Cowboy Caliente, Take Two

I tried it again. I simplified, took away the bowl and the can of corn, and had a little fun with the label on the bottle of hot sauce. I'm happier with this result.

Notes about watercolor: It's so easy to go too far. It's so easy not to go quite far enough.

On the first one, I went too far on the avocado and it got muddy, so I was careful to leave variation in color on this one. On this one, I was about to call it a day when I noticed the tiny cast shadows beneath the stems of the tomato, onto the tomato's surface, so I added those and it really improved it.

As I look at this one, I can see that I need to go back in with a little more shadow on the underside of the garlic bulbs, as I did on the first one--I'm still a little hazy on the effects of cast shadow (especially when the objects are in weak, neutral light rather than with a strong light source, as these were on my patio). Practice, practice, it all gets used. On to the next recipe...

Question: Does it bother anybody that there is no horizon line? Do the cast shadows sufficiently "seat" the objects on a surface, without indicating a surface in some other way?

Serve with tortilla chips!

Another recipe illustration, this one for "Cowboy Caviar," which is kind of a salsa, made with corn and black-eyed peas, tomatoes and avocado (and a bunch of other stuff), and seasoned with vinegar, oil, garlic, and hot sauce. I wanted to include something "cowboy" in the drawing, so for this one I put it in the title of the hot sauce. (There actually IS a hot sauce out there called Caliente Cowboy, by F. McClintock's, but the packaging was way too complicated for me to reproduce, so I just made this up.)

This is probably a redo; I chose to use the paper vertically, and ran out of room in this rather horizontal layout. Also, there are parts I like a lot, and parts with which I'm not happy. But I think I'll move on to something else for now, and try this again in a couple of days. If I do the same thing over again right in a row, I tend to get impatient/discouraged/burnt out more quickly. For the next one, I want to try adding a visual (instead of just a title) for the "cowboy" part--we'll see!

A book in search of (another) vision

RECKLESS, by Cornelia Funke.

Started reading it, put it down. Picked it up again, couldn't get into it. The thing I found it hard to get past was that it felt like the reader was dropped into the middle of the story, and I couldn't wrap my mind around what was happening or why there was no back story at the front, so to speak. It made it hard to care about the characters. I worked up a bit of a block, but I finally HAD to read it, for my 6+7 Book Club at the library, and now I have to say that I have fallen for this book! And the reason is all about the imagery.

Her descriptions are rich, lush, tactile, visual, completely evocative. This book so longs to be illustrated, and I can see the pictures in my head--I wish I had the skill set to do it!

It needs an Arthur Rackham, or (better) Edmund Dulac, or (maybe) Kay Nielsen, or...?

Maybe somebody more modern, but with that fairy tale sensibility, and a bit dark. Maybe Nadezhda Illarionova. Or Jean-Baptiste Monge. Somebody lovingly focused on every detail, somebody with patience, somebody with vision, somebody who can draw and paint from their imagination instead of needing something to look at as a model. Somebody with that level of ability and vision should take this on and turn it into the fairytale equivalent of a graphic novel.

Funke has commissioned the special effects company Mirada to create a Mirrorworld App for the iPad to go with this series. We are getting a special preview of the app this week at Burbank Public Library. (Thursday night, 7:00 p.m., Buena Vista Branch at 300 N. Buena Vista in Burbank--please come by, if you're local.) They did an amazing job: The app features a lot of back story on some of the peripheral characters, plus a panning feature that lets you look around Chanute's Tavern, embroidered panels that tell the Tailor's story, a segment on the botany of Mirrorworld, and a lot more. I can see why their rendition is so inspired--but I still say, Illustrators, step up!

Spinach / Artichoke Dip

This weekend I started to work on some drawings/paintings for the library cookbook. First recipe up: Spinach/Artichoke Dip. So I headed out for the farmers' market this morning to buy an artichoke and a bunch of spinach.

My first two drawings were of just the artichoke. I don't want each illustration to slavishly duplicate all the ingredients of each recipe, nor can I see necessarily painting the finished product--after all, a bowl of white goo with green flecks doesn't make for a very interesting illustration; so I thought since the artichoke is the most fun element to paint, I would just do that. Then I tried representing a few more ingredients, too, in combination with the artichoke.

