Category: Food sketch

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Berkeley Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Making Tortillas at Picante (and eating them)

The Taco Maker, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
The Taco Maker, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

Picante was quite crowded on our Tuesday night sketchcrawl. Sonia arrived early and saved us a booth but since I was last to arrive, my seat faced the wall, without a view of anything to draw. I decided to wait until after I ate to find a spot to stand and sketch the tortilla maker. She was amazing, in constant motion, pulling dough from the bowl, rolling a ball, placing it in the wooden press, squeeze, put on grill, move the tortillas around, squeeze another.

Fish Tacos and salad, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Fish Tacos and salad, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

My dinner was delicious: fish tacos served on Maria’s freshly made corn tortillas and drizzled with avocado sauce. Yum! Picante is one of the best Mexican restaurants in Berkeley with a friendly, festive atmosphere and delicious food made with high quality ingredients.

Categories
Berkeley Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Sketchbook Pages

Awkward Tea and Sketches at Imperial Teahouse

Imperial Teahouse Evening Sketch, Ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Imperial Teahouse Evening Sketch, Ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The title is true: both the tea and the sketches were awkward. It was a warm November evening during our weird extended summer and the doors to the patio were open. But that didn’t diminish the smell of frying food and the annoying sound of constant chopping from the small kitchen. I totally botched the perspective when I drew the tables. The little girls look like they’re floating but they were sitting on a bench, also drawn awkwardly.

Cup of tea with lid, ink, watercolor & gouache, 7x5"
Cup of tea with lid, ink, watercolor & gouache, 7x5"

At the Imperial Tearoom, they serve the tea Gaiwan style: the loose tea floats in a cup with a lid but no handle (foreground above). To drink it, you’re supposed to tilt the lid and drink from the cup using the lid as a strainer. Awkward.

I’d recently given up caffeine so selected some sort of ginger, ginseng and weed concoction. Fortunately it tasted yucky so it didn’t matter how hard it was to drink. I was really just there to sketch, but the sketches turned out mostly yucky too. I added gouache to the teapot above at home to try to fix the anemic painting I’d done on site and to the saucer below to try to hide all the trouble I had with ellipses that night.

Tea with floaty stuff in it, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Tea with floaty stuff in it, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

When I ordered my tea I didn’t see prices on the menu, just the teas to choose from. When I paid the bill, I discovered the stupid cup of tea cost $6.00!

Categories
Food sketch Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages

From Tree to Table: Fig Bruschetta, Fig Tree and the Book

Grilled Fig Bruschetta table card, ink & gouache, 5x7"
Grilled Fig Bruschetta table card, ink & gouache, 5x7"

At the book publication party for my friend Barbara’s wonderful new book, From Tree to Table: Growing Backyard Fruit Trees in the Pacific Maritime Climate I decided to make one of the recipes in the book: Grilled Fig Bruschetta. But first I sketched a few of the figs (above) before cooking them. I used a blank note card because I wanted to stand it on the table with the food. But since it wasn’t watercolor paper, the paint just sunk in. I switched to gouache which worked great and was huge fun.

Fig Bruschetta on the table
Fig Bruschetta on the table

I’m not a confident cook, but the recipe sounded simple and very delicious: figs tossed in olive oil and fresh thyme and broiled, then set atop a toasted baguette spread with gorgonzola dolce cheese (soft, sweet blue cheese), and then drizzled with a bit of honey and a sprinkle of thyme.

They were fabulous! A perfect combination of flavors and everyone loved them. I’m glad I took a picture (above) before they were all gone. I served them on plates I made many years ago when I was a potter.

Baby Fig Tree Growing Bigger, ink & watercolor & rubber stamp, 7x5"
Baby Fig Tree Grows, ink & watercolor & stamp, 7x5"

This is the baby fig tree that Barbara gave me last spring. I’ve sketched its progress from stick, to growing three leaves to now (above) with three skinny trunks. I’m going to use the pruning section in From Tree to Table (and a little help from Barbara) to learn how to prune it so it just has one trunk, once it drops its leaves for the winter….if winter ever comes…we’re still having warm summer-like weather half the time and fruit trees are so confused.

