Happy New Year's Eve!

"Eye of the Beholder" ACEO can be bid on here.

Copyright Rita Woodburne

Hello there dear reader! Tomorrow I'll be posting my goals list for 2008 because 1- it will finally be the New Year and 2- apparently there's a doozy of a snow storm heading our way and what better way to spend a snow day than by blogging about plans for the New Year?

Today I'd like to go all "Oscar award speech" on you and take some time out to say my thank-you's for 2007. First and foremost I'd like to thank regular readers for coming back time and time again to find out what's happening in my little corner of the universe. Second, I'd like to thank new readers for being curious enough to stick around and find out what the heck goes on on this blog. This blog is all good fun for me and the fact that people seem to get some enjoyment in reading about my trials, tribulations and embarrassments makes me smile, and that's always a good thing.

I'd like to list individually all the people who have been a great influence and inspiration to me over the past year but unfortunately I don't have the time to go through every single person. Some of these people have blogs of their own (a few of them can be found on the list to the right there... go ahead and check them out, you won't be disappointed) and other folks are friends and family who have just been supportive (aka- tolerant) of my adventures in art. Without all these people I couldn't have come as far as I did this year both artistically and professionally and for that I am extremely grateful.

I must admit that I have a strangely optimistic feeling about 2008 and I really hope I'm right about it and that it's not just my usual blind optimism that's leading me on. Change is afoot and I'm getting the feeling that it's all for the better.

Have a spectacular New Year's Eve and bid a fond farewell to 2007 as a brand new year begins!

Pass the antacid, please.

"Mike at Ottercreek- Take 3", coloured pencil on Mi-Teintes

Private Commission
Copyright Rita Woodburne
Head here to find out more about having a commission done or
e-mail me at rita @ ritawoodburne.com for more info.

Well dear reader, I can honestly say that over the past week I've never eaten so much food in my life, nor do I want to do it again any time soon.

Santa was good to me, despite my naughty behaviour this year, and I sense that there will be more art supplies in my near future, specifically some Coloursoft pencils from Derwent. I have yet to try these pencils out but a local art supply store is going to be carrying them soon and I'm already getting my camping gear ready to set up in front of the store so I can make sure I'm right there when they arrive. A bit over the top? Yes. But I do love a good pencil and from what I've heard, these ones are awesome!

I've also been tweaking my plan for 2008. I won't be posting it until next week because there are still some things that I want to mull over before I make any final decisions about how I want to proceed. That and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to break it down.


I'm going to leave today's post at that. I have a house to clean and I've been trying to get back into the artwork swing of things. I just started working on some art again after not doing anything in a week and I must say, while the break was good I was quite happy to get pencil to paper again.

So on that note I'll sign off. I hope that the week-end is good for you, dear reader, and that the excitement of starting a fresh new year is building. Back next week!

Happy Healthy (kinda) Holidays!

"Tilley", coloured pencil on Mi-Teintes
Copyright Rita Woodburne
Private Commission
Head here to find out more on having a commission done or
e-mail me at rita @ ritawoodburne.com for more info.

So this is the last cookie posting and also my last post until after the Christmas holiday. In fact, I probably won't do another post until next Friday when, as was hinted at in my previous post, I hope to have somewhat of a solid plan outlined for next year's adventures in art.

But you're here for cookies, aren't you? ... That's what I thought.

This final cookie recipe is great because it incorporates fruit so you can eat them and justifibly tell people that you're being good because you're getting your daily serving of fruit. In fact, the more of them you eat, the more servings of fruit you get, and nothing helps fruit go down easier than with a good dose of chocolate to go with it, right?


Strawberry Chocolate Rugelach

Dough
1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
1 240 g pkg of cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups all purpose flour

Filling
3/4 cup strawberry jam (sugar free...trust me on this one)
1 cup chocolate chips or coarsely chopped chocolate
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 egg whisked with 2 tbsp water for brushing
sugar for sprinkling

Beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add sugar, nutmeg (optional) and salt and blend. Stir in flour to combine. Shape dough into 4 discs and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 1 hour or unti dough is firm.

Mix together jam, chocolate, sugar and cinnamon in bowl and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface roll out one disc in a circle about 8 inches in diameter (if you can roll it out into a square shape so much the better, less waste). Trim outside edges of dough (if in round shape) and cut dough into 12 triangle wedges. Place a teaspoonful of filling at wide end of each triangle. Roll up each cookie into a croissant shape and bend gently to bring ends together.
Repeat with remaining discs and arrange 1 inch apart on prepared baking tray. Brush cookies with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for about 20 min., until light brown. Let cool, then devour.


You can also dust them with icing sugar after baking if you want that extra kick of sugar or want to make them look purty. Also, the filling for these cookies can easily be changed depending on your own tastes. Raspberry jam also tastes excellent or you can even use chopped prunes or apricots, although if using dried fruit up the amount to 1 cup instead of 3/4.

So that's it until next week after Christmas. I hope everyone has a fanastic holiday full of good times and that Santa is good to all of you. Happy Holidays!!

