Art for Daily Life

A smile for your sunday afternoon

2009-10-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Tales, how bear and little met, the end

2009-10-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Bear and Little go everywhere together.

And that was that.

Tales; Bear and Little continuted

2009-09-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

But Lucy did not approve.

Lucy felt protective of Little. And suspicious of Bear.

But, Bear finally won her over too.

to be contuinued...

Tales, how bear and little met, continued

2009-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

(*Boise glared 'back off'.)

But Little was with someone else.

This made Bear unspeakably sad.

Bear was persistent. Very persistent.

And he finally won Little's heart. Her whole heart.

to be continued...

Tales; how bear and little met, part one

2009-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Once, there was a dog named Bear.

And a bear named Little.

They met, and Bear knew right away that he loved Little.

anger management

2009-09-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Warning: not art for daily life.

Mr. Cranky has been very very very upset with Wall Street financiers and especially the bankers. Specifically, he cannot believe that NONE of the major bank CEO's showed up at President Obama's speech on Wall Street last week.
After all, he did save their jobs, their bonuses, their pensions, and much, much more. Couldn't they have shown just the tiniest bit of respect and gratitude? Um, so, okay, I guess I am upset also...

Anyway, I made something for him to help vent his anger:

From left to right: Kenneth Lewis (B of A), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), and John Mack (Morgan Stanley). Alas, there wasn't room to include Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan Chase).

Mr. Cranky was well pleased with his present. :)

*cartoon from: http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/06/anger.html

forest art

2009-09-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

There is something on that rock by the path...

A little bird tile!

rhinos and slugs

2009-09-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

rhino dish fail

As predicted, the rhino dish failed to protect the red cabbage from slugs.

art in the woods

2009-09-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

There is someone by that tree...

There is something on that tree...

what is it?

Caught in the act...

"street art", but in the woods...

Hello Raven.

Pie is good

2009-09-03T15:59:00.001-07:00

mmmmm, blackberry + apple pie

I think of my apple pies as a kind of architecture.
I don't simply dump in the sliced and sugared fruit, I arrange the chunks into a tight, interlocking structure.
This results in a high pie that completely fills the crust.
There is no disappointing shrinkage that leaves the top crust airborne like a bridge over the apples.
I can't wait for it to cool!
*everybody has an apple pie recipe already, right? If not, head over to my fav, smitten kitchen, for a recipe.

Tales, introducing Veronica

2009-08-29T17:10:00.001-07:00

Veronica T. Cockatiel

Perfectly at ease in the world of high finance, Veronica is a professional commodities broker. Athletic and uncommonly beautiful, Veronica is an authority on fine gems and artificial insemination. Ebullient, gregarious and full of sass, she is as inscrutable as a puppy. A dedicated animal lover, she has been known to break into research labs to liberate test monkeys and lab rats*. Luckily, she doesn't loose composure in a high speed chase. Bullishly opinionated, she is also tough and unafraid of hard work or high temperatures. She has a loony sense of humor and adores practical jokes. She vacations on tropical beaches because she likes the way the sparkly blue water dazzles her eyes.

*sssh, don't tell anyone

She's not vain, really, but she wanted you to see both right and left profiles.

And a front view.

Veronica holds forthVeronica is curious.

Tiling the house

2009-08-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Crow, over the door

I get kinda bored when I am (ahem) underemployed. So, I decided to tile the outside of our house. Mr. Cranky suggested I make all the birds we have seen on the terrace. That's what I did.
This is the easternmost strip of the front of the dining room, before.
And after.
Westernmost area (living room exterior). Before.
After.
The robin makes me taste tomato soup. Synesthesia.
I am really fond of Nuthatches.
I made a rough layout on the terrace first. I didn't follow it very well because I was too impatient to transfer the arrangement onto the wall. I just started sticking them up with liquid nails (caulk).
I used packing tape to hold them up while the adhesive cured. Only one leaf fell and broke.

The humble Cowbird

Now, if someone would just install some really great light fixtures to replace the extremely unattractive but utilitarian ones we have and wash the windows and tidy up in general and provide me with a professional camera (lenses included) along with a professional photographer, I could show you what it looks like overall. Oh, and a photo stylist would be nice too.

On to flowers (sunflowers, hollyhocks!) next, working west along the front of the house.

Tales, family portrait

2009-08-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here is Bothell's family. Everyone was jealous that Cobalt had a formal portrait in his profile instead of the usual rough sketch. I got sick of all the caterwauling and bickering, so I caved and had a little photo shoot for the whole gang.
Here is Clementine ( the mom), Bothell (the dad), Veronica (daughter, soon to be introduced), Cobalt (son), and Ravenna (Cobalt's S.O.)

