Man's Best Friend

Shadow and her new friend, Curly Bear, were chasing each other at the ball field last night between the streaks of lightning. They ran and ran. They ran into the bog to have a drink. Shady flipped herself over into this swampy mess--wiggling in the sheer cool stinkiness of it. It was an add to the evening to have the doggie girls there.

Then this morning, Shady did us a big favor and found a dead something (deer? possum? racoon?) that she spread on top of the dried dirt layer. OOCH! It will come as no surprise that she is being given the supreme treatment of hydrogen peroxide and dish soap to rid her of that loathsome aroma. Molto brutizzimo!

It dawned on me that you need this recipe. Everyone does. Whenever the touch for a "bring something original" bakesale is given, I make up 10 bags of these--and the crowd goes wild (sometimes with a little graphic thang to jazz up the paper bags). They are dog biscuits. You can cut them in funny shapes...make em big or small...but you will make your canine friends happy...and indirectly, their owners too. Someone bored in your house...have em whip up a batch. Also makes a nice present (a bunch of my dog friends got them last Christmas!). Mandy promises me her recipe for "Tuna Brownies"--the treat her dog, Sonata, begs for during agility classes. If it's good, I'll pass it on!

I don't think I will sit up and beg for them, though! The Gourmet cookies are pretty good for people (some even add cheese and serve them to their guests). Your call!

Dog Biscuits

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1 large egg

Special equipment: a pastry or bench scraper; a dog-biscuit cookie cutter

Pulse flours, cornmeal, oats, wheat germ, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with pea-size butter lumps. Add 1 cup water and pulse until a coarse, dense dough forms.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in parsley and mint until well distributed. Gather, then halve dough with scraper. Form into 2 balls and flatten each into a 6-inch disk.

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 2 large baking sheets.

Roll out 1 disk of dough into a round (1/3 inch thick) on a well-floured surface with a well-floured rolling pin. (If dough becomes too soft to roll out, wrap in plastic and chill until firm.) Cut out as many biscuits as possible and arrange about 1/4 inch apart on 1 baking sheet.

Gather scraps and reroll, then cut out more biscuits. Repeat with remaining dough, using other baking sheet.

Whisk together egg and 1 tablespoon water. Brush biscuits with egg wash and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through, until tops are golden brown, about 35 minutes total. Turn off oven and dry biscuits in oven overnight.

Cooks' note:
Biscuits keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 month.
Makes about 5 dozen biscuits.

Recipe from Gourmet Magazine, December 2005

Picture: Fashionista Pug Dog from NYC

We have until Friday!

We have until Friday to get our submissions into Ithaca Fine Chocolates for their Art Bar art for 2007. Go here for the details. Essentially, Ithaca Fine Chocolates is a fair trade,USDA organic, swiss made chocolate company founded by an art historian and museum director, Erika Fowler-Decatur and her husband Michael Decatur. They were living in Endwell, NY, moved to San Francisco and then back to this area to raise their son near their family. Their thinking was to produce a high end product that would support global and local art education, provide a platform for new artists to get exposure, to foster recognition of of the importance and potential of art in education and society. What is not to love about this idea. Candy and art. The Willie Wonka concept of a little magic beyond a chocolate bar...and for those of us who are visual, another source of inspiration. Ithaca Chocolates is sold locally at Green Star, Wegmans and of course, Gimme. Kudos to Erika and Michael for moving back to central New York and bringing such positive energy and ideas to enrich the day to day. Makes it more interesting to get up in the morning.

So--get those submissions in...but leave room for me!

Won our game yesterday. Into the tournament semi-finals. Flipped a ton of burgers...the time sped by. A. is delighted that their team is moving up. A trophy is in our sites!

More on the baseball picture, my personal art director had some good input which I agree with and thought I would plug in.

phew!

Long weekend. Tiring. Saw some good musicians play. Lots of hometown pride. Torrential rain on Saturday--essentially creating a gloppy fairground of mud and muck. Sunday was perfection--high clouds, low humidity, Mary Lorson and Saint Low, Bubba George, Jennie Sterns. Took K to Cornell to her delight. Back on more baseball --making up the tournament games missed on Saturday. Will be working with my new friends at the concession stand this pm. Grill is going to be on...and cold gatorade for the teams. Trying to finalize and rework some of the Syracuse pieces prior to Sunday. Onward!

tie dye doodle ey day!

Finished this up last night. Have been working on the finalization and framing of baseball stuff I did last summer. Have tweaked every one of them...which is kind of a surprise as I thought they were "done"/finito. But, with all things, they were done for last year...and incomplete for this. Hopefully, they are a little better.

