Day 31 Dough Maker

Dough Maker

Mainly ballpoint pen

Spent the first part of the night making this Mocha Buttercream Vanilla Cake for my co-worker.

Double-Fisted

Double-Fisted

Yesterday was National Pie Day so I posted a pic of a British Treacle Tart I made with Brazilian acai sauce over on my Listen to Me Pie Lady blog.  It's a funny thing though.  After I spend time baking and posting my edible creations, I feel guilty about this blog.  Not really guilty about the blog, I suppose, but about "cheating" on my artwork with culinary pursuits.  Isn't that crazy?  I have been baking and cooking since I was 8 years old, I truly have.  I moved to San Francisco to be a chef, something I have written about before, so works in the kitchen have been with me for a long time.

But I've noticed a pattern within myself.  Too long away from drawing and painting, and I start to feel like I will "lose it."  I immediately want to test myself to make sure I still "have it."  I'm drawing all the time; post-it notes at work, doodles on the back of grocery receipts.  I don't even post all these things.  Yet, I needed to reassure myself that I could sit down and create a little line drawing after eating that slice of sweetness.

Here it is:  Double-Fisted.  Maybe it's my art self telling me to "get back to it" or else. (-;

Day 1 of 30 Hand Pie

I think I might be doing a painting a day for January.  See how definitive I am about this?  After doing a 365 painting/drawing a day in 2013, I am a little shy of any similar committment! You could do it yourself through Leslie Saeta who created it.  Anyway, since I've been baking a few pies lately, and a blackberry one today in particular (see my pie blog), I thought I'd use that event as inspiration for day 1.  I like to go all around the canvas, by the way. (-;

Here ya' go.  Hand pie!  

I wasn't quite done when I took the 2 pics below, but you get the idea.

Betty Sue Trying to Get in Shape - Goodbye Winter!

Betty Sue could feel the pull of spring nipping at here widening waist and winter sluggishness. Time to get out her exercise DVDs and try to whittle that middle down!  She huffed and she puffed, and you had to admire her fortitude in keeping up with leg lifts, side kicks, and arm circles.  But then she came to that darn double-leg cross grapevine move and she faltered. Looking over her shoulder at the t.v. screen, trying to follow her svelte television instructor, she tripped and twisted her ankle.  Cursed aerobics hell!  She limped to her freezer, grabbed some Ben and Jerry's ice cream, hobbled to the couch and put an end to that insanity.

Speaking of winter, here's a few shots I took last Saturday morning.  I actually was walking Ebert, when I saw this ice in the alley looking like broken glass.  It was so beautiful, I had to run back alone with my camera, but even a 5 minute difference had changed its appearance in the warming sun. Still, here's a peek at nature's mosaic.

Then there was this fellow.  Just a lollipop of a big-headed icicle sticking straight up out of the snow.  He looks like a heart, and in the next, an upright cobra, and then a side-view of a screaming mouth and eyes.

Heart

 

Wide-Eyed Cobra

 

 Eyes and Mouth on the upper right-hand side.

And I love all the detritis and debris in this dirty snow bank.  I want to use that background in a painting.

Here are some wintry goodies.  I took this shot of banana bundt cake while it was still steaming, fresh out of the pan:

I used 2 cups of gluten-free Cup4Cup flour and 1 cup of almond meal to make it gluten-free.

And one final wintry dessert--buttermilk chess pie, which you can read more about at listentomepielady.blogspot.com.

Day 218. Pumpkin Pie in the Watermelon Boat (SOLD)

It's hard to believe the weather this summer in comparison to last year.  The heat and humidity were so unbearable during 2012.  In contrast, yesterday the drizzly, overcast weather almost made it feel like fall.  That's fine in my book.  Give me a 63 degree day over one that's 97 Fahrenheit any ol' time.  Like my Day 36, "Spring Day Folded into Winter," (http://livedrawpaint.blogspot.com/2013/01/day-36-spring-day-folded-into-winter.html) I'll take an inter-seasonal day whenever they pop up. (-: