Beach Walk in SAQA Florida

Beach Walk, 65" x 23"
collage and paint

I'm happy that Beach Walk was selected for the Studio Art Quilt Associates show October 30-December 3 at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach!

Paint

God's paint job: sunset at St. Joseph Peninsula
(That's sand, not snow!)

Beach Walk: oil paint stick and acrylic paint

I thought I'd never paint anything but furniture and walls. Then I painted quilts. I love the strong oily smell of Paintstiks. I love to get my hands dirty with paint. I love paint color too. But the refinements of using paint -- of being a painter -- scare me. April, my media teacher at LeMoyne, made it slightly less so. Here's what I learned:

Acrylic. "When it dries it's plastic. It blocks water." April loves Golden brand. Then Utrecht, Winsdor-Newton, and finally Liquitex. Not always in that order, just kind of. Liquitex is least expensive, thinnest in color. "You might want that effect," April said. If so, buy Liquitex.

Gesso is white liquid that you lay down to prepare your painting surface. April uses it like white paint. She never buys white paint. Gesso, however, does not like permanent marker, April said.

The water-activated paints are tempera (dries chalky), gouache (you need just a dab; call it gwash), and, of course, watercolor. To indicate transparency, there are three slanted lines on the tube. If the paint is very transparent, you'll be able to see the lines clearly. For less transparent paint, the lines will be more covered up. Somehow, hue on the label means it will be more watery and permanence means high intensity.

I've got to play with all these paints, blending colors and layering until I understand them. I am going to work with the Lumiere textile acrylic and Shiva Paintstiks, leaving the water-based paints for postcards and notebook.

Encaustic

I've been keeping a tiny notebook of copies of art I like, and on the next page I make a sacrilegiously quick piece to mimic it. Today I'm melting crayons to approximate encaustic. Here's a copy of Bottles, the work of Carolyn Homan, the artist inspiring me:

Read the site of of Ann Onusko, for more about encaustic. You mix wax (usually beeswax), with resin (usually Damar resin). Melt it, brush it down on a sturdy, prepared, porous surface, let it cure for days or weeks, then polish it. I think you add pigment in the first step. I think you can also put color on top. You can scratch in designs and alter it in other ways. A blowtorch is involved somewhere, or maybe one of those little tools to bubble the top of creme brulée. In the end you polish it so it looks like a waxed floor. This is where encaustic loses me. I love its layered-ness and the misty fusion of lines, but I don't like art so slick you can skate on it.

But it was fun melting crayons. I chipped off little pieces and microwaved them on high for 2-5 minutes, depending. Oh -- the encaustic process is toxic and should be done wearing a mask and near an open window. So I'll air out the microwave. 

Here's what my melted piece looks like in the sun.

Mary's Chocolate Cake

Mary gave me this recipe many chocolate cakes ago, and it is still our favorite.

Mary's Chocolate Cake

Boil together in the microwave:
2 sticks butter (1 cup)
1 C. water
4 T. cocoa


Beat in 2 eggs.

Add:
2 C. sugar
2 C. flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. soda

Stir in 3/4 C. sour cream. Don't beat too much.

Bake at 375° in preferred shape until toothpick comes out clean. Use these approximate times
Two heart pans -- 25 minutes
Two 8"or 9"  pans -- 35 minutes
9" x 13" sheet pan -- 30 minutes
jelly roll pan -- 20 minutes
Cupcakes (Use paper cupcake liners -- the recipe makes about 24) -- 20 minutes

Icing
Melt a package of milk chocolate chips with a piece of butter. Watch so chocolate doesn't burn! Beat in powdered sugar and half and half. The more sugar and cream you add, the more icing you get. It's also better, I think.

Shortbread Cookies

Just one? Ha! Impossible.

I made these this morning for C's football friends. I've had the recipe forever. They are rich and delicious. If you eat them right out of the oven (how would I know?), the powdered sugar is hot and liquid.

Shortbread

Mix:
1 C. butter
3/4 C. sugar

Add:
2 C. flour
1/2 t. salt
2 t. vanilla

Spread on ungreased cookie sheet, 1/4" - 1/2" thick. Sprinkle with plenty of powdered sugar (no need to sift it through a strainer, just glop it on. Bake at 350° for about 20 minutes -- maybe less, if you've spread them thin. They get a little browned. C and I like them quite brown, but I think traditionally they are less well-done. Sprinkle with more powdered sugar, as soon as they come out of the oven. Then quickly cut them into diamonds, using a pizza cutter. Cool and then remove from pan.

10 minutes with Enrique Martinez Celaya

Here's a 10-minute movie showing the studio life of Enrique Martinez Celaya in Miami.

Enrique Martinez Celaya: Collected Writings and Interviews, 1990-2010 by Enrique Martinez Celaya
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Now that I read so much on the iPad, books themselves mean all the more to me.  This book feels good. I like the way the cover is elongated, then folded inside to the size of the book. The paper is creamy and has a tooth to it. The whole thing feels like a project, both intimate and austere.  Martínez Celaya himself autographed the title page with a narrow, slanted scratch.

And that's kind of the way he writes: it's more an incision than a view.  Simple and serious -- smart!  Lots of layers here.  Some people think visual artists can't use words, but this one can. Okay -- sometimes he's deeper than I like to delve. After all, he was getting his PhD in physics  when he abruptly (his parents thought!) chose art instead. Then he was a successful art professor at the fancy Pomona College in California, but eventually turned his back on that too

Now he has a slick studio (He would loathe the word slick -- but a recent video shows it is smooth and spare.)  in Miami's Wynwood district. I bought the book at Books & Books in Coral Gables -- mostly because C & I agree never to leave a bookstore without buying a book. I am glad.


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