Today is the opener for Grassroots. Campers galore. People parked by the road in their folding chairs (at 9 a.m.) preparing themselves for a long weekend of music and mixing. We had a great dinner last night at Sam's (Simply Red) with our fellow diners being some of the local musical bluebloods. Richie Sterns with wonderful Jim Reidy were cranking out some great tunes (even a Carol King song that was performed by the Byrds)...Whoa.

The Rainbow people are encamped in Hector--I did a little googling on them. Fascinating. There are a bunch of people here in Tburg that stayed here after travelling with the Rainbow family--and a bit of that philosophy and lifestyle sometimes waft over the day to day here. This is a little insight from one of their unofficial sites:

"When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, and creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. They will be known as the "Warriors of the Rainbow"

Old Native American Hopi Prophecy.

Come to Tburg this weekend. It is a wonderful time. There will be some great local and not so local music, interesting people watching, cool stuff to buy, really delicious food and it promises to be great weather.

John James Audubon


This website is beautiful and poetic from a group of talented and inspired Canadians. Go through it for the artwork (wow!) and how this team carved up the static prints into a lively look at the art and environment. They also have great links to get more information about Audubon, his work, his life etc. I love JJA and how he distilled the moment down to simple images, beautifully designed on the page. He does not shy away from his design...sometimes twisting or pulling the birds to really sit in the picture frame in a bold and agressive way. I did see his watercolors (which, my expectation was very high) and was saddened by their roughness but strong design still there.

We saw two pilated woodpeckers in a dead tree yesterday. Our neighbor claims we have a bear in the backyard. Evidence, she acknowledges, is berry seed laden skat. We hope he takes a little stroll over to Grassroots to dance and sing with the hairies over there. He would blend in.

John James Audubon, Night Herons

a new beginning

I remember when presstype was the end-all, be-all of the world. It was going to put all the graphic designers out of business. Now, we have MSWord and Powerpoint doing absolutely the same thing. I don't think its eliminating the need for designers and even more so, illustrators. The work has just gotten different. I remember the first Mac I worked on, one of those 5.5" screen towers with 512K. Word processing was a miracle--but the concept of actually designing on one of those things was a sheer fantasy. Now, no fantasy. Reality. And happily so.

The web was a miracle too. Not so, now. It is just a medium that delivers the mail...the content. And even more wonderful are blogs as it is an everyman solution to the web--a media or delivery system that even the simplest, most tech backward folks are leaping in with both feet. My new clients have been getting blogs with scans of my sketches posted for them and they LOVE it. It is fast, direct and they can access it even as they travel. And, they think I am doing something special for them...which, maybe I am...but it works for both of us, gets us to a solution faster and its fun!. No fantasy. Reality. And happily so.

Hot like an oven here.

another summer day


First off, I apologize for no recent images...this sticky, funkybone imac will not let me upgrade it's operating system and is very touchy when I try to upload pictures...essentially winking out during an upload. So, the pictures and links will happen tomorrow when I am back in a more computer stable environment. Please forgive.

Another beautiful day. No clouds. Hot and humid (not my first choice). Have been in and out of the water all day. Visited the Corning Museum of Glass (http://www.cmog.org) yesterday to see the "Glass of the Maharajahs" show. This glass is glass furniture, chandeliers, and even prayer rugs developed by English cut glass companies for the Indian markets. Sparklie, Shiny...colorful. Cut glass chairs with solid rhinestone fabric upolstering the cushion. A sparkling fly whisk. Cut glass tables with gold.Glitzy. And Big stuff. Not my taste but amazing none the less.

My friend, Tina, curated a new installation of work in the Contemporary galleries @ CMoG. Wonderful work. Some of it kinetic, some of it political, some of it tranquil and beautiful. Big stuff, tiny stuff. Very thought provoking and inspiring. Worth the trip to see what new brains and hands are creating. Corning, New York.

Grassroots starts this week in the hamlet of Rongovia. The campers are beginning to line up. The shaggy ones are beginning to arrive. There is a festive, almost holiday atmosphere amongst the villagers. YeeHaw!

Blue Cut Glass Table:
F. & C. Osler, 1880-1885.
H. 75 cm., Diameter 43.6 cm.
Collection of The Corning Museum of Glass (2005.2.11).

scary..more thinking

Might have a contract in the offing. A client suggested this based on the little thises and thats I have been illustrating for them over the past month or so. It really is a question of how one structures it and establishes walls, doors and windows in it so there is room to move when it the contract has been met and to recap our client, to allow for more income per project to happen in the right situations. This is the first agreement for me with illustration and I am kind of pleased, and to be honest, surprised, that this sort of work (spot illustrations) have such a value for this company that they would be thinking a longer term solution than a onesie-twosie. The nice thing about illustrations (particularly these small, semi-fast ones) is that there is not a big time committment, I can work out details 4-5 different ways to move the design along, the final is black and white line drawings with a shaded one for finalization and that there are no typos!

