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.

Watercolors 3 and 4

Over the last week or so I've gotten a couple more watercolors done. Both are small 6" by 9" on 90 lb (thin) Artist's Loft paper. The first was a simple practice sketch, and the second I put a lot more effort into.

Watercolor #3 was a quick sketch of a pair of rune-covered standing stones suitable for our Dungeons and Dragons games. If we can ever play again... This was intended as an exercise in shading, and was a good learning experience. The whole thing took less than an hour, in several short sessions. I've been playing around with letting things dry in between different layers to see how the paint reacts. My skies are still very streaky with horizontal lines, which I think is because I am using too small a brush. For large areas like this I need to be using a larger "mop" brush. I'm not sure I have one but if not that's an easy enough fix.

Runestones for D&D

Watercolor #4 is loosely copied from an oil painting YouTube video by Yasser Fayad of an Egyptian village. I like his paintings a lot, and this was very evocative for me.

First I blocked in some of the basic colors, and then spent some time shading the buildings.

Sky, tree and houses

Then I put a bluish-green wash on the horizon to be the base for hazy trees in the background. In oils or acrylics, this would have been accomplished differently, but with watercolors I am learning to understand where the light areas need to be preserved, since you can't go back and paint light over dark. Very different planning from oils and acrylics...

Horizon wash

Then comes blocking in most of the remaining colors, although at this point I have no idea how I am going to get a stream effect with watercolors.

Blocking in remaining colors

Lastly comes fiddling around with shading, details, and doing something with the little stream. "Bleh" on the stream, but what's done is done.

Calling it finished

After a while, I had to put down the brushes and call it finished. There are some things that no amount of fiddling with are going to make better than they are, and it is more important to move on to another painting than to invest more time in this one.

Overall, I'm very pleased. As always, good bits and not so good bits, but I need to keep telling myself this is only the fourth watercolor of any kind I have ever done. Every one is a learning experience, and having done some actual painting myself, it makes watching YouTube tutorials much more meaningful in terms of understanding what they are trying to teach.

On to the next one...

Hoarding for Covid-19

A big topic of discussion, media reports, etc, has been the widespread panic shopping and the hoarding of supplies that people are doing for a quarantine at home of indeterminate length.

Our intrepid mail carrier showed up today with these. I'm not sure I'm doing the hoarding thing correctly...

Self-Quarantine Supplies

All kidding aside, I am grateful for Amazon, eBay shops, and any and all other online ways of getting the things we can no longer go out and easily get ourselves (if at all). I'm even more grateful for the USPS, UPS, DHL, Amazon and other carriers, truckers and delivery folks that get those goods from one place to another. Plus airplanes. Trains. All that.

This is Day 30 for us, and in that month, I have been to Costco or Wegmans maybe 5-6 times (more frequently earlier, less so recently - we're now trying to do only once a week for groceries). I've been to a Walgreen's once to do a propane tank swap. I've been to a Sherwin Williams paint store twice for a curbside pickup order where everything is done on the phone and then they put stuff in my trunk without anyone getting near anybody else. I think that's it.

We've also ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, and I've placed a couple of online mailorders for art supplies with Jerry's Artarama. And a couple of small purchases from eBay shops.

Even with that little bit of contact with the outside world, we're still suitably paranoid. Anything coming into the house gets wiped down with Clorox wipes (while we still have them) before they go anywhere else. It would be comical if it wasn't so serious. Our "decontamination station" is the laundry room. Dirty stuff goes on the top of the dryer. After getting wiped down it goes on top of the washer. Then it sits there for a while marinating in its Cloroxyness before getting put away.

Overkill, perhaps, but I don't think so, and we are still all healthy. Knock wood.

Covid-19 Claims a Friend

I found out from a colleague at work that we lost a friend in Florida last night.

I'd known this person for about 20 years, and would consider him a friend and mentor. We worked together a lot over the years, as he held a number of leadership positions within the area that I support. The last time I saw him or spoke to him was at our national sales meeting in Washington DC in late January.

