working on a portrait

Back to work on this portrait of my cousin Cydney..<3 i was scared to work on this for a little while. Sometimes when I like something, i'm afraid to ruin it.. I do like where it's going now. i warmed up the face and slimmed it out a little bit.

 i'm planning on spending some more time on it..

Banana Bread and Honey Frozen Yogurt

This banana bread turned out delicious! I used this recipe from SimplyRecipies.com, with some altering. (Instead of all purpose flour, I used 3/4 c. whole wheat and 3/4 c. brown rice flour, also I added 1/3 c. of roasted sesame seeds.)

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup) *i used 3/4 c.
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour *i used 3/4c. whole wheat + 3/4 c. brown rice flour
• *plus 1/3 c. roasted sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour *i took out at 50 mins). Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Makes one loaf. 

For the honey frozen yogurt I looked up several recipes online, and they were very similar. So, i just kinda improvised. next time around I would add some lemon juice, use a little less honey, and add a little sugar. also, this would be good with small pieces of candied nuts!

Ingredients

• 3 c. Greek Style Yogurt (strained with cheese cloth in fridge for a few hours to get rid of excess liquid)
• 1/3c. honey (or to taste)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 c. toasted pine nuts (or to taste)

Combined strained yogurt, honey and vanilla chill. Use ice cream maker as directed. Stir in nuts after removing from ice cream maker, freeze or serve!

I drizzled honey, sprinkled sesame seeds and added a mint leaf before serving.

experimenting

lemons and blue pitcher

 It's been an experimental month for oil painting around here. the painting above was started on a red-painted canvas, which i think inspired the bold and loud colors and feeling of the painting. it was fun to paint, i like the size and roundness of the pitcher in front of the lemons.

I spent some time using a palette knife to apply paint, which is extremely fun. it seems that once i start applying paint with a knife, i have to continue with a knife. i have not been successful using a brush on top of the knife applied paint (yet). the three paintings below were started with a brush for laying out the forms and then continued and finished using various palette knives.

pink flowers

 

kettle with red background

kettle with blue background

 

 

potted succulent

 i'm not sure how i feel about the painting of the cactus/succulent plant above. I do like that i'm experimenting. here, after initially laying out colors and form, I scrubbed on and off paint to create interesting color areas.. hmm...

flower bouquet -work in progress

the flower bouquet above is just starting out.. not sure where i want to go with this. i started by painting the whole canvas red-orange which i think helps the painting progress quickly, because there is already color and inspiration waiting for you on the canvas!

we shall see... :)