Yummm... healthy dinner at last!

Yesterday we decided to have a nice dinner (and a healthy dinner) . Since my husband will be visiting his mother on Mother's Day I kind of looked at this as my Mother's Day dinner. So when he asked what I would like to have, I replied, well I'd LIKE to have crab legs at Red Lobster but we won't be doing that since we are sheltered at home. We did have the option of placing an order and picking it up and bringing it back home but it's about a 30-minute trip and I really didn't fancy cold crab legs. Another suggestion he had was to visit our local fishmonger who does have high quality fish all the time and we could cook it ourselves, together. He even agreed to have fish for dinner himself! Shocker because that's not something he normally would agree to.

We decided on crab legs for me, and grouper for him. My husband likes grouper and we found several recipes for which we already had most of the ingredients, the only thing we had to pick up was grated Parmesan. The decision was made! Grouper Florentine. Another surprise because spinach is not usually on my husband's list of favorite things... unless it is in a spinach artichoke dip for which we have tortilla chips!

They had some lovely crab legs at the fishmongers and grouper happened to be on sale! After a couple errands we brought them home prepared our meal ...I steamed the crab legs  in our gigantic pot ,  and we cooked his grouper recipe together, I prepared the Florentine  sauce while he cooked the grouper .  We had a lovely evening! Everything turned out right for once. In fact I think I will use his recipe once again without the grouper to make creamed spinach. It was so so good and it reminded me somewhat of Boston Market's creamed spinach but this was even better! Now I just have to find that recipe...

Easter Eve - 2020

I think we were pretty productive today, more than any other day! 

We went for a bike ride yesterday.. loaded up the bikes and headed for Rock Island trail but the parking lot was roped off ...so we turned around and went back and parked at Bushwackers in Junction city... from there we rode the trail to Peo Heights... it felt GOOD... I was surprised because I hadn't been on my bike in 2 years! Anyway we rode out and back to the car. 

On the way home we stopped at Alwan's for some steaks to have today for Easter... they were letting people in one at a time maintaining a certain amount inside. Also only ONE per household (per cart) was allowed... once inside you get in a line and tell the butcher what you want and he goes and gets it... you do NOT get to pick out your steak or anything like normal.. they ended up giving my husband a 1.75 pound T-bone for ME!.. LOL... and he got a bone in ribeye.. we'll grill them today outside...if it doesn't rain.

Then we came home and I started pulling weeds (dead weeds) from around the fire pit while the Mister mowed the front and side yards. He wanted to get that done before it rained.  GOOD timing. And I want to be able to use the fire-pit this year so I also bundled all the weeds and put many in the pit for fire-starter... and more in a tin bucket we have out there for kindling. Then I started raking but had to take a break after a while...  I dragged this cabinet out to the porch that I had been wanting to get rid of, it had been in the front hall waiting to escape for months now.  I called the neighbor to see if she wanted it... she came over to look at it and said her husband would come over and carry it away when he got home from the pharmacy. (and he did). 

Next, I then started on the garage... We needed to put the bikes back in there but I didn't like where mine had been stored so I moved things around and made more space and threw out a bunch of stuff... and swept all the leaves out... its nicer now.. still needs work. but nicer. Then I took the bikes off the back of the car and put them away in the garage. Good Timing... 

I started splicing some videos together for a combined video that I'm making for the North Art Studio artists. It's a fun project and I get to use my new video editing and splicing skills... FUN! We are hoping to post the video online next week... I hope to get videos from everyone in time.


For dinner we were both so pooped that we decided on carry-out from Rizzi's in the city.  We called it in and left to go pick it up around 6pm, right when it began to storm... before we left, Rick got the bike rack off the back of the

car or we wouldn't have fit in the garage when we returned. I backed into the garage for him to do it so he didn't have to do it in the rain... we got to Rizzi's - picked up our food, curbside and came back to settle down to a nice dinner ...but way too much of it! I had Tiramisu for dessert.. yummy, til I found a mustache hair in it... I've been sick ever since... (probably mostly in my mind). After some TV, (we watched some episodes of NCIS we hadn't seen and were catching up)... we hit the hay. But it want a good night sleep for me... I was up at 2am, 3am, 4am and 6am... 

Happy Easter...

Ruth

ps - none of these pictures are real. they are copyright free images off google

Dream... come true.

