Saturday, October 25, 2014

November Children's Drawing Classes at Rockland Library, 2014



Themes for November Children's Drawing Classes at Rockland Library, 2014
Press Release:
Rockland -  "Let's Draw in Celebration of Native American Heritage
Month, Thanksgiving, and the Coming of Winter!" is the November program
for the ongoing free drawing classes led by Catinka Knoth at Rockland
Public Library. Children will explore such motifs as woodland animals;
Native American designs, lodging, hunting, and game; and foods and
family gatherings.  Knoth leads children age 6 and up in these "follow
along" sessions every Tuesday, 4-5 pm, in the library's Community Room,
80 Union Street. Children 10 and under should be accompanied by an
adult. Knoth expects participants to be able to work independently and
encourages adults to join in the drawing fun.  Local patrons Wendy and
Keith Wellin sponsor the program, which is free with all materials
supplied, and hosted by Friends of Rockland Library. Contact Jean
Young, children's librarian, at 594-0310 for more information.

11/04 Let's Draw Deer, Bears, Chipmunks, and Squirrels!
11/11 No class - Library closed for Veteran's Day
11/18 Let's Draw Native American Designs and Motifs!
11/25 Let's Draw Turkeys, a Pilgrim Feast, and a Cornucopia for
Thanksgiving!

Friday, October 24, 2014

Apples & spheres - drawings, exercises, and watercolors.


Apples & spheres -  drawings, exercises, and watercolors. 
Concept practices w different light directions on spheres in pencil, (demo whiteboard drawings).
Group or clump of  spheres. 
Variations of red spheres with cast shadow, direct watercolor painting. Notes explain the different experiments. In hindsight, those cast shadows are too far forward!
Watercolor  from my reference photo of an apple bough against the sky.








Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Owls and bats and cats - demo drawing, 10/21/14



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Friday, October 10, 2014

Halloween cards! ...at the St. George grange, Sat. 10/11/14...larger pics.

Halloween cards! ...at the St. George grange, Sat. 10/11/14...larger pics. I guess that means I have to post these to Etsy too, if I can remember how to do it!

Monday, October 6, 2014

Apples & spheres, adult art class, 10/06/14

Apples & spheres -  drawings and exercises, adult art class, 10/6/14. Concept practices w different light directions on spheres in pencil. Group or clump of reddish spheres. Final drawings from my reference photo of an apple bough against the sky. What a display here! Bring on the apple recipes and the apple proverbs.

Student drawings display, and demo drawings,









Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Monday, September 29, 2014

Fwd: October Autumn Themes Adult Art Workshop Series at Rockland Library, 2014

Press Release:
Autumn Themes Free October Adult Art Workshop Series with Catinka Knoth at Rockland Public Library, 2014

Rockland - Catinka Knoth offers drawing  October's autumn themes, with a focus on drawing in color, 11 a.m.  Mondays, in October, (no class Columbus Day 10/13), in the Community Room, Rockland Public Library, 80 Union St.   Led by Knoth, participants will  create their own  colored drawings of apple motifs; fall leaves & autumn landscape scenes; and Halloween pumpkins.  Knoth provides the  classes  free of charge and open to the general public, with materials supplied, and  Friends of Rockland Library host. FMI Knoth at 596-0069 or Rockland Library at 594-0310.

Knoth will provide instruction and guidance in drawing October fall themes. Each week is a different  subject, as follows:
10/06        Apples and apple trees
10/13        No Class - Library closed, Columbus Day
10/20        Autumn leaves & scenes
10/27        Halloween pumpkins

Knoth paints watercolors of Maine and whimsical animal scenes, which she offers as cards and prints. She teaches a free weekly children's drawing class at Rockland Public Library, sponsored by Wendy and Keith Wellin. For more information about Knoth's work visit www.catinkacards.com.





Small version of 4-up group:


Apple Bough


Autumn Leaf



Jack-O-Lantern 

---------
Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Fwd: October 2014 program of Children's Drawing Classes at Rockland Public Library

Press Release:
Fall and Halloween Themes for Free October Children's Drawing Classes at Rockland Library, 2014

Rockland - Children, and those young at heart, will explore fall and Halloween themes in the ongoing drawing classes led by Catinka Knoth at Rockland Public Library, 80 Union  St. The "Let's Draw Together!" workshops, geared for ages 6 and up, also welcome adults. Library policy requests that children 10 and under have an adult accompany them. Classes meet every Tuesday from 4-5 p.m. downstairs in the Friends Community Room. 

