Acrylic Sketching

I'm too far down the road to stop posting anything and everything at this point, no matter how insecure I might be about sharing these, so...

I have done (and posted) some simple impressionistic marker sketches. I wondered after dinner today what the equivalent would be in painting. So I got out some acrylics and a small 8" by 10" canvas and painted the below in about 20 minutes. I used only a #14 (about 1/2 inch) flat brush and a half dozen colors (mostly the 3 primaries and white).

Lavender fields in Provence

This was incredibly fun and freeing, regardless of the quality of the result. (Inspiration photo below - everything brighter...)

Provence...

I need to do more of this. Perhaps on canvas paper pads rather than actual canvases to cut down on the cost, but...

Castello Banfi Progress May 8

This is where this painting is at the moment, and this is where it will probably remain until my Jerry's Artarama order of more Golden Heavy Body acrylic paints arrives.

I am roughing in the midground of the painting, which mainly consists of vineyards and fields in the middle distance. This section isn't done yet, but it gives a better impression of where I am headed than the simple color blocking that it is layered over.

Roughing-in the midground

There is a lot of detail that needs to be added, but it's starting to feel better. Some shading, some highlighting, and more work in the very middle...

Roughing-in Vineyard detail

Getting there. Maybe half done. Maybe a little less than that...

Spanish-Style Chicken and Rice

We've had plenty of time to browse through our fairly extensive cookbook collection, and I have found many things that I want to make. Some easy, some less so. This is one of the easy ones: Spanish-Style Chicken and Rice from The Best 30-Minute Recipe by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated. We have a half dozen or so books from these folks (they do the Cook's Illustrated, as well as the America's Test Kitchen TV series).

From the editors of Cook's Illustrated...

OK, I just went and took a picture and it turns out we have 8 of their books (the 7 shown above plus a baking book that is currently on the kitchen island since we are making focaccia again as I write this...).

Without copyright infringing on their recipe, your brown some chicken, then saute onions, peppers, garlic and some chorizo sausage.

Chorizo, onions, peppers and spices

You then add stock, rice and some seasonings, and simmer it long enough for the rice to cook in the broth. Then you add back the chicken near the end to finish cooking. Frozen peas get warmed into the mix at the very end.

Result (after we ate some!)

It was simple and delicious.

I can't recommend any book from these folks highly enough. In addition to well-tested and easy to follow recipes, they are chock full of good information on why they did what they did, and what else they tried and rejected before ending up with the final recipe. They are absolutely invaluable for someone who wants to learn more about the art of cooking beyond simply following a published recipe.

Castello Banfi Progress May 6

I've made a little progress on the Castello Banfi acrylic painting over the last couple evenings. I am taking it slow and steady, but I am pleased so far. I think it looks good.

I have focused on a small but critically important area of the painting; the buildings at the top of the hill, and the trees and bushes along the painting's horizon. It's been a challenge in that I don't have that many different colors of acrylic paint, and I have had to mix all of my greens from a base of chromium oxide green, or blue and yellow primary colors. I have a lot to learn about color mixing. I watch artists on YouTube paint with 3 or 4 colors and I am dumbfounded...

Castello Banfi Detailing - Close Up

As I look at it now, and in pictures, the shadows are more red than I would like. I will either have to attempt to correct them to a more brownish shade, or live with them as they are. On the one hand, it nags at me. On the other hand I should probably leave well enough alone at least until the first pass at painting everything is complete.

The foreground remains simple blocking in of placeholder colors. Don't worry, it will get better. I hope. On second thought, as I said yesterday, hope is not a plan. So... It will get better. Promise.

As an aside about the whole color mixing issue, I am helping to keep some tiny part of the economy going by mail-ordering 10 tubes of Golden Heavy Body acrylics from Jerry's Artarama (my 5th order in the last 2 months...). Since my main interest is in landscapes, I have picked out a nice selection of greens, browns, tans, grays and a black. Easier starting points for color-tweaking, if not color mixing.