I am looking forward to the next month when we have a teacher talking to us about the business of illustation. I want to pick his brains about contracts, royalties, "percentage of businesses", and how to think about structuring these negotiations so that I get the most out of each job possible--so it feels more like a balanced transaction. I have been giving away the store with graphics, to some degree, I think it is necessary as the globalization of MSWord and MSPowerpoint has given every individual a chance to think they are graphic designers. And, if those folks are not visually saavy (which, unfortunately many are at all levels of companies)--then what is the need for good kerning, strong grids and layouts and a sequential way of thinking of image, brand and look/feel. Sometimes, a future graphic client needs a little introduction on what we do as designers and how we think a little differently before they begin to place a value on it.

With illustration, yes...MSWord has a "fabulous" (?) selection of clip art and one can add pictures to emphasize the bad graphics (yes, Lucille, you can color your type with rainbows, dimensionalize it and then, drop a shadow!--and that's just the headline!!)--with illustration, there is a point of difference still--and many people will admit to not knowing one end of the pencil from the other when it comes to drawing.

I wonder if there is still a drawing test with either bambi or a pirate to get into art school? I am going to google that right now!

More rain today. Our trumpet vine has decided to take over the universe. I quake in fear.

it's in the air

I was chatting with my accountant yesterday about our financial situation, where we are, where we will be by the end of the year with lots of random questions (on my part) to try and suss out any of the fun surprises that sometimes pop up at the end of the year that manifest themselves in "finding" money, that "pit of the stomach" thing and more. You are probably familiar with those sensations. I am "surprised" on a regular basis, and find that this preventative chitchat can at least prepare me if not ameliorate the causes.

And, as we often do, we started talking about how we are feeling about our place on this spinning orb. My accountant is a "take no prisoners", take charge woman who has pulled herself up by her bootstraps and has carved out an interesting and entrepeneurial place for herself. She reads voraciously. She consults psychics. She is a member of the town council in her little village. She made bread for a living when she was a farmer hippie mama. She is a grandma. Interesting person who has gotten around. I was saying that I was feeling very untethered and unsettled. Somehow feeling as if time is passing by in this beautiful place and I couldn't quite get a hook into it. I mentioned that it wasn't that we were bored or not busy-- and she agreed with all of these things..and couldn't fathom this feeling of randomness. No sense of traction--no sense of moving forward--with things in resolution or resolved. Is it the world we are living in? The path isn't clear. Is it our inability to make change happen except on a very local and granular level? Is it that change and positive energy is reduced now? Is it where the moon is? Does religion come into this?

I find thinking about making pictures, reading semi trashy books, and hanging out with my little fam is the closest I get to getting a hook into all of this and getting some sort of anchor. Am I the only one feeling this way? Are you?

Image is Ghirlandaio

Raining Cats and Dogs

It has been raining cats and dogs. Our cats (2 warm grey cats that match) sit on the porch to watch the rain and the hosta. All the barn swallows know they are there and signal to each other their whereabouts. Then the dive bombing begins. The cats are unruffled by this experience acknowedging their superiority. Then, the cats take to sitting under our large light green hosta (which blooms in September with flowers as large as easter lilies and far, far more fragrant) waiting for their prey.
Waiting and tapping their tails. Silent and still fuzzy statues. The inevitable happens. Dinner is served.

body of work


Small revelation in the dark and rainy night. One of the phrases we keep hearing during our time with the crowd from Syracuse is "body of work". A body of work is a large group of illustration or pieces...without any width or depth--essentially, a way to prove ability and a style (I guess?). With a body of work, an illustrator is an illustrator. Ready for business. So, why can't an illustrator have a body of work to express a different point of view, a different technique or style? Why wouldn't an illustrator have a few bodies of work to best show width and depth and a choice for the client (if a working relationship is established)?

You could have a line art portfolio, a vector portfolio, a painting portfolio, a frisky logo portfolio--to expand reach and opportunity. Not a big idea...but something to ponder as I am having some fun returning to my calligraphic roots...and would llike to do some spec stuff--some illlustrations, some pattern design...and this could evolve into a select calligraphic illustration body of work worth showing.

a nice day to draw

We had a mini sketch crawl in Tburg on Saturday. We had 18 participants from a 91 year old artist to some of the middle school set.