October's subjects may include:  autumn leaves and trees; pumpkin patches and scarecrows; owls, bats, and cats; haunted houses; and a spooky Halloween with Jack-O-Lanterns, witches, goblins, and more.

10/07    Autumn leaves and trees
10/14    Pumpkin patches and scarecrows
10/21    Owls and bats and cats
10/28    Spooky Halloween with Jack-O-Lanterns, haunted houses, witches, goblins, and more.

The workshops, sponsored by local patrons Wendy and Keith Wellin, and hosted by Friends of Rockland Library, are free and open to the public, with all materials provided. Participants draw along with Knoth's demonstrations. She expects students to be able to work independently for the most part. Knoth, a Rockland artist, is known for her watercolors of Maine scenes and animal drawings. Her work may be seen at www.catinkacards.com. For more workshop information, call Jean Young, children's librarian, at 594-0310.


Attachments: 
Demonstration drawings by Catinka Knoth - fall leaves; pumpkins & scarecrow scene;  owl, bat, & cat; haunted house after Charles Burchfield; spooky Halloween scene 


Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:



















Thursday, August 28, 2014

Mr. Squirrel and the end of the summer, a squirrel story.

Mr. Squirrel and the end of the summer.

Mr. Squirrel could not help but overhear the car radio playing in the parking lot while the driver prepared to leave the car. It seemed to tell of the possibility of dinosaurs on other planets and the supposition of why it would be dinosaurs there instead of people. Squirrel could not imagine anything so big as a dinosaur supposedly was. Squirrel wondered, "Why did it need to be dinosaurs OR people? Why couldn't it be both on a planet? He thought the radio show also seemed to say it was a fluke or an accident that there were people on earth instead of the dinosaurs that had been on earth. He had never paid much attention to what they said was the reason for that. What was the fluke that happened to the dinosaurs that they had disappeared from the earth?

Squirrel wondered how he would be able to exist if there was something as big as a dinosaur on earth. How would it, or they, ever find enough food to eat? Was food much bigger than it was now? Maybe that did not matter. Did the dinosaurs like to eat all the green things around them? Maybe there were a lot less dinosaurs than the regular animals that lived nowadays.

"Such a big animal...could it move quickly enough to be able to catch smaller animals as food?" Squirrel wondered. He thought it would have to be a vegetarian or a herbivore because it could not move quickly enough to catch little animals. It certainly could not scamper up and down thin tree branches and twigs the way Squirrel could. Squirrel loved running up and down around the trees and sometimes taking a flying leap into the air to land on something fairly far away. He might have to swing back and forth a bit before he could move on to the next branch. Sometimes he would go out on a branch that would bend low enough for Squirrel to jump onto a rooftop. But then that branch would spring back to its usual spot and Squirrel would have to take a daring leap up back onto that branch just in order to get off the rooftop. He never knew if he would make it back to the branch. He just might miss the branch and tumble to the ground. Squirrel was like an acrobat on a trapeze. He loved to throw himself into the air and feel like he was flying for a moment. He was not like his cousin the flying squirrel. Flying squirrel had extra skin between his arms and legs so that he could really sail thru the air like a kite. He might catch an updraft and even ride it a bit longer than just jumping from one branch to another.

Squirrel wondered more about his cousin Flying Squirrel. Where did he like to live? He had lost touch with his cousin. He should find out where he was now. It was a long time since they had seen each other. When was the last time they met? The woodland animals had had a big picnic one year at the end of the summer. The had all gathered from far and wide to be there. Squirrel and Flying Squirrel were quite young then. Squirrel had met a lot of the other cousins too, like Red Squirrel and Black Squirrel.

Black Squirrel had velvety black fur and looked just like Squirrel. He lived in a city. Red Squirrel was smaller, his fur a reddish color like a deer or an Irish setter dog. His ears were bigger with long tufts of fur. He lived in the same woods that Squirrel did. They saw each other a lot as they went about their business.

Squirrel started thinking how nice it would be to have another picnic like that at the end of this summer. It would be nice to gather with all the other animals, and especially to see the relatives again. They could have such fun having a feast together, playing games, and sharing stories about where they lived.

