What's in Your Fridge and What We had for Dinner

Artists for the Evening :

Joan, Donna, Rita, Jen, Robin, Melanie, Lauren, Gina, Naty
 

Menu :

Joan made pasta and roasted vegetables, escarole & beans, and glazed carrots.  Delicious!

Donna brought homemade gnocchi with pesto and sautéed tomatoes.  Scrumptious!

And for dessert … Greek cookies shaped like faces … one of Joan’s amazing creations.

While Joan bustled around her great vintage kitchen, the Wine Art Girls were treated to an electronic tour of Dubai and the Philippines.  Jen having just returned from there had cool pictures and fun stories about a smelly fruit called durian.  There were a few present that had had the fruit before and the descriptions ranged from: it smells like rotting flesh … no, it just smells like rotting garbage … to … oh, it doesn’t smell THAT bad!   And besides, once you get beyond the smell, it tastes really good.  I dunno.

During dinner Lauren talked about a great website: supercook.com where you can enter the ingredients you have on hand and it will suggest recipes that include just those ingredients

We also talked about Pinterest - brilliant for making mood boards and general imagery collections.  Careful, it will affect your shopping habits – as you become much more picky and expect everything to look just as beautiful.  (Oh, and also great for recipes, DIY tricks, and clever household/beauty fixes!)  Here's a few screenshots from Alex:

(new posts from people she is following)

(one of her boards; "Adventurage")

(a few of her boards...see, addicting)

Then Gina breezed in – having battled parkway traffic from Stamford to Cheshire – and she was sporting a gorgeous pair of dangly pearl earrings made by our favorite local jewelry designer “Lita Designs”.  Check out her shop on Etsy: LitaDesigns.

The conversation swung from classy earrings to squirrel problems.  As Joan as had one living in her basement for almost a week and just today Naty and her wielded brooms and rubber boots to try to scare it out (well, really Joan had to cook for WAW and needed to get to the basement fridge – Naty, you truly are a great friend!)…I digress.  After screaming for five minutes and running around the basement, they soon realized that it was actually just in the have-a-heart trap trying to get out – hahaha.  Joan’s husband was going to release it in a park the next morning.  Mission accomplished!

We discussed what to do with old brushes.  

Source: google.com via Lillygrace on Pinterest

All artists have them – they are mangy, hard, nasty, scruffy looking things and what are we supposed to do with them??  You can’t just throw them away.  Well…you should make little sculptures out of them.  Construct a face out of a molding material and affix it to the ferrule so that the bristles become the hair of the figure.

Jen did a painting of a durian and then kidded about how fun it would be to have a scratch & sniff painting.

We talked a lot about the business end of WAW … how we can keep this phenomenal concept going and still get the little jobs done that are required to run an Etsy shop and Blog, plus all the backend administration like shipping and budgeting.  It’s easy to cook great food, get together with terrific friends, and then spend the evening painting, talking, figuring out life, and laughing together.  But there are the little behind-the-scenes jobs that keep the heart of WAW beating and we’re trying to work out the bugs so that we can bring delightful paintings and a fun blog to our faithful followers.

I talked about a wonderful, life-changing book (yes, worth it!) which has been published by one of WAW’s most generous supporters.  The book is called “The Game of Life and How To Play It”.

Its underlying theme is maintaining a positive outlook on life and believing that the “good” in life will happen.  Truly a gem of a book.

So we finished the evening with a number of successful paintings, a bit of wine missing from each bottle, laughter, conversation, and a sense of well being.  Food, Art & Friends … now how great is that?

<3 Rita

Pulled Pork and Drunk History

Another Friday, another WAW passed!  This week we were at Rita's house for the first time and we had 9 women!  (Alex - that's me!, Audrey, Denise, Gabrielle - first time, Gina, Jen, Joan - pronounced JoAnne, Lauren - first time, and Rita!  We also realized that I've never mentioned that there are a few mother/daughters at our WAW...we're all one big family now, though!)  Okay, so we started off the meal with an appetizer from Cocoa Shak - yeah, I told you, we're big fans - chocolate and caramel covered apples:

OMG - amazing!  (And I don't care if I sound like a teenager when I say it!)  This photo was clearly taken after we had a bit of them - hahaha.  Hey, I'm pregnant, I could live on these...

Link Love: Cocoa Shak, Cheshire, CT

Rita cooked an amazing pulled-pork (hopefully a recipe will follow in the comments! ;), asian-flavored veggies, coleslaw, which I unfortunately didn't try since I'm dairy-free and forgot to ask what was in it (sorry Rita!), and fresh bread!

(Thank you Jen for being a lovely hand/plate model!)

And then amongst the paints and wine bottles you may be able to see some of the delicious desserts we were spoiled by!  (No, starting with chocolate/caramel apples was NOT enough!)  Al made us a delectable lemon cake and Lauren brought her warm cookie-brownies - oh wow, we eat well at WAW.

I was so sleepy from present-wrapping the night before that I forgot to take photos during the painting process, other than this "diffusing light test."  [Lauren saw a photo on Pinterest - basically, if your flashes are making your photos looks a bit yellow or have too strong of a shadow, you take a piece of paper (I used a standard white paper plate since it was handy) and hold it at an angle in front of the flash, but obviously not covering the lens.  I used about a 45 degree angle with the light hitting the ceiling.  Can you see the difference between the one on the left (a little yellow and some harsh shadows) and the one on the right (much softer, diffused light)?!  I am a huge fan of this new little trick!  (Here's an example I found on Pinterest - you can hold it though, like I did, if you don't have a fancy clip!)]

Source: itworksforbobbi.com via Melissa on Pinterest

 

It was another night of beautiful conversation (this is what WAW is all about!).  We talked about adopting cats and never knowing what happened to them before we loved them.  Lauren told us to always keep a gown and heels in our cars so that we are always ready for a night of spontaneity (yes, she really used them for a yacht dance randomly in Annapolis one lovely evening!).  We also wondered if Tony is pulling our legs by telling us that there used to be a "Barcelona Key-master" when he lived in Spain.  (Told via Joan.)  Apparently, he would take your apartment keys whilst you went out drinking so you didn't lose them.  He would walk around the city singing so that you could find him and get your keys when you wanted to go home again.  (Does anyone else remember this?!)  And then we have another joke that we loved:

**A mother was talking with me about the blog and labels and how it works in Google.  I was completely impressed by what she was asking and her complete understanding of it and apparently so was the rest of the table, including her daughter, who said: "What?  You've had some wine and now you understand the internet?"  Hehe - yes - then they proceeded to tell us about Drunk History.  Yes again!**

We also discussed favorite movies, which ranged from It's a Wonderful Life (Joan) to Wayne's World (Gabrielle) and so many more that I can't believe I forgot...  We watched a bit of Drunk History on YouTube and also cats attempting jumps they never make and babies-laughing-at-ripped-paper videos.  And then lastly we talked about how we can never come up with names for our paintings at the end of the night!

A few great quotes from Gina: "The worst drunk is a moving one" (after discussing a story from college when Lauren was trying to find me in Manhattan as I bar-hopped) and "not everything has to be grounded" (talking about how my spools are floating in my painting, but realizing that it is a great quote to think on...).  So true, so great, I love WAW.

We're hoping that you, lovely reader, are starting to understand exactly how a WAW works and can start one with your friends and family wherever you live!  If you do, please email a blog post and photos and we will feature you (and your art, especially if you would like to sell it anywhere) on our blog!  Our email is WineArtWednesdays[at]gmail.com.  Happy painting!

<3 the Wine Art Girls

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