Note: my AJJ entry for Fish is below
Yesterday morning very early our Wisconsin friends headed home. It is around an 8 hour drive for them.
It was a good time for us, Rob visits with his wife a couple times a year, but we hadn't seen Rich since the last deer camp at the woods house. I really miss the fun and abundance of foods during deer camp. For us it was our Thanksgiving sharing friendship and good eats with friends.
I didn't get any photos as I did everything in the kitchen while the guys fished. One day I made us reuben sandwiches that are always a big hit. I made a creamy mustard potato salad to go with. Marie sent along one of her homemade cheesecakes for Larry-his favorite. The guys asked what to bring and I said a fresh watermelon and fruit would be wonderful, what ever snacks and drinks for you, and I only make breakfast and one main meal a day.
Rich went over board-he always does-and brought lots and lots of fresh fruits, strawberries-cherries-plums-nectarines, pineapple-cantalope-large watermelon-Wow haha. I enjoyed the fruit as the two grocery stores nearest us have very poor fresh fruits-even the small wal mart has horrible fresh strawberries etc-so that was a real treat. They also brought cheeses, bags of deli sliced meats, huge box of bakery sweets and fresh baked bread-Larry loves those sweets-I don't keep them around because he can't resist-sigh. and next week is our 6 month visit with blood tests. that will be interesting
The next day I battered up crappie and catfish for a fish fry-I did allot of fish-everyone loved it-the new batter recipe I use now every one loves that tries it I had so much left over that I searched online if I could freeze it and one can. So I just need to heat up some in the oven. This is the recipe for the batter. For the flour I use Bobs red mill 1-1 gluten free flour, for the corn flour I use his gluten free corn flour, and for the beer I use gluten free beer or seltzer water. I used seltzer water this time and the batter was perfect. The seltzer water is a better choice over club soda if you are watching salt intake.
We have had more rain and storms, but thankfully a really bad storm last night missed us-so thankful as that one came with damages.
Next week we jump into the 90's we have really been enjoying the cool mornings this past week-drinking our coffee and watching the birds that come up on the deck.
While doing laundry this morning decided to play with my watercolors and also the green watercolor ink from Winsor and Newton, and my own black walnut ink.
Fish is the theme for Art Journal Journey this month.
This piece is for sure a practice piece-not totally happy with it, so have not added it to my journal yet. I didn't get the movement in the tree limbs I was going for, those fish are so so haha
I used the fish stamp for inspiration and also this hand stamped scene for inspiration-which was in a stamping magazine.
some of these fish look like little sharks instead of carp-lol oh well I did have fun using inks along with the watercolors
Looking at this piece now as a photo-I always seem to see my paintings better in a photo- not sure why that is--but I think I may go in and extend the leave branches on the tree limbs-that may help
What do ya think?? much better I am thinking Question though-is this too balanced?
I took Christine's suggestion of darkening the water. That was a good idea. I added some darker blues, but since the tree and grasses were already painted, hard to fix those areas-but a little better for the fish
Friday morning I decided to add my watercolor piece to my journal. I do love my tree branches and leaves and the plants in the water, which I used green watercolor ink and my own black walnut ink. I also used the black walnut ink for the fish and highlights in the tree trunk too. Will share over on AJJ for Mia's theme fish
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