I was pretty happy with this one (above). The darks could have been a bit darker (and I might go back in later and add some), but I really enjoyed how the shadow turned out, and I like the attitude/angle. (I'm going to have to re-scan, though--I had some bleedthrough from the picture behind this one in my sketchbook.)

With this one I spun the artichoke around to get another angle, and the sun was at another angle as well (I was painting on the patio), so the shadow is in a different place. This time I tried doing it more wet into wet, at which I am not very accomplished, and I think that shows. I also overworked the shadow, which became muddy and weird. Then I tried some spatter, but it's a bit of a mess--too much, too large, too regular, and I haven't got the hang of directing it where I want it yet. I won't be using this one, but it was fun to do and I did learn some things for next time.

And for this last one, I cut off the stem of the 'choke so it would stand up (although not very straight! I think I'll have to use Photoshop to rotate the whole picture), and added a handful of fresh spinach (the recipe calls for frozen, but this is called artistic license) and the Philly cream cheese. I quite like how the spinach comes forward, and I always enjoy doing some lettering/labeling work. Not sure about the artichoke, though, it feels a bit pallid--in fact, the whole sketch feels that way to me. Again, I could go back in and work on it some more...

I can see that this is going to be a challenge for me--to work hard enough to achieve the results I want without getting too crazy about redoing and reworking! I guess I'll just keep going and pick the most successful ones at the end.

More next week...

Experiments with a purpose

It seems that my recent habit of sketching my dinner is going to pay off. (Not in money, but in comparative fame. Well, familiarity, at any rate.) At my day job (librarian at a public library), we are celebrating a Century of Service--i.e., library services have been on offer in Burbank, California since 1913. One thing we have decided to do to mark the occasion is to make up a combination book list / cookbook. We will feature books from our catalog with short annotations/reviews by our staff, and then incorporate a variety of recipes, also gathered from the staff--presumably from some of the cookbooks in our catalog, but also personal recipes passed down in our families. And...I have volunteered to illustrate it. No, I didn't have enough to do, what with holding down a full-time job, doing movie titles on the side, and trying to find time to paint, read, write, and (always last on the list) clean my house. I needed something else.

So--here is my first experiment. I'm trying to decide whether to go with "straight" watercolor (drawn lightly in pencil and then painted) or to do my (comparatively) new thing by drawing in pen and then watercoloring. The former is softer and more realistic, the latter a little more illustrative verging on cartoonish.

A friend recently asked for a recipe to use up the bushels of lemons being produced by her backyard tree, so I asked my friend Triste for her lemon curd recipe and then decided to illustrate it. Rather than print the recipe here, I will give a link, because the live video instructions are quite helpful. Triste makes this every year, and I get to keep a jar because I supply her with the lemons! http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/lemon_curd.aspx (Triste says she doubles the amount of zest.)

In the first (pencil) version, I did a better/more realistic job on the jar (being at liberty to erase and fix until I got it right), plus the curd inside the jar looks real; but I like the pen drawing (this time using a Faber/Castell in a sepia tone instead of a more harsh black pen) better for the features of the cut lemon. On the former, I also inadvertently spattered some blue paint up into the white, so I did some spatter on purpose to camouflage that, but I haven't mastered the art of spattering (ANY TIPS FROM ANYONE?), so it looks rather like blue arterial spray! (I want the spatter to be larger but not hit in straight lines the way it did here.) In the latter, I used some Daniel Smith cobalt and black, and it granulated, which I quite like in some instances but didn't really care for here. I'm going to try this sketch one more time with black ink and see.

Dinner--A Shared Experience

Somebody left a comment that my recent blog posts make her hungry. I guess I must be hungry for something, too, because lately they’re all about the food. Part of it is that it’s COLD outside, which makes me want to cook. Part of it is that I have so little free time that I can’t think about too many things at once, so if I paint what I am also making for dinner, I don’t have to look in two different directions! But part of it is also about making food for others. When you’re cooking for one, sometimes it seems not worth the trouble. But when you are thinking of feeding others, you start thinking outside of yourself and considering what would make everyone at the table happy.

