Papaver o. and tan vase with snow flowers
Archive for the ‘still life’ Category
New work.
Saturday, September 26th, 2009New work
Monday, July 27th, 2009
So, I’m thinking of starting a new title theme for my work, along the lines of Russian primitive icon labels. They are typically one long sentence that tells the story of the work: St. Paul rides a Lamb out of the gates of The Holy City at Sunset as beggars strew Palm Fronds. . .you get the idea. This painting would be called “Hansa Roses and Dianthus in a Bell jelly jar with black cherries on a Dutch plate on Jane Wineberger’s table linen around mid-day in July”. I know what everything is in my drawings – it would be hard not to what with staring at those items for hours and hours. Seems like I ought to own up to the knowledge, especially when I want to emphasize the object in the context of the painting, as is the case with the Dutch plate which belonged to my neighbor Rose, who died on Midsommer.
I guess the proof will be going forward, if I can keep to a schema. You should let me know what you think.
Strawberry ganache birthday tart
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Crust
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup walnuts (you can actually use a cup or so of walnut halves)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/3 cup (generous) strawberry jam
Filling
- 1 C whipping cream
- 2 Tbs white corn syrup
- 4 Tbs unsalted butter
- 6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 1 pint strawberries, hulled, halved.
Preparation
For Crust:
Combine flour, sugar and salt in processor and mix. Add walnuts; process until chopped. Add butter and cut in using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add yolks and process just until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball; press into tart pan. Chill 30 minutes.
Preheat oven 375°F. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes or until golden. The crust will “puff” slightly, but that’s OK. Spread jam on crust. Cool completely on rack.
For Filling:
Heat cream and corn syrup in heavy small saucepan over medium-low heat until tiny bubbles appear around edges. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and butter, shake pan to mix slightly. Then beat with a whisk until mixed, cool until mixture is room temperature and beginning to thicken but still pourable, stirring occasionally, about 50 minutes. Pour chocolate filling into crust. Refrigerate until filling is set, about 1 hour. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. cover and keep refrigerated.)
Arrange strawberries cut side down in concentric circles atop filling. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 1 hour.
Have dinner of Creole shrimp a la “po’boy” (recipe to follow, some day) with friends and eat tart with birthday present of Rain vodka. For whatever reason, this is a great life.
Ode To Rose
Monday, June 1st, 2009
I met Rose one day as she was hauling a piece of downed tree out of her driveway. An old woman, with a sweater on over her housecoat, and I stopped to help. She lived on the highway just down from my road and I drove past her house every day on my way to the high school, or the store, and wondered who lived there. She wasn’t particularly talkative, or overly grateful for the help, so I didn’t stop by often. Once to buy a wreath at Christmas from the rack out by the road, once just because she was out in the yard and I wanted a photo, for a painting, of the outbuilding up the hill.
Rose's house, morning light, from the highway
Sunday I stopped by because there were tables in the front yard loaded up with dust collectors and glassware, and piles of old lady sweaters and housecoats. I thought I’d seen an obituary with a familiar name and sure enough, Genevieve, her grandson’s partner, informed me kindly that “Rose is gone, you know”. They are still leaving a bowl of cat food for the fox on the back porch and Genevieve was amused that I knew about that. They thought she had a cat.
Rose's plate
I bought four flower plates, a tan lustre-ware vase with a yellow bird and cherry blossoms and a short pickling crock with an ancient, heavy lid for $4.00 total. Good bye Rose, that’s all I know.
New work
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
Cosmos in a Green Vase
Finished last night; pastel, 16 x 20 on Ampersand Museum board. I’m getting more done during garden season this year. I think it has to do with confidence in the process. Petras Vaskas, who taught ceramics and moldmaking at the old Philadelphia College of Art, used to tell me that worrying about the work increased the load by half again, and he was right.
Last painting
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Portland Rose
Tonight I was framing up new work, which always involves looking through the archives for images. (I’m also the person who can’t look up just one word in a dictionary.) This painting is from 2007, when I was still struggling with oil paints.The process of painting was going fairly well, but my schedule only allows a few hours at a time each night and the paints and paintings dried and crazed and caked. The surface was never right, never cohesive. Finally my husband – a painter – pointed out that if the problem was drying, perhaps I should work in a dry medium? So this turns out to be my last oil painting. This year’s Portland roses will be rendered in pastels.
Time for a work post
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
The Salt-glazed Pot, 18″ x 24″, pastel on board
I ran across all the sketches, photos and color swatches for this piece last night as I was cleaning up my studio area. The teapot is very old, salt-glazed at a factory in central Connecticut, the bowl is Danish. This one spot on our kitchen table is brilliantly lit for a few weeks in the winter.
Pending. . .
Monday, April 6th, 2009
Monday nights I don’t work. The work day is generally grueling with all sorts of left-over bits in my inbox, and then I have other commitments. It’s a good night to unwind, do laundry, pay bills and clean the kitchen from that late night experimental dinner dish you tried out on your friends. You know, the one with roasted barley? It requires a lot of clean-up.
Anyway, the drawing currently on the easel is an 18″ x 24″ landscape set at sunset in Southwest Harbor. There’s a huge tree (very reminiscent of “Hunters in the Snow” sans crows), a grassy bank, an odd house, some water and a little snow. It’s taking forever.
Here, instead, I present a little drawing that required pushing a handful of flowers into an old pot and two days work and is none the worse, I think, for brevity.
Still life – Vitis vinifera
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Grapes make a wonderful still lfe exercise. This variety is called “Tudor”, straight from the grocery store and piled into the bowl Aunt Loris brought back to my parents from a trip to Denmark in the sixties. I did this set up in our hoophouse on cloudy days in the early spring. The light was cold and very even, filtered through the fiberglass cover in late afternoon.
I counted five varieties on sale today at the store. Green, purple, giant red “Royal”, blue Concords – must be South American? – bunches of tiny black Champagne grapes that I’d love to paint but don’t want to write myself a check I can’t cash, and some rather brown, sad bunches that would be perfect for a set-up on mortality. I think I’ll buy a small bunch of two or three kinds and do a study in the green glass bowl this weekend.
New work – still life, because it’s still only 14 degrees out there.
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Mason Jar with Cranberries
Also referred to around here as Nanny Berries (for their awful, goat-like smell when cooking) or Sargent Berries, the upright Viburnum grows 10 – 15 feet tall with narrow twisting trunks. The berries ripen in late summer and exist at all stages at once: pale unripe berries, red, purple and then dried black or blue. Both fruit and feathery white or cream blossoms are very popular with the bees, deer and birds.
I can’t decide if I want to put them in every still life I do from now on, or never draw them again.
Mason Jar with Cranberries, 20″ x 16″, pastel on board