Griffith Observatory Watercolor Painting

Posted on May 3, 2012 by jenny

Of all of my plein air paintings with my Saturday morning group, I am most proud of this one.  We set out to go to the Griffith Observatory one beautiful January morning and I chose this spot for all of us.  We sat down, started drawing, and then a half hour in I exclaimed, “Why didn’t anyone warn me how difficult this angle would be?!”  I initially started out in pen and ink and then abandoned ship…it just wasn’t coming out.

Thankfully, I had a pencil and eraser on hand, so I gave it another shot and a drawing eventually came together.  Getting through the drawing is difficult for me — I would much rather be putting paint on the paper.  So, I was excited to move on to the paint stage and am SO pleased with how this came together.  I especially love the patina on the dome!

Posted in art, beautiful, blue, colorful, en plein air, griffith observatory, painting, saturday morning painting group, travel watercolor kit, watercolor, yellow | 1 Comment

Descanso Gardens Japanese Tea House Watercolor Painting

Posted on April 12, 2012 by jenny

This painting came about, again, from my Saturday Morning Painting Group.  Last December we went to Descanso Gardens to paint together, thinking perhaps we would paint the Christmas decor that they tend to put up around the gardens at that time of year.  We didn’t realize that a week or two before the great windstorm had happened and Descanso had been closed because there was so much damage.

Consequently, there was not much in the way of Christmas decor to paint, but we did all settle in to paint the Japanese Tea House in their small Japanese garden.  I found this scene to be challenging because of the multiple colors of green, to represent all of the different trees, bamboo, etc. that surrounds the teahouse.  In my opinion, realistic greens are the hardest to capture in watercolor painting.  Much more so when you are using a rinky dinky travel watercolor kit with very limited color options.  But — on the whole — not too bad.  This en plein air painting is tough, but I think that I get a little bit better every time I do it.

Posted in art, colorful, descanso gardens, drawing, en plein air, green, japanese, painting, pen and ink, saturday morning painting group, teahouse, travel watercolor kit, tree, watercolor | Leave a comment

Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Posted on April 5, 2012 by jenny

This year’s Glenmary Easter appeal was very difficult.  When they called to commission me for the painting, they said they were thinking of an image of the risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene at the tomb.  I responded with, “Um, you do know that I don’t do people well.”  Not only was I anxious about doing people, I was also anxious about painting Jesus because everyone has their own conception of what he looked like.  Glenmary (very kindly) replied that they had liked the people I had painted for them in paintings past, and wanted me to give it a shot…oh, and also include an olive tree and other foliage with the tomb.

Amazingly enough, they were really happy with the first draft I sent them and only had a few refinements.  This painting, what I feel is the most complicated piece I’ve done for them, had fewer revisions than any other painting that I had done.  The Wisemen painting alone went through something like six revisions!

Happy Easter!

Posted in art, beautiful, colorful, easter, glenmary, painting, religious, watercolor | 3 Comments

iPad App

Posted on April 3, 2012 by jenny

Last summer my friend Alla gave me the great opportunity to work with her on creating a  visual design for a Chicago HVAC company that wanted to make their own iPad App for their servicemen to do scheduling and create invoices.  It was a very cool project, and a new avenue for design for me, so it was really neat to be included.

I believe the app is still in development, but here are a few screenshots of the many screens that I did!

Posted in client, design, ipad app, screenshots | Leave a comment

Apricots in a Blue Bowl Watercolor Painting

Posted on March 29, 2012 by jenny

December was a bit of a slow month for me, so I was able to be fairly prolific when it came to painting.  Because I don’t have a dedicated space and have to lug everything out, the setting up process of painting often prevents me from putting paint to paper.  So, as long as I was painting the Easter scene for the Glenmary Easter Appeal, I had time to do other paintings as well!

Again, I painted these apricots based on a photo I found on Flickr.  I am drawn to painting fruit, and I liked the composition and the reflectiveness of the bowl.  In the painting, I really like my thumbnail sketch that I did to determine the values of the painting.

Posted in apricots, art, blue, bowls, flickr, glenmary, painting, thumbnail sketch, watercolor, workspace | 2 Comments

Soft pretzels

Posted on March 27, 2012 by jenny

The other day Gavin requested that I make soft pretzels.  I was a little nervous about this because I’m not great with dough (and it’s such a commitment to make bread/dough, especially if it doesn’t turn out…what a disappointment), but I stepped up to the challenge.  The result was that Alton Brown’s recipe is pretty easy and doesn’t take forever to do!  Gavin ate these so quickly, that I had to make the recipe again later on that week.

Soft Pretzels

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Yield: 8 pretzels

Ingredients

  • 1-1/2 cups Warm water (between 100-110 F)
  • 1 TBSP Sugar
  • 2 tsp Kosher Salt
  • 1 package Active Dry Yeast
  • 4-1/2 cups Flour
  • 2 oz Butter, melted
  • Vegetable Oil
  • 10 cups Water
  • 2/3 cup Baking Soda
  • 1 Egg Yolk
  • Salt

Preparation

  1. Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam.
  2. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4-5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50-55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
  3. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.
  4. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.
  5. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.
  6. Place the pretzels into the boiling water, one at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan.
  7. Beat egg yolk with 1 TBSP water in a small bowl. Brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with salt.
  8. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Posted in alton brown, butter, egg, flour, oil, recipe, salt, soft pretzels, yeast | 4 Comments

Empty Bowl Sponsor Placemat

Posted on March 22, 2012 by jenny

Last year, Family Promise put on an Empty Bowl event, where potters in the community create (and donate) handmade bowls and people can come and purchase a bowl and get a soup lunch (donated by area restaurants.  All proceeds went toward the operating budget for Family Promise, which helps situationally-homeless families get back into jobs and housing.

