Art in My World

Dreaming Of Spring We have had an unusual amount of sleet, snow, and freezing rain this year in Louisiana. I am afraid to go visit what is left of my herb garden. With no greenhouse to protect my plants, and honestly we hardly need it down here in the deep South, I am not sure what will be left come spring. One can dream though, and when one is stuck in the house (all the roads, bridges and highways are shut down)one is left to create. So I have been painting and knitting this last week...and dreaming of Spring flowers to come. Hey, this weekend will be above 70 degrees! A girl can dream a little with those temperatures on the horizon.

Nut Milks With the large amount of people sensitive to milk products it is no wonder there are so many alternatives out there to replace them. Nut milks taste great and are easy to make on your own. By doing so you get rid of added ingredients, your product is fresher and tastes so much better! Basic Nut Milk Recipe (Choose a nut of your choice) 1 cup of raw nuts, soaked for at least 10 hours in the refridgerator 3 cups of water 3-5 dates seed removed large pinch of salt 1 tsp. of vanilla, optional After soaking nuts for at least 10 hours, drain and rinse in cold water. Place in blender with the rest of ingredients and blend until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Place a fine meshed sieve over a bowl and working in batches pour mixture into sieve and working with a spatula, scrape the bottom of the sieve to let liquid through. You will be left with the nut pulp. Scrape until most liquid has been removed, then rinse sieve and repeat process. You can drink right away or chill. Wil

New York City Scape Continuing to try my hand with acrylics and abstracts. It is nice to go through old photos for inspiration and to cruise the internet. I see all these wonderful paintings and want to give that certain technique a try or a certain color scheme that made a certain painting look successful. Doing abstracts lets you experiment with color and a looser feel. I don't find many artist who use oils for abstract, they take too long to dry between coats and you cannot layer them as successfully. Though acrylics dry quick, too quick at times for my liking, they seem essential for the experimenting that abstracts need.

My Husband in Monument Valley Yesterday I gave some recipes for your juicer. Today I will give a few recipes for the blender. These really can be made with any blender you may have in your kitchen. Unlike juicing, where your fiber is literally thrown away, when you make smoothies you can drink it! Lately there have been some interesting ingredients added to smoothies and I will share two recipes that I thought were quite unique, one made with avocados and one with cooked sweet potatoes. Quite good and quite filling! None of the recipes below have protein powder, but add one if you wish. My favorite lately is powdered egg whites. Bravocado Smoothie 8-12 ounces of cold water 1/2 cup coconut milk 1/2 avacado 1 pear, peeled and sliced Blend all the ingredients until smooth. Chill if desired. Shake before drinking. Carrotenoid Smoothie 1 small sweet potato (6 ounces) peeled and quartered 1 small apple, peeled, cored and quartered 2 teaspoons of coconut oil 1/4 teaspoon

Smoothies and Juicing As part of my arsenal in the kitchen, I own a juicer and a top of the line VitaMix. If you are thinking about getting healthier as part of your New Year's resolution, juicing and smoothies should be on your radar. Who hasn't heard about the benefits of fruits and vegetables? And who hasn't been bombarded with how many you should eat each day. First off, it is hard to eat that much, and second, like many Americans, I'm not a vegetable lover. Recently, I have gotten into roasting my vegetables, and eating lots of soups, but adding them to my blender and drinking them seems to be the easiest way for me. Here are some of my favorite recipes for juicing. I don't have a very expensive juicer, one I picked up at Wal-Mart one day, but it has worked for over 4 years now and shows little wear. Cranberry Supreme Juice 2 Granny Smith Apples 1 red apple 1/4 cup mint leaves (a good reason to grow mint) 3/4 cup cranberries honey Cut up apples

Knitting Dishcloths About a year ago my sister gave me these beautifully knit dishcloths. At first I didn't know they were dishcloths, I thought maybe trivets? Well, I finally got up the nerve to use them and have been doing so for over a year now, and I was pleasantly surprised how well they have held up! Of course, I had only four of them and wanted more in my new color scheme. My sister Kathy was busy with her home farm business and yarn business, so I thought: how hard could knitting a dishcloth be? And, what a wonderful way to learn to knit, on something that didn't need to be exact, but you could learn the basics and go from there....so the knitting has begun. I bought some needles, size 7 for dishcloths I found out, some 100% cotton yarn (this yarn is machine washable) and a book of various knitting patterns for dishcloths and went at it. My first one of course was a bit rough and did NOT look like the pattern when done, but have already put it to good use and it w

It all started off innocently enough. I began by making some juice blends from a new book I recently got. So I got out the juicer and all the veggies and fruit I bought the other day at Whole Foods...then I decided to make a smoothie, so I got out the Vitamix...then I noticed those bags of lemons sitting in the corner from a friend at church. Mmmm I thought, I'd better make something with those before they go bad on me...and so the day went. I never did get out of my pajamas until nearly 5:00; but there are all those pretty jars of canned lemon syrup and lemon curd and even some dried lemon peels to show for the day's efforts! Lemon Syrup Recipe 4 cups of lemon juice 4 cups of water 6 1/2 cups of sugar Zest of 5 lemons Remove the zest from five lemons. To a medium, non-reactive pan add zest, water and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Then add lemon juice and return too a boil. Remove from heat and strain mixture through a fine sieve. Pour syrup in