So... In the background is the Four Seed Bread I baked for Kirsten (see previous post, below). In the foreground are the fixings for Potato Leek Soup, from The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas, page 60, a cookbook so beloved that it exists in my kitchen in three separate pieces held together with a big rubber band. I had to have something worthy to go with the bread, and Anna’s soups are legendary.

Here is the recipe:

3-5 russet potatoes (3 really large or 5 smaller)
3 to 4 leeks
water to cover
1 1/2 cups milk or cream
1/2 tsp. caraway seeds (I use a tablespoon or more—I like the caraway!)
2 Tbs. dill weed (again, I use more dill, but it’s up to your personal taste)
1 tsp. salt
fresh ground pepper
2 to 3 Tbs. sour cream
butter
garnish (optional): chopped chives, parsley, or more dill

Peel and dice the potatoes. Wash the leeks and chop them up, discarding the tough green ends. Cook these vegetables in lightly salted water to cover for about 30-45 minutes, or until they are tender. Add the milk, caraway seeds, dill, and salt and pepper to taste. Let the soup simmer another 20-30 minutes, until it begins to take on a thick consistency and the potatoes fall apart a little. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream and butter, let it all heat through, and serve. Garnish if you want to be fancy. This recipe serves four to six people.

I got tired of painting packaging (see previous two posts), so this time I poured the milk into a graceful glass pitcher that used to be Mom’s, and I also included her salt shaker because I love this shade of cobalt. This painting is a good example of what I was talking about in the previous post regarding source photographs, although it turned out to be more about what NOT to do—I painted this from a photo (since I had to get the soup on first!), and after I finished drawing it I realized that the food was sitting too close to the edge of the butcher block counter, creating an awkward line. It’s all about paying attention to how the elements work together before you slavishly copy your photo. I would have done better to leave the stove out and extend the counter all the way across. But that’s what these exercises are for!

Kirsten, her mom (Carol Sue) and I enjoyed the soup and the bread while watching the Golden Globes last night, and affirmed that a shared experience gives extra savor.

Make some soup, and stay warm!

Friends in Knead

Recently, my cousin asked if I would make her a loaf of my famous Four Seed Bread. I say famous, but that’s only to a select few who still remember it, and it’s not really “my” bread either, I got the recipe at a bread-baking workshop at the Recipe Box in Arcadia, about 25 years ago. I did have to adapt it a bit, because the workshop was all about selling a giant mixer to make your bread and I do mine all by hand, but the recipe comes from the proprietor of that store, whose name I have long forgotten.

Not forgotten is the period in my life when my friend Matthew and I had a bread-baking business. We had started baking just for ourselves, but every time we brought our homemade bread to work with us and ate it in the lunch room, someone asked if we would bake an extra loaf for him or her next time, so we finally started baking and selling about six different kinds of bread. At its peak, Friends in Knead was doing a booming business (for two people in tiny kitchens): We both baked about 30 loaves every Sunday, and then sold them Monday and Tuesday at work, at our writing group, at the gym, at yoga class—any place we could get away with bringing in a basket of loaves.

When we were doing all this volume, we used to buy all our ingredients in bulk, many of them mail order, and I haven’t made this bread in a long time because I haven’t been able to find the ingredients. Mrs. Gooch’s used to sell all the seeds from bins, but once it became Whole Foods, some of the stuff went to pre-packaged, and when you’re not using them up every week, seeds tend to go rancid and get thrown away. But I recently discovered that Sprouts still has bins, so I went there this week for small quantities, and baked for Kirsten yesterday. And since you can’t bake only one loaf at a time (well, you could, but why?), I also made some for me, and some for my neighbors, Nicole and Phil, who kindly haul my trash cans out to the curb every single week.

Keep your bread dough moist while it rises by
covering the bowl with a dish towel you have
wet thoroughly and wrung out.

Baking the bread made me think of Matthew—of how much fun we had coming up with the name (another contender was “Bread and Ethel”), of deciding every week who was baking what, of just having him as a friend. He’s been gone since 1991, and I still miss him all the time—he was a big influence on me, on my willingness to do new things and take chances. Without him, I would have had a much smaller life. So--I raise a slice to you, Matthew. (Although I know you would have preferred a margarita.)