Jersey Salt

Here's a painting I'm working on for Shazza's Sister Show. I am using her wonderful photography for inspiration. The sky is a little trippy but I like it.

This is definitely the landscape of my childhood as we were surrounded by the salt marsh. We used to call it the meadows. I used to play in it, sinking into the oozy mud while I hunted for terrapins and salamanders. When I was a pre-teen, I used to ride a painted Chincoteague pony down the sandy road to the Seaview docks. During the summer I set my crab traps over the Patcong Creek bridge and waited for my prey. As I got a bit older the sandy marsh roads led to "smoking" spots. When the marsh froze you could walk on the footpaths away from civilization. Small fires were built. Beer cans dropped by underage drinkers littered the ground.

It wasn't until I moved away that I realized the beauty of the salt marsh. I am glad that it is now protected. The osprey have returned. The place holds all sorts of memories for me. Some pleasant, some terrifying. I remember the smell of low tide.

As I look at it on my monitor it looks different than the painting. I added some new purple to the sky and now I realize that I should not have. I was trying to go for complementary color drama. I have to clean up a few stray marks here and there.

Flood Zone

Well the weather gods are at it again. A stalled weather system funneled 7-8 inches of rain through central Pennsylvania over the last couple of days.

I did get an unexpected day off. Luckily my house is not in a flood plain. I did cross through a boundary and I drove through a water covered road last night. Normally I wouldn't do it, but the little VW ahead of me went through so I thought my bitchen mini-van would make it.

Hershey Park is underwater. Unfortunately they had to euthanize two buffalo (American bison) that were caught in a flash flood.

Major interstates are closed including I-81 and the Pennsylvania turnpike. It is pretty serious. This stalled weather system is causing more damage than Hurricane Irene last week.

The good news is that I spent the day painting. I have the preserved farmland trust exhibit coming up.

I hope everyone is staying dry.

If you need another reason to boycott McDonald's

Captured from a friend. I knew there was something about McDonald's food.
If you need another reason to not eat this shit, here it is.

Sorry, I've not been posting. First couple of weeks of school with all new classes! I'm a bit busy but I love you all.

Daughter A's Philly Digs

My daughter is moving into her fabulous Philadelphia flat this weekend! Just thought I'd share a few pictures. I want to live here!

The first image is the spacious L-shaped living room with twelve foot ceilings and wrap-around windows!


The second image is her second floor bedroom! This is a huge room and she will be sharing it with her friend.


The third photo is a view of the kitchen from beneath the open staircase! The appliances are three years old. The neighborhood is in a wonderful center city location. The girl looking out the window is facing an old cobblestone alley. There is a beautiful garden directly across the street. Most of the buildings are brick townhouses.

I am ready to move in. We have secured a two-year lease and if the girls decide to move home for the summer, you had better believe we will be Philadelphians again!

Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys

My first daughter turned nineteen today. When I asked her what type of cake she would like me to make, I was not expecting to do anything like this. First of all, my cake decorating talents are nonexistent. Just because I can paint a little does not translate into cake decorating ability and here's proof!

I must admit this doesn't look too bad from an aerial perspective.



From the side view you can see how crooked my little cake turned out! The bottom layer stuck to the pan a bit. I tried to cover it up with the cream cheese frosting, but...oh well!

Annelise is a huge fan of the Cake Wrecks blog. Anyway that was the inspiration for the Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys! First I was going to mount the little babies on baby carrots, but then thought the frosting would be more fun! Please note I do not have proper cake decorating tools. I do not own a pastry bag, I did not go out and buy squeezy tubes. I tried to improvise. First I attempted to make a little funnel, but after that failed I resorted to "shaping" the little carrots with a butter knife! I did buy the babies and I was able to squeeze a little icing gel on the heads in order to give them their little mohawks. I did not give the black babies mohawks because they looked like they already had them.

After I added the candles it gave my carrot jockeys the opportunity to pole dance!

Anyway the cake tasted much better than it looked! I grated fresh carrots, chopped pecans and substituted crushed pineapple for one cup of the vegetable oil. The result was an extremely rich and moist carrot cake. (Perhaps that's why the bottom layer stuck a bit. The frosting was also homemade, cream cheese, butter, vanilla and sugar. Yum!

Little Hip Hop

Here is a fun little painting that I created in response to the Degas Project back in April.

I actually created two paintings. The first I posted was of three little ballet dancers. This second painting was intended as a quickie fun painting. I was trying to capture the dancer's long blond hair that appeared as alive as she was! It was quite refreshing as most of the paintings exhibited were "oh so serious" and photo-realistically representational.

I photographed it with an intentional blur and then wondered if I could paint it!

Well I had some fun with the hip hop theme and tried to throw in a little sgraffito and grafitti action! The painting was photographed as in progress. I did touch up a few things, but I can't show you as the painting is SOLD!

I was inspired by Dive's wonderful boy band photos and think she'd be quite the match for his blond boy rocker! I couldn't find the photo with my other dancer images and just found that I loaded it on hubby's computer!

Shazza's Jersey Dune

Oh and by the way, I have been painting. I just haven't been sharing. For several reasons, the first being laziness. The second reason is photo software issues. The third being, paintings are always works in progress and not quite ready to share.

Anyway, I am currently working on four or five paintings. I am sharing this one because it didn't photograph too bad.

This painting was inspired by a photo my sister, "Shazza" shot on the Jersey shore near her home. We both grew up on the "Jersey shore". Please note it is not the Jersey Shore of Snooki. Our stomping grounds were about and hour and a half south of Seaside Heights. We locals were not so much into big hair, gold chains and spray tans. I was of the long straight hair, parted in the middle, T-shirt and landlubber jeans. Shoes were flip flops or nothing. I remember that the bellbottoms of the landlubbers were long enough that I could curl my toes into the excess material. Otherwise the Rent-a-cops would boot me off the boardwalk.

Anyway, Shazz has this incredible store and invited me to do a "sistah show" with her. She will be showing her incredible photography and I will show some paintings. I borrowed some of her outstanding photos for inspiration. I am not trying to copy her incredible photos verbatim, but I am trying to add some of my recollections of growing up at "the shore". It was a huge part of becoming me and even though I am currently landlocked, the ocean, the dunes, the marshes and the boardwalk will always be part of me. As this show will be at the shore, I felt it appropriate to paint along with that theme.