Quarantine Day 54...Blah

March 13 seems like a very long time ago. We've settled into a routine, and adapted well enough that it almost seems hard to remember sometimes what it was like when it wasn't like this. Which is both good and bad.

We are fortunate to be in a school district that was well positioned to move to some semblance of online learning (everyone in the high school already had a Chromebook), so Grace's schoolwork is moving along, if somewhat slowly. Julia's work training programs through the Special Ed department can't continue, so they are giving Julia some around-the-house assignments with life skills things, but she is impacted more than Grace. Amp and I are both still working, at least as of now, so we take that one day at a time. My company may be doing more Covid-19 testing than any other lab in the country, but not many people are going to the doctor for anything else, so overall testing demand has crashed (which is all public knowledge). Our leadership has put measures in place to help us ride things out, at least for a while, so there are no guarantees but so far so good. Dialysis isn't optional, so Amp's company forges ahead, and I must say that they have been terrific in taking care of their employees from what I can see. She's only been with them for a few months, but I am very impressed.

Most importantly, we are all still healthy. Knock wood.

That being said, it's undeniable that some days are "blah".

Ryder says "blah" too

Grace asks sometimes what I think the summer and fall will look like. Impossible to answer of course, but we don't try to sugar coat anything for her. Some things will likely begin to move a little bit toward more normal as states take different approaches to reopening, but it isn't going to be anything like normal for a long time.

I fully expect the disruption will carry well into the next school year, if not well into 2021. It's very unlikely at this point that we will be going to the Shore for a week in the summer as we usually do. Band Camp that runs for 2 weeks in August is no sure thing. For that matter, we may not need a marching band routine because there may not be a football season in the fall, at least not the way it normally would be. Or band competitions. School may not be back to normal by when they are supposed to go back the week before Labor Day. The Addams Family is the musical scheduled for the fall, but who knows about that either. In other words, who knows about anything. The message to Grace, then, is don't count on anything and just take things one day at a time.

States reopening too early could make the summer bad in places (if not everywhere). A second wave could make the winter bad. I read an article with loads of historical graphs and charts that detailed a sobering scientific reality. Epidemics invariably come in waves, and the second wave is invariably the worst, not the first...

I hope I am wrong about all of the above, of course.

But it would be nice if we believed in the science. It would be nice if we were planning and preparing better than we seem to be, rather than incompetent leadership sticking its head in the sand and hoping everything turns out OK. Unfortunately, we seem to have moved into the "I can't get reelected unless the economy gets better so the death count no longer matters to me" phase of the proceedings.

We hope it just goes away in the summer (despite the fact that the virus thrives in the tropics).
We hope that it won't come back, despite the fact that they all come back.
We hope that a vaccine that is safe and effective is developed faster than any vaccine has ever been developed in the history of humankind.
We hope a lot of things.

Hope is not a plan.

Art Bits

A couple of art bits.

I finished the 16" by 20" oil painting over the weekend, after giving the first pass time to (mostly) dry. I like it. It does suffer from the fact that I didn't really know where I was going when I deviated from the Clive5art acrylic painting tutorial that it was based on. Composition is an issue. That being said, it was a good practice piece for using oils. I'm wondering if I can add a faded tiny sailing ship in the distance...

Finished oil painting?

Earlier tonight, while half watching a random show on Food Network, I did a couple of quick, loose, impressionistic sketches.

First is a 9" by 12" piece using mainly Artist's Loft alcohol-based markers, with a few pricier Copic markers mixed in. As an aside, the Copic markers as SOOOOO much nicer...

Distant Mountains (markers)

Second is a 6" by 8" colored pencil sketch using Prismacolor Premier pencils.

Distant Mountains (pencils)

I figured as long as I was just killing time, I should at least do some doodling. Better to practice than to just think about practicing. Which I still do too much of.

