Thoughts on gardening on the wild side

I was out in the garden yesterday and picked lettuce and some spinach.  I noticed purslane growing in with the basil, sorrel and lambsquarters growing in with the lettuce and dandelion and poke scattered around as well.  I wish people would stop seeing this stuff as weeds and realize that they grow without any help from you, provide food during more than one season and plant themselves again for the following year.  Why would I dig or pull these things up?  I no longer do.  I bring the sorrel in to add to my mint tea and pestos, lambsquarters for anthing that uses greens including salads, purslane for fresh salads and poke for cooked greens and to freeze for the winter.  We need to start seeing things differently if we expect these valuable plants to survive corporate farming. My garden probably doesn't look as organized as those with out a weed and everything in its proper rows but I have decided to see it as useful and beautiful as it is. 

Testing the waters

Memories... Everything about the beach makes me feel good.  Some of my favorite years as a child, as a teen, as a mom and now.... still makes me feel young to be there although I no longer catch the eye of the cute lifeguard :-)  This painting came out of some great photos sent to me by a client for a commissioned painting.  I have since used these photos for some lovely little paintings.  This is one of my favorites.


To Bid

Mulberry Tree

One more day in the tops of the trees and I think it is finished. 

I love my job.  Who else gets to hang out in the tops of the trees all day, listening to the birds, watching the squirrels race around and eating fresh berries while doing so.... oh, and did I mention, getting to oil paint too?  What a life.
If you want to bid on this it is on ebay for the next few days on auction.  Bid here

A work of art from the garden

Revisiting a painting from this time last year

I decided not to paint the peonies this year and just pick them and enjoy them.  I do love to paint them but this year put my energies into some other kinds of paintings like my rainy city series and my tree tops.

To Bid

Mulberry Tree

Sometimes the question pops up... " Should I pick it, or should I paint it?"  That was the case the other day as I climbed the steps to our little tree house garage apt. to check out the mulberry tree.  They are nearing ripeness but still white.  In the mean time I had a flash back to when I was a young girl who loved to climb trees and sit in the tallest branches.  Soooo I decided to paint the tree instead.  It is almost finished but not quite.

Canoeing the Boundry Waters

9x11 oil on canvas

Mayfest Invitational

I am excited to be invited again to participate in the Mayfest International Invitational show this year.  It opens Wednesday night ( tickets are around $25 and go to support the Mayfest) After that it is free until it closes on Sunday afternoon.  Always exciting to see what my artist pals pull out for this show. 

This is one and dang it, I can't find the photo of the other one which is a painting of a city street in the rain.

To Garden or to Paint? That is the question.

I love Google.  I googled a recipe for honeysuckle jelly and decided to add a few rose petals for good measure and color.  I thought I had everything covered and went to get the pectin and mine was powdered and the recipe called for liquid so I did some very quick reading and my fingers are crossed that it will jell properly.  If not, I will do the old trick with cream cheese w jelly poured over it, served with crackers and just say, " I meant to do it." :-)

The Journey

A lot of people think that when they see a painting on the wall that the artist had a specific idea of how it should look in the end and that is how it turned out.  For most of us, it is a journey.  We have a very vague idea and we jump in and see where it leads.  I did this painting last year as a class project.  My class wanted to do a landscape and a portrait and so we combined the two.  I really liked the landscape and I liked the pretty face on my portrait but wasn't pleased with the rest of her and didn't like the way the two fit together.  It took me a year to give it a second look and so here is where we are today....

Wanna bid on this on Ebay?  Click here

To Garden.... or To Paint.... or Both!

This week I am doing a lot of both. To start off with the harvest of lots of dandelion and redbud blossoms a few weeks ago is going to pay off in another few weeks ( my fingers are crossed) with some tasty dandelion wine.  I tasted before I bottled it and it was pretty darned good so hopefully nothing goes wrong with the rest of the process.

I am also working on a painting of the lilac bush that was in full bloom last week, a painting from our trip down the Buffalo River last weekend ( a mere pleine aire sketch at this point,) and finishing a painting from my adult class.

a short painting demo

I had forgotten about this until someone commented on it today.  A pretty good little demo if I do say so myself.  It is me painting one little white cup.  It takes about 5-7 minutes or so. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLy5nQlqmkE&authuser=0

Oklahoma Artists League Show

This Thursday, April 9th at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa, OK opening 5:30-8:00
Those of you in the area, please stop by.
It will be up for 2 months so feel free to stop in later and take in a movie as well :-)

Portraits and Sky Oil Paintings

 I thought I would revisit a few paintings that were used as an excuse to paint both a portrait and a wild and interesting sky.  We have wonderful sunsets, dramatic storms and beautiful clouds out here in the flat lands and I like to include them when ever I can.  The middle painting is open for bidding on Ebay today.  The others have already been sold.
To Bid

