Grill meets pizza

Grilled three pizzas yesterday. Burned the bottoms of each one, but they were still goid. Might have to try it again. Not sure what to do about the burning, though.

Bronze

This in a small bronze sculpture from the City Museum in St. Louis, which is one of the coolest places I've ever seen.  As we were getting ready to leave last Saturday night, we were waiting in the lobby, and I had a few minutes to kill, so I snapped this pic.

Lunchbreak fishing

Yesterday, lunch break. Office park pond near work. 40 minutes. Are there even any fish??  Yes, there are even any fish. Tiny sunfish (longears) hiding in the rocks by the bank. They attacked my beetle spinner. Question : are there any bigger fish in this pond? Seems like there would be. Remains to be seen.

Floyds Fork

Fished a little today before the heavy rains set in. Mostly caught little longear sunfish, but also a few green sunfish and a smallish smallmouth bass. I used a beetle spinner at first, the switched to live bait. This morning in the compost pile I found some beetle larvae of some kind, and they were excellent bait--just the right size for size-12 circle hooks, and stayed on the hook marvellously. Probably never find more again, but if I do, I will grab them.

Pen and Ink House Portrait, Old Louisville

8 x 10 inches, finished a couple of weeks ago.

I would very much like to do some oil paintings of Old Louisville architecture.  The sunlight and shadows on the brickwork and roofs was very inspiring.

Mothers' Day hike, last Sunday

Golf scramble, last Saturday

Shadowrun, last Saturday

Coffee lightfastness test

coffee lightfastness test

Here is the result of a light exposure test for drawing or painting with coffee. This ran from March 19 to May 8.  I was surprised that there was so little fading (the bottom half of this paper pictures was on my dashboard the whole time, and the top half was tucked inside my sketchbook).  I will keep it on my dashboard longer to see how much it changes.  But right now, I would consider coffee to be relatively lightfast...but I might have to revise that if it all just disappears, which I guess could still happen.

I am doing this because, for some reason, I just don't see anyone else testing this, even though I know some people use coffee for artwork.

6-day-old robins

pieces

lunchtime walk

Took a walk at lunch today;

Outpaced the negativi-tay.

It rained a bit, and it was gray,

But I ejoyed flowers. Yay.

Sessions: Pandemic and Monopoly

Pandemic:  I lost.  The black disease swept the Middle East on the same turn I found a cure for it, so I lost the game.

 Monopoly: We played "fast rules" which sped things up pretty well.  I came in second out of six.

Cemetery at Turkey Run

Oil landscape details

Metal detecting finds 4-1-17...

...a bunch of junk.  The best bits, in my opinion, are the three partial metal car toys, including the half of a light blue die cast car.

This was from an 80-year-old back yard.  I also found three pennies, all of them 1970s or later.

This was my first metal detecting excursion in a long time.  I guess it's been close to a year? I'm not sure.

Magic Labyrinth & Asparagus

Two days ago I picked the year's first three asparagus stalks.  They were sweet and tender; we ate them with sloppy joes and tater tots. mmm.

And tonight we played Magic Labyrinth.

Early spring landscape along Floyds Fork

"Early Spring, Floyds Fork at Seatonville Road," 16 x 20 inches.  I finished this today at home after starting it last Friday on site.

I used a limited palette: burnt sienna, ivory black, burnt umber, Naples yellow, red iron oxide, ultramarine blue, titanium white.

I am very happy with the finished product, though this photo didn't pick up some of the subtlety in the tones.

earthtone palette

Did some plein air painting last Friday. I used a limited earthtone palette like last time, with a slight change, substituting ultramarine blue for cerulean blue, and adding red iron oxide. The other colors are ivory black, titanium white, Naples yellow, burnt sienna, and burnt umber.

I didn't finish the painting on site, so worked more at home. I still want to work more. It's not resolved yet. Pictures forthcoming.

Red iron oxide is a monster, by the way. It walks up and punches other paint in the face kyst for laughs.

m s softball

It was a cold, windy night, but a fun game to watch.

Dinner

The dinner I fixed tonight was more elaborate than any I had fixed in a while.  Orange garlic chicken in the crock pot; bangers and mash with onion gravy; and irish soda bread.  I managed to have it all ready at pretty much the same time, too.

It all came out pretty good.  The bangers and mash were a little bland, but salt helped.  A Guinness would have gone great with it all, but I didn't want to spend money on beer.

knife painting - Germantown shotgun houses

Sylvia Street, Germantown

This is an oil painting I started about five years ago, and only had it at the underpainting stage before I put it on a shelf in the garage and forgot about it.  I didn't much like how it was coming along.  Finally, a few weeks ago, I pulled it out and used a painting knife to complete it.  It's one of my only knife paintings, and I like the result.  It was, for me, pretty experimental, since I don't have much experience with painting knives.  It was certainly different than the detailed pen and ink work I usually work on, and I want to do more soon.