Play With Your Food!

I worked my tail off on the last post, so this one is going to be - just for fun!

(Here's another post with the first Mel-Mel, the sugar-holic.)

By the way - this is NOT food!!

I love foods that look like other things! And utensils that make me smile!

So, I'm sharing some of them with you guys.

The happy couple.

A Bing Cherry, that looks like a one-eyed dog to me. (Got Kibble?)

A Pluot, that looks like a heart, where I sliced it.

(And has the same body as the dog.)

Doesn't "Pluot" sounds like a small, foreign car?

It's a hybrid of a Plum and an Apricot. And really good!

And here's a slice from a Nectarine. Same heart shape. They love me!

If you don't use all your greens in a timely-manner, something really cool happens to them!

(Probably everyone knows that, but me.)

OK, this one cracks me up!! (Pun intended.)

I believe this is a Chinese Pear, but don't hold me to it.

It was SO good! (Hi, Mel-Mel.)

Strawberry lips, with too much lipstick.

Thank you for blotting. You may kiss me now.

When my adult children were little, they used to see which one could be the first to draw a smiley-face in a new jar of Peanut Butter.

Sometimes I'd win, because if I remembered,

I'd do it in the car in the parking-lot of the store! :)

(Sorry Kids.)

Speaking of Peanut Butter -

When I ate it, a couple of years ago, (before I became a raw-foodist)

I'd worked up a sensitivity to it.

I got so bloated, I looked like a parade-float.

I can almost hear my kids high-fiving each other right now.

Karma's a bitch!!

Speaking of kids -

One of my daughters sculpted this awesome bronze bear and fish.

It's appropriately titled, "Play With Your Food".

And I'm the proud owner of this one!! (Thanks, Kid!!)

My daughters bought this apron for me and then created the design.

I love desserts! and when I give raw-food demos, that's what I go for -

Desserts! I am the "Dessert Diva". :)

(Thank you, Girls!! I love my apron!!)

This is a little, spud Salt Shaker.

There was a Pepper Shaker too, but it broke.

It had a pissy-face anyway, so that's OK.

"Feeed meee!! Gimme nooodles!!"

A fun Tooth-Pick Holder I found at the same antique store where I found "Snaggletooth".

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." (Yeah, right.)

Look at the background -

My fruit-bowl looks just like a smiling clown-face, which makes ME smile!

And that's a good thing -

Especially since todays mail brought me an envelope offering me -

a "Free, Pre-paid Cremation". :(

In my present condition, (alive) I would think that would hurt.

Have these people seen me?! I'm afraid.

Why can't I just get the winning-notice from "The Prize Patrol"?

SEE, this is why I need fun stuff in my life!!

And fun is found in so many different forms, even in 'playing with my food'.

However - CATS do NOT like it when you play with THEIR food!

Or eat it.

"Mmmmm... tastes like chicken."

Since I wanted this to be a fun post -

(And who is funnier than the great Erma Bombeck?!)

I leave you with these words - a tiny portion from a chapter called,

"Leftovers That Refuse To Die" -

dated 12/17/91, from her fabulous book, "Forever Erma".

"My secretary and I are compiling a list of leftovers that not only refuse to die,

they reproduce. Heading the list is her pasta salad.

Out of a pound of macaroni, she fed a family of six for two meals, ate it for lunch every day for three weeks, and at that point still had more pasta salad than she originally made.

She eventually buried it in the backyard."

Signing off for now,

gabriele

Silk Painting - A Special Scarf For A Special Lady

I love painting flowers!

This is "Parrot Tulips" - a 42" x 42" Crepe de Chine scarf.

I was commissioned by my friends at the Betty Ferguson Foundation,

to paint a silk scarf for this years "Woman of Honor" -

the fabulous Jacquie Petersen.

I was told that her favorite flower was the Gardenia.

(I can almost smell it! Yum!)

The first thing I did was freak-out just a little,

because white flowers are the most difficult to paint.

Jacquie, are you sure you wouldn't rather have red Roses, blue Poppies,

yellow Sunflowers?! :)

I snapped out of it - and gathered my supplies.

Brushes -

Dyes -

Silk flowers for inspiration -

Look! I even found a cute, white-flower tea pot! (I'm so easily amused.)

Getting down to business -

I made a drawing of what I had in mind.

But wait! Before I go any further, let's play a little game.

As some of you know, this is my little friend, Mel-Mel.

Unlike "Eleanor Rigby" who's already 'wearing her face',

Mel-Mel's is still 'in a jar by the door'.

(I haven't painted her little face yet. It's SO tiny, it's big-time intimidating.)

Anyway, I've hidden Mel-Mel in some of the photographs. :)

Can you find her? How many times?

* (I'll tell you at the end, but NO peeking!)

OK, moving on -

I checked out my silk 'color-chart' to see which colors I wanted to go with.

Even though the flower is white, there are pastel colors involved.

I realized that I had a color-scheme already planned-out,

from a white flower I'd painted before. That saved me a bunch of time!

I hand-washed the silk.

And hung it to dry.

I attached it to the stretcher-bars.

I set up my dyes and did a little testing on a scrap-piece of silk.

I sketched out my design with a disappearing-ink pen.

(Not to be used on checks.)

I used a light color for my linear-underpainting.

After it was dry, I outlined the entire design with a water-soluble resist.

I used a hair-dryer to speed-up the drying process.

Then I painted. (The part I love the most!)

I used a little Vodka to slow the dyes down, so that some white areas remained on the flowers.

Some artists use Rubbing Alcohol, but I'm allergic to it and don't like the smell. Nasty!

(How many of you are making Vodka jokes right now?!:)

DONE!!

Well, the painting part of it anyway.

I rolled the scarf in several layers of paper.

Then taped it up.

I stuck it in a steamer - and steamed it on the stove for three hours.

Unwrapping it after steaming is fun, because the colors are more intense

and it's like looking at it for the first time! Ahhhhhhh

Then, more hand-washing -

More drying -

Some ironing.

And finally, here it is - "Gardenias For Jacquie".

Here's a photo from a previous post,

"Silk-Painting - Going With The Flow".

It's me, in my studio. I love my studio!! I love silk-painting!!

(I love comments! I love Followers!;)

* (Four times.) :)

Signing off for now,

gabriele

Origami And Our Funny Girl

Origami: the art of folding paper into shapes representing flowers, birds, etc.

This tiny crane was created by her -

Our funny girl!

This photo was taken a few years ago, at her birthday-bash,

in a restaurant filled with people.

She is not shy.

She is quite unique and stylish.

And has an aversion to wool.

While sitting at a table with her, I saw that she had a stack of tiny squares of paper.

They were for Origami - something she'd learned from a favorite teacher of hers.

She offered to make a crane for me - which took about one minute!

The girl is fast.

Folding...

A little bit of moisture...

The wings...

More folding...

A little bit of of air...

A pinch on the beak...

And heeeere he is!!

I asked what his name was and without hesitation, she said, "Armstrong".

Alrighty then.

I love her hands.

Speaking of hands -

When she, our 13 yr. old granddaughter and her older sister, our 17 yr. old granddaughter and I were having our hands photographed for my blogs banner,

we all turned our hands over for a quick, fun shot -

This is what was on her palm.

While Mel-Mel was checking out Armstrong for the first time,

I wanted to take her picture, but she wouldn't turn around -

Because she didn't "have her face on" yet.

Speaking of faces -

Here's one that we LOVE!

Our extraordinary, talented, cool and very -

Funny girl!

Signing off for now,

gabriele