I Love Street Art.

Graffiti from Humanwire on Vimeo.

I know I know. I'm completely obsessed with graffiti and when I see videos of these artists doing their thing – I just love love love it.

The artist Hense via Hula Seventy.

New Drawing. New Year. New Post.

Well hello to you. Happy New Year three weeks late. Merry Christmas! I thought I would kick off my long hiatus with some shots of a drawing I did over the holidays for one of my favorite people.

He lives in Boulder and it's based very loosely off of the bridge by a library on campus we walked over on one of my last visits. There's a stream in there if you can see it, that is filled with those stacked stones.

It's 18x24" on Canson paper, drawn with a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine black pen. This is maybe around the 7th or 8th of these I've done.

They take around 24 hours to complete. Click on an image to enlarge.

No.'s 3, 4 & 5

No. 3: Heavenly Onions & Jarlsberg on Tuscan white bread.

No. 4: Turkey, Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes & Mozzarella on Tuscan white bread.

No. 5: Ham, Spicy Mustard, Swiss and Gruyére on French roll.

Francine Turk: BADASS

Inspiration Board

Shine Until Tomorrow – Detail.

God is a Concept by Which We Measure Our Pain.

You Right Me When I'm Wrong.

You are Made of Gold & Can't Be Sold – Detail.

You are Made of Gold & Can't Be Sold – Detail.

You are Made of Gold & Can't Be Sold.

A couple weeks ago, I went to the opening for Francine Turk's BADASS at Gallery KH. It was fantastic. These new portraits were unlike any of her work I'd previously seen. They remind me a bit of Francesco Clemente's from the movie Great Expectations. The show is on display until January. Go look.

North Mississippi Allstars.

Saw a great show at House of Blues last night with Tony. Our friend hooked us up with box seats just over the stage, and all access passes. The North Mississippi Allstars were great. Two encores. Ended the night at Country Cup. I can't remember the last time I said that.

No. 2

Pesto, tomato and mozzarella on crusty Italian bread. Tomato from Steve & Katy's garden.

These Trees.

There's a stretch of road on Hwy 23 that runs past a small pasture that looks like a tree burial ground. These are not just trees that lost their leaves this autumn. They look like this all the time.

It's Back.

The Panini Press is officially back on the counter. First up: Gruyére & Balsamic Onion Marmalade on Buttered Tuscan Bread. Don't even.

Hiking on Buff Pass.

Stonehouse on Cedar.

I went to the best little store on Saturday. Everything in it was perfect. The house itself was perfect. The weather outside was perfect. The woman who owns it was delightful.

As I browsed around inside for a while, I thought to myself, I bet I could buy all my Christmas gifts in this one place. I didn't want to leave. I need to go back. As I drove away I couldn't believe I didn't take any pictures.

Stonehouse on Cedar, St. Charles, IL – for antiques and simple objects.

The Deck.

I should know myself better by now than to just go with my gut when choosing a stain or paint color. I absolutely need to test anything before I apply it full-blown. But the weather was so perfect this weekend, and I didn't want to waste a day of it "testing", so I bit the bullet and just went for it. I should just ignore the fact that I about fainted when I opened the can and this was what it looked like.

So I went around the side and started applying it in an inconspicuous place and when it dried I thought, that doesn't look so bad. Man it's a pain to paint spindles. It took me over 2 hours just to do that little section. As I was painting the spindles, I kept stepping back and looking – I didn't hate it. It was the right tone if not exactly the right tint, so I kept going with the floor.

You can see here why I almost fainted a second time as I was applying it and this is what it looked like going down. After I did the short spindle section, I got panicky about how much of it I was going through. I wanted to at least coat the main floor with it before I ran out – I only bought one gallon. That's all the paint guys said I'd need. Thankfully, my trusty neighbor Jim was there to let me know why it didn't max out on coverage, "You went through a whole gallon already?? That dry, neglected, previously-never-treated wood is really soaking that up!" Thanks, Jim.

Anyway, you can't tell from this picture, but as it dried it got better. When the sun isn't beating down on it, bringing out the blue, I don't hate it. It looked okay this morning, but I don't love it at all. In fact I feel defeated a bit. But I have a plan. I'm going to trade in the $45 gallon of Benjamin Moore clear coat for a second gallon of stain to finish up the areas where I ran out and touch up some of the bad blends on the floor next weekend. Then I'm going to let it weather all winter, only semi-protected, and revisit this project again in the spring.

Breaking Bad.

I. Love. This. Show.

I'm obsessively watching episode after episode. After episode. It's streaming on Netflix. I'm almost done with Season Two, and every time an episode starts I'm relieved to see there's another one after it. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out.

I also love the "kid". So cute!

Power-washing.

Power-washing may have just replaced vacuuming as my favorite household chore. Except I'm not re-staining the deck on a regular basis – nor do I have a power-washer at my disposal for use on a whim. But talk about gratifying! This is what the deck looked like when I started:

It's so precise! The water shoots out of a little wand at 4000x pressure so exact you could write your name with it (see the swoop below). So it takes a while to cover a surface, but the results are like instant.

I remember when Dave got one a while back and called me to tell me to go get one – that I'd love it. He was right. Now I want one. Check out these spindles. The ones on the right are done, the left not. One straight concentrated swipe up and bam! practically new lumber.

I really can't get over the results. I want to power-wash everything! It already looks like new. I can't wait to see it with the stain.

Pizza Party.

We had a "build-your-own" pizza party on Saturday night. The idea was to bring ingredients and roll out/build pizzas for everyone to sample. Lindsey kicked it off with a truffle oil/truffle salted crust topped with arugula and pear and walnuts. Clay made one with carmelized onion and fennel, goat cheese and tomato. Another good one had sausage and gorgonzola, and another was a classic – pesto, garlic and tomato.

Steve made one with eggs, peppers and cheese, dipped in salsa (good, but we all sort of agreed it needed some meat). Katy made her spinach dip with parmesan cheese appetizer pizza. I loved Lindsey's dessert pizza: mascarpone blended with honey and spread over the crust, then topped with apricot, cranberries and pine nuts. Wow.

But for sure the show stopper was Dave's Fried Chicken Pizza.

On top of the crust he put a layer of provolone cheese, spread a layer of gravy, and heaped on a pile of mashed potatoes.

Then he added the shredded fried chicken, and finished it off with a layer of cheddar cheese.

After it came out of the oven, we garnished it with cole slaw. I've had cravings for it every day since. YUM!