her health was in decline this spring, and, well...I'm heartbroken to write that she didn't make it. Earlier today I posted this tribute to Bun on my Facebook page, and I thought I should repost it here.

Bunny entered my life in 2001, just a month after 9/11. She was a tiny, tiny tailless stray cat, maybe 5 months old, and after a short flirtation period where she stalked and hid from me every day when I came home from work, she decided she wanted me to be her mama and literally jumped into my lap one morning.

She followed me upstairs to my apartment. I sat on the top step, she hopped onto my lap again, and I named her Bunny.

She was my faithful companion throughout my thirties and halfway through my forties, during times when I was very sad and times when I was so happy I couldn't quite believe it. She licked my tears and sat on my chest until I felt better. I talked to her and took care of her and poured all of my love into her.

She even helped me with my U2 cartoon sometimes, and because of this she has fans around the world. Once she received a love letter from a cat in Texas who proposed marriage, but Bun was a young thing and could not leave her mother.

She enjoyed watching me draw and paint, and this shot (taken by my sister Emily) became the reference photo for my self-portrait.

She loved nothing more than to cuddle up on the couch, and she'd stay there for hours.

It was like she instinctively knew what kind of poses were cutest.

After I married Jeff, Bun moved with me to the house in St. Joseph where she spent her happiest years. Here she is with her new brother Quixote. They are both dipping into some catnip, which Bun simply ate.

Bun's sister Hypatia, or Pache, was awesomely cross-eyed in this photo. It always makes Jeff and me laugh.

I had imagined that Bun would become best friends with her new siblings, but that never really happened. She was so bonded to Jeff and me, and I think she viewed us as the two big cats she wanted to be with the most.

But occasionally I'd catch them together, coexisting peacefully.

A few years ago, we bought a leather couch and chair with an ottoman. Bun immediately claimed the ottoman as her own.

Jeff--it's so odd to see him with dark hair now!--loved to hold Bunny "like a baby," and watching them together like this was my favorite thing in the world.

So cute.

Bun was a world-class couch snuggler. She would wedge herself beside either Jeff or me, her head resting against a hip, and stay there for entire evenings.

 I simply could not get over how adorable she was. Here's Bun in her perfect croissant formation.

This is one of Jeff's favorite Bun photos--she is attempting to steal some seafood from my bowl. Sharing food with Bun is something I will miss so much--we did it at almost every meal. She usually waited for me to dole out tiny bites, but this cioppino was different!

Bun loved it when Jeff and I started working from home in 2010, and she made sure we stayed on task.

Bun's little face and form demanded the occasional costume, including this sweatshirt Jeff found on a stuffed animal.

One Halloween, Bun was the baby Jesus and Jeff was Mary. I laughed so hard during this photo session. It lasted approximately five seconds.

Bunderwoman was really our finest hour.

Bun tribute cookie.

Bun tribute snow sculpture.

Bun had three healthy years, but at around age four she started having problems related to her not having a tail. They required constant monitoring and medicine, and she became well-known and loved at our local animal hospital. Back when their records were still on paper, Bun's file was huge compared with everyone else's.

Back in July 2011, Bun had to have major surgery at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital. She met her friend Dr. Blake, who saved her life and prescribed medication and food that helped Bun live for three more years. Remarkably, Blake has kept in touch since then, and Jeff and I are so thankful for his care and expertise.

This is Bun after returning home from the U of I. Jeff personally took over her medicine routine, which meant he had to dose her orally using a syringe multiple times per day. She took it like a champ and never fought him. In fact, I think it brought them closer together.

Another Jeff initiative: outsidies. We took Bun on supervised walkabouts around the house and yard on afternoons during the spring, summer, and fall. She adored it. I worried that she would start clawing at the door and meowing nonstop for outsidies all the timies, but she appreciated a routine and was fine with having time outdoors once a day.

She mostly stayed on walkways.

With occasional trips out into the yard where she was a mighty huntress.

Her fur was such beautiful camouflage, and I'd often lose track of her, saying, "Where's Bun?" only to find that she was right beside me, blending into a tree trunk or the dirt.

