2-dimensional design: illuminated letters

I didn’t finish my more geometric and I thought easier-to-paint composition, A is for Abstract because I still want to shade it with gold. I like the idea of embellishing like a medieval monk would with gold leaf though I’ll be using a metallic pen.                

I also want to refine the blue and yellow rectangles. I’m not that fond of all the color choices, but I’m glad I played with neutrals and put in duller colors like brown and yellow ochre. I’d like to make another one with lime green, yellow and pink.

And so I ended up submitting the composition, A is for Algae. I think I would've liked it more if I had painted the giant kelp orange.

And I already sketched another composition, B is for (sail)Boat and Blue (Whale). And for the letter, C, I'll illustrate it with a crustacean rather than coral.

re-create: spring break

My colleague, Barbara has been inviting me to surf Linda Mar with her for months, and this week when she said, let's kick off spring break with surfing, I said yeah. And the weather has been gorgeous after the atmospheric river of gusty winds and rains this past week. Driving to Pacifica, I gasped. The California coastlines have always taken my breath away.

But when Barbara and I walked the beach and assessed the waves, we knew the inclement weather hadn't completely gone away. NO ONE was in the surf, and very few people were even walking the beach. We decided to walk her dogs instead at the nearby Pedro Point Headlands. From faraway at this meditation walking circle, the shores don't look so turbulent.

 

So we circled and made wishes and set intentions and let the strong winds buffet us. And looked at all the wildflowers emerging like these irises.

 

After our muddy hike, we thought we would just get flights of beer and snack on tater tots. But it was later than we thought. Dinner time. I was hungry enough for a burger too.

 

And I loved the motifs and decor of this brewery, especially the neon lights. AArgh, the one of fish hooks and anchor is blurry below, but you get the idea.

 

And Barbara of course wanted to take a selfie with the hammerhead shark behind us.

The brewery was out of the beer we were drinking though I did bring home a 4-pack of the 6th Anniversary brew.

And now this morning, the waves are so mellow as to not be surfable.  Barbara sent this pic of Linda Mar a few minutes ago.

 

I did not swim this morning because Sadie was so happy to return to bed after her morning constitution though I messaged Barbara too that I was likewise hungover, and I aim to make her last days on this earth her happiest--it brings me joy too to have her snuggled next to me on a lazy weekend morning.

clay and 2d design: empty bowls event and yet another illuminated letter

Last night was another long day without exercise (and I had also skipped the weekend swimming in order to let Sadie sleep in and just because I wanted to drink and be lazy). Well that's gonna stop soon and I'll get back on track now that my commitment to volunteer for a food insecurity awareness fundraiser is done.

I bought myself a ticket and pored through all 300+ bowls--many that I liked maybe even more had already been grabbed.                

I made my way and suffered lots of bowl envy--the blue-green bowls were the ones I gravitated to first.

  

But these two brown bowls were the ones I picked up and brought over to my table--Zan liked the matte brown one and said she would take it if I didn't and I said okay she could have it (bowl envy already!) But back to taking tickets from people who also found a bowl they wanted to fill with soup and take home. And I do love me a bowl with humor...

 

...and these two little cuties picked matching speckled buff with white and rainbow hue glazes.

Captured my colleague, Damien, the art teacher who chose a Zan bowl and spooned minestrone into his new soup bowl. Listened to the musical theater group, the jazz ensemble and the acapella singers too.

 

And put on my new favorite t-shirt and helped more people choose their bowls.

  

And admired this sculptural wall heart.

Next year, I wanna be able to donate some bowls. 

Next week is spring break, and so my goal is to ART it up. Hop on the wheel and teach myself to throw a bowl, finish a quilt back in order to stitch up at a festival…

...after I finish this illuminated letter A. And I'm thinking of even embellishing it with metallic gold shading.

cook + create: shepherd's pie and paint

St. Patrick's Day was a workday though also a Friday, but not to be followed by an evening of imbibing. I wore my green sláinte t-shirt and had baked a Guinness stout chocolate cake with Bailey's Irish Cream in the cream cheese frosting. I had tried to get all fancy and pipe the frosting on top, but the liqueur and vanilla extract plus extra cream cheese and not enough powdered sugar made the frosting not stiff enough for the rosettes to be upright and perky. No matter, I gave Cecilia the mini chocolate cake and slathered the bigger cake with not enough frosting. The King Arthur's recipe called for 4 cups of flour, and holy moly that is a lot of cake.