Starting a new Painting - Castello Banfi

My next larger effort will be a 16" by 20" acrylic landscape based on a photo of Castello Banfi in Italy. This is a beautiful hilltop winery in Montalcino, in the Brunello region of Tuscany. Amazing pictures from all angles are easy to find.

First step is to sketch in the basic layout of the painting, and then to put in a basic sky. This is too monotone at the moment, but it will get some additional detail.

Sketch and Sky

The second step was to block in the building colors of brightly lit, shadowed and rooftops before the sketch detail of this got lost under the paint. It did occur to me after painting to the point covered by these pictures that I didn't spray the under-sketch with a workable fixative prior to painting. It will be interesting to see how much graphite bleed-through I end up seeing. (I wonder if I could spray it now without harming anything...)

Blocking in Hilltop Buildings

Close up of the color-blocked buildings.

Color blocking the buildings

The third stage is to do the first stage of underpainting, blocking in some of the ground colors.

Rough color blocking

I tend to look at this and say "blech", but I need to keep reminding myself what most art tutorials on YouTube are telling me - most paintings will look bad most of the way through the process until they start to come together near the end. That's an encouraging thought.

I would estimate that I am no more than 10-20% done this one. Probably closer to 10%.

Watercolors 5 and 6

I'm still finding watercolors puzzling, to say the least, but I continue to learn, so that's a good thing. I also continue to find copying a variety of other artists and styles to be a worthwhile endeavor.

The two shown below were painted this evening over the course of about an hour, sitting at the kitchen table and chatting with Amp and Grace. The ink drawings were done a week of more ago for the lighthouse, and earlier today for the castle.

The first (watercolor #5) is a heavy-handed ink and wash sketch of the iconic Eilean Donan castle in Scotland. I see this as more of a fail than not, since the first thing I did was the sky, and that went pretty badly off the rails. Discouragement set in and I kinda moped through the rest of this. I want to do this one again.

Eilean Donan castle, Scotland (after Lois Davidson)

The second (watercolor #6) is another lighthouse sketch, copying directly from a Peter Sheeler work. I love these lighthouses. I like how this one came out. Not without issues, but not bad over all.

Lighthouse (after Peter Sheeler)

One thing of note is that the lighthouse was painted on 90 pound Artist's Loft watercolor paper that warps like a potato chip. The castle was the first I have painted on my new stash of Strathmore 140 pound watercolor paper. The heavier paper curled just a little, but performed much better overall.

Tomorrow I have an new acrylic painting sketched out that I want to get started.

Hunchback of Notre Dame, November 2019

This should have been posted back in November 2019, but I wasn't posting much in that time period, for whatever reason. Which isn't a knock on this show.

I would have to say that I didn't know much about The Hunchback of Notre Dame as a Broadway show, but I have come to love it as much as just about any other show. Great music, good staging, and an impactful story.

Highlights from the Thursday show and cast:

• Feast of Fools at 31:05
• Rest and Recreation at 34:45, including my Grace getting busted for pickpocketing at 36:00
• God Help the Outcasts, the prettiest song in the show, at 50:25
• Hellfire. Great costumes and effects, at 1:12:00
• Esmerelda and Act I Finale, at 1:16:00 and 1:21:00
• Entr'acte into Act II at 1:24:50
• Esmerelda in Flames at 2:00:00
• Death of Esmerelda at 2:04:50
• Frollo Falls at 2:06:30
• Quasimodo's Lament and Finale at 2:09:00
• Curtain Calls at 2:14:00

The Friday show and cast was equally good, and I would be remiss if I didn't highlight one of my favorite moments of any GVPAA show in the entire time we have been involved and watching them (God Help the Outcasts)...

• Alicia's "God Help the Outcasts" at 49:30.
• Top of the World at 55:45

Grace was a featured dancer and a gypsy in this show. It had a lot of what she likes: dancing, ensemble singing, tumbling, and all that.

Gypsies backstage

Amp's costume team keeps raising the bar, as do the set folks, special effects, makeup, and every other aspect of the show.

