art

What Do You See?

My daughter and I worked together on this drawing last night. She nicknamed it “the fun house”. So, what do you see? (click to enlarge)

Our Simanim Experience

In the past, I would say to my husband a few days before Rosh Hashana, now, what are the special foods we need to get? And he would mention maybe carrots and beets, and we would say a yehi ratzon on the carrots in the soup. When I was growing up, I don’t remember doing the yehi ratzon prayers at all. In fact, my father, who joined us for most of our Rosh Hashana meals, thought we should save the pomegranate for the new fruit, which one does on the second night of Rosh Hashana. My husband pointed out that we had eaten pomegranates within the last year, and one is really supposed to say the shehiyanu, the prayer for something new, on a fruit that one has not eaten in the past year.

So this year, because I did all this research on the simanim (thank you, readers, for your encouragement along the way as I posted various foods), I was the expert.

Back to the first night…so we have all these simanim on the table. With the help of Mimi’s Israeli Kitchen, I made the black-eyed beans (peas?) into a bean salad. She used: “seasoning it with a little chopped onion and a handful of mixed, chopped, cilantro, parsley, and celery tops. Lots of fresh lemon juice, to balance the earthy taste of the peas (which are really beans, but never mind) – salt and white pepper.”

Here’s my bean salad ingredients:

• Black-eyed beans, soaked overnight and cooked in a crockpot
• Chopped red onion
• Chopped fresh parsley
• Fresh lemon juice
• Some olive oil
• Salt and pepper

I was considering making a beet salad (Mimi made one: “some thinly sliced onion, salt, pepper, a little cumin, olive oil, a little sugar, and vinegar”), but as time didn’t allow (I was chaffeuring kids to play dates and art class in between cooking and doing a little of my web work), I just made steamed beets and cut them up.

What to do with leeks? Mimi posted a delicious leek tart (same post); I decided to incorporate the leeks with my chicken soup and with my roasted chicken with apples and mushrooms (I stuck one leek inside the chicken). I had more leeks than I needed, as I bought two sets; the first set of leeks didn’t look so good, and I had to go back to the supermarket on Monday morning anyway, so I bought a fresher set of leeks. The not-so-nice leeks are now resting in my compost pile which will hopefully be decomposed by next spring and will provide a new spot for growing tomatoes.

I made stuffed squash for the k’ra, the siman that can be a gourd, squash or pumpkin. I used Mimi’s stuffed artichoke post for inspiration on the stuffing. Hers had more ingredients; I had chopped meat, onion and spices in mine. I added chopped fresh ginger, too.

For the carrots, I went for simple. I liked the idea of cutting the carrots like coin-shapes.

Do you think I put a fish or lamb’s head on the table? I did the same thing I did last year, which was cut a piece of gefilte fish into the shape of a fish head and use a bit of cooked carrot for the eye.

Finally, I did one “joke” of a siman, which was to steam a “head” of broccoli.

The problem was, it was late, we were all tired, and my eldest son only liked the pomegranate. So after doing the apple dipped in honey (my daughter had us doing this one at every meal), we ate the pomegranate. It wasn’t nearly as juicy as ones I have eaten in the past. I bet the ones in ALN’s backyard taste better.

Next we ate the gefilte fish. Or five out of seven of us ate it. It turns out there is a special yehi ratzon for fish, separate from the “head and not the tail” one — “she’nif’reh v’nir’beh ki’dagim” (that we be fruitful and multiply like fish).

At this point, we just started eating the rest of the meal. Did we say any more of the yehi ratzons? I don’t know, but everything got eaten, at any rate. I enjoyed the meal, and it didn’t last nearly as long as a Pesach seder.

Watercolor: Pomegranate

One traditionally eats pomegranate on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and thus I have been working on a watercolor of a pomegranate as part of my series on the food symbols of this holiday.

The prayer that one says, the yehi ratzon, is as follows:
“she’nirbeh ze’chu’yos k’rimon”
“…that our merits increase like (the seeds of) a pomegranate.”

You can read more about the pomegranate in this Jewish Action article.

About the watercolor painting process

Enjoy the watercolor pomegranate!

Painting a Pomegranate

I finished my pomegranate watercolor. But I will post the watercolor in another post. This post is about the process. After printing the photo of a pomegranate from Wikipedia (thank you, Ilana-Davita), because I haven’t yet seen one in our supermarket, I taped some watercolor paper down to a board and made the painting just a little bigger than the original photograph. I like doing small watercolors because they fit in nicely in my scanner. I put down a bit of masking fluid in the spots where I want the paper to stay bright white. And I drew with pencil an outline of my painting.

