E + D

It wasn't us...

TT Treasury

Totally Totems Chunky goldfish included in treasury.

Le Freak, Batik, Chic

Painting out of Love or Boredom?

Big Stripey Lines

Sketchy!

Page of Daniel's sketches.
One of my Grandfather's sketches from 1941 can be seen on recent post from This Old Paper.

Today's Special

English Whiting fish, ready for the oven.

Welcome Peacock Butterfly

Daniel has found a butterfly in his painting room. We fed it honey water from a spoon. It uncoiled it's proboscis and drank until the fluid level went down considerably. The colors are most ingeniously paired on his outstretched wings: burnt orange next to powdery violet and periwinkle. Wings closed, I see the Form of woodgrain-ness, complete with simulated craggy cellulose cells. Identified as a peacock butterfly, the circle eye pattern found on peacock feathers now look out from butterfly wings.
We found one like this in the kitchen just before getting married and I gave a silent thank you for an affirming sign. Should I take such surprising confrontations with beautifully delicate creatures in our house as auspicious omens? Maybe it's just coincidence that this insect was seeking warmth and found it in our home, nothing more, to be enjoyed in the moment, not to be interpreted or made a fuss over.
But, if I had to interpret a butterfly in the house (as I so want to do) I would take it as a totem of lightness and freedom, fretless dancing, life as ephemeral, living boldly (colorfully), metamorphosis, shapeshifting, evolution.
Where do butterflies go in winter, shouldn't this one be hibernating? In any case, ours is, safely, behind our bookcase.
p.s. When I was little, blowing up water balloons with the garden hose one summer, bits of broken balloon lie strewn in the grass around me. I noticed a butterfly flit from one brightly colored rubbery shard to another. I realized then that the butterfly was a visual creature, being attracted to the color of the balloons and not the odor. So perhaps this butterfly entered Daniel's painting room because of all the color: the hues on the canvas in progress supported by the easel, on the finished paintings tilted in a row against the wall, and the dried pigments on his palette.

More Color!

Having fun capturing color as Daniel worked today.

How Sticky Art Thou's Buns?

I've made sticky buns now for two Christmas mornings past. Does an action performed two times make it tradition?

The first time I attempted them, I used Martha Stewart's sticky bun recipe from her Baking Handbook. The second time (this year) I made them using Alton Brown's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls Recipe.

Alton's accompanying video helped visually simplify the seemingly complicated recipe steps.

I got up super early Christmas morning to pop them in the oven and the smell was straight-up outrageous. After they cooled, I draped them in cream cheese icing and ate three whole ones with some delicious organic coffee. What a way to relish the warm glow of the tree topped by that crazy, pulsating, plastic, Las Vegas star (RIP).

I can't wait to make these for Daniel.



P.s. Alton's buns are much more memorable than Martha's.

Painter's Progress....

Trying out my new Nikon D3100, my first SLR.