Whereas I posted nearly everyday in November, I was eerily silent in December and the first half of this month. It is not, however, because I was met with an ill fate or whisked away to my home planet.

December was filled with baking and a mad rush to find work to pay for Christmas, and then of course, the holidays hit.

Also, I was busy creating.

Rough Sketch:



I had made a couple of sketches of people and tables and then pasted them together to get the composition that I wanted. I then traced it and transfered it to watercolor paper and did this: (Sorry for the bluriness, I have no idea why it came out like this)




And then finally, I redrew the picture free-hand onto a 24" x 36" canvas and went to work with acrylics. It was a huge adjustment from working with pastels for so long. Not to mention that I hadn't worked with acrylics in this exact way since...oh, ten years or more. Here it is, be it what it is.

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times. Silence of the Lambs, Singing in the Rain, Legally Blonde, Mean Girls, 50 First Dates, Jeffrey.

2. Name a movie that you've seen multiple times in a theatre. Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers and Return of the King), The Mummy (but not by choice).

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie. Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie. Mel Gibson.

5. Name a movie that you can quote from. Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Silence of the Lambs.

6. Name a movie musical that you know all the lyrics to all the songs. The Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain, Oklahoma.

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with. Singing in the Rain.

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see. My Life Without Me.

9. Name a movie that you own. Seriously? I own a couple hundred.

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops. Cher.

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? Yes.

12. Ever made out in a movie? Yes.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't gotten around to it. Across the Universe.

14. Ever walked out of a movie? Yes, but I can't remember what it was.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theatre. Silver Lake Life (and then for 3 days afterward), Philadelphia, The Pianist.

16. Popcorn? Never.

17. How often do you go to the movies? 1-3 times per month.

18. What's the last movie you saw in the theater? Twilight.

19. What is your favorite/preferred genre of movie? Sci-Fi.

20. What was the first movie you remember seeing in the theater? Pinocchio.

Today is Paul's birthday, so we're going to spend the day in NYC.


The agenda:
MOMA
the Met
Books of Wonder
Calcutta (Indian Food)
and
who knows?

Being in Manhattan, anything's possible.

We started decorating. We bought a whole bunch of shiny things for the fireplace mantle.

We got a tree and the whole house smells like pine...

We are waiting for the branches to drop a little before we decorate.

There will be pictures.

I finished another painting. This one took some planning a more time to finish because the layers took longer to dry. Anyway, remember this photo?:




Well I did a watercolor sketch based on that photo:




And eventually I produced this, using soy-based yarn, steel wool, and arche paper I had painted then cut into little shapes:




After Us #3
Mixed Media on Canvas
16"H x 12"W

Just in the nick of time:

The Pumpkin Marscapone Hazelnut pie was out of sight. Of all the desserts, it was the one with the least left over.

Victory is mine!

(What? Like you didn't know cooking for Thanksgiving was a competitive sport?)

I'm up verrrrry early. We gotta be out of the house and on the road by 1pm.

My arms ache.

Beat the dough for 5 minutes? Well, at 6am five minutes felt like five hours.

Maybe next time I should use THIS (a thing of beauty):




HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Pumpkin Marscapone Hazelnut Pie

Tomorrow I begin my craziness in the kitchen. We have the task of making the marshmallow yams, mashed potatoes, cauliflower & zucchini fritters, bread and pumpkin pie--the other TG goodies have been divvied up among Paul's family.

Since I'm not Bree van de Kamp, we had to ease the load. We bought a traditional pumpkin pie, but I am going to make a homemade pumpkin pie with Frangelico and a hazelnut crust. Tomorrow I have to start the bread. I'm making Ciabatta again so the starter has to rise overnight. Which reminds me, I forgot to buy more yeast.

Thursday morning will be chaos...but I'm looking forward to it.

It was a routine trip to the grocery store, with the exception of buying 6 yams, 4lbs of asparagus, 3 cans of pumpkin pie filling, evaporated milk, and cranberry sauce and cranberry jelly. I had made the list in kind of a daze, not connecting with the significance of WHY I was making it.

I just haven't been feeling the Holidays. I don't know why. Maybe my usual joy derived from this time of year was overshadowed by the FUBAR-ness of our country and the constant barrage of bad news from the media. Thankfully, (knock on wood) we haven't been touched by the economic slump, although it is constantly in the back of my mind, particularly because I handle all of the finances, both personal and business.

Maybe I haven't allowed myself to be too happy or celebratory because I'm waiting for the big Ka-Boom of a complete market crash. Part of me worries for all of those people who are losing their jobs; it must be especially painful at this time of year.

But, tonight I felt a change, and it's not because the stock market had its biggest one day gain since 1987. No, the reason is much simpler than that. I went to the grocery store and it was a complete madhouse-but a madhouse full of happy, smiling people. People, who, despite possible financial problems, are just thankful that they are going to spend a day feasting with their families.

It was infectious. I completely let the feeling take over. Today, I was reminded that no matter how bad things may get, we are, all of us, in it together. And that's a big thing to be thankful for.

Last night we drove 1 1/2 hours to Peekskill, NY to see Rufus Wainwright at the Paramount Theater.

