For a while I was maintaining a separate recipe blog but now I’ve combined it with my art blog so that no matter your reason for visiting, you can get a taste of two of my favourite things in life, ART & FOOD!

This months’ first entry to my recipe box is one of my favorite West Indian dishes, Pigeon Peas & Rice!

Ingredients

• 1 (19-ounce / 540-mL) can gungo peas (pigeon peas) or kidney beans
• 2 cups / 500 mL coconut milk
• 2 green onions, chopped (about ½ cup / 125 mL)
• 1 whole hot pepper
• ½ teaspoon / 2 mL dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon / 2 mL salt
• ½ teaspoon / 2 mL black pepper
• 2 cups / 500 mL rice
• 1 tablespoon / 15 mL margarine

Directions

1. In a large measuring cup, combine the liquid from the canned peas with the coconut milk.
2. Add more water if necessary to make 3½ cups / 875 mL of liquid.
3. Pour the liquid into a large saucepan and add the peas, green onions, hot pepper, thyme, salt, and black pepper.
4. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 hr. (To minimise the boiling time you can soak the peas overnight in water)
5. Add the rice and margarine; stir the pot once.
6. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the water has completely evaporated and the rice is cooked.
7. (If the rice is not tender after the water evaporates, add 2 to 4 tablespoons / 25 to 50 mL of water, cover, and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes.)

If you get a chance to try out any of my recipes, please be sure to come back as post a review, including any tweaks you made to the recipe to suite your taste.

It’s been a productive week as you can see. here is my second charcoal drawing for the week, a bowl of pears.

I thought about moving this piece forward and adding some colour layers, however for now it shall remain a charcoal piece. I know learning the art of colour mixing is a necessity but I always feel like I will destroy the picture because I’m not clear on what I’m doing. But I’m trying to get over that so I can grow further and become more comfortable with pastels.

I’ve been reading up a bit on the difference between soft and hard pastels. I’ve only used hard pastels but from what I understand most artist graduate from hard to soft pastels, and the longer you take to transition the more difficult it is to grasp how soft pastels function.

Right now I am using Faber-Castell Hard Pastels. I’ve been looking into a few different brands of soft pastels such as Rembrandt, Sennelier and Schmincke. They seem like the Rolls Royce of the pastel world but I want to be sure of the change because soft pastels are quite expensive. I surely don’t want something too excessive or something that ends up being inadequate, due to too few ranges etc.

I’m looking at getting one of the the Sennelier sets, perhaps the “half stick set of 120 assorted colours”… it has a wide range of colours but retails for about $70, pretty cheap compared to the rest of the collection.

So for all of you pastel artist out there, can you help me out? Should I try to transition from hard pastel soon, do you in fact use both hard and soft in conjunction? Perhaps do all of the foundation work in hard pastel leaving only the final layers and detail for soft pastel? And which soft pastels would you recommend? This sistah needs some direction…

Here is another charcoal picture, a small group of peaches. I have done two of these…I’m hoping to apply two different ochre under-paintings to each one and then have the two finished pieces function as dual/a pair of paintings. I also figured that this was a simple way for me to see the different effects you can get with various under-paintings and compare it to the same subject having the same tones etc. I will post an update on this one as well once I have done some more work on it.

My source material for this one wasn’t too great as I lost some of the gradually greys, you can see that my peaches don’t quite turn in space nor do they look really fuzzy. Anyhow, I need to learn what makes for a great reference shot… due time.

This is the start of my latest piece, "Find A Way"… I have just finished the charcoal base of the woman. I’ll more than likely apply an ochre base to it and at some point before that I need to figure out what the background is doing or will be… at some point.

I’m definitely feeling this piece, this one is personal, a definite must for what I want to say right now and where I’ll be going… sometimes it gets deep, you know how it is…

My latest, pastel piece, a plate of fruit… completed first in charcoal

Next, I added a bit of purple to the yellow ochre to form the underpainting. I like the soft feel of this piece and how the complementary colours work together. Who would have ever thought yellow and purple could do this.

I think I have reached a point where I know understand (to a sufficient degree) how to read the values in a photo/source material so that I can replicate it, in my style, using charcoal. The concept of reading values (lights, darks and their intensities) has been quite a learning experience. To a degree it’s not something I paid attention to much before because I tended to make up that part… and making it up seldom has the same effect as knowing how to replicate the real thing…

With that said, I have finally moved onto what I refer to as the “base painting”, the fist layer of pastel. In class I’ve been learning  to apply this first base in “ochre” colors and the results have been gorgeous. My first ochre pastel is shown in the previous post. I’ll post my latest piece soon to show you the growth over the last 2 weeks.

