Blitherings – Page 204 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Beast Stew & Dumplings

Cold weather, wet weather, snowy weather all bring out the hibernation instincts. Cup of cocoa, hot toddy, fireplace, a good book. Comfort food, too, which for a lot of us is in the form of stews with dumplings, or hearty soups with crusty bread. My little brother asked for a stew recipe . . . he’s in Wisconsin, watching the Packer’s game on a dark and gloomy day. Here, in California, we have had rain and it is chilly in the mid-50s. So, here is what my brother will be cooking up – and what I decided to do after talking to him!

Sauteeing Onions and Herbs in Dutch Oven

Beast Stew with Dumplings

1 1/2 – 2 pounds cubed meat (I use chuck roast, but regular beef stew meat, pork, or lamb work very well)
1 pint black beer
1 pint water
4-6 onions
potatoes
carrots
garlic ground up with different herbs. I used coriander, ancho powder, sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, marjoram, peppercorns
2-3 T tomato paste

Preheat oven to 325 F if you want a long, slow cook. Or, plan on cooking time of about 2-3 hours if done stove top. You might also try this in a crock pot, but before you start, be sure to brown the onions and meat for best flavor.

Brown meat in heavy dutch oven with lid in olive oil. Remove from pan. Brown onions – a bit of caramelization is nice. Grind up herbs and garlic, add to pan, sauté a bit. Return meat to pan. Add beer and water, cover, bring to simmer. Add tomato paste, stir in to dissolve. Continue to cook on stove or place in oven. Check liquid status periodically to keep from scorching. Be sure to put the lid on the pot!

On stove top, after about 2 hours – when meat is tender and begins to fall apart – add potatoes and carrots; continue to cook until vegetables reach desired stage of done-ness. Allow about 20 minutes for dumplings before serving.

After about 4 hours in the oven, add quartered russet potatoes. 30 minutes after that, add coarsely cut carrots. Continue to cook about another hour in the oven, then remove and place on stove top to finish with the dumplings. Bring to simmer on stove.

Dumplings

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 T butter
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
2/3 c. milk, cream, or kefir

Mix together flour, powder and salt. Cut butter into flour mixture. Stir in liquid just enough to mix ingredients together. Drop by tablespoon onto simmering stew. Cook 10 minutes with the pot lid off, then 10 minutes more with the lid on. Note: I find that a thinner liquid stirs in better than the thickness of cream or kefir (or sour cream), so it is not a bad idea to thin any of them with a bit of water.

Persimmons, ii

With this entire week off for Thanksgiving, I have free time. No rush like at Christmas. Other family members will be serving up dinner, which means I don’t have anything to do, other than show up and be charming! Josh is making tiramisu for dessert – off the hook there. So easy.

Not really. I’ve brought work home to do, such as contracts and letters of recommendation, but in that mix I certainly plan to do some fun things. The latest Harry Potter movie is slated for the next couple of days, as is time to knit and paint and work out and walk and take some photos and read and learn some software. Maybe a day trip to Santa Monica, too.

And paint I have – with disastrous results. Persimmons are far harder to do than I was thinking – and I can see what not painting has done as well: I’ve lost the knack. Sure, I know I will get it back, but it is not a lot of fun to be frustrated! More importantly, though, is realizing that, although I enjoy photography, I also love having things in my hands to manipulate – a brush, a knitting needle, a trowel, a mixing spoon. Photography is a bit more intellectual even though I like the gut approach, too, of thinking of something, and trying it out. It also can be cumbersome, and I really like to travel light. Lugging around a dog and a camera is not fun, especially if the dog sees a squirrel!

Here are my persimmon paintings. Yuck.

I certainly plan on working on the subject matter a lot. The part where the fruit attaches to the tree is rather interesting – the area is square and continues that square shape into the leaves at a 45 degree angle, creating a rather interesting pattern of diamonds within diamonds. The shape of the hachiya persimmon is longer and pointed, sort of like an acorn, while the fuyu persimmons are squat. Luckily, both are available in the market right now. Mine are getting moldy.

