Painting Food and Exploring a Little Realism

 Last Year I saw a wonderful painting of salad done by Aubrey Levinthal and it made me want to paint food.  I know that sounds funny, but I am serious.  I wanted to paint food, and in particular, salad.  So I started with a photo of a salad  that was made by my friend, who makes the best salads you a have ever tasted by the way, along with a glass of wine.  Painting the salad was the easy part, but the glass of wine was difficult.  Making it look like glass...wow, tough.  I sure enjoyed painting food though!

After that, I felt even more adventurous.  I painted a meat and cheese platter from a photo I had taken while out one wonderful evening with my husband.  We had gone to this old castle near Denver and they had live music, food, wine and dessert.  The music was done by a male vocalist and he sang these gorgeous ballads while playing guitar.  I think it may have been one of the most romantic dates of my life, and the platter was one of the best I had ever tasted, so painting it was the perfect way to capture the memory.  

This semi-realistic style is a huge swing from my usual style and I have thought many times about exploring this type of painting more often.  I hesitate though because I can see the potential for becoming obsessive about details and the fight there might be trying to arm wrestle things into the right shapes.  With my usual style, I can be imperfect and that suits me the best.  

So perhaps from time to time I will just paint food I want to remember.

:)

Painting and Poetry

They Have Come To Bring Us Spring is an oil painting I did some time ago.  It recently went off to a new home, so I decided to take a short video of it.  It has always been a favorite.  And then a poem came out.  And then this video.  

Gratitude Garden

 

Gratitude Garden
oil on cradled wood 14x11 inch
available here

Gardening used to be a favorite activity and I remember spending many many hours pulling weeds, sowing seeds, planting, transplanting, digging, raking and more raking.  It is a great way to get exercise and fresh air.  I used to feel so joyful and light by the end of the day in the garden.  As time has passed and with all of our moves, our yard got smaller and smaller.  I found myself buying a few pots to plant and calling that good enough by the time we moved to Colorado.  Now that we own a home again, we have another big yard, something we thought we were done with.  We spoke too soon!  

Our yard is sort of a blank canvas and it has a lot of potential to become something pretty special.  I hesitate though because a garden will take me away from painting and I am not sure I want that.  If I didn't need sleep, then problem would be solved.  For now, I plan to figure out how to get rid of all the lava rocks in the flower beds, plant a few herbs in pots, and then just watch the light this season before deciding what to do.  I am reading a lot about minimalism and simplistic gardening (if there is such a thing).  

Country Drives Are So Inspiring

 

I drove to Peck, Kansas yesterday, a small town not far.  I was on the search for colors and textures and I found so many.  Here are a few from the trip.  I always find myself wishing I could plop a blanket down in the middle of a field and just take it in for a while.  Maybe take a nap while listening to the birds and the quiet breeze.  Perhaps one of these days I will stumble onto a public place where I can do that.  

Sometimes when I go on a photo shoot, I take a lot of video and then make a video out of it all, using videos and photographs.  Most of the video was too shaky this round because it was so windy.  If you want to see the nature videos I make, you can see them on YouTube.  The link is HERE.  It is just another way I like to create.  I used to just share them on my Facebook, but I am going to start uploading them to YouTube from now on so that I can keep them in one neat place.

My Mother's Bed

 

My Mother's Bed

acrylic on canvas 16x12 inch

When I think of my mother, I often think of her bed. That sounds funny, doesn't it. But it is true, and I will tell you why.  My mother ran a daycare for most of my childhood years and her bedroom was sort of like a breakroom at the office for her.   She would retreat there for a private phone conversation while the daycare kids were napping, or to smoke a cigarette, listen to music or read her books in the evenings, all three of which she did heavily.  It was a place that she seemed to love, and often that was where she could be found.  She was more on the bed than in it as I recall.  Come to think of it, she actually preferred sleeping on the sofa.  I am guessing she felt less alone on the sofa that in her queen-size bed after her and my father divorced.   

As a young girl and into my teenage years, I used to sit on her bed and we would look at pictures, listen to her records,  and go through her jewelry.  She had a fantastic costume jewelry collection.  Her mirrored dresser was positioned at the foot of her bed and while she brushed her hair or put on her makeup,  I would sit and watch, keeping her company.  We had the deepest conversations on that bed and that is the memory I love most.  My mother was a talker, and a listener, and a deep thinker, and it was on her bed with the jade colored bedspread covered in bright flowers that I learned these skills from her.  

Fast forward years later to her small apartment in the retirement building she resided in until her final day, her bedroom was still a meeting place.  She loved to watch movies and there we would sit side by side, legs stretched out, eating crunchy snacks and chocolate things, watching everything from Casa Blanca to Mama Mia.  When my older sister lived in Kansas for a few years, she and mom and I had the best Sundays together in that bedroom laughing, talking and watching movies.  She had a living room that also had a TV, but she preferred the coziness and comfort of her bed.  We still would pull out photo albums and look at her old jewelry from time to time.  And we always talked about everything.  

My mother died in her sleep seven years ago this coming July at the age of 80.  She had a bad heart and we all knew her time was limited.  She went just how she wanted to go...painlessly and independent.  She also was ON her bed rather than IN it, which I find so ironic now.  Ironic, but somehow beautiful.

French Press

French Press
oil on canvas 20x16 inch
available here

 

Painted for the love of pretty cafes, coffee and good conversation.

Making Sketchbook Videos

 I have been making short video of drawings in my sketchbook.  I started uploading these little clips to my YouTube channel.  I use my iPhone to make these and an app called Splice.  It is really fun and I enjoy creating these little clips.  

I read that Blogger is doing away with the Feedburner widget.  I have no clue how anyone can subscribe to my blog by email without this.  If anyone knows of an alternative, please let me know.  

Happy Weekend everyone!