Gina, Grace and Julia

Gypsy Grace.

Gypsy Grace and Amp

Frollo in the costume that I dubbed "Darth Frollo". Super cool. I want one to wear around the house. So, apparently, do a bunch of others...

Amp with Nick as "Darth Frollo"

A prosthetics designer helped with some of the gargoyles and "living statues". Saint Aphrodisius was amazing.

Amp with Saint Aphrodisius

Both Esmereldas were amazing. Alicia has the voice of an angel...

Amp with Alicia as "Ghost Esmerelda"

Anyway, enough gushing. I love this show, underrated as it is. I would rank it up there with Les Miserables back in 2014 as my favorite GVPAA show of all time... And that's saying a lot.

Clouds

I've been enjoying my painting journey, and one of the things that I find the most interesting to paint, and in some ways something that I find the easiest, is skies.

One of the things that many of the online tutorial videos will tell you about landscapes is to be careful with the tendency to want to paint fluffy white clouds, as these can be unrealistic and trite.

Which I suppose can be true, but on the other hand, every time I look out my window, I see bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Maybe it's just the time of year...

Fluffy clouds out the front door.

Fluffy white clouds out the front

Fluffy clouds out the back, on a different day. It seems like I could take a picture like this every day this spring (at least, every day that it isn't overcast and raining, which is most of them).

More fluffy white clouds out the back

We also get some very dramatic skies in the early morning. This one was this morning. Strange how the mind adapts based on what is in your conscience at the moment, but I looked at this scene off the back deck of my house, with a cup of coffee in hand and Ryder at my side, and thought "naples yellow on the horizon, a touch of phthalo blue in the sky, and a lot of Payne's gray...bits of titanium white in the gaps in clouds to make them glow". Odd.

April 29, 2020, 7:55am

Cerulean blue, phthalo blue, Payne's gray, naples yellow, titanium white...

Feb 19, 2020, 6:59am (with interior light reflection)

Without going back and looking it up, I think the below was a marching band competition at Penncrest High School (back behind the old Granite Run Mall). I think I have to try to paint this one, without the football field in the foreground. Maybe put a lake with reflections in the foreground instead...

Fire in the Sky - October 12, 2019, 6:30pm

If nothing else, going through some of these pictures is a good reminder that despite the current situation, there is still beauty in the world.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

As schools struggle to adapt to online learning, Grace has a side project of documenting baking efforts. Hard to complain, since we get to eat the results. Focaccia was the first project for this, followed by banana bread, blueberry muffins and blueberry oatmeal crumble.

First you make a crust of oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and few other things.

Oatmeal-based crust

Then you add a blueberry filling, topped by an oatmeal crumble.

Blueberry filling and oatmeal crumble

Then you bake.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

Then you scarf down a few hundred calories.

Highly recommended with a cup of coffee for breakfast...

I look forward to more of Grace's "school assignments."

Painting Inspiration, a diversion, and we do remember

The beauty of digital photos... namely an iCloud archive of 17,464 photos (and counting). As I've been learning to paint, I have been going through some old digital pictures looking for inspiration of scenes I could paint. Scenes from my own life experience, not something that someone else painted or posted...

So in no particular order, here are some things I have come across recently that could be nice paintings and also mean something special to me.

What we all call "The River" is one of the most important recurring memories of my childhood. This is what it looked like before we tore it down and replaced it with a modern house.

The River, pre-demolition and rebuild

The River, waterfront. I've spent countless hours fishing off of this bulkhead, and caught the largest fish I've ever caught (a huge carp) in the shade of this tree, in shallow water in the heat of the day (when they say fish don't bite).

The River, oblique angle

In the Woodlawn Tract, very near home, the girls and I have hiked down this trail and visited this old ruin countless times. The archaeologist in me wonders...... (yes, I am an archaeologist by training).

House ruins, Woodlawn Tract, near home

June 2012. Adirondack Lodge on Heart Lake in upstate New York.

