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I will post the most current daily blog here (below) on the home page
and then
post it on the 2012 blog
earlier blogs
are in the blog archives
Tuesday January 31 Quilt,
Sauce, Without really checking I think
this January was probably my most productive blog writing
yet. That's because I've been busy doing things
finally. I think I've re-focused my time. Having the
quilt project and knowing that I have a role in a play to do and
limited time to myself has done this. Being in the play
requires such discipline and that's what I needed right now.
I was going too Adirondacker. After the play,
"The Birthday Party", which opens on July 26, 2012 at
the Upper
Jay Art Center, I can go back to being Adirondacker.....leaning
and loafing at my ease.....in pursuit of creative endeavors of
course. The quilt is on hold I'm only several
squares away from putting it together, but I'm short on one
fabric, I've ordered it, but don't you know it's on
backorder. But, baby isn't due until mid April. Today
was one of the few days snow has fallen this year. Sue had
to make a delivery to The
Community Store in Saranac Lake. The roads were
terrible, it was 40mph the whole way, but we just sat back and
enjoyed it, there were few cars on the road. The town fought
hard to keep Walmart out of town and out of the Adirondacks. so
the idea of a Community Store sprung from that. They have
wonderful clothing, underwear, socks, all the stuff you need and
more. Now they have Sue Young pendants and mugs. 
Sue's
building up a wholesale business, mostly locally with solid
businesses that are going to stay in business and actually sell
the work. Pendants have sold very well, they ordered in
December and re-ordered in a month, we're hoping the mug will be a
hit with the Saranac
Lake Winter Carnival crowd. After the slow
drive there and back I got started on my tomato sauce. 
Those
are giant cans of diced tomatoes, I might as well make a lot as
make a little. Organic carrots and celery. I read that
celery was a vegetable that really held on to the
pesticides. It's mostly water so it would have higher
concentrations in its cells. So I've switched to organic
celery. Of course its easier now that the kids are grown,
the food budget is smaller and there's more time to shop and think
about what you are buying. So I dice up the
carrots, celery and onions, sweat them up and caramelize them
slightly down. Salt and pepper about half and hour.
Add the tomatoes and bay leafs, simmer for about two hours, blend
with an emulsifier add spices, simmer for another hour or so. This
makes me a nice tomato sauce stock. I can freeze this and
then add to it whatever I like for the meal I am making.
Tonight I added pesto that we froze and additional basil
leafs. But you could roast peppers and add them, additional
garlic....etc.... I use to just add sugar to the
sauce to cut the acid in the tomatoes, but then on a food show I
saw them use carrots to sweeten the sauce.....tried it and liked
it. I didn't peel the carrots. I've been
working on digital art lately. I have a nice project going,
involving loons. I once did three different etchings of
loons. "Looner Reflections", "Looner
Reverberations", and "Loons Bathing in Northern
Lights". They were very popular, but I didn't print
many of them because they were so hard to print. I've
been recreating the idea of Looner Reflections in vector art this
time. I'm having some success, but it's been a learning
process. I'm beginning to lean toward the idea of creating
my own prints digitally. My ideas are original and unique, I
know they would sell very well at the right price point and
presented well. Perhaps next week I'll be far enough along
to put a proof of my idea up here on the blog. But
in the meantime. I worked on the following idea this evening
as I was going over photos in my camera. I took this photo
in Peru NY of a farmers field. 
I
felt there was a lot here to work with. I took out the water
town, buildings and distant trees. The big tree I felt was
leaning to the right out of the picture.....so I cut it out but
duplicating the photo, splicing the photo in half, rotating the
tree about 3 degrees and lining it back up. Then I cut out
the barn and then I put that back and was able to change the color
saturation levels on the different objects to make the photo
below. 
By
tilting the tree to take the lean out of it I created a little
rise in the field, but that brings the eye back to the middle of
the photo. The barn and tree shadows I burned a little
darker as well. I've always liked a scene like
this.
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