The summer was almost over. There might be just enough time left to make a picnic happen. What would Squirrel have to do? What was the most important thing that a picnic needed? Squirrel would have to get the word out to everyone. He could go to his flying friends, the birds, and ask them to help spread the word. Everyone could bring their own food, the food they liked the best. There was still lots of food around at the end of the summer. Some of it was not yet ready for picking. Apples and nuts were ready. Lots of woodland animals liked that kind of food.

Squirrel told his friends the crows and the bluejays about his picnic idea. Where should they have this picnic? In the meadow, close to the edge of the woods, they decided. The crows and the bluejays flew off to spread the news. They would tell their friends in the nearby cities too. They had all decided the picnic would be in one week, the last of the summer.

Squirrel went to tell his friend Rabbit and Frog about the picnic. He wanted them to organize the games. Frog agreed to run a game of leapfrog. Rabbit would hold an egg and spoon race, and a gunny sack race. And they had to hold a tug-of-war too!

Squirrel went to sleep dreaming about the picnic. In his dream he ran into lots of friends and relatives. Everyone was so happy to see each other. They told each other the news from where they lived. Who had married whom. Who had made families. Who had died. Lots of stories. When Squirrel got up in the morning he was so excited about the picnic plans. He could hardly wait for the day when he would really see every one.

The next day he saw Bluejay. Bluejay had had the same dream. As they went about their day they learned that lots of their friends had had this dream. Everyone was talking about the picnic. They could hardly wait for picnic day.

Finally it was picnic day. All the animals gathered in the meadow by the edge of the woods. They spread out their foods and set up their games. It was a lovely day, still summer, warm, sunny, and breezy. Everyone was having a lovely day. It was just like in their dreams.

Suddenly one of the young bluejays squawked out at something it saw rising from the ground at the edge of the meadow. It was growing and almost flickering and shimmering - as if with orange lights. The animals ran to see what was happening. It was the monarch butterflies starting their long trek to South America. They had decided they could put on an air show for the picnic if they all left at the same time. They swirled up into the sky like a column of chimney smoke curling up. It rose high up before it spread out into cloud shapes and drifted off into its long journey. All those butterflies leaving at once. What a magical sight the animals had seen.

Squirrel thought again about those long ago dinosaurs. He was pretty sure they could not gather for such a picnic as he and the other woodland animals were having. Squirrel was very glad to live where he did, with lots of friends, plenty enough food, good times with each other, and a chance to catch up with far away friends and family every once in a while. It had been a delightful way to end the summer. Maybe they would do it again the next year. Squirrel could wait until the next year to think about it. Right now he would just enjoy the good time.


Questions/notes to self..
The dinosaur fluke..
Where do red squirrel and black squirrel usually live (habitat),
Where did they come from?
How does the "flying" work?
Ugh I don't want to do research.
Just google it?
What IS a game of leapfrog?


8/28/14 1:10p - 3:15p
c.1160 words
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Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:
http://www.catinkacards.com

Blog:
http://catinkacards.com/cknotes

Prints at Fine Art America
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/catinka-knoth.html

Facebook Artist Fan Page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Catinka-Knoth/76702205114

Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/catinkarts

Monday, August 25, 2014

"Scenes of September in Maine - buildings in St. George", Adult Art Workshops, at Rockland Library, 2014


Press Release:

Knoth Teaches "Scenes of September in Maine" Adult Art Workshops, at 
Rockland Library, 2014

Rockland - Catinka Knoth  will  teach drawing  scenes of September in 
Maine, with a focus on buildings, at 11 a.m.  Mondays,  Rockland Public 
Library, the Community Room, 80 Union St.  Led by Knoth, participants 
will make their own  drawings in color. Knoth offers the  workshops 
free and  open to the general public, with materials supplied. Friends 
of Rockland Library host. FMI Knoth at 596-0069 or Rockland Library at 
594-0310.

Knoth will lead students in drawing several scenes of iconic local 
Maine buildings. Students may experience simple aspects of  perspective 
theory. They will also practice the technique of coloring in without 
using outlines. Familiar buildings from St. George and South Thomaston 
along the St. George peninsula and Rte 131 will be the subjects for the 
classes. Each week is a different building - a schoolhouse, a barn, a grange, and a classic Maine farmhouse.


