Food recipes

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

The idle bridge on Jefferson St.

Jefferson St. Bridge, Joliet, IL.
Pencil, watercolor and color pencil on Stillman & Birman Alfa Series 10 in x 8 in.
I did a pencil sketch of one the six bridges in downtown Joliet on September of last year and watercolor it today. This bridge was scheduled for maintenance/reparation on June 2020 but it is so old (it was built in the 1930’s) that the needed parts were not readily available. The order for the custom made parts continues to be delayed to this day. It is expected to be fixed on April of this year. The mixing tray below shows the colors and mixes I used. 



Monday, January 25, 2021

DIY studio watercolor box.

I was watching a Mateusz Urbanowicz´ video about a custom made studio watercolor box where he keeps together all his paint of one brand. He made it himself with wood from scratch. I thought it was a great idea, as he explained, having access to other paints that we keep in our drawers. His beautiful wood work inspired me to do the same, keep all my watercolor paint in one box and doing it myself. In my search for materials for the box, I found a bargain instead, a beautiful box I could use, it was the right size and it was flat, for half price! I couldn’t pass on that one, it would save me effort and money. Now that I had the box, I needed to do some custom work,  the addition of a grid to hold the pans. I like using whole pans so I would plan accordingly. This is the original box and it’s content.

I bought wood, glue for wood, polyurethane and a lid support hinge. First I removed the plastic trays that came in the box.
I covered the bottom with wood to elevate the pans a little, I think it would be more functional. Then I worked on the layout to max out the space, then I handsaw and sanded wood sticks to be used as dividers.

The raw of pans had spaces in between so added wood sticks to the sides to fill the space and to anchor the dividers.

The assembled pieces of wood looked like this. I liked it. So now I would glue it all together and later added 2 layers of polyurethane to protect the wood from stains and to clean the box when it gets dirty with use. 

Lastly, I installed the hinge to hold the lid where I can see the colors of the palette on paper and pasted 4 large bumpers on each corner at the bottom of the box so it won’t slide. Voilà! My new studio palette for ALL my transparent watercolor paint and additional  pan spaces for future colors. 
It measures 10 in x 8.5 in. It fits 56 whole standard size pans, interchangeable. Pans won’t move with the help of a little bit of sticky putty at the bottom. This palette doesn’t have any mixing areas, I have multiple porcelain mixing trays that I prefer to use instead of plastic or metal. I treated myself with this DIY project. It’s a big improvement in my studio and a great way to start the year.

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Jardín San Juan de Dios in Goauche.

Jardín San Juan de Dios, San Luis Potosí city, México.
Gouache and color pencil on CP watercolor paper 10 in x 10 in

I sketched the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico from a virtual image. I used gouache, which medium is still challenging for me to use. I showed my husband this sketch and he really liked it but said that it doesn’t pop up. I think what he means is that there’s no contrast. And I agree. Can it be corrected? Yes but strangely I like it as it is. For this sketch it was more important the process than the final result. During the process I thought of nostalgia and how much I miss my family and people, and it reflects in this sketch, in my opinion. When will it be normal again? When will we be able to walk freely and carelessly in the streets among the crowds? Oh what we took for granted. Let’s be appreciative of what we still have, whatever makes us happy. Let’s hang on to it, we need it more than ever.

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Corn bread in a cast iron frying pan.

Gouache, pencil and color pencil on A5 Leuchtturm1917


For many years, I’ve known how toxic PTEF (polytetrafluoroethylene) nonstick  coating of pans can become,  I thought I would be tied to buy nonstick pans as long as I had desire to cook sunny side up eggs (as I like), I thought I have always have to have the special pan just for eggs and replace them before they coating deteriorated. Little I knew there was an old solution that would work for long term. I recently acquired the almighty cast iron frying pan with the promise of not buying ever, ever again a special pan for eggs. Of course I made my research and learn cast iron cookware can last for generations. I learned what seasoning is, and how important it is to keep cast iron cookware seasoned for top performance. I have cooked eggs, meat and baked cornbread several times and I haven’t had any sticky issues whatsoever. I’m very optimistic about this, I think is a good investment which will last for a long time. 

I made a sketch of the last corn bread with cheese and jalapeño peppers I baked. I used gouache, pencil and color pencil. Does it look good? The recipe is shared in my other blog, click this link to see it.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Long sweet peppers on notebooks



These long peppers are very sweet. These are my first sketches of 2021. I roasted the peppers at 400°F for 20 minutes, peeled and cut in stripes, then seasoned them with a homemade vinaigrette and oregano. But before that I did that, I sketched them to decorate some notebooks. I used gouache, ink and color pencils to paint simultaneously the first page of a new notebook and the page of another notebook I’m currently using. The differences were obviously  noticeable while I painted both pages due to the different quality of papers. I painted first the big shapes in gouache, then I lined the shapes with a Salior Fude fountain pen. Although the image I sketched was the same, the sketching experience was different, it was a fun exercise.