In the summer our yard becomes so lush and forest-like. Bun had fun exploring, and as always, she seemed so small! She was only a 7-pound cat in a kind of perpetual adolescence.

When she was especially blissed out, Bun would roll on her back and expose her glorious belly.

I used to carry her to the banks of the Salt Fork River, accessible via our neighbor's yard. This was an especially warm November afternoon, and we sat there listening to music for a long time.

Spring seemed to take forever to arrive this year, and this was the first day of outsidies for Bun.

At age 13, she knew how to pose and work with the lighting to her advantage. I gasped at how gorgeous this photo turned out.

I was happy that Bun got to see another spring. Over the past month, her health deteriorated. She had to visit the vet repeatedly. She became lethargic, lost weight, and her vision was not what it used to be.

This is the last really good photo I took of Bun. It was a few weeks ago. Then on Sunday we noticed that her breathing had become shallow and rapid, and she had taken on an unusual posture with her head stretched out in front. She seemed to be almost completely blind, and she had apparently been covering this condition by staying close to Jeff or me as we moved around the house.

She had a standing Monday morning appointment at the vet, but before that she managed to take an uninterrupted nap in the library in a sunbeam. I've painted her in that pose before. Once at the vet, we noticed that one of her eyes was bloodshot, and Bun's doctor confirmed that she had a heart murmur and...it was time. We held Bun like a baby and kissed her and told her we loved her and she was so brave and it was so hard.

And Jeff and I are beside ourselves with grief. Our beautiful girl is gone. Her suffering and fear is over and she is at peace. She is irreplaceable, and if you've lost a beloved pet, you know what this is like. We see her everywhere. We hear little noises in the house and think it's her. But she's missing. I have often said that every day with this special creature was a gift. I never took her for granted, and neither did Jeff. To us Bun was simply "She."

"She's hungry." "She's in the bedroom." "She loves you so much."

She was the best girl.

Thanks to Jeff, my parents, Jeff's parents, and Bun's doctors, and anyone who cared for and fell in love with this one-of-a-kind cat. The St. Joseph Animal Hospital gave her so much love and compassion yesterday and every time she was there. We are extremely fortunate to have them only a short walk from our house.

Thanks to Jeff's daughter Melissa, his parents, and my @U2 family for sending flowers, and over 1,400 messages of sympathy we've received this week from around the world. And thanks to you for reading this.

I love you Bun. ;;;;;;;;;

Bunny In Her Basket

Oh Alizarine, my poor blog, I owe you about a day's worth of writing. Lately most of my creative energy has been funneled into my YouTube channel and just plain painting. I haven't forgotten about you. I will try to catch up this weekend!

Today's big news, as you can see, is that I've done another painting of Bunny. We recently celebrated our 12th Bunniversary (the day she decided she didn't want to be a stray kitten anymore and thought she'd team up with me) on Columbus Day.

Bun's having a pretty good autumn. I continue to take her on supervised walkabouts around the house, and her latest obsession is mole hunting. A few days ago I drew this on our kitchen chalkboard:

(She caught three and scared the hell out of one.)

This new painting was a quickie: I painted the background and basket on Tuesday and Bun on Wednesday. Fur takes a lot less time to paint than skin or petals or shiny stuff or just about anything else, apparently. You can watch me speed paint Bun on my new video, available here.

 

Are you subscribing to my channel yet? Please do. YouTube gives me, like, a shiny new penny for every subscriber I get. (I'm not sure how much money I make that way, actually. I do know that it's chump change, but chump change adds up.)

Want me to paint a pet of yours in a similarly cute way? Facebook me. Tweet at me. Let me know!

And you can also buy a Bun print here!

Thanks as always for reading and watching my stuff.

Jeff's Birthday Cake

Jeff's birthday is one week away, and we're all pretty excited about it.

Well, at least I am. And I felt like making the ultimate birthday cake. I've also been wanting to try out Christina Tosi's homemade Funfetti cake for about nine months. The concept behind it--let's spend hours baking something that normally takes about five minutes to throw together--is, if you think about it, so me. I'm the kind of person who will spend a month painting a watercolor while my contemporaries blithely turn out splashy creations at the rate of one per day. What is my problem?