And I knew our 3-year-old neighbor was gonna come by, and so I took out the shamrock-shaped ravioli to defrost for boys night dinner while I swam. I considered possibly making the vodka sauce, but no time for that if I was to get exercise in.

I almost drank just stout for dinner with said toddler's parents who were visiting, but there were 5 ravioli left which I quickly sauced with heavy whipping cream and basil pesto.

And Saturday was the Paddy's Potato Bar and Publick House party at the clubhouse, but I was needing to carve out time to paint 2D assignments. I had sketched on to Bristol board another letter to illuminate. I didn't think the letter H was obvious in this sketch of a house, and so I added text. But then that defeats the purpose of the assignment on the nature of the assignment, which is the illiteracy of the reader.                   

And so I erased it and drew a tree. 

But I've yet again changed my mind and will inscribe text right next to the not-so-obvious H and below the picture with the start of a paragraph: "o u s e s
built today emphasize clean lines, simple geometric shapes, and intentional asymmetry. Modern homes eschew arches, ornate columns, window shutters, superfluous decoration, and instead emphasize function over frill, strong horizontal and vertical elements as well as sharp and subtle contrasts with their natural surroundings." I'm perhaps going to use some kind of waterproof and permanent ink pen to write the text.          

I had to skip swimming in order to finish the dish for the St. Patrick's Day party. The evening before I had chopped onions, carrots, celery, turnips, and leeks and also took out what was left of the bacon, the 2 pounds of thawed ground lamb, 2 large Russet and 2 Yukon Gold potatoes. But cooking that shepherd's pie turned into a few hours.

I sautéed the chopped bacon and then tossed in ALL the chopped onion, at least 2 and 1/2 cups.

And once the onions were softened after 5 minutes, I put in the rest of the chopped vegetables and then immediately the ground lamb, breaking it up with my hands into smaller bites.

  

As I was browning the lamb, I almost forgot about the roux and brought out the butter, stout and a couple tablespoons of flour.

   

Butter is my not-so-secret ingredient. And then remembered I needed to add herbs and spice. Since there was celery, I brought out Old Bay for a bit more seasoning as well as bay leaves.

I also stepped out into the garden to snip rosemary and thyme. There was a lot of water to steam out of the meat and vegetables and let the flavors concentrate.

 

I would taste and sprinkle salt, but I also added a chicken bouillon cube.

 

And then the flour and then the stout as the mixture started to brown and form a fond on the bottom of the pot.

 

And then you just let the ingredients simmer and flavors develop.

 

I had also peeled potatoes and boiled them until tender, which usually takes 15 minutes.

Before mashing potatoes, I heated the cream and butter and decided to add cabbage too--making a colcannon to top the lamb stew.

Into the hot cream and melted butter, I added the chopped leeks and chopped cabbage and let it all simmer about 5 minutes until ricing  the potatoes into the hot mixture.

 

And then you just mix and salt and taste and maybe add milk until you end up with perfectly seasoned creamy mashed potatoes.

   

I had already spooned the Irish stew into casserole dishes.

And next I layered the mashed potatoes and uses a fork to create runnels and hashtags atop.

Meral came to our St. Patrick's Day celebration and afterward I followed her to the ceramics studio to sieve the glazes. While waiting for her to mix the glazes, I underglazed this mug.

And then back home to finish painting and possibly add a shadow to the letter. Nope.

 

I also started sketching and penciling another illuminated letter because I kinda hate my A is for algae painting.

And I'm also wishing I had stuck to my letter with contemporary decorations. Maybe another illuminated letter just for me?