09/08    Little Green Schoolhouse 
09/15    Harjula's barn     
09/22    A classic Maine farmhouse
09/29    St. George Grange

Knoth paints watercolors of Maine and whimsical animal scenes, which 
she offers as cards and prints. She teaches a free weekly children's 
drawing class at Rockland Public Library, sponsored by Wendy and Keith 
Wellin.  For more information about Knoth's work visit 









Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Friday, July 25, 2014

Mr. Squirrel and his problem with the Gathering.

Mr. Squirrel and his problem with the Gathering.
Catinka Knoth
 7/25/14

Mr. Squirrel came home very frustrated from a gathering he had been at. Not a gathering of nuts. 
Though one could say it was possibly close to a gathering of nuts.

After he came home he kept replaying his arguments in his head over and over and over again. These were arguments over issues that had been going on over the past year - not just that evening. He wanted to give up his role in the gathering because he was not satisfied with this state of affairs. He could see no resolution to how he would solve his problem. The problem had gone on so long and  it seemed as if anything he ever tried had no effect on it. 

It was somewhat a communication problem. The gathering operated under the illusion or the assumption that one of them was in charge. They had never really considered that they were all in charge. Or, they had never really clarified how they wanted to operate with each other in their gatherings. 

It always seemed to be a mess.
Information stayed between small groups of members rather than being completely shared with everyone. Everyone assumed that everyone else just knew about things. The more Mr. Squirrel thought about this the more frustrated he got.

He felt as if all his thinking was just bringing up more unpleasant thinking. It was making him much nastier than he liked being. He did not like being this way. 

He wanted everyone to have a good time with each other. He wanted everyone to know what was going on. He wanted everyone to be part of the whole decision-making. But he felt the decisions needed to be made quickly so that action could be taken.

He felt very sad that he thought he would most likely have to disengage from his involvement completely. 
It had caused him just too much inner  turmoil that just disrupted his happiness. He wanted to feel peaceful.

Was feeling peaceful something one just decided to do, no matter what the circumstances? Or, was it a matter of finding a solution to whatever was disrupting the peacefulness? Was it really a matter of resolving the conflict? After all this did not seem to be a conflict for the others. They did not seem to have a problem with these questions. None of this seemed to matter for them. Of course he could not be sure about that because none of this had ever really been discussed with the others. He had no idea what the  others thought of this, whether they thought of it, whether it tickled their awareness at all, whether it was of any concern to them. He had no idea.

Should he try to find out how the others saw this?

He had almost been up all night tossing and turning about this. Luckily he had a book that he was reading just for falling asleep. But he woke up early and got up early. Had an early breakfast and then found himself going round and round with the problem again. Now he was not like a squirrel with a nut but like a dog with a bone.

Mr. Squirrel got out his little writing book and began to scratch away in it with his pen. At least he would write about his situation, about the things that were bothering him.

The only solution that he could see was to leave his involvement  with the gathering. He was having a hard time choosing to do that. It usually hurt to leave others.

On the one hand one felt as if one was all alone. One felt as if one was cutting oneself off. One felt as if one was abandoning others. One was not made to abandon each other. That went so against the grain for a body.

He asked himself over and over again had he done everything he could to make things work in a way that he would be happy with.

Whether or not he had, he felt that he had tried long enough that it was now time  to stop trying. That too made him sad - to feel as if he was giving up. Persistence was very important to him.

Of course he did not need to decide now. But he did not know how much more of this turmoil he could take.
He felt that such turmoil was just not good to have. It was unhealthy to have it for so long. He also felt like it was breaking his heart to have to cut himself off. Would he have the inner  strength to do it?

Mr. Squirrel had no answers yet. He had only just chewed on his problem some more. But he at least had given it another form, by writing about it in his book, rather then it's just being in his head as something to think about. He had given it a form in the physical world where it was something he could look at outside of himself and not just inside himself. This  meant that he could share that form with others. The others did not need to be the others in the gathering. It could be anyone. It could even be himself later on.

He closed his book and put away his pen, making sure to clean off the ink so that the pen  would be nice and clean for the next time he sat down to write. He felt a little bit better about his problem. His writing in the book had made something that existed as a thing of itself in the world. It had its own life. Anyone might come and read it at any time. And they might think about it. Maybe they'd find an answer to the question. Or they would maybe find that they had the same problem and feel good to know that somebody shared that problem with them. They would not feel alone. They would feel connected again even if just a little bit.