Playing in the Creek

This is a painting of my great nieces playing on Summer vacation at one of our favorite haunts.
To Bid

My experiment in automatic watering system

I put a little how to video on you tube about the creation of this system.  It was very easy to do and by trial and error, I finally got it to not be leaky.  The key to that was use a calk that is specifically used to calk guttering and is found on the guttering isle ( not where the other calk is) in my local hardware store.  Basically this is a closed system that allows water to come in via a hose connected to a very large rain barrel.  The key to success is a float that I ordered online that is made for this system.  It was a little tricky to find the right attachments to make this work but a very sweet guy at Home Depot spent around 15 minutes w me looking for just the right attachments and cut some pvc pipe to make it all work out. What you can't see in this picture ( and thanks to my husband, Scott who drilled the big holes in the bottom of each of these) is that there is about a 3" circular hole in the bottom of each of these where we dropped a little basket which dips down into the water in the gutter and is filled with potting soil which wicks up into the rest of the bucket where I have various seeds and plants planted.  Cool, huh?  It works!!

Just an interesting, no flour recipe for great crackers that I made up

Sorry that this is the kind of recipe that calls for a pinch of this and a handful of that but it is the best I can do...

I made something quite delicious the other day and thought I would share w you. took one can of low sodium white beans, put in blender w one egg, a bunch of almonds, a heavy dose of cumin, garlic pwdr , chili pwder, cayenne, blk pepper... I think I added a little water to make it pourable if I remember correctly. Pour on parchment paper on a cookie sheet so that it is as thin as you can get it. Sprinkle w seseme and other seeds that you might have handy. bake at around 350 and check it every 5 minutes or so. fliip it when it looks like it has tosted a little. I left the parhment paper on one of them and stripped it off one w the same results either way and then cook a little longer to toast the other side. They were DELISH! great crackers.... Scott said he hated to put anyting on them because they were so good by themselves. you could use them for pizza like crust as well, i bet.  I would post a picture but darn it.... they are all gone but the crumbs!

Kirsten

To Bid
Always love a chance to work with a live model.

Gathering Spring Greens

I was listing some paintings on Ebay today and ran across one of my favorites.  This painting was inspired by a walk in an ancient forest in Oklahoma and by a Waterhouse painting.  The painting was one done as I lead the class through the process of painting a portrait in my adult oil painting class.  Instead of putting my subject inside a building as Waterhouse did, I moved her outside, into the forest and gave her a job to do.  She has been out gathering spring greens and herbs.  If you want to visit her in my ebay gallery click here.
To visit my foraging blog click here

Cowgirls

I was just revisiting some older pieces and decided to post this one on ebay this week for auction.
To Bid

My son, Dylan got a nice write up in No Depression Magazine

This is great music to listen to while you paint.  It is soothing yet surprising.  Unexpected twists and turns.
http://nodepression.com/album-review/various-artists-imaginational-anthem-volume-7-guitar-soli

Various Artists - Imaginational Anthem Volume 7: Guitar Soli

by Rob Caldwell
February 3, 2015

Tompkins Square’s Imaginational Anthem series has become a standard for presenting solo instrumental acoustic guitar music in the “American Primitive”, or “Guitar Soli” style.  Since the first volume 10 years ago, the series has included new artists as well as bringing back to light influential and important guitarists of yesteryear. Partly as a result, solo acoustic guitar has been enjoying a revival of sorts lately, with artists such as William Tyler, Daniel Bachman, and James Blackshaw attracting fairly widespread attention. Hayden Pedigo (featured last year in Vogue, of all places) is one of this new breed and has been chosen to curate the latest, Volume 7: Guitar Soli. Pedigo is an inspired choice, as his most recent album Five Steps features collaborations with a menagerie of adventuresome guitarists ranging from Fred Frith and Peter Walker to Acid Mothers Temple’s Kawabata Makoto.
Even though the Imaginational Anthem albums showcase just one instrument, a lot of ground is covered.  Beethoven didn’t call the guitar a miniature orchestra for no reason. “Culverts”, by Sean Proper and “Red Bud Valley” by Dylan Golden Acock recall the “Takoma School” of playing (Leo Kottke, John Fahey) with bright, clean lines. Conversely, Chuck Johnson’s “On a Slow Passing Through a Ghost Town” is more contemplative, it’s haunting melody line stark and cinematic.
Things get experimental on “Trees Return to Soil”, by Simon Scott (best known as the drummer for Slowdive) - an atmospheric piece with subtle background noise and the close-miked sound of fingers on strings. Similarly, Jordan Norton’s “Araucaria” delves into ambient territory with an echoing sound landscape evoking empty spaces, with gentle percussive fingerpicking, almost banjo-like.  “0/3”, by M. Mucci features an accompanying tapping on the guitar body creating a duet between strings and wood.
Kyle Fosburgh’s “The Great North American Wilderness” is stately and grand, the deep resonance of the notes conveying a deep reverence for the wilderness of the track’s title. Some of the song names on the collection are more vague, playful (Christoph Bruhn’s “Something, or Oil Paintings”) or seemingly at odds with the music than Fosburgh’s. With a title like “Shadow Study at 6 am”, you might expect Mariano Rodriguez’ piece to be mellow and moody. Yet Rodriguez is wide awake in this greet-the-morning song, his confident playing ringing in the day.

