a hunk of bread

A quick directly-in-ink sketch of today’s baking effort: I made a large round loaf of sourdough baked in a cast iron Dutch oven — which is too heavy for me. Bill generously offered to handle the oven part . . . except that when I said 450°, he thought I said 350°. I should remember he is a bit hard of hearing!

It turned out okay. Next time I’ll do a smaller loaf in a regular bread pan that I can lift easily.

first samplings

Our daughter Kristen left one of the purple pens she uses for work over at our place (a Pilot G-2 gel pen) and it made me want to fill my purple Lamy fountain pen — with purple ink, of course. I mixed mine from red and turquoise with a touch of black, all De Atramentis Document inks.

And my subject? While getting my sourdough starter to grow, some is discarded each day before the remaining starter is fed. I used yesterday’s discard to mix up some biscuits, to go with the bacon & egg sweet potato hash that Bill made us.

He just happened to put mine on a purple Fiestaware plate.

preparing to bake . . .

About the only bread we eat is sourdough from H-E-B’s bakery because it doesn’t give me heartburn. But I’ve been curious about making my own. Years ago when we lived in Kansas I tried to get a starter going but it died — Bill thinks the fluoride in the water was the problem. Now we have well water with no chlorine and I think it would work, but I was advised to use bottled water at first.

I recently bought some “very active” starter on Etsy. It has taken several daily feedings to recover from being lost a few extra days in the mail system, but it looks like it’s now ready to try making some bread. The sourdough starter in the sketch is right after removing the “discard” and mixing in new flour and water; afterwards it just about doubled its volume from what is shown.

I sketched this with an Elegant Writer, using a wet paintbrush to tease out some washes from the water-soluble ink. That round thing in the center is a scale to weigh the added flour and water. The funky thing in front is a Danish dough whisk. The lined basket is for proofing the loaf before baking.

Molokai

We have a new member of our extended family: meet Molokai, our granddaughter’s new dog. She is currently attending Texas A & M vet school and was told to practice on her pet — and if she didn’t have one handy, they had vet school animals up for adoption. Who could have guessed that adopting a pet was a classroom requirement?

Actually she has pets here on “the farm” but most of them object to examinations. Butters doesn’t mind, but corgis are just built wrong (so says our vet who was examining her for a joint injury). So this sweet 6 year old hound has moved in to Mikala’s apartment.

I took a couple of “process” photos of this sketch . . . but once I began painting, I forgot to take any more. Most of the time, I put down an idea lightly in pencil, then begin inking it in — often jotting down some text before moving on to the main sketch.

having a cuppa

The weather is finally cooling and I am reaching for hot beverages more often throughout the day. Years ago, Australian artist Liz Steel told me how much better loose-leaf tea is than tea bags and I absolutely agree! She also introduced me to Taylor’s of Harrowgate, which is my favorite brand.

The white bone china mug with Scotties dancing on it was a gift once chosen by our granddaughter Mikala, who knew I love Scottish Terriers. I keep it just for cocoa, an instant blend that I mix up myself.

An extra benefit I’ve found to using the Pentel Milky White brush marker: you can paint over it! After loosely placing some tiny words on the tea tin label, I went over some of the white with metallic gold watercolor.

trying new things

This new sketchbook of mine is made up of Arches 140# rough watercolor paper, which I have never worked on before. The fine nib fountain pens that I usually use (Pilot Falcon and Kaweco Liliput fountain pens) don't work very well on this rough paper; neither do my fine-tip Gelly Roll white gel pens.

A new sketchbook with new-to-me rough paper, a few new colors never tried before in my emerald green folio palette (instead of my normal regular sized Pocket Palettes) . . . I might as well use new pens as well. Testing has shown that the Mahjohn Q1 bent nib eyedropper pen works well, as does Pentel's Pocketbrush and Milky Brush pens and my Wancher Puchico Mini with turquoise ink. Normally I use dagger travel brushes; I decided to switch to round brushes this time in large and small sizes. 

The quote is taken from a longer post of Belgium artist and architect Barbara Luel that I read on Sunday. She often draws her tools so I did some of mine after jotting down the partial quote. Her post included a gorgeous sketch of 6 delicately stacked tea cups -- beautiful!

yesterday’s tiny sketch

Yesterday we attended a candlelight service with our daughter’s church where I did a quick pencil sketch of the candle in my hand.

I hope all who read this are having a truly blessed Christmas season, and Hanukkah as well!

it was red while it lasted

I began this sketch a full week ago. But neither of us have been sleeping well lately and I was just too tired to work on the sketch beyond a few dabs of paint here and there. Last week the tree behind the cow shed was clearly orange-red; this week the color is gone.

We’ve also been too tired to cook, so we ate at Backdoor Pizzeria yesterday. Where I drew this very tired sketch of the cheese and pepper flakes shakers. I’ve been debating whether to sketch on one side only in this tiny 2” sketchbook, or do different sketches on each page like I do in larger sketchbooks.

new sketchbook, random bits

Over the past week, I added a bit here and there to the first pages of my new sketchbook. Eclectic and unplanned. The paints I put together in this “landscape” palette include several colors I’ve never used before.

a little Jesus

I went to the dentist for a tooth cleaning and saw this teeny figurine next to the receptionist’s computer. She told me how Dr. Naeger happened to give it to her — so I sketched it in my teeny sketchbook. Life sized.