Until Mr. Squirrel had written in his little book this problem was just something floating around in the air or in his head or between the members of the gathering. Now it could be looked at a little bit better. It could go into the collection of what everyone knew. Others could use it. Yes, he felt a lot better already.



Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Beach roses over bridge railing, Spruce Head, Maine, 2010; ref pic for w/c studies, 7/15/14,



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Monday, July 14, 2014

Beach roses scenes inventions - demo drawings & exercises, adult art class, 7/14/14.

Draw lines of repeated marks.
Draw two waving lines like paths - of varying paths. Place the marks, one kind to a line, on the lines like a necklace.
Re-create those lines, those necklaces without the guidelines.
Make two largish organic shapes, with an outline, and fill them in with one of your marks - a different mark for each shape. Re-create those shapes using the marks, but no outline, and no outlining with marks either.
Re-create those shapes again coloring them in with green, leaving white spaces where there would be flowers, so you're really just filling in the background - and again no outlines.
Final drawing: draw a margin around the edge of the paper so that you stay off the edges. Do a very quick continuous line drawing of an imaginary landscape. Color it in quickly - use marks if you like, symbol marks, calligraphic marks.

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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Maine coastal floral scenes - July adult art classes at Rockland Library

"Lupine at Mosquito Harbor in Martinsville", painted quite a while ago... We'll play off this image at Monday art class, 11 am. July adult art class, Rockland library, 7/7/14. All levels! If you have wonderful lupine scene photos, bring them. We work with colored pencils and crayons.


"Coastal Maine Floral Landscapes" - July Adult Art Classes with Catinka Knoth at Rockland Library, 2014
Topic: Art Class

Press release: 

Rockland - Catinka Knoth will give a series of  free drawing  classes on depicting Maine coastal floral scenes, at Rockland Public Library, 80 Union Street. Classes meet in the Community Room, 11 a.m.,  Mondays in July. The first scene  will revisit Knoth's painting "Lupine at Mosquito Harbor, Martinsville..". Participants will create art using pencils, colored pencils, crayons, and scissors, with an emphasis on drawing in color.  Each week is different scene. Knoth will give instruction and guidance. She invites students of all levels to come make art  in this communal and diverse environment.

Each week offers a different scene to explore:

7/07 - "Lupine at Mosquito Harbor..."
7/14 - "Rosa Rugosa - Beach Roses by the Maine Seashore"
7/21 - "Oriental Poppies in an Early Summer Garden"
7/28 - "Daisies by Marshall Point Light"

Knoth provides the classes free of charge, with materials supplied. Friends of Rockland Library host the workshops, which are open to the public. FMI Knoth at 596-0069 or Rockland Library at 594-0310.

Knoth paints watercolors of Maine and whimsical animal scenes, which she offers as cards and prints. She also teaches a free weekly children's drawing class at Rockland Public Library, sponsored by Wendy and Keith Wellin. For more information about Knoth's work visit www.catinkacards.com.


Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Monday, June 9, 2014

Blue Jays and lilacs drawings and exercises, adult art class, 06/09/2014.

Blue Jays and lilacs drawings and exercises, adult art class, 06/09/2014. 
Exercises – lilac curving conical shapes, as wiro whirlwind forms, as stacking circles, wiro with scribbling  creating the forms, conical forms in scribbling with lighting. 
 A) Wiro figure Blue Jay to feel the form behind as well as in front.
 B) Color in Bluejay markings as simply as possible while creating the form with the markings - no outlines. Placement of the legs will indicate where that white belly is; no outline for the white belly.
 C) Final drawing: as you like it!
Not in order here!







Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

Website:

Blog:

Prints at Fine Art America

Facebook Artist Fan Page 

Youtube channel:


Saturday, May 24, 2014

Warblers exercises in pencil, crayon drawing, watercolor, C.K., 5/19 & 5/20, 2014

Warblers - exercises in pencil, crayon drawing, watercolor, C.K., 5/19 & 5/20, 2014
Pics are out of order...

Sheet of 4-up exercises in graphite pencil:
a) wiro sketch to feel and express the volume of the bird figure - you can use a reference photo.
b) continuous line drawing of the same photo.
c) color in the background areas without outlining. You create a white bird figure in the process. This a kind of negative shapes drawing.
d) color in the bird figure without using outlines. Define the marking areas by creating white lines as differentiation.