Categories
Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Delicata: Raw, Cut, Cooked

Delicata Squash, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Delicata Squash, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The Delicata squash were so pretty I wanted to paint them. And then I wanted to cook them (a first time for me). Exploring new produce is an adventure. First draw it, then cut it open and see what’s inside.

Delicata cut, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Delicata cut, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The texture of squash doesn’t really appeal to me too much. Especially the slimy parts before it’s cooked. But it makes an interesting sketching subject.

Delicata Cooked on Metal Pan, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Delicata Cooked on Metal Pan, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I like this sketch best, with the squash sitting in the reflective, stainless steel roasting pan. I ate a couple of their brethren with my dinner and then brought the leftovers to the studio to sketch.

I’m still not a huge fan . It was OK, roasted with some butter and a little cinnamon. But I think next time (if there is one) I will go for a more savory flavor, with lots of garlic instead.

UPDATE 10/23/11: My art blogger friend Jana Botkin shared these thoughts on squash and art that I had to share here:

  1. A friend once said to me “Squash is the past tense of squish, and squish is not a food”.
  2. We full-time artists could theoretically write off the cost of our groceries if we paint them first!
  3. Garlic, oregano and parmesan cheese are almost the only way I find squash palatable. Without it, it is only palette-able!
Categories
Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

Figs On Deck

Figs in glass bowl in sun, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Figs in glass bowl in sun, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

After a summer of fighting with a contractor to properly complete my backyard deck and some other construction (beginning stages of garage to studio conversion), the work is done and I can finally enjoy painting on my backyard deck. This was my first happy little backyard sketch of three varieties of organic figs. I painted sitting on my cute new wicker love seat, bought  for just $20 from neighbors who were moving away.

I may at some point share my lengthy rant about the way many contractors condescend, ignore, cheat and/or bully women clients, but it’s too nice a day to dwell on such things. I’ll just say that after talking to other women who’ve managed their own construction projects with male contractors, the problem is all to common.

But now the sun is shining, the wind and fog have disappeared and I have a little bouquet of roses waiting to be painted so I’m heading out to the deck!

Categories
Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Red, White and Blueberries

Red, White and Blueberries, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Red, White and Blueberries, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Happy 4th of July, whether it’s Independence Day where you are not. Why not make every day Independence Day and claim your right to freedom from whatever holds you back?

Today I chose the freedom of sketching blueberries in my sketchbook instead of struggling with other “work” I’ve been doing in the studio. I’m also trying to claim independence from the “shoulds” that are telling me I should be at a barbeque, roasting wieners, drinking beer, and waving flags.

It looks like the Bay Area will at last have a non-foggy 4th and if so I’ll be heading up to Albany Hill to watch the fireworks around the Bay Area. And now I declare independence from my computer!

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Art theory Daily Paintworks Challenge Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Stacked! (Stacking the Odds in Your Favor)

Stacked, painting of apples and lemon stacked a top each other, oil on Gessobord, 10x8"
"Stacked!" oil on Gessobord, 10x8"

One way to the stack the odds in your favor with most endeavors is to rehearse. So before I attempted the oil painting above, I did a little thumbnail sketch, a full-sized value sketch, and a watercolor sketch (below). I also took photos just in case the paperclips and scotch tape holding it all together failed (but they didn’t–the stack is still standing!)

Stacked, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Stacked, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I did the watercolor sketch first with the fruit sitting on my drawing table and the grey studio wall as the background. I love ink & watercolor. So immediate and so fun!

Stacked, value study with Prismacolor cool grey markers, 10x8"
Stacked, value study with Prismacolor cool grey markers, 10x8"

Then I set up the fruit stack by my easel and did this value and compositional sketch. I wanted the sketch to be the same size as the painting so I used the Gessobord as a template, tracing around it on the sketching paper. Once I had the drawing the way I wanted it, I used Prismacolor cool grey markers (30%, 50% 80%) to shade the values. It was easy to transfer the full-sized sketch to the Gessobord with a sheet of blue Saral Transfer Paper between the sketch and the board, then drawing over the sketch with a stylus.

