...this song has been running through my head all week.
Bethlehem Joy,
Bethlehem Fiesta.
Bethlehem Joy,
I want to be there.
To you this day a child is born
and He shall be a king.
Come and celebrate with me.
Bethlehem Fiesta.
Bethlehem Fiesta.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A Four-Generation Portrait
It's been over 4 years in the making, but I finally finished a major portrait I've been working on!
It's a four-generation portrait of mother-daughters: L on the bottom left, Stacy of course in the center, her mother Lynne top left, and Lynne's mother Ann (Grandma Ann) on the right. This was one of the very first paintings I foolishly attempted after starting classes, but I had very high expectations and quickly realized that I'd bitten off more than I was capable of chewing. Knowing I was not yet up to the task, I shelved it to work on other things until I could get some other portraits under my belt. About six to nine months ago I dusted it off (quite literally) and had another go at it.
The sad thing about the delayed timeline is that Grandma Ann passed away about six months after I started the painting (about a month before N was born) and never got to see it. She did see the source picture I took it from and "ooh"-ed and "ahh"-ed over it mightily, but I sure wish she could have seen the finished painting. She was a woman who followed the dictum that, if you can't say something nice about something, you dug in your heels and said something even nicer. Flowery and sweet, Stacy and I affectionately called her the Queen of the Superlative. Every meal was the best one she'd ever tasted; every flower was the most beautiful she had yet encountered - which for a woman in her nineties is saying something. Her favorite syllable was "-est." I have little doubt my artist ego would have been well stroked had Grandma Ann gotten to see her portrait.
Stacy and I have a favorite Grandma Ann memory: We were down at her house in Sun City, California for Thanksgiving one year and Ann proudly displayed a new orchid she had received recently. It was, of course, the most beautiful orchid she'd ever seen and she'd been watering it faithfully, and didn't you know, that very morning a new bud had opened up. Stacy and I took one look at the orchid and looked at each other quizzically. It was clearly a plastic orchid. "Ann," said Joe, her pleasantly gruff former engineer husband, "It's FAKE!"
"Oh no, dear," insisted Grandma Ann. "I'm sure it's real, come look."
Practical Joe and doe-eyed Ann spent the next several minutes examining and staking their claims on the floral taxonomy while the rest of us sat back and enjoyed the show, knowing we'd been blessed with another superlative Grandma Ann moment.
It's a four-generation portrait of mother-daughters: L on the bottom left, Stacy of course in the center, her mother Lynne top left, and Lynne's mother Ann (Grandma Ann) on the right. This was one of the very first paintings I foolishly attempted after starting classes, but I had very high expectations and quickly realized that I'd bitten off more than I was capable of chewing. Knowing I was not yet up to the task, I shelved it to work on other things until I could get some other portraits under my belt. About six to nine months ago I dusted it off (quite literally) and had another go at it.
The sad thing about the delayed timeline is that Grandma Ann passed away about six months after I started the painting (about a month before N was born) and never got to see it. She did see the source picture I took it from and "ooh"-ed and "ahh"-ed over it mightily, but I sure wish she could have seen the finished painting. She was a woman who followed the dictum that, if you can't say something nice about something, you dug in your heels and said something even nicer. Flowery and sweet, Stacy and I affectionately called her the Queen of the Superlative. Every meal was the best one she'd ever tasted; every flower was the most beautiful she had yet encountered - which for a woman in her nineties is saying something. Her favorite syllable was "-est." I have little doubt my artist ego would have been well stroked had Grandma Ann gotten to see her portrait.
Stacy and I have a favorite Grandma Ann memory: We were down at her house in Sun City, California for Thanksgiving one year and Ann proudly displayed a new orchid she had received recently. It was, of course, the most beautiful orchid she'd ever seen and she'd been watering it faithfully, and didn't you know, that very morning a new bud had opened up. Stacy and I took one look at the orchid and looked at each other quizzically. It was clearly a plastic orchid. "Ann," said Joe, her pleasantly gruff former engineer husband, "It's FAKE!"
"Oh no, dear," insisted Grandma Ann. "I'm sure it's real, come look."
Practical Joe and doe-eyed Ann spent the next several minutes examining and staking their claims on the floral taxonomy while the rest of us sat back and enjoyed the show, knowing we'd been blessed with another superlative Grandma Ann moment.
 |
| Joe, L, Lynne, Stacy & Ann |
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Studies in Structural Sucrose
N has a wicked cough this morning so he stayed home from church; since Stacy and L had obligations already I was relegated to staying home and entertaining him. I've learned this morning that there's only so much Candy Land a sane adult can tolerate before he no longer can claim to be in that statistical focus group any longer. Playing Candy Land with N is not particularly physically demanding, mind you. He picks out your color. He holds all the cards. He flips them and announces the move. He moves your piece as well as his around the board. I am reduced to passively sitting and watching. There are, I suppose, all kinds of real-life parallels involving over-indulgence in candy and a sedentary lifestyle...
Following the umpteenth game, when I finally had my virtual diabetic seizure and called the games off, we spent our time analyzing the Candy Castle and trying to better determine exactly how it was built. The moat is, of course, molten chocolate. N was quick to point out the gumballs from the gumball turret cascade down a hidden tube to be flung into the moat on the chocolate water wheel. N was stumped to identify the flat candies that made up the paddles of said water wheel. He evidently has not yet been introduced to Jolly Ranchers... The towers flanking each side of the cake castle are clearly made of chocolate and "banilla" softserve ice cream and crowned with a heavily frosted cupcake. We discussed the implied culinary technical advances that permit such structural integrity in ice cream on such an obviously sunny day.
After a few minutes I think N started getting a little creeped out by my geek fascination in the discussion and wandered off, leaving me to ponder by myself whether the moat is perpetually heated to maintain its vibrant sheen and silky viscosity, or if it is actually some inferior grade of commercial cocoa-flavored product specifically designed for mass production and a very low melting point. Anyone interested in taking up the discussion can feel free to contact me.
Following the umpteenth game, when I finally had my virtual diabetic seizure and called the games off, we spent our time analyzing the Candy Castle and trying to better determine exactly how it was built. The moat is, of course, molten chocolate. N was quick to point out the gumballs from the gumball turret cascade down a hidden tube to be flung into the moat on the chocolate water wheel. N was stumped to identify the flat candies that made up the paddles of said water wheel. He evidently has not yet been introduced to Jolly Ranchers... The towers flanking each side of the cake castle are clearly made of chocolate and "banilla" softserve ice cream and crowned with a heavily frosted cupcake. We discussed the implied culinary technical advances that permit such structural integrity in ice cream on such an obviously sunny day.
After a few minutes I think N started getting a little creeped out by my geek fascination in the discussion and wandered off, leaving me to ponder by myself whether the moat is perpetually heated to maintain its vibrant sheen and silky viscosity, or if it is actually some inferior grade of commercial cocoa-flavored product specifically designed for mass production and a very low melting point. Anyone interested in taking up the discussion can feel free to contact me.
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