Smoky Mountain Farm It is one of the coldest days of the year outside, so I rolled out of bed and went straight to painting. I tried this yesterday with poor results, had an idea for this one...but what I wanted didn't quite work out. My brush just can't seem to create the marks that I see in my head. I want bolder "stroke" like marks, mine seem to just be blobs of color. I think I will try to do some abstracts in watercolor to practice what I would like to achieve. There needs to be more "playing" with the brushes instead of trying to get a picture made, in order to get that looser feel I am looking for....back to painting...but not today, I really need to finish my Christmas cards now that my ink arrived yesterday.

Monument Valley Spent a little time today with Pastels. I have been eying them for months now and finally decided that enough is enough, I want to use them no matter the results. Its a fear thing with me, not wanting to fail, but one has to start somewhere. On the Daily Painter Gallery I have admired an artist by the name of Karen Margulis. Her blog: Painting my World is a wonderful place for information and inspiration on painting with pastels. I have fallen in love with her loose impressionistic style and hope to produce some pieces like hers in the future. But first there is a large learning curve! This piece is a bit overworked. The temptation with pastels, for me at least, is to put a mark down then smudge it in. Not unlike oils done alla prima, pastels need to be left alone sometimes after the mark is made. First things first: many artists do a watercolor under-painting first, then work with the pastels. I did not do that for this one, but will try this idea again using an

Homemade Body Powder I love a good powder after a shower. Here in the South, with all the humidity, I don't feel clean without it, even in winter. Not only do I want my powder free of chemicals and all natural, I want it to smell good too. So what better way than to infuse it with herbs? Here is a recipe that does just that. 2 cups of cornstarch, arrowroot powder or baking soda (or a combination) 1 cup of white kaolin clay or white cosmetic clay. 1 cup of powdered lavender flowers, or a combination of lavender flowers and leaves Combine all of the above in a quart mason jar and let it infuse for 72 hours. Then pour into a container where you can sprinkle it on. I found these great metal containers with plastic lids at Macy's. You can see what they look like in the picture above. Usually they are used to sprinkle powdered sugar or cocoa. I find them perfect for body powder. This container will sprinkle just the powder and leave the larger pieces of lavender flowers b

Abstract 001 Experimenting with abstracts is another resolution of mine for 2014. During the month of December, while Micheal's had their nice canvas panels for 60% off I collected a few to try my hand at creating abstracts. I have toyed with creating them for years: collecting books, watching YouTube for hours, and doing "little" ones when I had extra paint on the palette. So yesterday I took the plunge and got out my largest canvas and began my journey.  OK...I'm hooked! I have to thank all the many artists who post art lessons on line. One artist has posted many detailed tutorials: Micheal Lang . I took one of his ideas and created this piece. If you are interested in creating abstracts of your own his YouTube videos are well worth the time to watch. It is wonderful to learn the many techniques each artist brings to their work. Lord willing, I will try many of them this year...painting abstracts is not as easy as it looks...just say'in.

The Christmas Cactus Whether painting or taking pictures, as an artist you want to lead the viewer into picture and draw their eyes to a focal area. So an artist will blur the edges along with darkening them and sharpen the point of interest. When painting you scrumble the edges to blur them and take a bit more care to sharpen them where you want the viewer to linger a bit more. In photography its all about the aperture and depth of field. I was always frustrated with the kit lenses that came with my SLR camera. They were "slow"--the aperture at best would go down to 3.5. What was really needed was a number near 2.0 or lower to get that nice bokeh or blurriness in the background. When everything is in focus the viewer never has a place to rest his eyes. When everything in a picture is in focus then nothing is important and the photo looses impact.  A "fast" lens is a joy to shoot with. They are expensive, but well worth their price. You can become an artist

Christmas Cards Happy 2014! My first post and it is on Christmas Cards... I know many people make fun of the annual Christmas cards sent out each year and the letter that goes with them, but I am a sucker for a tradition that has been in my family for at least a generation or two. There have been a few years here and there where I have missed sending them out, but for the most part the letter is written, the picture is taken, and recently: the cards are hand made. As as artist who can resist all those beautiful stamps, ribbons, brads and glitter? I certainly can't! So on top of my office turning into Santa's Workshop it turns into a card factory too. Some things I find helpful when making cards: Buy them now! All kinds of stores, like Micheals and Office Depot, and online sources are trying to get rid of cards and envelopes. So think ahead and stock up for next year. There is a little online store called Just Brads and Eyelets that sells the cutest Christmas brads at t