I am oil painting again! Whooot!

It has been a long time since I had time to oil paint. I recently cleaned my studio out and started some little oils. I thought it might be fun to do some in a similar style to my watercolor work with ink outlines.

prepping paper with medium so the oil won't rot it






The clean/orgnanized studio




a little inspiration altar

Meghan says~grrr

Some of my family came to visit and we all went out to a restaurant in Edmonds WA to eat. I won't mention any names but it rhymes with ShmARNIES. It sucked. There is no other way to say it. Actually my meal sucked...my family thought it was ok, but there was only one veggie meal for Meghan. The waitress did not notice or mention that I had hardly touched my very expensive crap meal. But the company was great and we had a lot of fun.



Oh and yes I know they look like they (my nieces) are 12 but one is almost thirty and the other is close behind...so don't be appauled that they have drinks in front of them.





My brother in law doesn't look so happy...maybe my sister and I talked too much...

Just in case of~seeds!

Those of you who know me personally know I am a bit of a freak about "just in case of". I usually have water, food, first aid stuff etc. Stock piled just in case of. So now I am in the process of learning to grow my own veg (partly just in case of) and also because it tastes great and is fun. We decided to buy a lot of extra seed to keep just in case of. Apparently if you buy good seeds they can last 6-10 years and still be viable.

Our seed order arrived a few days ago! I planted more radish, various greens and some watercress.

Tiny Studio Update~Almost Done!

My tiny studio/gallery is almost done! The outside is finished and now I just have to finish the inside. I need to put up plywood and plug some holes between the roof and the walls. Then paint the inside and stain the outside. I hope to be open at the end of August.

The Girlies

Aren't they cute! That is Kalli in front. She is only six months old if you can believe that! Binah is the one sitting up. She is about two and a half, but tiny and delicate. Kalli is a truck!

Peach Jam

Last week I made my first peach jam! It turned out great. Canning tires me way out but it was worth it. I made it for Nancy's dad.

What to do with~zucchini and plums

Zucchini is plentiful this time of year and so are plums. Tonight I made a simple zucchini and hominy sautee and a yummy and easy plum sauce for ice cream.

To make the sautee I started with onion and a little olive oil, then added some red pepper and some left over ham. I let that cook for a little while and then added zucchini, green onions, and lots of purple garlic. I wanted to add garlic scapes but I was all out. When everything was almost cooked I added some hominy and then some fresh chopped sage from my garden. I also added a little salt, some red pepper and black pepper.







I had more plums than I knew what to do with. So I ended up making a sauce for ice cream. I just cut up several plums, added some brown sugar and cinnamon and then cooked that down at a medium low heat. To thicken it a bit I added some corn starch and cooked it for a little while longer. Then that went on top of some vanilla ice cream with walnuts, granola and some fresh blackberry from the yard.

Cards and tile boxes-lily

My Lily of the Valley, Hyacinth, Meadowlark scene, Azalea and pomagrante are now available on stuff in my cafe press shop.

Sealife Stack at Haystack Rock

Okapi Ascends

Okapi (2.5x3.5) mixed media on aged BFK rives paper. Available direct from me.

Elephant Ascends

Another new piece...available through me directly at the moment.

I was inspired to paint this piece on my last trip to Oregon. For now it is available directly through me if you are interested. It is a little longer than a playing card but still quite small.

You can get prints of it on My Deviant Art Page

Beans and potatoes

Here are Nancy's beans


And this is a raised bed happily full of potatoes...we dumped our compost potatoes (sprouted ones and cut ones) into this bin. And look they have grown!

Summer reading~Sarah Orne Jewett

After finishing the Country of the Pointed Firs I decided to read more by Sarah Orne Jewett. I just finished A Country Doctor and am almost done with a book of short stories called A White Heron. So far The Country of the Pointed Firs was by far my favorite. I also finally read A confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Greens & Homony, Smashed Yams

Mmm shmashed yammies! I added some butter, a little half and half, and some cinnamon.



Kale. I just don't like it. No matter what I do with it. In this dish I tried to cook it with fresh farmers market onions, green garlic, homony and some other stuff I don't remember...oh yeah garlic scapes too. But the kale was icky. The rest of the dish was fab.

Mugs and cards~mechanical owl

More great stuff available in my cafe press store

Cats and Dogs living together...oh and birds too!

Here is most of the crew..what are they looking at?

Tiles~pomegranate lemon persimmon

Nab some of these tiles with my art on them in my cafe press store.

Wild Food~blackberries

It is so much fun to go out in your yard and harvest food that you didn't have to work much to grow. Last year we cut back some of our Himalayan blackberry bushes. They are the blackberries most of you in the Pacific Northwest are familiar with. We trimmed them way back above our walk wall so that our Indigenous Blackberry which is smaller but far more delicious could thrive. We have been rewarded this year with lots of berries! I am squirreling away some in the freezer so I can make jam in a few weeks.





This kind of blackberry has long thin shooting vines rather than the mosterous invasive bush of the Himalayan variety.

Tiles~lotus cat sprocket fish

These nifty tiles are now available in my cafepress shop.