From what I was told, my friend retired from our company in mid-March. In the craziness of the past month, I wasn't aware of this. A couple weeks after retiring, he wasn't feeling well and had Coronavirus symptoms. He tested positive. Two days later he was in the hospital. Eight days later he died. He hadn't even been retired a month. I'm heartbroken for the wife, sons and granddaughters that he leaves behind.

You will be missed, my friend.

10 Minute Marker Sketches

As long as I am going to document my 2020 quarantine art journey here, I might as well post some of the things that I would be less inclined to show the world if I were being more selective...

One of the things I keep telling myself is that the only way to get better is to practice. And that some of that practice will be pretty bad. And some might be kinda OK. If I am lucky, some of it might even be decent.

So with that in mind, about a month ago, I challenged myself over the course of an hour or so one evening to use my Tombow (watercolor) and Copic (alcohol) art markers to make a few simple impressionistic sketches. The self-imposed ground rules would be that I would limit myself to no more than 10 minutes for each piece, measured from the time I pulled out a new 6" by 8" sheet of Strathmore Marker paper to being done and prohibited from adding anything else. The results were...varied.

The first was sun setting over water. Not good. Not bad. Just uniformly mediocre.

Sunset Sky (#1)

The second piece was a mountain lake with sun setting behind the mountain. I like everything about this one with the exception of wishing I had skipped the sunset part, which ruins the piece (to my eye). Not a bad idea, but poorly executed.

Mountain Lake (#2)

The third piece was a fantasy inspired tower on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. I like everything about this except for the tower itself.

Tower by the Sea (#3)

The fourth piece was a view of distant fields. This is inspired by the oil paintings of Stuart Davies, whom I have been watching on YouTube. This is like #1 in that it doesn't feel overly good or bad to me - just uniformly mediocre. Although I do think I like the sky better than the land.

Distant Fields (#4)

The fifth one of these is my favorite, by far. It is inspired by a real place, and very vivid memories from throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Brother Dave would hopefully look at this, read the caption, and say "yeah, I can see that." Hopefully. We've both seen that view often enough... In addition to being a real place, I think this is the best of this bunch from both a composition and execution standpoint. I like it a lot.

Sunset over Ordinary Point (#5)

So there we have it. Five little pieces of art. I would have to say that this was a very useful exercise, and one that I will be repeating again in the near future (and possibly on a routine basis). Nothing beats practice, in any endeavor or artistic medium, and the result of this specific iteration is one little marker sketch that I really love.

I claim victory.

Homemade Focaccia

With time on our hands around the house, we have been doing some baking, both for the fun and for the end result. Amp and Julia have made banana bread and oatmeal raisin cookies. Amp and Grace have made lemon pound cake and lemon curd to go with it. I am not much of a sweets baker, but do have an interest in baking breads. Until my "once every 5 or 6 days" food shopping trip at 7am this morning, I hadn't been able to find yeast. Today I found it.

Tonight I gave a little bit of assistance to Grace in making homemade focaccia. It's an easy recipe, with the only down side being that you need to plan ahead, as you have about twenty minutes to get the yeast started, and then two rises of about an hour each, followed by 25 minutes or so to bake.

After the first rise and in the pan

The first rise is in a ball in a bowl, the second is after flattening and stretching the dough in the pan.

Rosemary focaccia

A simple brush with olive oil, sprinkling with rosemary and kosher salt, and then into the oven.

This is the first time we have made this, and it is out of this world. Plus the whole house smells wonderful.

Basement Repaint

Well, I guess being stuck in the house is good for getting back in the habit of blogging.

After I finished working today, I cleaned up after finishing painting the basement, and took a couple of pictures of the uncluttered tidy end. Behind and to the left of the top picture is my hobby and gaming area (which is currently a mess). Purging things I don't need or use anymore, cleaning and straightening that area comes next.

Basement (non-hobby/gaming area)

I'm happy with how this turned out. I liked the old color too, but that had been on these walls for about 20 years, which is hard to believe.

Basement

Next project up is to repaint the basement bedroom, which is through the door to the left of the guitars. I already have the paint for that. Then probably the dining room. Then... Then... Then...