That's a question for another time. But this recipe results in something that accurately duplicates yet is better than your standard Funfetti-with-canned-frosting cake because it has the secret ingredients of love and toil and dude I spent my entire Friday afternoon making this for you. It also has some crunchy things happening that you won't get anywhere else. Christina Tosi is a wonderful maniac for putting this recipe together. Her Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook is by far my favorite cookbook this year and is definitely in my all-time top five. Look: it contains a recipe for something called "liquid cheesecake" and it's everything you imagine it to be. Buy this book. Learn from it. Worship it.

Here's the giant recipe. My notes are in italics, and I apologize for the wonky format. It's a Typepad problem.

Birthday Cake
makes 1 quarter sheet pan

• 4 tablespoons (½ stick, 55g) butter, at room temperatue
• ⅓ cup (60g) vegetable shortening
• 1¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons (50g) light brown sugar, tightly packed
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup (110g) buttermilk
• ⅓ cup (65g) grapeseed oil  <-- vegetable oil also works
  
• 2 teaspoons (8g) clear vanilla extract  <-- regular vanilla also works
  
• 2 cups (245g) cake flour
• 1½ teaspoons (6g) baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon (3g) kosher salt
• ¼ cup (50g) rainbow sprinkles
• Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)
• 2 tablespoons (25g) rainbow sprinkles

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine the butter, shortening, and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs, and mix on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl once more.

On low speed, stream in the buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and paddle for 4 to 6 minutes, until the mixture is practically white, twice the size of your original fluffy butter-and-sugar mixture, and completely homogenous. Don’t rush the process. You’re basically forcing too much liquid into an already fatty mixture that doesn’t want to make room for the liquid. There should be no streaks of fat of liquid. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

On very low speed, add the cake flour, baking powder, salt, and the 50g (¼ cup) rainbow sprinkles. Mix for 45 to 60 seconds, just until your batter comes together. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Please note: the batter is delicious. Jeff popped into the kitchen and ate, I don't know, two tablespoons of it.

Pam-spray a quarter sheet pan and line it with parchment, or just line the pan with a Silpat. Using a spatula, spread the cake batter in an even layer in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining 25g (2 tablespoons) rainbow sprinkles evenly on top of the batter.

Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes. The cake will rise and puff, doubling in size, but will remain slightly buttery and dense. At 30 minutes, gently poke the edge of the cake with your finger: the cake should bounce back slightly and the center should no longer be jiggly. Leave the cake in the oven for an extra 3 to 5 minutes if it doesn’t pass these tests. My cake took 30 minutes to bake completely.

Take the cake out of the oven and cool on a wire rack or, in a pinch, in the fridge or freezer (don’t worry, it’s not cheating). The cooled cake can be stored in the fridge, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 5 days.

Birthday Cake Soak
makes about 60g (¼ cup)

• ¼ cup (55g) milk
• 1 teaspoon (4g) clear vanilla extract

Whisk together the milk and vanilla in a small bowl.

Birthday Cake Frosting
makes about 430g (2 cups)

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick, 115g) butter, at room temperature
• ¼ cup (50g) vegetable shortening
• 2 ounces (55g) cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon (25g) glucose  <-- I got mine on Amazon
  
• 1 tablespoon (18g) corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon (12g) clear vanilla extract  <-- regular vanilla works too
  
• 1¼ cups (200g) confectioners’ sugar
• ½ teaspoon (2g) kosher salt
• pinch (0.25g) baking powder  <-- what an idea!
  
• pinch (0.25g) citric acid  <-- I got mine on Amazon
  

Combine the butter, shortening, and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

With the mixer on its lowest speed, stream in the glucose, corn syrup, and vanilla. Crank the mixer up to medium-high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is silky smooth and a glossy white. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the confectioners’ sugar, salt, baking powder, and citric acid and mix on low speed just to incorporate them into the batter. Crank the speed back up to medium-high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, until you have a brilliant stark white, beautifully smooth frosting. It should look just like it came out of a plastic tub at the grocery store! Use the frosting immediately, or store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Birthday Cake Crumb
makes for 275g (2¼ cups)

• ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
• 1½ tablespoons (25g) light brown sugar, tightly packed
• ¾ cup (90g) cake flour
• ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
• ½ teaspoon (2g) kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons (20g) rainbow sprinkles
• ¼ cup (40g) grapeseed oil  <-- vegetable oil also works
  
• 1 tablespoon (12g) clear vanilla extract  <-- again, regular works
  

Heat the oven to 300°F.

Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, salt, and sprinkles in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed until well combined.

Add the oil and vanilla and paddle again to distribute. The wet ingredients will act as glue to help the dry ingredients form small clusters; continue paddling until that happens.

Spread the cluster on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 20 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly moist to the touch; they will dry and harden as they cool.

Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or scarfing by the handful. Oh you will want to do that. You can get away with eating maybe 1/4 cup of them. This recipe makes a lot. Stored in an airtight container, the crumbs will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.

Assembly

You will need a 6" cake ring and two 20"x3" pieces of acetate. Come on. I know you don't have them. Add them to your Amazon wish list along with the glucose and the citric acid, hopefully get them for Christmas or your birthday, and wait for an excuse to use them.

Put a piece of parchment or a Silpat on the counter. Invert the cake onto it and peel off the parchment or Silpat from the bottom of the cake. Use a 6" cake ring to stamp out 2 circles from the cake. These are your top 2 cake layers. The remaining cake “scrap” will come together to make the bottom layer of the cake.

- layer 1, the bottom -

Clean the cake ring and place it in the center of a sheet pan lined with clean parchment or a Silpat. Use 1 strip of acetate to line the inside of the cake ring.

Put the cake scraps in the ring and use the back of your hand to tamp the scraps together into a flat even layer.

Dunk a pastry brush in the birthday cake soak and give the layer of cake a good, healthy bath of half of the soak.

Use the back of a spoon to spread one-fifth of the frosting in an even layer over the cake.

Sprinkle one-third of the birthday crumbs evenly over the top of the frosting. Use the back of your hand to anchor them in place.

Use the back of a spoon to spread a second fifth of the frosting as evenly as possible over the crumbs. This is quite impossible. Give it your best shot and try not to get too uptight about it. Neatness doesn't really matter.

- layer 2, the middle -

With your index finger, gently tuck the second strip of acetate between the cake ring and the top ¼ inch of the first strip of acetate, so that you have a clear ring of acetate 5 to 6 inches tall—high enough to support the height of the finished cake. Set a cake round on top of the frosting, and repeat the process for layer 1 (if 1 of your 2 cake rounds is jankier than the other, use it here in the middle and save the prettier one for the top). This acetate stuff is truly a pain in the ass, but it's worth the hassle, I tell you, if only for the satisfaction you will feel when you peel it off later.

- layer 3, the top -

Nestle the remaining cake round into the frosting. Cover the top of the cake with the last fifth of the frosting. Give it volume and swirls, or do as we do and opt for a perfectly flat top. Garnish the frosting with the remaining birthday crumbs.

Transfer the sheet pan to the freezer and freeze for a minimum of 12 hours to set the cake and filling. The cake will keep in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

At least 3 hours before you are ready to serve the cake, pull the sheet pan out of the freezer and, using your fingers and thumbs, pop the cake out of the cake ring. I've also set the cake on top of smaller, upside-down bowl and pushed down on the ring. It's easier than using your hands. Gently peel off the acetate and transfer the cake to a platter or cake stand. Let it defrost in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours (wrapped well in plastic, it can be refrigerated for up to 5 days).

Slice the cake into wedges and serve.

Jeff's comment:

"[This] was glorious food and even made the cream soda that washed it down taste better. I described it as the Platonic ideal of a Funfetti cake."

----'s Nose

My latest video is here! Continuing my series of facial features, I've turned my attention to noses, and this nose belongs to a famous person. In the video I invited viewers to guess who he is, but if you're familiar with me at all, the answer is not too surprising.

At the end of the video you'll see Bun doing a cute little flippy thing.

 

So yes, this is Bono. I used a reference photo from a couple of years ago--it's small and was taken by a fan or paparazzi--and I couldn't for the life of me find any information about it (if anyone knows, please tell me!).