It started about 3 or 4 years ago... as I rekindled an old flame with art, specifically painting, I had a deep desire start in me to have a studio of my own.  A place I could create art, a place I could offer classes, a place I could discover things deep in my soul. I envisioned this studio in a lofty space overlooking an ocean. Well, not all parts of a dream are meant to be so when a large portion of the dream comes true you just have to realize there might be reasons for the little details to not be included. For example I don't like tidal waves so perhaps not being on an ocean is a saving Grace for me... who knows?

At any rate this summer I was presented with an opportunity to make the bigger part of my dream come true! A local church had previously rented an area of their building to a school. The school was moving to a new space and the church decided to see if any artists were interested in renting the now empty classrooms!  (Ya Think?!!) within 3 months, the spaces were all spoken for and rented out! .. and I was fortunate enough to have one of them. 24' x 30'  Ya!  that's what I'm talkin' about!

The rooms are spacious and half of them have windows overlooking green grass! A wonderful sight for an artist... calming... energizing...relaxing... all the things we need to make art.... or take a nap,... or both! LOL  So... On Sept 8th I had an Open House for my new studio ... below are some pictures taken by a friend. We had a lot more people later on, but these allow you to see some of the room as well... enjoy!

 

  

why is it so hard to center photos in here???

 

 

  

Winter Birch Trees

Yesterday I taught a class at our local college (ICC) on how to paint Winter Birch Trees. There are many, many birch tree paintings out there and they are almost ALL beautiful. This class was to demonstrate how I had painted this abstract background with the trees. It was a great time and I learned a few things along the way as well.

This was a painting I did last year and used several tools to make the spots, mostly fingers but also tried a few round brushes and other tools.I found out at that time just how long it takes to fill in a background. I had time between then and now to forget how long it took, but it reminded us yesterday LOL. As much as I love this painting, some of the results from yesterday's class took my breath away. First of all I stressed to them to make it their own. If they don't like certain colors, dont use them! If they wanted a sky & land background instead, then by all means do that instead of the dots and I got their permission to share their results with you. I will be doing another, based on the inspiration I saw here.

I want to zoom in a bit on these for you... and I took mine out of the mix. I must say I was also touched that they wanted a picture with me in it.. (that's a first!) and I'll post it below also.

Plans need room to grow

As with all good plans mine apparently needed growing room. It's all well and good to set out a daily list, but sometimes I just don't get to the list. Today - however - I unknowingly stuck to the program! YAY for me! Today was supposed to be website day, and I did indeed work on my website!  WOW.

So I managed to post a whole new page where I can put up 'sets' that I work on... mostly ceramic tile sets, but some will be mini canvas sets. Here is the page in case you are interested...

http://www.brushwithmanycolors.com/indexsets.html

So I did manage to get that page created, and pictures put up on it... the whole 9 yards. I even made some changes to a couple other pages.

Here is my most recent...

4" ceramic tiles

painted with acrylic paint

sealed and varnished complete

with felt feet on the backs.

Whew... now, I think I'll take time out for breakfast!

Artful Tribute to America's Independence

An Artful Tribute to America's Independence

Somehow didn't get published for July 4th

The Pink Lady

Well according to my chart, today is Blog day!

Monday - Instagram  --- @ruth.inman (check it out) 
Tuesday - Youtube --- "Ruths Art"
Wednesday - Blog --- brushwithmanycolors.blogspot.com
Thursday - Website --- BrushWithManyColors.com
Friday - Etsy --- Ruths Art Gallery

Today I want to share with you a technique I learned last week and taught last week! It's one used by Picasso himself! Tricking the brain based on what the eye sees.

So let's say you have a photograph of someone you want to draw. It can be difficult to not take in everything all at once and try to get it all "right" in the drawing.  So we learned that if you take the picture and turn it Upside Down... then your brain can't seem to 'take in' what the full overall picture is and it allows you to just draw what you see... line by line, area by area.

First I'll show you a picture Picasso drew, and in our 1st lesson, they passed out copies of this and asked up to turn it upside down and then try drawing it on a pad of paper.  No Tracing... just draw what you see.

The first one is the original, and the 2nd is someone's version of it upside down.

I intended to share MY version but I left it at home and I'm currently at a local coffee shop working.

However, I picked what I thought was a less intensive drawing for my group on the next day

Also a Picasso, I have here the Original, The Original turned upside down, and then my version which I painted before taking a picture (oops). 

 

She looks a bit stand-off-ish, but ... there she is...

The Pink Lady.