I revised the background by hanging a dark gold/green cloth hung behind the still life hiding the gray wall.  Now I’m wondering whether to repaint the leaves. What do you think? Is it better to leave them kind of soft and blurry so they don’t attract too much attention. Did you notice them before I asked the question?

(Painting available here)

Categories
Art supplies Art theory Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Learning Leaning Apples on Grannie’s Linen

"Leaning Learning Apples", oil on linen, 8x8"
"Learning Leaning Apples", oil painting on linen panel, 8x8"

I’m happier with this painting of apples on a linen tablecloth embroidered by my grandmother. After the mighty fail of my cringe-worthy zombie apple painting, I got really curious. What was I missing? Clearly my drawing hadn’t been careful enough, per my friend Michael’s appraisal of the painting: “Uh, what is it?” And I know it was way overworked.

So before trying to paint these apples again I sat down with my sketchbook, an apple and my Lamy Safari pen. (The note below about Cathy’s special pen was just me grabbing any old page in the sketchbook to try out her strange new pen when she handed it to me.)

Study for "Leaning and Learning Apples," ink & watercolor
Study for "Leaning Learning Apples," ink & watercolor

I sketched one very dark purple delicious apple over and over in ink, trying to understand what I was seeing, where the planes changed, where the darks and lights were, trying not to get tricked by the reflections. That gave me a little more courage to try to paint the apples again in oil.

The painting at the top of the post was the result. This was a new painting surface for me: oil-primed linen on panel, surprisingly inexpensive (for linen), on sale at Jerrys Artarama. It was quite lovely to paint on. It was slippier than I was used to; the Ampersand Gessobord panels I usually use kind of “bite” the paint right off the brush and the oil primed linen allows it glide.

This painting is available on my DailyPaintworks gallery.

Categories
Drawing Every Day Matters Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Leave It! Lemon and Vinegar

Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar
Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar

You know how dog owners shout “Leave it!” when they are about to roll in something stinky or eat garbage off the ground? (the dog, not the owners rolling in it). I’m taking a similar approach with my ink drawings and watercolor sketches.

If the line is wrong, if there’s a typo or the wash comes out funny, I say to myself: “Leave it!” Let it be. Fresh is (almost always) better than Fixed. Mistake is just another word for Interesting.

Do you see what I got wrong in this picture and just left it? (hint–it’s a typo…er… “writeo.”) I showed it to my sketch group and nobody could find it (but maybe it’s because we were in a dark pub?)

This was done for Every Day in May #106: Something sour or tart. I’m loving the extra practice in drawing I’m getting from the EDiM project.

Categories
Animals Daily Paintworks Challenge Food sketch Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Happy Boy Radishes in Oil (Paint) and Still Life with Cat

Happy Boy Farms Radishes, oil on panel, 8x8"
Happy Boy Farms Radishes, oil on panel, 8x8"

Every time I paint I learn something. This time I learned some new tricks with different brushes and mediums and also about how much easier it is to paint in a good mood than a bad one. I painted the radishes for last week’s Daily Paintworks challenge, “Paint your vegetables.” It is available there on my new Daily Paintworks page.

I painted the radishes over Sunday’s painting of cucumbers that didn’t work because of my bad composition (or my bad mood when I was painting it) not sure which. I liked the lemon slice in the painting so I took a photo before I scraped off the panel for reuse.  Here is the happy little corner of the painting with the lemon slice (and without the two big ugly cukes at the top):

Cucumbers and Lemon, section of trashed painting
Cucumbers and Lemon, corner of painting

And here is the promised Still Life With Cat, shot when I put the radishes back in the fridge and silly Busby decided my still life light box would make a nice kitty sauna.

Busby still life
Still Life with Cat

I’d probably look grouchy too if someone tried to take a picture of me in the sauna!