Heart Lake, Adirondack Lodge

Again in the Brandywine Valley, near home. I like the interwoven slices of fields of different colors.

Brandywine valley, near home

Lackawanna State Forest, NE PA, June 2010. Brother Dave, Leo and I. My only real backpacking trip.

Lackawanna State Forest, backpacking trip 1

Lackawanna State Forest, NE PA, June 2010. Nearing the end of our three day trip. Fields of verdant green and a dramatic sky.

Lackawanna State Forest, backpacking trip 2

July 31, 2011. Custer State Park, South Dakota. The day we did Wind Cave in the morning...

Custer State Park, SD

Gettysburg National Military Park. This Hallowed Ground. I've wandered the battlefield of Gettysburg maybe half a dozen times, and each time the weight of the place absolutely overwhelms me. I am due to go back... It's good for the soul.

Big Round Top, Gettysburg, Longstreet's view, July 2

The Round Tops, Longstreet's view, start of Day 2, July 3, 1863.

The Round Tops, Gettysburg, Mist and Trees...

A real presidential president once said, on this most hallowed of ground:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these here honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Today, we get a president who speculates on whether ingesting disinfectants might help cure the coronavirus, and then denies, deflects and blames when universally called out for saying pretty much the stupidest thing ever.

It wasn't that long ago that we had just a handful of cases, and we were told that very soon it would down to near zero, and that people would be saying how miraculous it was.

Well, we are nearing a million cases, and have over 55,000 dead. That's more dead than in the entire Vietnam War. I guess we are still waiting on that miracle.

In the meantime, three mornings a week Amp goes to work in a dialysis clinic, in full PPE (personal protective equipment), head to toe, surrounded by Covid-19 patients. And then comes home to me and our 2 daughters. I'm proud of her.

We Americans seem to have the misfortune of being at the convergence of the greatest threat to the American people in my lifetime while being led by the most incompetent leader we have perhaps ever had. Just lucky, I guess...

But I digress. Sorry.

Pastoral Fields

Covid-19 Day 45.

Yesterday's art effort was the start of a new oil painting. Today's effort is a smaller (11" by 14" canvas) work in acrylics. This was done in ~3 hours (8am to 11am-ish) using a small assortment of recently-acquired (via Jerry's again) Golden brand heavy body acrylics. It is, like yesterday, a copy of a painting posted recently on YouTube by CLIVE5ART. I copied it pretty faithfully.

This is very different than yesterday's bleak landscape, and seems quite soothing and peaceful to me.

Pastoral, Late Afternoon (11" by 14", after CLIVE5ART)

The main goal of today's work was to get a better feel for how to blend quick-drying acrylics. In other words, how to get acrylics to behave more like oils.

I am finding acrylics to be difficult. Probably because I expect them to behave more like oils. So...a circular problem...

As is typical I suppose, there are some things I like, and some I like less. The color of the water needs to be fixed. I don't like how the weave of the canvas shows through under the brush strokes in so many places in the foreground. I pretty much like the top half of the painting, from the mid ground up to the sky. I asked Amp if I should even try to add the sheep, or just leave it as an empty landscape. We agreed I should try to add the sheep. I'm glad I did; I love the sheep.

This should be done, but I probably can't help but to go back and tweak some things. Dull the color of the river to make it more realistic, possibly (although maybe that misses the point of this happy little painting...perhaps water in this mood should be bright blue?). I'm tempted to add more paint in the foreground to cover the canvas weave, but that's a no-win battle at this point. Lastly, I'm thinking that there should be a herding dog, probably dark brown, in the sunny yellow patch at the left foreground. Compositionally, this would add a missing element on the left foreground to help anchor things.

I'll post the end result soon.

P.S. - I don't know that this is the "best" of the handful of works I have created since I started my new painting journey, but I would have to say that I like it the best. It is propped on a chest of drawers in our front hallway, outside my office, and every time I walk past it I look at it and smile. Which I suppose is what art is supposed to do...

