Spaghetti

I'm working on a new painting that will involve spaghetti. My initial search through Google Images included the following that I thought neccessary to share with all of you.

1. Spaghetti Worm. This little beauty has been removed from his tubular home so you can see how delicious - I mean, awesome, he is! He's a California native, living in Newport's Back Bay

2. Spaghetti Squash Fritters courtesy of Janet Is Hungry. Sure I found lots and lots of delicious pics of spaghetti but this golden nugget of goodness jumped right out at me. Janet has lots and lots of great food pics and recipes to go with them. First page she's got a killer recipe (with pics to match) for a Banana, Peanut Butter, Cinnamon Muffin. Mmmmm...Kristin's hungry too :D

3. Spaghetti and Cheese Ice Cream made by Heladeria Coromoto, a Venezualan restaurant (which has over 800 flavors of ice cream!!!), via Turkey Hill Ice Cream Journal. Reminds me of Ice Cream City in Tokyo where Ed and I sampled Honey, Azuki Bean, Chestnut, Snake and Squid ice creams.

4. Chmurka the Hamster loves spaghetti. Via Flickr

Roasted Chestnuts

I'm always looking for photo reference for my paintings and always come across websites or items that I've never seen before. While lying awake at 4 am this morning, I decided I should start to set aside these interesting tidbits and share them. Maybe you've never seen them either :D

So for my first reference tidbit, I give you 'roasted chestnuts' via Google Image Search. My top three finds were:

1. Roasted Chestnut Doughnut via A Passion for Food Blog, written by Kathy YL Chan. How could I not love a site with such beautiful food? Besides she just got back from Paris and her first meal at home was Spam, eggs and rice (she's originally from Hawaii). Gotta love it :)

2. Kermit the Frog eating chestnuts in Germany via the Kermit On Tour site created by Conny and Markus. This couple "... try to travel with Kermit as often as possible to show him all the wonderful places around the world." How awesome is that! Their most recent post has them, with Kermit, on Australian television. Yay!!!!

3. Well, this might be a good photo of a chestnut...oh no! That's no chestnut! It's an adorable, little hedgehog via Cute Overload - where else! If you're feeling down, there's always something to perk you up on Cute Overload.

Enjoy :D

Hamburgers

are one of the greatest foods on the planet. So it was only a matter of time before I painted one (a commissioned piece). Naturally I needed reference and Google Image Search was there to help me. These are some of the...other...hamburgers that came up as well.

This is ceramic...

....no sh*t. Looking for reference for chesnuts and saw these horse chestnuts. Brought me right back to my childhood at my grandma's house.

Clicked through and it's Penkridge Ceramics. These are all ceramic. Amazing.

Again, the above photo is not a still life painting -- it's all individual pieces of hand crafted/painted ceramics.

Just What I Wanted...

I was lamenting the other morning that you can't buy just the marshmallows you find in cereal. Or hot chocolate mixes. You know, those little freeze dried, crunchy 'marshmallows'. Wouldn't that be awesome? Put it on ice cream, pudding, salad, in stews. Alright those last two I'm just kidding but wouldn't it be cool?

And then when doing some photo reference for crumb cake I find that you can buy a bucket of just crumbs.

Well that's awesome too but why not those marshmallows? But wait a minute...I never actually searched for those marshmallows.

Could it be possible that they exist on their own, out there in the world wide web? Yes, Kris, they do.

www.cerealmarshmallows.com

Thank you. Thank you very, very much :D

Cocks have no cocks

I finished up the cherry painting and am now working on one involving a chicken. So I was able to pull out all of my chicken books (I have a crush on chickens. I can watch, listen and eat them all day long) and look for some photo reference.

"The Fairest Fowl: Portraits of Championship Chickens" photographs by Tamara Staples is brilliant. You never knew chickens could be this beautiful and diverse.

"Extraordinary Chickens" by Stephen Green-Armytage is equally brilliant and informative.

"The Complete Chicken: An Entertaining History of Chickens" by Pam Percy has it all. History, yes, along with photos, artwork, and such informative tidbits as:

'How the rooster became the Cock' (thought to derive from stopcock or spigot),

Until 1830, 'cock' was an acceptable term for male genitalia. Not until the 'onset of Victorian mores' did it become vulgar

And cocks have no cocks. "Instead both he and the hen each have a single orafice called a cloaca (stemming from the French word for sewer), which serves a multitude of functions, including reproduction."

"Niwatori: The Graphics of Japanese Cock" by Kazuya Takaoka and Sachiko Kuru is a japanese publication with 400 pages of chicken eye candy. Every photograph is a treasure and although I can't read a word of it (due to it being in japanese) it's still my favorite.

Photoreference

I always loved doing research. So the fact that I have to look up photo reference for my paintings adds a bonus point to the process. Today I am researching maraschino cherries as a new painting will have one in it and I've always loved them.

Did you know that the modern maraschino cherry was developed by Ernest H. Wiegand at the
Oregon Agricultural College at Oregon State University in 1919? You can still take a class about it.

Did you know the primary flavor added to Maraschino cherries is almond if they are red and peppermint if they are green?

And (unfortunately) it is a myth that red #40 which is used to dye the cherries red is made from carmine which is derived from beetles (sorry Kevin).

And a company called Roland makes extra flavors (lemon, lime, passion fruit and wild berry), but I guess they wouldn't be considered maraschino...

I'm chilling my ginger ale for this evening to make myself a Shirley Temple (did you know that at any Disney resort they call a Shirley Temple a Mickey Mouse?)