Light

Probably the part of the short photography course I took that has stayed with me the most is light. We take it so for granted. Without it, we could not see colors or shadows or reflections in the mirror. Setting up the wine glass and paperweight for a photo shoot made me acutely aware of just how light plays on, and through, and past an object. Color, too, is certainly impacted by light, by too much as well as too little.

I have no strobes or flashes to use with my borrowed camera, only the pop-up flash. I have a diffuser for it, one which acts to disperse the light as it flashes, softening it so that it is not harsh and casting odd shadows in the wrong places. As a result, I took a shop lamp with a broken switch – the light was on all the time unless I turned off the surge strip – flashlights, overheads, and daylight coming in from the windows. I also used an Ott light, which has a full-spectrum (all the colors) bulb. White foam board reflected white light back onto the objects. Below, you can see the set-up, as well as the fact that daylight was behind the camera.

I bought two packages of colored construction paper, one white, one with about 10 bright colors in it. These were used as backdrops as well as to the side of the wine glass to create reflections of color from the shop lamp, and the flash when it went off. The shop lamp is so beat up I had to balance it on the foam board – no clamp!

Placing the shop lamp in different areas bounces the colors back in different ways. I set up lamps and lights in a number of ways.

Ott Light and Paperweight with Paper for Back Drop

For both the paperweight and the wine glass, I went through all the colors of construction paper! The paper was under the paperweight, and to the side of the wine glass. Lots of colors for really lovely reflections.

It took a lot of time to do these – but not as much as I expected once I settled on the final light and paper set-ups. Then, it was factory work! Change colored paper, click! I changed lenses for the paperweight, using the 70-300 zoom, while using the 35 mm prime lens for the wine glass. For all but one of the wine glass shots I used flash, which resulted in some reflections of light on the background. The one which I forgot to flash turned out the best, I think, which I showed two posts ago. If you want to see all the pictures, you may find the paperweights here, and the wine glass here, both on Flickr.

Persimmons, i

I love the color of persimmons – bright orange fruits silhouetted against the sharp blue of the autumn sky. These are the hachiya variety, and when you buy them in the store, they are hard. As they ripen, they become blacker and squishy.

Honestly, I bought these with photographs as my primary thought, but in the back of my mind, ah! persimmon bread! And now, having photographed them, my current thought – before turning them into bread – is to paint them. And so I shall, later on. Right now, though, on to photographing them.

The photo shoot took place on the south side of the house, with the sun rising from the east. No clouds, just a bit of wind. Above is the set up – you can see the directional cast of the shadow. Light was quite contrasty. The camera shoot involved about 100 or so images (ah, the glories of digital photography!), at all f/ stops and exposures, with a polarizing filter and without. Add to that, some with flash and some without; some with filtered flash, some without.

The final images here were done with a filtered flash, using f/32 and 1/60 second for exposure. Post processing was done to clean up spots in the background in the paper, as well as to clean up a few flaws on the fruit. Color was adjusted to some degree, with the final photo given a slightly warm setting to give an impression of reflected light from the fruits, or from a bit of a glowing evening light.

I pulled on compositional elements in painting – three items, three directions. I also cropped the photo at one point to create a different image, using the two persimmons on the right. However, the last picture, supposed to suggest an evening glow bombs now that I think about it! The reason is because the tint of the background is too consistent – certainly not something one would paint! So, in the final analysis, the ones with the white background are more pleasing to me, and so is the black and white one below.

Final Image in Black & White with Contrast Enhancements

I expect I will do something in sumi-e with these persimmons in the next few days, with and without color. I need to pick up that paint brush!

Composition: Some Thoughts

Composition is, by definition, the act or process of “arrangement into specific proportion or relation and especially into artistic form.” This can apply to written and visual arts, and other areas as well. Composition can be practical, it can be adventurous. Whatever it is, it is the individual’s sense of design.

