Happy New Year, hats 2018

Wishing You Sweet Holidays, 2017 Christmas card and poem.

Wishing You Sweet Holidays

For the holidays so sweet,

May you have such a tasty treat

That life will feel complete,

Like a moment when you meet

A friendly stranger in the street

And you give them your special seat

Because you know this be the very meat

Which sends our lives it's heat,

And grows our corn and wheat

For Us and Future's feet, 

For always to repeat,

But ever a varied feat.

As we turn the freshest sheet,

We remember all hearts forever beat.

Catinka Knoth

12/25/2017

Holiday paper cut tree cards, adult & kids' art classes, 12/18-19/17

This version of the papercut was a new experiment. Could we make a tree papercut for the card front and another for the inside? Yes tho it is discombobulating to figure out how to cut this French fold card. We did not always get it but we always got some kind of tree and some kind of card!

We had a little fellow who quick as a flash stuck his barely drawn sheet up on the wall. I assumed it was on the whiteboard behind me sticking by static electricity. Wait, how did you get that to stay? I used the 'purple glue!' Yikes! Nooo - that can't be there!!!! So he pulled it down and stuck it to the lectern. The rest of that display joined his art on the lectern. He did have to learn to burnish the sheet where the glue patch is rather than on any random spot. That is ok - plenty of adults burnish where there is no glue...

Happy Holidays and have fun making one just for the fun of it!

Calligraphy style holiday cards, adult art class display, 12/4/17

Tape two colored pencils together, with one point a bit higher than the other. Tape should be around the middle of the pencils and on the diagonal so pencils stay stationary.

Experiment with drawing lines and marks holding the 'pencil' at various angles. The more you can learn to keep it at a consistent angle, the more you can make strokes that flow evenly from thick to thin. You may see from practice sheets here how to play w this. It needs practice tho.

After the practice we did cards. Not everyone used the 'lesson' though!

Gingerbread house drawing demo, house paper cut-out template

The images may be out of order. This house model shows that you can use those side tabs as interlocking cut slot joins. You can also glue together on the inside. I don't think there is a proper way to attach the roof here. You can improvise I'm sure!

Decorate as you wish. Probably better to do that before you cut it out.

Now to find a nice set of origami instructions.

Gingerbread house drawings, children's art class, work by kids and adults, 12/5/17

We also made little cutout models from a template I had made. The template needs more tabs and instructions tho. Students will finish those models at home, since we ran out of time. ..One student had colored her roof as a rainbow - luscious!

Advice from a friend - 

See wild modernist gingerbread houses here:

http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/modernistmas-2

No Knead whole wheat bread, 12/4/17

Apparently the inside dark color must come from the long rising time. I used straight whole wheat flour but it somehow colored during baking. Caramelization? I did not add any coloring. I think it was the fermenting process.

I watched the Jim Lahey Mark Birman videos and recipes but wound up with my own version. You might understand something from the notes I wrote up towards the end. I'm thrilled to have made this happen. Crust is right, inside is a texture and flavor I like.

Now to decide whether to slice and freeze. I usually reheat bread slices in my cast iron fry pan on the stove top...
The oatmeal is just there to keep things from sticking.

My measurements are all eyeballed and somewhat described in my notes.

Nature walk around the block, Saturday, 12/02/17

Happy Birthday!

What is that attachment?......

I wrote on this picture using the the phone's image editor. Finger writing does not go exactly where you want it to go. So it's running off the sail. I hope it shows. Happy birthday dear sister!
Love,
Catinka

Dried leaves etc pickings from afternoon walk around the block.

Left the house around 3:11 PM
Temperature 44 to 46° gray out

Cat sees me leave the house and ponders whether to to follow me. But the Broadway traffic is so loud he doesn't try. I had south to go down Walker place.

The mailman greets me, 'Enjoy your afternoon!'. 'You too!'

I find several old leaves to maybe ID or take a picture of as an arrangement. There's also an interesting weed, which I tried to break off but it only came out with the root attached.

The workmen renovating a building there are winding up for the day. Some are laughing in the distance.

The big puddle is really big. I can hardly get around it.

I run into a family I know - the three younger kids. They are there to play soccer. These kids have grown amazingly just in one year. The middle child looks like a dad. The next youngest is suddenly practically grown up. And the youngest still looks somewhat the same. We visit just a little bit. 

As I turn toward the hill that I usually go down  I now see it is not as big as I thought. It is level for a longer stretch and the steep part is really quite short.

I thought I heard geese or ducks overhead. No, it was the little dog in one of the houses barking like crazy!

I round the corner onto the busy street. There are two squirrels on the lawn around the big oak trees. They run  up one of the trees. 

I start whistling for the cat. He appears as  I climb up onto the porch. He is followed by his rival. The rival wants my handout of some dry kibble food. I herd my cat into the house, and get some cat food for the cat waiting downstairs. I go down and give it to him.