Back to Oils

Covid-19 Day 44 at home. It's Saturday, I think.

After spending some time working on some basic watercolor sketches, I've gone back to starting both an oil painting and an acrylic painting. This is the start of the new oil painting. It's on a 16" by 20" stretched canvas.

As an aside on Covid-19 hoarding, Jerry's Artarama had a great sale and I mail-ordered a half dozen 11"x14" canvases and a full box of 20 canvases of 16"x20". So that should hold me for a while...

Yet another YouTuber who I have been watching is CLIVE5ART, a Welsh artist who paints mainly in acrylics. This is a loose copy of an acrylic painting he did recently as a "Turner-esque" landscape. I am following bits but not completely literally.

Underpainting (16" by 20", after CLIVE5ART)

I like the dramatic and somewhat unusual sky, which is (I think) done. There is phthalo blue, cerulean blue, naples yellow, payne's gray and titanium white in the sky. [All Gamblin 1980 colors]

The bottom half of the painting will get a lot more work when this paint layer is dry in a few days. Likely next weekend.

I showed this to Amp in its current state and she said "it's sad". I guess I can't completely disagree. I've always been drawn to landscapes that could be described as any combination of stark, bleak, desolate, haunting, etc... I'm not sure what that says about me, but they seem...I don't know...real.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure where I am headed here, but I will post again when I get there. Or at least get closer.

OMG...We're All Gonna Die

Please don't drink Lysol. Or take a bath in Clorox. Or gargle with Windex. Or give yourself a Drano enema.

Please.

Don't.

Be smarter than a kindergartner.

Aloo Gosht, sort of

Covid-19 self-quarantine Day 34. Grace and I make Pakistani "Aloo Gosht". Sort of.

I've been itching to make Indian (or related food), and this was a recipe in a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook (From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail) that looked good, and not too difficult to put together on a weeknight. We do have time these days after all...

I will recap the modified recipe that we actually ended up making, since we didn't have exactly the correct ingredients to make it as written, and the recipe seemed like it was starting to go a bit off the rails part way through. We substituted pork shoulder for the lamb shoulder, since we had the one and aren't going out shopping for the other. We also used an onion instead of shallots. A very minor difference.

You start by sautéing a thinly sliced onion in some oil for about 5 minutes. When softened you add a 2-3 inch piece of finely grated ginger, 2 minced jalapeños, and 6 minced cloves of garlic. [The recipe says make a near-paste out of this in a food processor, but I didn't feel like washing the food processor afterwards for this little bit]. Saute for another couple minutes, then add 2 pounds of cubed pork shoulder (or lamb). Stir it around for a minute or so then add turmeric (1/4 tsp), cayenne pepper (~1 tsp) and ground coriander (~1 TB). Add a cup of water and cook for 5 minutes. The picture below shows us at this stage.

Early stage of cooking

Then you add 2 diced tomatoes, some salt, and 2 more cups of water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add 2 whole black cardamom pods and a cinnamon stick. Keep cover on and cook for 10 more minutes. Add a pound of small waxy potatoes, or the equivalent in chunks. Cook uncovered about 10 more minutes. See below.

Middle stages of cooking

At this point, you are supposed to have thickened sauce clinging to the meat, and not much liquid. If that's the case, you add 3 more cups of water, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for about 20 more minutes. However, at this point, we still had soup consistency despite cooking vigorously. So we skipped the 3 more cups of water and just kept cooking as is. At the very end, you sprinkle some garam masala and cilantro over it. We had to use dried cilantro, but that was better than nothing.

As an aside, Grace has pointed out that I am very rarely in pictures in my own blog. That's kinda true. I don't like pictures much. But here I am throwing loose cardamom pods around the kitchen island. [Note Ryder lurking behind me in case food falls out of the sky (which it sometimes does).]