It's too hot

2009-07-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Waaaay too hot to cook or to eat hot food. But I have the answer:

Gazpacho!
Gazpacho! always needs an exclamation point, don't you think?
Recipe here.

Commercial tile

2009-07-25T06:49:00.001-07:00

(this one is a hand-made tile, my usual)

The white on my tile is dependent on the color of the clay itself because I work on the raw clay, after which I apply a clear glaze on top. Actually, Mr. Cranky is the glaze applier, but that is beside the point.

Dal tile, mechanical, ram-pressed

The point is, sometimes a client has commercial field tile that they want to match and I am limited in the shade of white that I can offer. This issue came up recently when a client ordered a few pieces to go with some tile she had already purchased and was dismayed to find they did not match well enough. The client was so sweet and so in love with the little ducklings that I decided to try decorating on top of the mechanical tile she had.

Duckling and bug on Dal tile

It worked like a charm.

Tales, introducing Patches T. Kitten

2009-07-23T13:25:00.001-07:00

Named Sunshine Rainbow Stardust by her hippie parents, Patches preferred a less cumbersome name during her school years, for reasons you may understand. Despite her impassioned feminism, she adores bunnies, unicorns, and sparkly things. Like most kittens, she enjoys a good nap and her ability to sleep-in is legendary. Her ideal day is spent in a park lying on a quilt making crafts while listening to Simon & Garfunkel. This activity is interspersed with spontaneous and frequent "cuddle breaks"* with Little. Fiercely intelligent, Patches find great comfort in the Constitution and carries a copy with her at all times. Reading it has a calming affect on her and quells her occasional panic attacks. Her favorite food is curried potato-tofu scramble (no tomatoes!), and she feels that the solution to the problems of the world is more glitter; lots and lots of glitter.

*wherein one will launch herself at the other and both then roll around on the grass, giggling and hugging

Tales, introducing Cobalt

2009-07-19T16:52:00.001-07:00

Cobalt T. Narwhal

Cobalt spent his younger years with his nose stuck in a book and as a consequence has the biggest vocabulary (in English) of anyone in North America. Like all narwhals, Cobalt looks like an innocent doofus, yet he carries himself with a strange and unexpected glamour. His musical tastes are catholic, but he particularly favors Drone at present. This is, perhaps, a reflection of his passion for the bagpipe. Cobalt is nothing if not taciturn. His wit is so dry that a light breeze could set it aloft. He is a fiercely competitive game player (insisting on being score-keeper) and a talented computer nerd. Trained in law, he throws words around like: “egregious”, “fiduciary”, and “null and void”. He also says things like: “egads”, “gadzooks”, and “forsooth”, which are funnier.

Ravenna is his girlfriend and Bothell and Clementine are his parents.

Tales, more emerging 3-D's

2009-07-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

Lucy and Yeti, in progress. Lucy can't find her glasses right now...
Boise has a fabulous tail but you can't see it here.
Ranger thinking, as usual.
Thackery is getting frisky and he is not even finished yet.
Everything looks blurry to Lucy.

Tales, they all want in

2009-07-14T22:56:00.001-07:00

Annabel wants to play. So does Woodrow.

And Thackery won't be left behind either.

Tales, relationships

2009-07-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

As it was.

As it is now.

Bear, Little, & Arturo. A good brother has always got your back.

Tales, Bear and Little go 3-D

2009-07-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Bear and Little and Arturo (not pictured) are about to embark on adventures in another dimension.
They are chomping at the bit to get going. Patience children!

Apricot breakfast crisp

2009-07-10T09:35:00.001-07:00

Fresh apricots with a bit of sugar, flour and a grating of nutmeg.
Crisp topping: flour, oats, almonds, sugar, and butter (the usual amounts)
Finished for breakfast, just add yogurt if you like (I don't). Recipe here.
Art in the morning. Addictingly tart.

*originally from Smitten Kitchen, my fav food blog.

Healing Heart

2009-07-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

Wounded hearts can heal, but it takes a long time.
Though the scar never leaves.

Tales, Yeti with a chainsaw

2009-07-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Mr. Cranky was concerned that there was no sense of scale in the last post about the huge trees that were recently cleared from our land. Here is a picture of Yeti with a chainsaw to give you some sense of how large the trees actually were.

*Yeti is rather small for an abominable snowman, only just clearing six feet instead of the usual nine feet or so.

Been busy

2009-07-01T16:08:00.001-07:00

A huge tree has been hanging over our path to the studio for two years. Mr. Cranky has bumped his head on it for the last time.
Another tree has been hung up in the woods west of the guest room for even longer. Dispatched.
Our raspberries are ripe. Hello freezer jam and raspberry syrup and russian creams!
Gratuitous picture of the hens making a break for it. It was a great shot, but they are too fast for me.