Watercolor First Efforts

In looking at various painting demos and tutorials on YouTube, I stumbled across a watercolor artist named Peter Sheeler who does a lot of straightforward but very evocative "line and wash" watercolors of landscapes, lighthouses, farms and similar rustic subjects.

For a first attempt, I pulled out an old set of watercolors that had been in a drawer in the kids area of the basement for a few years, and tried to follow along with a simple country road scene. I'd have to say I was very pleased with the result. Watercolors are very different from the recent oil and acrylic paintings I have tried, and it took some getting used to how to mix the colors, how much water to use, how things blended on the paper, etc... These are both 6" by 9" paintings on cheap Artist's Loft basic watercolor paper.

Country Road (after Peter Sheeler)

My second attempt was a little more ambitious, and included a house, lighthouse, water and an evening sky. This was painted on the same paper as the first, but with a much better quality assortment of Turner Concentrated Artists watercolors mail ordered from Jerry's Artarama. Normally I would just drive the half hour to the Jerry's store in Newark Delaware, but....

I am pleased with the result here as well, but there are some things that I messed up that nag at me. I need to maintain reasonable expectations and just keep practicing without getting discouraged. As noted with the oil and acrylics, I have a better eye than I have skill at this point.

Key lessons here include the ordering of putting down certain colors. Sky becomes a green mess if you let your yellows run into your blues (which fortunately could be somewhat fixed by adding some magenta into that area once completely dry). Build shadows carefully. And perhaps most importantly, once a given area of the painting has begun to set, don't go back and fiddle with it, or you will end up pulling the wet paint out of the middle of an area and leaving a ring of dried paint around the edge. I really messed up the shadows in the water to the left by doing this, but managed to fix the worst of it by going back and evening out the colors after everything had completely dried.

Lighthouse (after Peter Sheeler)

I still have a lot to learn, but this was a lot of fun. It was also the most accessible in terms of being able to start painting with only a few minutes of set up, and can be done at my desk, the kitchen table, the island, or really anywhere. Required table space is tiny. All of which makes it perfect for those times when you have a little bit of time, but not enough to get into something more involved.

Covid-19 Day 23

Today is Day 23 of our Covid-19 self-isolation/quarantine. Most importantly, we are all still doing fine.

Amp goes to work three mornings a week, which worries me a little. I work a full schedule at home. The kids now have online learning for school, with assignments, due dates and all that. After a couple weeks of optional review work, I think both are actually glad to have something that puts some structure back in their days (although they might not admit it).

Ryder getting some Spring sun

I go to the food store, Costco or Wegmans, about once every 5 days or so. That worries me too. Lots of things worry me, but perhaps not as much as I would have expected. I guess you get to a point where so much is out of your hands that you just resign yourself to seeing how things play out one day at a time.

On the bright side...we are spending a lot less on gas and putting very few miles on the cars. We are spending less on eating out, and are actually eating better since we are making our own meals and not eating any takeout junk. We're spending more money on groceries since all meals are in the house, but we aren't spending money on much else. Some necessities and not-so-necessaries via Amazon. Some mail order fabric and sewing supplies for Amp. Some art supplies for me. Grace is helping me cook, and baking with Amp. Julia is doing more chores. We are playing some games and watching TV and movies as a family, which we hadn't been doing too much of before.

We are also getting some stuff done around the house, notably finishing up repainting our finished basement. It's a large space, which I started a couple of months ago and got perhaps 3/4 done before getting sidetracked. And then this all happened. Last weekend I got back to working on the last small part of the main area, and then the stairwell. All that is left at this point is some trim painting which I expect to finish tomorrow. Stairwell trim may have to wait until an evening next week.

One last basement section to paint

I've also done a couple of simple watercolor painting "sketches", which is another first for me. They aren't horrible. Rudimentary beginner exercises, but not horrible. I find it fascinating how different my limited recent experiences in painting with oils, acrylics and now watercolors have been. I like different aspects of each, and will continue working on all of them as time allows.

As of now, I've got lots of time...