Our Ramses

After 22 healthy and happy years, our Ramses died this last Friday. He was one of a kind and we are so lucky he stayed with us for so long! 

Born in New Mexico, he fully embraced our move to hot and humid Savannah. In fact, he loved the weather here more than anyone, always outside basking in the sun. The warmer the better.

Ramses loved our two previous dogs (Moe and Puna), but Winslow was his special buddy. After all, he raised Winslow from a puppy! Almost every night he would clean Winslow's eyes and make sure his eyebrows were in good shape. We never quite understood what the eyebrow thing was about, but Winslow loved it.

And often Winslow would return the favor and lick Ramses' head until his ears were inside out and he looked like he had plunged his head into water.  Tucker, Louie and Peabody (our other cats) have rallied around Winslow and keep him company. Winslow loves all "his" cats and luckily they love him.

Of course Ramses was also quite sophisticated and an avid art critic. I never knew if sitting on one of my paintings meant approval or disapproval.

As I looked through all our photos, I realized how few of them show Ramses from the front.

Most of the photos are like these. Wherever we sat, he tried to get onto one of our laps. He helped with computer work (this was the last photo I took of him),

keeping us warm,

helping us relax,

and he always supervised my knitting.

You were a special cat, Ramses. My lap feels quite cold without you here to warm it. And our house is strangely quiet without your constant chatter.

Until we meet again...

❧ Silke

Last Art of 2017

2017 is coming to a close and we've had a few busy months! I'm still making art right now that is much more realistic than my colorful paintings and I am so enjoying it! I got to draw this beautiful dog as a Christmas gift commission. I used watercolor pencils on Pastelmat paper as a first layer, followed by several layers of colored pencil, a technique I really like.

After I got this finished we went on a cruise to the Caribbean and had the best time! It's such a perfect way to relax and still see a part of the world. 

This time we both took art supplies. Daniel took watercolors and I took watercolor pencils, which I really haven't used very much at all. Daniel painted almost every day and I got two small drawings finished. 

This one is of one of the six-toed cats at the Hemingway House in Key West. I think it turned out alright.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, Daniel took a photo of a large hermit crab that I found so fascinating that I had to draw it. Such great colors and fun detail. 

Before I started the commission of the dog above, I was following along on a tutorial about drawing with colored pencils. It takes a good long time, but it's quite relaxing actually.

Now that we are back I want to finish this. It should take me a few more days to get it done. After that I have another pencil drawing lined up, which I can't wait to start.

I'll be posting a few photos from our cruise after I've gone through them all. It truly was a beautiful trip!

I hope you are all doing well as we head into 2018. Our weather has become very cold for the South and is supposed to stay that way for a little while. Other parts of the country are going into deep freeze it seems. And many places are seeing a good bit of snow. I just looked at the webcams in my hometown of Münster in Germany and it was snowing quite heavily.

Wherever you are, I wish you cozy and warm winter days!

❧ Silke

Figs

Our June and part of July was definitely dominated by our fig harvest. Our little tree was producing like never before! When we planted it 11 years ago, it was a merely a little stick, maybe a foot tall.

Every day for a few weeks we picked a couple of bowls of figs. Luckly they don't all ripen at the same time.

I bought a food dehydrator and dried what I thought where huge amounts of figs.

We indeed had a couple of big containers filled with dried figs and then Daniel discovered a recipe for a rye sourdough bread with dried figs, which is excellent and freezes really well. So, we've already used most of the dried figs and have decided that next year, we'll dry even more of them. 

Of course, we also made a lot of fig jam, some with lavender, another batch with thyme and also a few jars with orange blossom water.

All of them delicious! 

We made a rustic fig tart, 

fig pizza with goat cheese, caramelized onion and pine nuts, 

but the best recipe that Daniel found this year is for Roasted Fig Agrodolce. We made several batches for the freezer and it is delicious just on crackers or - like in the photo below - as an appetizer on toasted baguette with goat cheese or cream cheese. Next year, I'll definitely make more of that to freeze!

To be honest, I was glad when the fig season was finally over, but I'm happy we get to enjoy the jams, the dried figs and agrodolce in the freezer yet for some time to come.

❧ Silke

A Long Overdue Update!

Wow, this was a long break from blogging! I was going to start again in September, but then we were preparing for a hurricane evacuation and Daniel's start of school. We ended up being able to stay home during Hurricane Irma as it had weakened to a tropical storm, but we didn't know until the last day. Luckily, we had no damage at all except no power for four days, which was nothing compared to what others experienced and are still experiencing.

I also spent the summer trying to understand the mind-boggling political situation in this country and the world. I will continue to keep my blog free of politics, but I did want to mention it here since it defined my summer to a large extent.

The paintings above and below were really fun commissions I worked on during the summer.

It made me feel quite powerless and so sad and angry to read about what this current US administration is doing and undoing. And then came the unbelievable natural disasters that were happening too fast and were too destructive to fully comprehend: incredibly strong hurricanes, earthquakes and now the deadly fires in California.

There was and is so much suffering so close to home and all in places we have visited. They are all places we love. And I have to say, this year's hurricane season was so unbelievable and so much more stressful as we often didn't know if we were going to be directly in the path. I'm so glad the season is finally winding down and the communities affected can heal and rebuild.

I noticed over the summer how my art was changing. At the beginning of the summer I still liked working loosely with acrylic inks and acrylic paint. I liked the element of surprise. Not so much later in the summer. There had been too many surprises that I had no control over and I noticed how I craved taking my time with my art and drawing more intentionally and realistically.

I found a wonderful young British artist on Patreon whose tutorials have taught me so much. Here's the link if you are interested. The golden retriever above I drew with charcoal pencils and my nephew I rendered with graphite and charcoal.

What I really want to learn is how to draw realistically with colored pencils. I followed Kirsty's tutorial for this kingfisher bird using colored pencils and solvent and absolutely loved it.

I used to think I wasn't patient, but that's not true. I am so enjoying these drawings that take me many hours to complete. I'm working on one right now that's going to take me a few more days until it's done. Again with colored pencils.

Thank you for sticking with me. I have missed our interactions. I'll do a few more blog posts with all the photos I've taking over the summer in our garden and a few knitting projects I've finished or am still working on.

In the meantime, I hope you are all doing well!!

❧ Silke

Art!!!

Wow! I can't believe a month has passed since my last blog post. It's been a busy few weeks with life and art and friends visiting.

All the abstract experimenting has led me to changes in my art. In this piece I worked with many, many layers of high flow acrylics and also using some of my stencils.

 What you can't see very well in the photos is the gold I used.

 Not just as paint with the stencils, but also gold-colored metal leaf at the end.

The result is a beautiful 9 x 12 inch portrait, somewhat mysterious and quite layered. This painting has sold.

The following painting is quite a bit larger (16 x 20 inches) and here I again worked with stencils, but this time using them with light molding paste to add texture and structure to the painting.

If you look in the lower right corner, those flower shapes are raised.

As are the flowers in the photo below. Such gorgeous texture!

I'm really enjoying working larger even though it takes much longer. And I love painting human portraits again in addition to my animal paintings.

I hope you are having a wonderful June! I'm spending much of it painting and I'll have more to show you soon!

❧ Silke