I liked the light on his face here, and I needed his glasses to be such that I could paint his entire nose first before adding them, something that doesn't happen as often as you might imagine. Then I cropped the photo so that all I'd be painting was most of his face, and after a couple of hours of painting, this is what I came up with.

You can find prints of this and other U2 paintings here!

And in case you're new to this blog and my particular brand of insanity, here is where you can find those U2 comics I've been talking about. I've been a contributor to @U2 since 2002.

Kelly's Lips

As promised/threatened, I've put together another facial features tutorial. This one deals with a mouth, obviously, and it's mine. Wanting to paint glossy, slightly parted bright lips, I contacted Tyler and Natalie earlier this week to see if they had any just lying around. They didn't--strangely, all of their female photography subjects seem to opt for matte or nude lips. And I didn't want to bother my sister, who is the queen of the bright, glossy lip. She's already done so much for me regarding the start-up of this YouTube channel, and anyway I have big plans for her later on in this series.

But I have a camera, and I've been told that I have a pretty mouth once or twice.

   

I put on the lipstick color that is currently defining my summer (Estee Lauder's All-Day Lipstick in Rich and Rosy). Surrounded by three skeptical cats and feeling incredibly stupid, I took a bunch of mouth-selfies by the living room windows. After a few dozen attempts, I settled on the one photo that didn't make me look like a complete mouth-breather and set to work painting it the next day.

This painting was a bit smaller than last week's eye and only took 90 minutes to paint, including a bit of drying time. Taking the advice of Poof and a couple of other people, I broke down and made an actual appearance with my face and everything at the beginning (please note the squirrel outside my window), and I recorded an audio narration to accompany the video. Therefore you will hear my voice in this one. You will hear my voice a whole lot. And let's see a show of hands: how many people are creeped out by the sound of their recorded voices?

ALL OF US.

Ho boy. Here we go. Please put this thing on mute if you can't take it, but make sure you watch until the end because you will see Bun luxuriating in the summer sun, belly pointed skyward. Video MVP.

 

Oh, and would you like my big fat mouth on your walls? No need to feel weird. Click this.

Programming note: I am going to be very busy this week preparing for my show at the Decatur Area Arts Council! Read about that here, and wish Jeff and me luck in transporting 36 paintings from our house to the gallery on Thursday.

Beautiful Spring

I just noticed that this is my 400th post!

This one is going to be packed with photos documenting the past few weeks--easily the most beautiful spring I've witnessed since I began living here. Jeff and I have been trying to improve our driveway garden over the past couple of years. Last fall I planted a few dozen tulip bulbs and was so excited to watch them bloom. The frilly ones in front are parrot tulips, and I painted the pink one recently. Backing them up are two rows of regular tulips that were supposed to be purple. I think my bag of bulbs was incorrectly marked.

But that's okay--I like these better. They're so cheerful!

We have lots of roses on the other side of this garden and are unsure about how to tame/contain them. The two large rose bushes throw out tentacles that climb up to the sky and then arch down, like dozens of this thing overlapping again and again.

Our neighbor cut down a large, dead tree, and he set the logs out by the side of the road to be removed by the city. Jeff saw one of them and thought it might make a nice display element in the roses, so the two of us rolled that heavy thing down the street (Jeff did 90% of the work while I gave it a few kicks here and there) and installed it. We like how it looks semi-human, and I can't wait for those roses to bloom.

This is the east side of our weirdo house. The redbud trees are in bloom!

I love the redbud-blooming week the most.

It's followed by redbud-confetti week.

We have other flowering trees on the south side of the house.

This one is almost embarrassingly gorgeous.

Crab apples and dogwoods decorate the west side next to the garage.

Needless to say, Bun is a very happy little girl.

She mostly stays on the path during her supervised walkabouts.

And when it's sunny, sometimes she'll just lounge.

On rare occasions she becomes SUPER FIERCE MIGHTY HUNTING JUNGLE CAT;;;;

Ohh, the colors. I still can't believe I get to live here...

...with this amazing creature...

...and my sweet girl.

Too. Much.