One of the most challenging areas of composition is deciding how much is enough? That will be dependent on a number of things – what are you trying to express? In the old days, when photography did not exist, detail in Western art was much appreciated. Being able to capture realistically an object or person was highly prized. Detail was also valued in Asian art, but differently; scrolls made for a visual adventure, section by section, as can be seen in part of Long Scroll of Sesshu below, unlike the more limited flat surfaces of books.

Besides hand scrolls, multiple scrolls, such as this one presented in the Weng Collection’s catalog, hung side-by-side, created a larger work with individual panels, such as the triptych of Western art.

With photography, realistic and intimate recording of details became possible, and simplification and interpretative exploration began in the visual arts. Zen in the east influenced ink painting because of its simplicity and focus of the moment in which the painting or calligraphy was produced.

Simplicity may have multiple levels. A single line or movement may be repeated. Details can also be within those elements. For instance, in a garden, a curved walk may be the most dominant visual detail, but within that curve may be found many details, such as rocks or leaves or plants.

Simplicity by itself may fail. Placement of elements in that simple composition need to be considered. The most common compositional element discussed in photography is the Rule of Thirds. If you are unfamiliar with the rule, draw a tic-tac-toe grid: this is the Rule of Thirds. Where the lines intersect is where you should consider placing the subject of interest. Placement of subject in each of those four intersections gives a different energy to each picture. Using this same precept prevents placement of horizontal or vertical focal subject in the dead center of the picture.

A picture or painting based solely on horizontal and / or vertical elements is tedious. In this mix something needs to break this up. Diagonal lines, shapes such as circles or triangles, or curves are compositional elements which add visual interest. Balancing all of these can create a visually dynamic composition, but too much or wrongly placed, these same elements may destroy an otherwise compelling composition. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider colors, contrast, and scale. These, too, impact the final image.

How the eye is led to the focal point of the image is key to good composition. This can be called framing. In photography, placement of objects in the foreground is common. Shadows and bright areas are other ways to accomplish the directional sense in a composition. Combine these with diagonals or curves, and the eye is led along a visual path to the area of interest. In photography, this can be a bit of a challenge, but with cropping and airbrushing, distractions can be minimalized or removed. In painting, these elements are far more easily avoided.

In photography, the natural world continually gets in the way. We have all taken portraits of people with things protruding from their heads. Painting a portrait, this is much less likely to happen. Avoiding these distractions can be a challenge, simply because the photographer can be very focused on the subject. However, as one progresses in understanding composition, these become more than obvious, and easier to avoid. What is more subtle is an awareness of color. For example, a person in a blue jacket against a background similar in shade (degree of blackening) or color may be more difficult to assess. Similarity in color is called a merger. This is where an understanding of contrast is important.

Contrast may be high or low. High contrast images display few shades of grey; low contrast studies contain many. If you are not sure about this, take a color photo or paint a picture, and then change it to black and white in your photo editing software. It becomes much more apparent when you do this. Short scale / high contrast subjects can be very dynamic, and often this is more easily seen than the subtleties of long scale / low contrast subjects. Long scale subject matter can be very beautiful, but if there is a lack of adequate contrast compositionally and in adjacent areas, a weak picture may result.

* * *

In the four weeks since I started my photography class, my sense of framing a photograph has changed, as has my sense of color and composition. More than anything, though, I have become more aware of light and shadow. I’ve always liked the shimmering of light through leaves – as much as I love the rustling sounds – but now I find myself looking at shadows in general. Our next assignment is to use light – flash, strobe, whatever – in different ways, such as diffusing it or bouncing it or reflecting it. Of course, YouTube comes to the rescue on that note!

This short course has shifted my perceptions, and I am looking forward to seeing how it plays out in sumi-e. Today, my studio will lose its tenant, and I am looking forward to some quiet and privacy and being able to use my space again. My brushes and ink await.