Here’s a little background on exactly what ochre is:

Ochre or Ocher is a term for both a golden -yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as Red ochre. The more rarely used terms Purple ochre and Brown ochre also exist for variant hues. Because of these other hues, the color Ochre is sometimes referred to as Yellow ochre.

Ochres are among the earliest pigments used by mankind, derived from naturally tinted clay containing mineral oxides. Chemically, it is hydrated iron (III) oxide. Modern artists’ pigments continue to use the terms Yellow ochre and Red ochre for specific hues.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre

It has been so long since I’ve posted but for good reason! I’m busy creating new pieces and it feels good! Here is my latest charcoal and pastel piece, a simple bowl of peaches and apples done in ochre.

This is my favourite piece to date! This one is also done in charcoal.

I started a charcoal picture of a two garlic bulbs. In this first picture I’ve just completed the first bulb. I’ll post the finished piece by end of week.

And here is the finished piece a week later. I’m pretty happy with this one. I think I’d definitely like to revisit Garlic again, and maybe do a mini series with 3-4 pieces.

Here is the very first piece from my class, and my first ever charcoal piece. It depicts two women hanging out laundry…

Working with charcoal is so much different from the techniques I use with pencil. When using graphite you typically start with your lights and gradually build upon them to make the necessary sections darker, however, with charcoal it’s the eat opposite where you first begin with your darks and subtract to gain the lights.

And of course charcoal is MUH faster so I an essentially complete a piece in a few days, as oppose to a few weeks. I just need to do a few more of these to gain a better understanding of how to find the various light/dark values in any photo and transfer them into the piece.

For the past year I have been trying to get into a local art school/organisation called The Sharon Wilson School of Art. I finally got into the Saturday classes, a small group of no more than 8 where I’ll be able to expand upon everything from references and exposure to various mediums along with techniques through to personal style and vision. I absolutely can’t wait! And if any of you know my struggles to find time for work this is the perfect opportunity for me to bring art back into it’s place in my life, feels like I finally got to take  a deep breath and it feels good. 2010 is going to be a great year for me…

Sharon Wilson is in my opinion the MOST INSPIRING Bermudian Artist in regards to not only her work and talent but her attitude and view towards art in general.

ABOUT THE SHARON WILSON SHOOL OF ART

Students of the The Sharon Wilson School of Art are a unique group of artists who come to art after having careers in other fields. Many are retired, some are still a part of the local work force. The school began more than 12 years ago and it is evolving into a community of conscious minds. Many students are asking difficult questions both personal and philosophical for the first time in the context of artist and social commentator.

As the teacher and facilitator, Sharon believes that students need to bond with each other. The comfort of shared experiences in play is often a trigger which generates deeper discussion. The intent is to create an environment through many activities which is conducive to encouraging meaningful dialogue on race, gender, religion etc. It is through dialogue that important questions are asked and answered. The artist as problem solver, sets problems which he or she then attempts to solve artistically. The artist uses his or her tools to communicate ideas to the world. To consider the role of the artist as merely a painter of pretty pictures is to severely minimize the role of the artist.

Students of the Sharon Wilson School struggle as do all artists to clarify for themselves what is fundamentally important to them. These artists are the “Intuitives”. They are mature adults who bring to art a broad view of everything from corporate life to life in the police force. Sharon teaches technique and the fundamentals of the discipline but as she put it “There is very little point in technique if in the end one has nothing to say.”

The average length of stay at the Wilson School is about five years. Classes never exceed eight students. Often they are smaller. Some classes are executed while listening to an audio book. On cold days a pot of soup is often on the stove. Good music, small groups, these are some of the sensual pleasures which help to set the tone, nurture the spirit and allow Sharon’s pupils to enjoy three hours of meaningful artistic activity. These students come unencumbered by dreams of sell-out exhibitions. Most are learning to give something new to themselves – time and attention.

Source: http://www.sharonwilsonart.com/school.html

So I’ve been gone from this blog for a while.; but I’m back now and have revamped quite a few things, and am basically starting from scratch. My style and direction have changed A LOT. I’ve begun using a different medium now and am putting more focus into my artwork vowing to never again let it become a trivial hobby in my life, it means far too much to me.

With that said, I’ll be posting more often and producing more artwork, even if it’s simple sketches or concept developments.

With that said, I hope to see you more often! Onwards to 2010!