PS Mom cut three inches from my hair a few weeks ago, diminishing that grizzly-bear-living-on-my-head feeling. Now it's more like I have a grizzly cub up there.

I hope you're having a great spring, too!

Rose of Sharon

Jeff and I met on Match.com--ain't no shame in it!--and one of the things he liked about my profile was that I had answered the "What was the last great book you read?" question with The Grapes of Wrath. It was one of those books that had somehow slipped through the cracks of my reading life, and I remember finishing it while sitting on a bench in Chicago's Union Station. The devastating ending made me cry, and then I just stared at things for a while, a character Edward Hopper had forgotten to paint: Heartbroken Lonely Woman Crying Over A Book.

Anyway, one of the characters in that book is named Rose of Sharon, and I always thought that was so unusual--she has a preposition in her name! Last year we were shopping for plants to decorate our new patio, and I flipped out when I came across a rose of Sharon. The man who sold it to us said it was blue, which is not as common as the white and pink version, and after planting it, we waited for about a month for it to bloom. It's in the center of the above photo.

I took a photo of the first rose and saved the picture for a future painting. I started it a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't all that revved up to paint it at first, but after a day of work I was excited. I loved the light on the petals, and the variety of blues and purples I used to create the bloom was challenging.

I fine-tuned the white thing and added more details and texture to the petals.

Then I filled in the background with some bloopy, blurry colors, and I started the rocks in the lower-left corner. Most of the white areas would become leaves and branches.

Next up: I spent a lot of time with that dry grass on the left side. It had lots of different blurry colors going on. I texturized the rocks with purples, blues, pinks, and browns. Finally, I did some yellow underpainting on the leaves, masked off the major veins (seen above as yellow lines) and added an additional green glaze over the top.

More leaf work...

I added a lot of details to the leaves and attempted to soften and refine the veins.  Leaves in direct sunlight called for bits of blue, permanent green light, and a whole lot of no-paint. The bigger/closer leaves required some micro veins. This process reminded me of the way I painted the colorful leaf from my Mushrooms painting a year and a half ago. The colors in the photo above are a bit too bright--I took the picture during a thunderstorm and got aggressive with it in Photoshop.

On my last day of painting, I added a branch and some grassy shapes in the center. Those were surprisingly complex and colorful. And then, as if on cue, our new scanner arrived in the mail!

Eleven years ago I bought a kind of so-what HP scanner that did a wonderful job with my watercolors and cartoons, and Bun liked to sit on it, too. When it died in 2009, I assumed it would be easy to find a replacement. But that was not the case--the ones we've tried since then can't handle subtle color changes or things like pastel colors outlined in black pen.

Last month Jeff did some research (and great things happen when Jeff does some research). He found a used Epson Perfection V30 for only $30. A watercolor artist had blogged about this scanner and showed how to configure the settings to work for watercolors. It seemed like such a great deal, especially when you consider that I tend to pay $12-$15 per big scan at FedEx. The only problem was that the vendor was in Hawaii, and the scanner had to endure a month-long boat odyssey and cross-country road trip before it reached us.

We set it up and scanned my painting (which was too big to fit) in two sections. Photoshop miraculously pieced them together--seamless! We were impressed at how the scanner even managed to pick up on the texture (or tooth) of my watercolor paper. Terrific!

And you can find prints of this new painting if you click here!

Imagekind has finally gotten its act together, and now my other new-ish floral paintings are available as prints, too!

Click here for Wilting Parrot Tulip.

Click here for Passion Flower.

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO BUY ALL THREE! :)

Like me on Facebook, yo!

Favorite Parts

Almost every watercolor I paint has a sweet spot--an area that makes me breathe easier once I've completed it. Sometimes this is a section that "makes" the painting. Sometimes it's the hardest part, and if I'm satisfied with it I think, Well, if I can paint that, the rest of this will be no problem. And sometimes it's one of the painting's unsung heroes that nobody ever points out as being especially good, but it's one of the places I focus on.

I thought it might be fun to explore some of these. Readers who are familiar with my work: see if you can recall the painting from which I've taken each chunk! Here they are, in absolutely no particular order (click on the links to see the entire paintings and read more about them, and click on the images to see them a little bigger).

Apple Blossoms: This is the best leaf I've ever painted. I like how the shiny spring green on the top contrasts with the velvety khaki underside.

Glass Gems 3: The area under the red gem seemed molten, and I loved playing with that color range.

Planets and Foil: I like the way this marble seems to be grinning, and I'm especially happy with the window reflection near the top-right. I painted it with pink-yellow-orange, and it felt weird at the time, but I think it really works.

Mushrooms: Ugh! Those little purple fingery things were so hard!

Abandoned Knowledge: Most people focus on the apple, but I'm happiest with this vinyl seat. This was a one-shot, wet-into-wet situation. I really had to nail it. At a juried exhibition a couple of years ago, I was told that the judge pointed at this part and said, "Yep."

The Graduates: This little blue pot was tough. The colors shifted from cool to warm in a very smooth way that, like the vinyl seat, required wet-into-wet. Similar color problems are happening with the plant, too. This whole painting has a lot of individual still-life moments.

Dale's Super 400. The couch my uncle Dale is sitting on had a bunch of velvety pillows, and that's a tough texture to achieve with watercolor. Plus one of them was floral!

Married With Cats. This is Bun's happy pose, and I liked how her tabby pattern makes her blend in with the rug. Plus cute little belleh, sweet haunches.

Mabel. The Roger Ebert book is to the right of this section--I think I did a better job on these books than I did with his, but whatever, he loved it! I was thrilled to paint the magazine that was shoved in there backwards near the left side of this chunk. It featured a truck ad, I think.

Dr. Terry Sherer: I thought this was a cool intersection of patterns: his plaid tie, checked shirt, and the studs on his leather chair. The chair's arm features yet another softly shiny surface that required wet-into-wet.

Art Theater: This painting was very dark, so the bright areas really popped. These are just some orange/yellow lights on the left side of the street.

Ruby Liberty Dragonfly: I like this whole section, but I'm especially proud of the disco ball-looking glass earring. It was hard to draw, and I had to consider each segment individually in terms of color choices. I had the 15-minute version of Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix on repeat as I painted it.

Emily and Cupcake: When my sister was little, I loved the way she looked when she slept, and a lot of that innocence is still there in this picture.

Last Meal in Italy: I painted this watercolor during a couple of snow days back when I was still teaching. I liked this white shell and the way it reflected the turqoise building nearby. Painting those tiny ridges was no joke!

Self-Portrait: I really need to scan this painting. What you see here is from a photograph, and in real life the titles, etc, are more precise. Anyway, this section was such a speed bump, and for a while there I completed one square inch per hour. But I loved the spines of these books, some with creatures and famous paintings and sculptures, some old and falling apart, and some instantly recognizable based on color alone. I painted this during my "I will never use masking fluid" phase, and I made myself paint around all of the white or light-colored words. That really slowed me down.

Treasure: This painting featured several orange glass beads that were incredibly tricky. The darker areas called for muted purple-orange-browns, and as with the earring from Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, the many diamond shapes had to be dealt with one at a time.

Sunflowers: When I see this part I instinctively squeeze my fingers together, mimicking it. I rarely work with this much yellow.

Wilting Parrot Tulip: The challenge here was to paint extremely bright colors in shadows. I toned them down a bit with some greens and browns, but they're still pretty blazing.

Hey, I enjoyed that! I have lots of other paintings I'd like to chunk-ify, so maybe this will turn into a series.

Imagekind update: as of right now (Sunday, May 5), it's still having problems, so in the meantime please visit my merchandise store for all your Cinco de Mayo/art-related needs. Thank you as always for your support!

Spring Flowers

After a month of gray-dominated paintings involving grandparents, I was overjoyed to return to vivid colors. In August I'm going to have a one-person show at the Decatur (IL) Area Arts Council. I had applied for a 2014 exhibit, but their August 2013 artist had to back out due to--I think it was a house fire...? Talk about one of my greatest fears. If our house was burning down, I know which paintings I'd try to save first, but I definitely wouldn't be able to rescue all my work. I can't even imagine how that would feel.