Sheet of parts practice: eyes and beak, head

Create a crayon drawing using some aspects of the graphite exercises.

Monochrome watercolor in 'stencil' style, as in drawing exercise 'd'.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Wetlands lilypond frogs egrets perspective demos, adult art class 5/12/14

We used simple one point perspective to show distance and to guesstimate figure sizes in relation to each other.

Friday, May 9, 2014

The Aye's have it! One egg omelet over open faced cheddar cheese and tomato English muffin.

The Aye's have it! One egg omelet over open faced cheddar cheese and tomato English muffin. Discovered how to make one egg omelet this fluffy. Bring the egg, (still whole), to room temp by letting it warm in a cup of hot water. Break the egg into a container or bowl. Add some cold water. Aah - but how much is the question. I can't answer that yet. I have just experimented w dashes under the faucet, daring a longer dash every time I try this. Use a fork to whip up the egg & water til it is frothy and getting bigger in volume. The water allows the egg to incorporate air into itself easier. .. Hold the container tipped and the fork tines almost perpendicular. The fork should be at a slight tilt as well. Anything to get air into the mixture. Remember how in swimming or rowing, you should not be splashing? In this case you should be splashing but keep it tight. That is why the bowl is tilted - to keep the mixture in a small place. It will grow. Grow it as much as you can.

Meanwhile the muffin etc has been cooking in the cast iron frying pan, or not. The pan should be preheated by now, whether you did the muffin too or not. 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of butter spread across the pan with the spatula. Butter needs to grease up the edges of the pan a bit too. Pan should be hot but not smoking. Butter will brown immediately. Careful - not so hot you smoke it. Pour the beaten egg. Move the pan about to make sure the egg gets everywhere, in case your stove is tipped. Put the cover on. Egg should be setting up immediately. Peek to see if the edges are curling off the pan sides and the egg seems cooked. If so, then lift it gently and flip it. It should be so big and floppy that it will wrinkle some when you turn it. Keep that cover on. it just takes a moment's cooking on the other side. I think it puffs a bit more with the turn. Cut it in half with the spatula and lay a half on each muffin half.

Or, just transfer the omelette whole onto a plate. Do what you want with it. I was amazed how big I got it and that it did not deflate. Sorry I don't have water measurements. This is by feel and by eye first, (like mixing paint and water in a watercolor painting). Besides, every variation will be delicious. The more you experiment and do it, the more feel you get for what the ingredients will do together. My previous try did not have enough butter in the pan, so the mixture was unable to stay whole and had a few other problems. That just fell apart. But that taught me that I had to have enough butter. (Egg sticks to pan, cannot be turned properly, etc.) No amount of reading this stuff in cookbooks will teach you this. You have to experience the wrong ways almost as much as the successes. That experimentation and learning is what makes it such fun. .. Yes, season as you wish before you eat!

Monday, May 5, 2014

May flower baskets – demonstration drawings, adult art class 5/05/14

May baskets – demonstration drawings, adult art class 5/05/14. Exercises with three randomly chosen, (but discarding very light colors), colored pencils taped together. Make a variety of strokes with these - it's a bit like calligraphy.

Basket arrangements – peeled broken crayon in a dark color. Five or seven circular marks arranged in the upper region. Basket marks in the bottom area. Stems, leaf marks, dots. Maybe a ribbon. Do several drawings like this with the dark broken crayon.

Try a drawing with the three colored pencils taped together.
Try a drawing with a small variety of colors in broken crayon.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Sammy Squirrel Easter story, and Happy Easter card. C.K., 4/20/14

It was Easter morning. Sammy Squirrel had promised his friend Rudy Rabbit he would help him with his Easter delivery rounds. He had really wanted to do this when he promised. But now that the morning was upon him, he just wanted to sit there and muse upon things. To sit and look at the world just around him. To ponder the way of it. To be idle. He loved being idle and being able to daydream. He also loved to rush around and do things. It felt good to get excited and make things happen. The things Sammy Squirrel liked to do, or usually found himself doing, was to find food and either eat it then or find another place to hide it. Usually he would scurry off from where he found the food, dig up a little hole in the ground, put the food in the hole, and cover it over. He kept very busy at this task for most of his day.