Everyone drew parts of Main Street--and in the later afternoon, we posted the pictures on the Bank's window for everyone to see what had transpired. It was great. We had line drawings, watercolors and pastels. We had pictures of streetscapes, of the inside of the local diner, of the local hardware store. And! Everyone had fun! So, we will do this again. I must admit I was quite skeptical, but it all happened--and was very positive and energizing. There is lots of interest here as the local visual artists feel left out of the community arts vibe. This is an easy group to develop ideas for.

Yes, there was a double header on Saturday. We won the first game! A. got a couple of hits, caught a ball in the outfield and ran in a few runs.

Sunday, I spent the better part of the day drawing angels (no demons). A calligraphic one worked out nicely. As soon as I get the tissues back, I will post one for your review.

bloomin' roses


Need to focus on roses in tiny tight spaces this weekend. Client needs one and they are a bit short for time. So, hello Wiener Verkstatte! Hello, Mr Wonderful, Koloman Moser. What a guy! He is a big pattern guy who can draw like an angel. He understands pattern and weaves it in whenever he can. He can work full color and is probably better with a limited palette of 2 or so flat color. Tiny spots are no problem for this guy. He did architecture, paintings, silverware and jewelry. He designed fashion and fabric and furniture. Only problem was there wasn't a lot of interest (read money) in the work. So he left his co-conspirator, Josef Hoffman (Whoa, what a designer!) and let another guy be the co-director of the Verkstatte. Check him out.
I have a book and will give you the title so you can look for it. Hope the skies are high and the roses blooming (no beetles, thank you!) for your weekend. We have baseball! and other volunteer stuff in perfect T'burg.

Shear madness

Back to poor Shadow dog. She had dreadlocks and snarls and a face she couldn't see out of. We had tried a bunch of canine beauty salons--and they were booked weeks out. So, I went to the local "we have everything agricultural" store and bought the middle of the road horse shears. Our pal Amanda, Kitty and Alex went to town. Now Shady is a black velvet dog who is a little shook up...looking for reassurance that she is the same girl that was in the mirror yesterday afternoon. And there is a big black pile of fur that some bird or nesting creature might like for their nests.

More illustration (paying) work streamed across the desk yesterday. We will see how that evolves. Have to do 7 thumbnail ideas for Monday.

Its beautiful,cool and clear here.

"Keep your head in the game!"

Man, oh man! Practices, extra practices, games, double headers, away games, home games--no hit, no score, nice catch, no more. Games! Upbeat, hat throwing, "get your head in the game" games. Hit the School! Put some wood on it. Our technique is very special. Walk and Steal. We get walked and then we steal every base...including home! Rain games, and blazing cloudless day games. Poor black Shady, hiding under the bench games. And, when the ball is out of bounds...guess who it hits-- Shady dog! And nary a sign of pain or distress. And speaking of Shady, it sounds like the American Revolution outside our 4th of July house...and she sleeps. I wonder what she dreams about? My guess-- rabbits!

more baseball


I am doing more on the baseball images so that I can hold my head (partially) up with the up and coming show. I love costume and how it relates to sports. The armor or body protection in sports is really kabuki (hockey, lacrosse, baseball catchers and umpires)--so an umpire may be in the mix in the next few weeks.

I found some really great and really inexpensive frames at Target, the most wonderful and designcentric store in the world...maybe, not the world, but my tiny world as it stands today. Big fat black, nice ogees..We'll see how they work. The Nielsen Bainbridge frames are nice and inexpensive too (http://www.dickblick.com).

Have been on the road for the past two days visiting my clients and trying out my new laptop--working out the kinks of the system.

a mini sidebar

no. not a sidecar. a sidebar. I have a new electronic toy...I am now on theispot.com. This took a lot of intellectual thising and thating to rationalize why I want to be there--but now I am. Visit me...and let me know if the work stands up. You can click on it in the column to the right. I think this needs work, but its a beginning...and as beginnings--I am not ashamed. Actually, the interesting thing about this ispot exercise, is that it has forced me to look at my mini "body of work" and see what works and doesn't. Where there are holes and where there is weakness. I must say that a year ago today--I was a dumb graphic designer depressed with the state of design. Now, I am a little less dumb graphic designer thinking that the world might hold some wonderful and unexpected opportunities and surprises. I guess the journey is working!

work in progress


Working on this tentative goose. Am trying laying in flat flat tone and then focusing on the head (and eye!). Background needs some work. Thinking of laying some vector bugs or something to jazz this up. Like where it's going... but not there yet. Maybe put a big hat on it? or have a fairy riding it?