It is important while working on the beginnings of a painting to squint. One needs to know where the darkest darks will be; we are now looking for values. Before applying any paint to the pomegranate, I painted the darkest areas with a blackish-blue color. Where I needed the dark to be lighter, I put it in more water. In watercolor, one often uses water to tone down a color.

Here I painted some of the leaves and branches. How to get the blues of the sky was a little tricky. I watered down some blue paint a lot, but I had to be careful it did not mix with another color. Also, once I have darker colors around the light color, that helps the light part look light.

Finally, some red paint is applied to the pomegranate. But one could see the shape before I added the red, correct?

I added some yellow to the pomegranate, because I saw some yellow in it. But you will see in my finished product that I toned down the yellow, because in this version I felt it was too strong. I also removed the masking fluid with an eraser.

I hope you will come back tomorrow (Tuesday) when I post the finished watercolor.

Art Show Photos

Better late than never —

Photos from the art reception of the students of Jill Caporlingua at the Highland Park Public Library two weeks ago:
  

  

Watercolor: Carrot

Here’s my carrot watercolor. I used both watercolor and gouache.

Carrots are traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashana, and a “yehi ratzon” is said on the carrots:
“Yehi ratzon milfanecha she-yikara roa gezar dinneinu, v’yikaru lfaneacha zakiyoteinu”
“May it be God’s will that the evil decrees against us be torn up and our
good merits be read out before You”.
The play on words here is the Hebrew word ‘gezer’, which sounds like gezairah, the Hebrew word for “decree.”

The same “yehi ratzon” will show up again for squash, as the Hebrew for squash is kra, which sounds a bit like the Hebrew for “tear up.”

I discovered that some display carrots in slices to resemble coins, as we hope for prosperity in the new year. You can read more about the history of these food symbols from the Rebbetzin’s Husband.

A traditional dish made with carrots that one might eat on Rosh Hashana is tzimmes. Some recipes (I haven’t tried these, no endorsements here):

• Sweet Carrot Tzimmes
• Lighter Tzimmes
• Tsimmes Salad

I prefer mine plain (naturally sweet!) and raw. The tsimmes salad sounds best to me, though it seems a stretch to call that recipe ‘tsimmes’.

Finally, a request to all pomegranate lovers: if you find a link to a pomegranate photo that you like, please leave the link in a comment. I’m going to have to work from photos in order to paint a pomegranate.

Kids’ Books & Carrots

A few recommendations for Rosh Hashanah books for young children:

• Apples and Pomegranates: A Family Seder for Rosh Hashanah by Rahel Musleah
• A Sound to Remember by Sonia Levitin
  (nice story about failure, success, and perserverance)
• The Magic Pomegranate by Peninah Schramm
  (not really about Rosh Hashana but about pomegranates, one of the simanim)
• Happy New Year, Beni by Jane Breskin Zalben

Children’s books are often a great way to learn a new topic. For example, when I was learning needlepoint about twelve years ago (I was pregnant with my second child and wanted to do something creative that required little clean up and one could sit), I found some nice books in the children’s section of the library.

Meanwhile, I am struggling over a carrot. Did you know that carrots’ leaves, the frilly part anyway, are far from the carrot top?

Note to pomegranate lovers: Not yet in season here. So I either have to work from a Google photo or copy this stamp. Not my ideal choice.

Watercolor: Lone Paddler

This watercolor made its debut last week on the blog of A Simple Jew. There’s often a beautiful image on the posts of that blog, a photo, a painting, a drawing. I was honored to be a guest painter.

The painting was inspired by Winslow Homer, a 19th century American watercolorist who is famous for his depictions of the sea. Click on the image to enlarge.

Setting Up an Art Show

Setting up an art show is not as easy as it looks.

Or maybe you are thinking, who says I ever thought this was easy?

My daughter and I helped Jill with the set up on Wednesday afternoon.

Jill was at the library setting up on Thursday night and for several hours on Friday. I’ve gotten emails on the progress; and I will gladly be supplying the lemonade in memory of Kiersten.

The art show is from 2 – 5 pm at the Highland Park Public Library.

Hip, hip, hooray for Jill!

Art Cards for Sale

I put four art cards for sale here:
http://www.cafepress.com/leoraw/
This is rather experimental; if I make some sales, maybe I will think about how to develop this further. If you want to offer any marketing advice, I’ll be happy to read. Can’t say I’ll take it, but I’ll read.

Thanks for reading my blog; that’s really what I enjoy most, sharing with the public and exchanging ideas. I don’t expect this to take over my web work as a means of income, but rather a fun, experimental supplement.

Update: Thanks to triLcat, I added two shirts, one 3/4 sleeve, one long-sleeved. With garlic.
Broccoli Update: I added a broccoli t-shirt, especially for nutrition nerds.