One could think it was work. Sammy liked doing this. He could not help but do it. He had to do it. It felt so good to him to do this, it was so easy for him to do. Was it really work?


Often times other animals, like bluejays and crows, followed Sammy Squirrel around as he buried his treasures. They knew what he was doing. As soon as Sammy was done covering one food cache, they would go uncover it and take out the food for themselves. Bluejay might go hide it somewhere else himself. He did not usually bury it in the ground. He just put it in a pile of leaves or old grass and covered it back up. An acorn or nut could get moved around a few times. Perhaps a crow or a seagull would see what the bluejay had done with that nut. Crows and seagulls do not have the patience to bury something themselves. They are bigger and need to eat all the food they can find when they find it. Seagulls are not fussy what they eat.. 


Seagulls are so gluttonous they will swallow things that are too big for their throats, just so they can eat it before another animal, even another seagull, can get it. And then the seagull squawks around with the lump of food in his throat, while another seagull follows it hollering at it to try to take that food hiding in the other seagull's throat. They squabble and tussle over a bit of food. Anyone watching might worry that the seagull with the food in his throat will get stuck like that.


This also happens along the piers and harbors, where the people set out their fishing lines. A seagull might grab hold of a fish as it is being pulled in on a line, and swallow that fish that is on the end of a line. Now the seagull is on the line too. What happens? How often does this happen?


Here was Sammy Squirrel thinking he did not want to go help Rudy Rabbit. He wanted to daydream about all the acorns and nuts he would find that day and go bury in the lawn that had just started turning green after the long cold winter. 


He'd seen where the crocuses were coming through and blooming. That had already started over a week earlier. There had been yet another snowstorm just a few days before, but that did not matter. Sammy knew it would not be long before it got warm and stayed warm. Before there were lots of plants around. Before there was lots of shade because the trees were full of green leaves. Everything would be green. There would be lots of bugs around. The sun would shine a long time on most of the days. In the winter the sun seemed to shine for such a little while every day that it was out. It always felt as if it had hardly come up for the day before it had to disappear again for the night. 


That was why it got so cold during that time. It got so cold that there was not much food around. The best someone like Sammy could do was to sleep as long as he could. He would curl up in his leaf nest high up in the tree branches and go to sleep. During this cold weather there was also no good place to hide food if he found it. The ground was too cold. It was so cold it was frozen. 


On some winter days it warmed up a bit and the ground thawed a bit. Those were the days that Sammy's friend,  Rory Raccoon, who slept most of the winter time, woke up and came out to look for a snack. 


The day had flown by as Sammy Squirrel sat there pondering and  munching on the acorns from the pile he had dug up. He had not gone to help his buddy Rudy Rabbit with his  Easter job. He had seen children running about with Easter baskets on their arms, screeching with glee every time they spied an Easter hunt trophy. Some where cleverly hidden waiting for the older children to find. Some were practically out in the open for the youngest children to find. When they had found all there was to find, they went in their houses to eat their goodies and play with any toys they might also have found. Sammy knew they might also be having a big feast for Easter. Not all families did that though. Lots of kids were fussy about their food and did not even like the foods served at Easter dinner. One child he knew only liked ham and Easter cookies at Easter. Perhaps the fussy eaters were served hamburgers and hotdogs. 


Sammy sniffed around at some of the candy wrappers that blew through the grass in the spring breeze. He did not care for chocolate. He could smell some peanut odors  in the wrappers but there were no peanuts with these wrappers. 


Cory Crow flew down and picked up the shiny candy wrappers. Cory Crow liked shiny things. He collected the wrappers and took them off to his special treasure cache. He even put some wrappers in his nest. They would make his nest sparkle.


Rudy Rabbit went home to his burrow quite tired from all the work he had done that day, delivering Easter baskets and hiding Easter eggs and treasures around his neighborhood. He felt good that things had gone smoothly, even though Sammy had not come out to help him. Ginger and Jolie Rabbit had helped. Rollie and Renee Rabbit had also.  Other rabbits saw to the Easter deliveries in their own neighborhoods. It had been a satisfying day for them. They did not have to think about it again til the next year. Now they could go back to their daily business.




Catinka Knoth
241 Broadway, Apt. B
Rockland, Maine 04841
207-596-0069, 207-691-5544

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