drAnn's Art

A Distelfink

James Michener's The Novel is about a writer who is also devoted to art, and especially to the rescue of old Pennsylvania Dutch barn designs.  No doubt it was the impetus for a revival of interest in the "barn  flowers" as the hexagonal signs used for outdoor decoration were sometimes called.    Although a number of fakelore artists of today are busily attributing magical properties to the art of this genre,  hexagonal simply means six-sided, ergo the name "hex signs."  Can you picture a farmer using a pitchfork to help measure out the patterns?   

Speaking of barns, this link has some nice barn photos, including that of a delightful star barn:  Star Barn  

This brings to mind that the barn flowers were also called barn stars.  Well, I could not resist making some fakelore of my own:
I did not have a pitchfork, so I kept the figure six-sided.  That way nobody can say it is not a hex sign :-) 

Art at the Beach

Some creative people stacked these rocks above the pier along Ventura Beach, giving me something fun to photograph:

 
People's desire to "do art" can express itself anywhere.   Ventura is a nickname for San Buenaventura which is the town's real name. 

Here is a Pretty Picture from our Indoor Garden

My petunia growlog is here:  Pretty Petunias

Chocolate Mousse in Pyramid Shape

Looking for an online review of The Gourmet Room at Don Laughlin's Riverside Resort in Laughlin, Nevada, the first one that came up mentioned this dessert:

But the review did not have a picture of it and I did, so here it is.  Mmmmmm, tasty and also a work of art.  That did not stop me from eating it.

A Tomatillo Flower Bud

I think.
Tomatillos are husk tomatoes, and we love to eat them in salsa verde.  When the first little puff of green appeared on a tiny stem in the crevice where the leaves branch off from the stalk of this aggressive plant, I thought it must be what some gardeners call a "lantern" but chances are it is a flower bud instead. 

Well, I have never grown one of these before, but it is going to be a challenge for me to play honeybee with it indoors, because, for one thing, people commenting on the process online are divided as to how self-pollinating it is.  Some say all it needs is a vigorous shake and others say you need more than one plant to get any fruit. 

When I figure it out, I will post my findings on my other blog:

Ann's Air Gardens

More Edible Art

Every day is a photo op when there are AeroGardens in one's home.   Actually, the purple hot peppers (and they ARE hot, too!) are growing out on the porch in a laundry soap container, but we started them in the AG. 

They tend to blossom at the very top of each branch which makes it difficult for me to prune them back, as I hate to cut back and kill the pretty flowers. 

Here are more future tomatoes from out on the porch:

We didn't know if we could do this in December or not, but so far they look OK. 

Lights Across the River

We took a ride upriver a few miles tonight to go to the post office and drop off some mail.  It looked so wintery on the other side.  Usually the bright lights from the resorts reflect in the water and show a pretty rippling effect.  Tonight it was as black as dark night and the room lights look almost like stars, except for their rectangular formation. 

This is shot from the Long John Silver's/Taco Bell.  We keep seeing their new fish dinners advertised on TV.  I like that LJS is finally offering unbattered cuts of fish.  Battered fish is tasty, but we don't need all that starch and oil.  Just give me the fish!

Ah, but they had the new "Fully Loaded Nachos" advertised on the door so we ended up getting that...and a Big Bell Box Meal.   We sat around munching on that and looking out over that dark river at the bright lights of Nevada, so near and yet so far. 

A New Sketchbook

I love the Bienfang Sketch Notebooks with pages that are half lined and half blank for drawing.  Here is a page from one of mine:

I am writing up an experiment to see if I can save the ends of scallions and regrow them.  It will be a while before these are ready to eat.  It seemed like they got bigger just while I was trying to make a sketch, though. 

I used a 2:2:2 solution of the General Hydroponics Flora Series nutrients to feed them.

 To the right is a detail of how the new growth looked after a few days.  The inner container has holes drilled in the bottom.  It is filled with expanded clay pellets and the pipe cleaner handle allows me to easily lift the little onions out of the liquid nutrient solution and then let it drain back into the outer container every day or so. 

When the inner container is lifted completedly out, then if the liquid does not come up to the drain line marked on the outer container,  I top it off.  The inner container is opaque, which helps keep light from shining directly on the roots, and this discourages the formation of algae. 

Another Traffic Exchange

I love to design banner ads.  These are seen all over the internet, but most of my acquaintances don't know very much about them.  So, if you haven't heard it somewhere else, be sure your Fire-Wall is on and up-to-date before clicking on ads, especially in the Paid to Click (PTC) and Paid to Read (PTR) arenas. 

This goes for splash pages, too.  Generally I don't care much for splash pages, but here is one I could not resist:

The Traffic Station

Isn't that cute? 

Here are some of the banners I've designed:

Is This Red Enough?

 

Yesterday it was a rich chocolate brown:

Cutter Bee Bugs

I drew this yesterday:
 Not a big project, but I had been away from my drawing table for a while and it felt great to get back.  So great, in fact, that I decided to reward myself today by buying some new art supplies.  Double-ended Sharpies were a must, but I also bought a blister pack containing two cute marking tools called Cutter Bee Bugs.  They come in two shades of pink with polka dots and are retractable. 

They may or may not work for the purpose I had in mind, but they rate 10 on the cuteness factor.  Hey, anything to keep me motivated. 

I also bought a couple packets of Zebra's new pocket sized pens with the lanyard ring.  It was a good day.