Each of the tracks on Volume 7 tell a story and, though some of the playing is rooted in the sounds and styles of trailblazing guitarists of yore,  there’s always a striving to see what new things can be done with this “miniature orchestra” called the guitar. Based on the evidence here, the future is bright for guitar soli.
(Imaginational Anthem Vol. 7 is out Feb. 17)

Pre Raphaelite Girl with Cat

I was looking through some old painting photos and came across this painting which I did as a demo in my adult painting class.  I really liked how it turned out and apparently someone else did as well as it sold pretty quickly. 

A walk in the woods

To Bid

To Claire Goes Foraging children's book, written and illustrated by Margaret Aycock

If you leave a painting with an artist long enough, invariably it will go through a revision or two.  This one had a dog in it a few weeks ago and the more I looked at it the more I thought... I am not married to the idea of having this dog in the painting.  This week, out she goes.  I like the painting much better now.  It is on auction this week on ebay.  If it doesn't sell this week it is going to a Mardi Gras  fundraiser next week. 

Pink Peonies

To Bid

This is one among many recent paintings that are on auction this week.  Clicking above takes you to this painting where there will be links to the rest of the gallery and auctions.

FREE DOWNLOAD TODAY CLAIRE GOES FORAGING

I just finished publishing a little children's book on foraging.  All throughout the book are original oil paintings.  I borrowed my great niece and a good friend, Charica who modeled for the paintings.  I thought I would let you guys know so that you could read it for free today and tomorrow on Kindle. I had a tough time getting the Kindle version to upload my recipe/scrapbook pages.  This time it includes the missing recipe/scrapbook pages.  My fingers are crossed that it looks ok on your end.  On my end it previews the pages on Kindle which looks small to me.  Hopefully you can pinch it out so photos are bigger and you can read the words.  Let me know if something still needs to be tweaked.  If anyone else wants to add a good review, I would sure appreciate it.... and of course I have physical copies of the book at my house so I know they came out great  ( they pumped up the color a bit more than my original paintings but still looks fine) so feel free to order those with no worries.

http://www.amazon.com/Claire-Goes-Foraging-Margaret-Aycock-ebook/dp/B00RE0OE6U

My Gallery:  http://midwest-fine-art.com

Kindle Sales of Claire Goes Foraging FREE this week beginning 1/7/15

So you have an opportunity to read my book in advance of buying it for your child, I have made it available for free this week for Kindle.  On Amazon this week, Kindle sales are free, any other day Kindle sales are only $3.   I hope you read my little book, enjoy it, buy a copy and leave me a great review on Amazon.  Happy reading.

Happy New Year... This is my son, Dylan Aycock

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154985696500640

My book is finished!

The book is written so that children can learn several common plants easily found in places that are allowed to be wild, even in your own back yard or garden.  

I included some of Claire's scrap book pages about plant identification and the recipe that she and Celeste chose to make for their evening meal on the day they foraged for food.  

It also includes vitamin/mineral information that Claire finds on the internet.  

The book encourages parents and children to do more research and of course, to eat the weeds :-)

Here are a few sample pages

Winter Paintings

Time to pull out the winter paintings.  There is something attractive to me about a spot of bright red in an otherwise black and white composition.  Maybe stemming back to seeing the cardinal at the birdfeeder in the snow that gives a hint of life in the otherwise sleeping landscape.  Anyways I love this painting of friend, Melody as she walks her dog in the snow on some property near our home.  It is on auction this week on ebay

The bottom painting done by Scott was accepted into the Philbrook Museum's Festival of Trees and was sold there.  Congrats Scott!
To Bid

And just for fun, here are a few other winter paintings

This one was done by my husband/student, Scott Aycock.  It was recently chosen to hang at the Philbrook Museum's Festival of Trees where it was promptly snatched up by a lucky buyer.  Congrats, Scott!  You can see more of his work by clicking the link above and entering my ebay gallery.

http://www.bloomingtwig.com/32824/
Scott's book release is today at the Woody Guthrie Center at 2:00

Children's Book almost finished. Being edited now. CLAIRE GOES FORAGING