Beforehand, we had a wonderful dinner at India House in Montrose, NY. (Just after dinner, we listened to a little bit of the John Tesh radio show and he mentioned that the spices in Indian food had been found to help stave off the development of Alzheimer's Disease. So, the guilt of pigging out was completely erased.)

This was our third time seeing Rufus in concert and this was probably my favorite because it was just him on stage with a piano and a guitar.

He has one song, called, The Art Teacher. The original recording of it is just him and the piano, and I listen to it obsessively. But, the last time we saw him, he had a full band and he made the song more uptempo, so I was disappointed. This time however, he played it exactly as he did on the original recording. I almost cried it was so beautiful.

He's a great entertainer and so completely at home on stage and so open to his audience that he makes them feel like they are in his living room.

I finished two more paintings. One of them must be destroyed. However, I'm super pleased with one of them.

Remember this picture?




This photo was already somewhat abstract, so my depiction of it is a little more literal:




Tree Stump Landscape 2
Acrylic, steel wool, twigs, bark
12" x 16"

I was going to do some elaborate still life with fruits and vegetables, but then I saw this one apple at the bottom of the crisper drawer that was so beautiful. I didn't want to do it an injustice by lumping it together with inferior carrots, celery and potatoes, so I let it be the star that it is...

One of the anxieties of writing is the fear of screwing up a piece you've been wanting to write or are in the process of writing.

This morning I was leery of approaching the chapter I was to begin today. The reason being that the climax and the end of the story depend on the outcome of this chapter. It is a pivotal scene between two characters who, until this moment, are sworn enemies.

So, I sat down to write. I stared at the computer screen, my fingers poised over the keyboard waiting for my synapses to fire away. Then...

Nothing.

So I played Scramble for an hour.

Then I had breakfast.

Then I worked on my paintings.

When I glanced at the computer screen, there it was: my tormentor. The dreaded cursor. It was still in the same position it had been earlier in the morning, blinking away insistently at me.

With a huge, reluctant sigh, I sat down and said, "What the hell. If it sucks, it can always be changed or re-written later."

And, really, that's the key to overcoming the initial fear. We aren't writing on stone tablets anymore, but in very malleable cyberspace, where nothing is forever and everything can be erased and never seen again.

I wrote a quarter of the chapter, and it wasn't bad. In fact, it was better than what I'd written thus far. Lesson learned? Probably not.

When I had taken close up photos of trees, stumps and roots, I had a vague idea of how I wanted to transform those photos. They were to be inspiration, a jumping off point for something abstract.

It's been awhile since I tried my hand at it, but my first attempt came out pretty much the way I wanted it to.

Remember this picture?




Well, it turned into this:



Landscape Tree Stump
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas
11" x 14"

It was a lot of fun using the modeling paste and steel wool. I was inspired by the texture and the shapes found in the photograph and I wanted those to come through in the painting. I was, also,most definitely inspired by Anselm Kiefer, who I had mentioned in my post about Mass MoCA. (I'd put the link to that post in here, but I don't know how to do that...)

I have a few other paintings in the works and will post those at a later date...

Lately, whenever I'm feeling blue, I just watch clips from the Catherine Tate show and everything seems better. This particular one had me rolling the first time I saw it.

I mentioned yesterday that we went to the art store. Since we hadn't planned it, I didn't take a list of the paint that I actually needed. Of course, I need just about every color imaginable. It had been so long since I last used the paints that a few tubes were hard as rocks and my violet suffered from separation of gel and pigment.

Regardless, I was able to use my molding paste and laid down the foundation of a painting I have in mind. It will take awhile to dry. By the time we get back from the art store tomorrow, it should be set.

Since I have lots of left over mylar after covering my books, instead of throwing it away, I wanted to find another use for it. I began using the mylar to cut out stencil patterns and tonight I made one and experimented with what little good acrylic paint I have left.

Dinner tonight?

Pork Roast

1 Pork Roast
1 Onion, diced
4 Large Potatoes, peeled and cut into medium sized cubes
4 Large Carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" thick slices
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
2 Celery Stalks, cut into 1/2" thick pieces
A handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 Cup Red Wine
1 TBSP Herbes de Provence
1/4 tsp Ground Coriander
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
Salt to taste

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F. In a large bowl, toss the onion, potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, salt and parsley in enough olive oil that the mixture is glistening.
Drizzle olive oil on the bottom of a roasting pan. Place the pork roast, fat side up, in the roasting pan. Pour the red wine over the pork, then drizzle olive oil over the pork. With a mortar and pestle, mash together the herbes de Provence, 2 tsp of salt, coriander and onion powder. After it is almost powdery, sprinkle it on top of the pork then spread it out, rubbing it into the fat.
Surround the pork roast with the vegetables, then cover with aluminum foil and place in preheated oven. Roast covered for about an hour. After an hour, remove from oven, stir vegatables around. Increase the oven heat to 450 degrees F. Put the roast back in the oven UNCOVERED and allow to roast for another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes or until the core temperature of the roast reaches 170 degrees F. The top of the roast will become nice and crispy and the vegetables will be nice and browned on top.