The event was a huge success, and we are throwing a 2nd annual Empty Bowl event, happening this weekend!  (Tickets still available if you’re interested — email tickets@familypromiseesfv.org or call 717-333-6081)  Like last year, I created the promotional materials — poster, tickets, flyers, website, etc.  Since I created them last year, I was able to just update the dates and send them to the printer, easy enough!

But one thing I didn’t post on the blog about last year’s event was the sponsor/donor recognition placemat that I designed both for last year’s event and this year’s.  Instead of creating a program or something similar, I thought it was a clever idea to create placemats for the event to recognize all of the people and businesses who contributed to make the event a success.

Here is a picture of the placemat for this year’s event (a sneak preview!):

Posted in design, empty bowl, family promise, fundraiser, marketing materials, nonprofit, placemat | 3 Comments

Downtown LA Skyline Watercolor Painting

Posted on March 20, 2012 by jenny

Here is another watercolor painting I did around the close of last year of the view of Los Angeles skyline at sunset.  I saw a really beautiful picture on Flickr and thought it would be fun to experiment with trying to paint the scene into a panorama on a scrap piece of watercolor paper I had lying around.

I think the colors are fun, but I really like the detail on the cluster of buildings on the right!

Posted in art, beautiful, blue, colorful, downtown, flickr, los angeles, painting, skyline, watercolor | Leave a comment

Delicious, Easy Not-From-A-Box Brownies

Posted on March 15, 2012 by jenny

I used to always make brownies from a box.  Why not?  Easy, cheap, fast.  So I don’t entirely remember why one day I made brownies from scratch, using the recipe from Marc Bittman’s (excellent) cookbook How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food.  However, make them I did and discovered that not only was the recipe delicious, but it’s not actually that hard and it doesn’t take that much more time.  And, although it’s hard to beat the cost of a $5 box of brownies, if you’re anything like me, you already have these ingredients lying around the house.  Give it a try and see if you can go back to boxed brownies!

Delicious, Easy Not-From-A-Box Brownies

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Yield: 1 Dozen

Ingredients

  • 2 oz Unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 1 stick Unsalted butter (I go ahead and use salted), softened, plus a little for the greasing pan
  • 1 cup Sugar
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1/2 cup All-purpose flour
  • Pinch Salt
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan, or line it with aluminum foil and grease the foil. (I grease the pan and do not bother with foil.)
  2. Combine the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When the chocolate is just about melted, remove from the heat and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth.
  3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the sugar. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Gently stir in the flour, salt, and vanilla. Pour and scrape into the prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes, or until just barely set in the middle. It\'s better to underbake brownies than to overbake them. Cool on a rack before cutting. Store, covered and at room temperature, for no more than a day.
  4. ***In the book, there\'s an excursus on ways to alter the recipe, which I haven\'t used, but think that they could be great additions. I\'m more of a plain brownie kind of girl and this recipe is fantastic on its own, but the alterations I am sure are great, too!***

Posted in brownies, butter, dessert, egg, flour, recipe, salt, sugar, unsweetened chocolate, vanilla | Leave a comment

Digitizing old photo albums

Posted on March 13, 2012 by jenny

One of my clients approached me a couple of years ago to see if I would be willing to digitize their family photo albums.  They were wanting to do it, but could only find non-local businesses that did it, and they did not want to ship their treasured memories off to Florida.  I agreed to help them with this task and, over the last couple of years, have scanned in and completed five photo albums for them.

I finished the fifth one this past week, and it was a doozy.  It is twice as big as the other ones I have done and ended up being 482 pictures with captions, which translated into a final file size of 128 pages.

What I do for these photo albums is I scan in the background separately, so there is a clean page.  Then I reformat the page into a (now) typical scrapbook-sized page and cut each picture out from the scan and place onto the fresh background, trying to keep the general look and feel of the old album.  This is a timely process, but for this latest photo album, it was even more of a process because the photos all had this unique deckled edge to them.  I considered leaving out the deckled edge, but then decided that the deckled edge is part of the photo and part of the history of how photos were presented, just like the photo corners.  When it is all said and done, I also design a title page for them, like the one to the right.

This particular photo album was also very, very delicate, even though the subject matter was from the mid-1950s.  While I was taking out the pages from the album, the album cover itself broke along the edges.  I suspect this is due to being so full of pictures and pages, but also because of the low quality of the album in the first place.  Wanting to return the album to my client in one piece, I looked and looked and looked for a new album cover, all to no avail.  They simply do not make this size and style album anymore.  When I came to this realization, I was just sick that I would have to return the album to them broken.

And then I remembered that I have a very talented sister-in-law who has been trained in how to bind books!  So, I sent her the cover and she was able to disassemble it and create a new cover for me that works perfectly and is really beautiful — much more attractive than the old cover and it matches the simplicity and style of the photo album.  I have not shown the new cover to my clients yet (will do so when I return the album to them), but I think they will really appreciate her beautiful work.

Posted in beautiful, black and white, book, client, design, digitizing, photo album | Leave a comment