Grabbing runaway cardamom pods

This is the end result. It's still stew-ish in consistency, but the sauce has thickened nicely. I can't imagine what those 3 more cups of water would have done.

Aloo Gosht, but with pork not lamb

We ate it with white rice, green beans, and raita (cucumbers, yogurt, salt, pepper and cilantro). I can't eat this kind of food without raita, or don't want to anyway... It was pronounced yummy by everyone. I could have used a little more heat, but adding much more in the way of additional cayenne or jalapeños probably would have ruined it for Grace. As it was, it had a nice subtle heat, but nothing extreme at all. The pork was very tender, and the potatoes were almost too tender.

If I were making this again (and I will), I think I would lightly sear the meat as the very first step, then set it aside before repeating what we did above. I also might put the potatoes in a little later to keep them firmer. But these are only very minor tweaks.

Covid-19 Claims a Relative

We found out today that a cousin of Amp's died from Covid-19. She had been hospitalized, intubated (put on a ventilator), improved, was extubated (taken off the ventilator), got worse again, and died. She was the same age as us.

That's one friend and one relative in a little less than a week.

Watercolor 4 Redux, and Easter Wishes

The stream on this painting (Watercolor #4) was terrible and it gnawed at me. If only there were a way to fix it. I began thinking about gouache, which is basically a more opaque watercolor. I thought maybe we had an old beginner set in the basement with the kids craft stuff. I vaguely remembered buying the set for Grace years ago thinking that it was a watercolor set, which it sort of was but not in the sense we intended.

It turns out we did still have it, the colors were still good in their tubes, and it is opaque enough to fix the worst of my stream problems. So saying that this painting was done before was premature. But now it's done. Really.

Village scene (after Yasser Fayad)

Not perfect but better. I guess you can call me a mixed media artist now. Hehe.

On a different note.... Ryder is amazing in that he can get comfortable and sleep just about anywhere. But this was a new one. Amp wasn't real happy. He's cute though.

Ryder's New Nap Spot

Lastly, I'd like to wish everyone the sincerest happiness and good health on this holiday. I would have to admit that I was raised Lutheran but would consider myself an agnostic more than anything. While the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter don't have the same meaning for me as they do for those of the faith (or their true intended meaning I guess I should say), they are still a time for me to pause and reflect on what is important; to relax, be thankful and enjoy the company of family and friends. Which these days means family, and only very-immediate-lives-in-the-same-house-as-me family. But other family and friends are still out there somewhere, or at least Verizon Wireless tells me they are, and I wish them well. Likewise to anyone and everyone that stumbles upon this through an ill-fated Google search or any other randomness of the cosmos; blessings on you and those you hold dear. These are dark times, but they won't last forever. Some day we shall all meet again under happier skies. Until then, count you blessings, be thankful for what you have, and most of all stay safe. If you are in a position to be charitable, please try to do so. Whatever challenges you are facing, there are likely others out there worse off than you...

Today's thanks of the day go out to all the people that people like me never really think about - everyone who works on a farm, or an orchard, or a ranch, or a cannery, or on a fishing boat, or a meat packing plant, or a commercial bakery, or any other part of the vast and complicated food supply chain that makes my life easy. Many (or most) Americans, certainly including me, take for granted things that people in many other countries don't have the luxury of taking for granted - that we have all the food we need, in every type and variety imaginable, simply by driving to the store and sticking a little plastic card in the slot at the checkout. Before this is done, Americans like me will learn better. Probably in only a limited way, but it has probably been...I don't know...World War II, since most Americans have not had whatever they want whenever they want it. Certainly not in my lifetime of 50+ years.

Today, Smithfield indefinitely closed a pork producing plant in South Dakota due to a huge outbreak of employee Covid-19 illness. But it's only one plant, right? No big deal. Sure. Yes, only one plant. One big plant that supplies 4%-5% of all pork products in the United States.

Something to think about...

Let's be thankful for those that truly deserve our thanks.