Anyway, the Decatur people asked me if I could display my work in just a few short months, and I said yes. So between now and then, I'll be producing as many new paintings as I can to bulk up my body of work. That kind of rules out creating month-long paintings like Treasure or Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, although I plan to paint more jewelry still-lifes for the show. But each of these paintings will feature four or five sparkly things instead of something like eighty.

But back to the flowers! This is a wilting parrot tulip after I had worked on it for a couple of days. I planted ten of these frilly, fancy tulips a year and a half ago and was beyond excited to watch them emerge last spring. They were even more beautiful as they wilted, and their petals created interesting and dynamic shapes. I took several dozen photos and saved this one, the queen of them all, for the next time I felt the urge to paint something floral.

That super-hot red is a combination of opera (out of control pink) and cadmium red light (stupefying orange). I can't tell you how pleasing it is to mix those two colors. Something scientific/magical happens.

I tightened up the petals a bit and added some freckly spots. The background came together quickly, and I painted some of that during my watercolor workshop a few weeks ago (also at Decatur). It's been a while since I've had an audience, and it took me back to my teaching days when students would watch me work. I took some photos of people at the workshop, and here is my favorite one:

On to painting two! This is a passion flower I spotted at Kevin and Natalie's home in Orlando. Jeff and I visited them last month, and as soon as I saw this strange blue flower/mini-spaceship, I knew I would paint it. To create its dozens of stringy blue petals, I masked off those parts and painted the petals and leaves behind them.

Next I worked on the flower's amazing center, a fun combination of magenta and acid green, and painted the petals a flat blue (with dark purple and white areas). I don't even want to know how many petals are on this flower.

I added shadows to each petal (painstaking!) and lifted some highlights with a combination of tiny brush/water/paper towel. That took the better part of an afternoon, and I fell into assembly line mode. Done, done, on to the next one.

 

And here's the finished product!

It was smooth sailing once I finished that flower, although I began to suffer from dark green fatique. The bud/pod and the little springy things provided some relief. Both of these paintings are 10.5"x13.5", and I'm eager to pop them into frames.

We've reached the part of my new-painting posts where I link to Imagekind and beg you to buy prints, but Imagekind has been having site-wide technical problems for several weeks (!!). They've assured their artists that they are working on solving the problems, but many of us are understandably disgruntled. I make most of my money in November and December with a little Mother's Day bump in the spring. So the timing here is bad for me, especially now that I'm in portfolio-building mode and not painting people's grandparents for cash.

While we wait for Imagekind to get its act together, I have this gifty alternative for you:

It's my CafePress merchandise store, and last night I spent three hours uploading images and creating new products for you to peruse and enjoy. I'm sorry, but I want that bag so damn much! Please consider supporting me by picking up a thing or two, and I'll let you know when Imagekind is back to normal.

Please like my Facebook art page if you haven't already! I update it every few days with in-progress paintings, and let's face it, commenting is easier there than it is here. No stupid Captcha thing, and I respond to just about everybody, too!

Thanks for your support. :)

PS It's Bun's birthday today--she is 12!

SnowBun!

For the first time in two years, a medium-sized snowstorm hit our town yesterday, and today as Jeff and I wolfed down our lunch, I mentioned that I wanted to make a snowman. Surprisingly, Jeff was into the idea--"Let's do it now!" Of course, we couldn't do the same old played-out normal snowman. We made a snowBun.

It took us a little while to get on the same page as to how this snowBun would come together, but soon enough we established the Garfield-ish main form and began fine tuning it.

I messed around with the photo settings on this one to make the profile more visible.

We took turns making the face--I roughed in the main shape and eye sockets while Jeff refined the ears and added the features. He was charmingly businesslike while I emerged as the project's cheerleader.

It's my belief that if Bun had existed during Biblical times, people would have created golden idols in her image. So it was all too appropriate for Jeff and me to make a snow sculpture of a creature that we basically worship every day.

That face cracks me up.

This is the view of our snowBun from the house. She's not long for this world--this weekend we'll have highs in the fifties with a good chance of rain.

But this was so much fun, and for about an hour we felt like a couple of kids. We came inside soggy and gleeful. Bun groggily hopped downstairs, glanced at her giant likeness out in the yard, and demanded some wet food.