Only days left

"Meg" WIP- Part 3
Copyright Rita Woodburne

"Meg"- Completed, coloured pencil on Colourfix
Copyright Rita Woodburne
Private Commission.
Head here to find out more about having a commission done or
e-mail me at rita @ ritawoodburne.com for more info.

Gadzooks dear reader! Do you realize that there's only 5 more days until Christmas and only 12 more days until 2007 comes to a close!? It's this latter point that's sticking with me because I have yet to come up with a definitive plan for next year.

Over the past few days I've been perusing other working artists blogs (as well as non-working artists) and I've been reading up on what some of their plans are, both artistically and business-wise, for 2008. While I haven't sat down and worked out the nitty gritties for myself I suspect that next week after I've stuffed myself with turkey and various sugared goods I'll be primed to hash out a solid plan for next year.
At this point there are a few things I know for sure that I want to include in my plan such as:

- an art research project that I hope will take up the better part of 2-3 months
- focusing on refining my booth for art fairs and making it visitor friendly and professional looking (without breaking the bank)
- getting more equine works done and into shows
- attending more galleries and shows
- making more contacts within my local art community

These are just broad descriptions of what I'd like to see for next year and, as I mentioned before, once I've had some time to reflect a bit more on what worked this year, what didn't and what I'd like to try out I suspect that the list will grow and also become a bit more specific. Of course, I'll leave myself some wiggle room within my plan because very rarely does the universe unfold as it should.

So, for all the other artists out there, are you tardy like me in coming up with a plan for next year? What are your goals artistically? What are your business goals (if you're trying to make a living at this wacky thing called 'art')? Please, do share...

11 more sugar-filled days...

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, somewhere on the back 40...

Once again, I bring you another cookie recipe. This one is easily one of my favourites because it involves chocolate and mint, a combination I simply adore! This recipe is fairly easy and, like the sugar cookie recipe, provides a multitude of cookies. Enough chatter, here's the recipe for:


Chocolate Mint Truffle Cookies

1 pkg. bittersweet chocolate (if you don't like really dark tasting chocolate, semi-sweet will do)
3/4 cup butter, no substitutions
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
approx 1/3 cup chopped candy canes or mint candies

In one bowl, melt the butter in the microwave. In another large bowl melt the chocolate in the microwave on medium (should take about 2 minutes). Stir chocolate until no lumps remain and then add butter to chocolate and stir until well blended. Stir sugar into the mixture. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until well blended after each egg is added. Add flour and baking powder; mix well.
At this point the dough will be extremely soft and should be refrigerated in a covered bowl for at least 2 hours.

Once the dough is sufficiently chilled, preheat the oven to 350. Take a heaping teaspoon of dough and roll into a ball, approx. 1 inch in size. Place each ball about 2 inches apart on a non-stick cookie sheet.
Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes, taking care not to overbake. After removing from the oven sprinkle immediately (while the cookies are still soft) with chopped candy canes and push down slightly into the cookie. Cool completely and devour. It should make about 3 dozen cookies.

A note on the melting of chocolate...
It is very, and I mean very, easy to burn chocolate. When using the microwave to melt chocolate if you're afraid of burning it stop it halfway through melting and stir quickly then return to melting. This will give you a good idea how far along it is and whether or not you need to run it for a full minute more.
However, don't dilly-dally when you stop it mid-melt, as the chocolate can harden up quickly too and nobody likes lumpy melted chocolate.

These cookies are awesome for when you want to treat yourself, you know, like at breakfast.

Until next week, keep on art-ing and baking!

'Tis the season to play nice

"Meg" WIP- Part one. Unfortunately with bad, bad lighting.
Copyright Rita Woodburne

"Meg" WIP- Part two.
Copyright Rita Woodburne
Private commission.
Head here to find out more about having a work commissioned
or e-mail me at rita @ ritawoodburne.com for more info.

Regular readers will know that I have a dislike of telemarketers. However, since this is supposed to be the season for being nice to others I figured I should extend the courtesy to telemarketers as well and today I got to spread my own brand of cheer to one lucky soul.

It started off when the phone rang and I answered it only to hear the tell-tale click that occurs before the telemarketer starts speaking. Normally, in what could be classified as a Pavlov- type reaction, when I hear the click that's the signal to my brain to start dispensing irritation hormones (I'm sure that's the proper technical/ medical terminology). Today I had to check myself and reverse years of conditioning and instead when the click happened I made myself smile.

I won't say what company they were calling on behalf of, but it starts with "R" and ends with "ogers", and although I've told this company in the past not to call me they continue to do so. Masochists. As it turns out, instead of the usual business cell phone program they try to sell me today they wanted to sell me high-speed internet access. 'Well, by golly,' I think to myself 'sign me up!'

Before I can get a word in edgewise they proceed to tell me all the fantastic benefits of high-speed internet access (like I don't know the benefits, I'm on dial- up for crikey sakes, carrier pigeons are faster than dial-up) and what a great rate I can get if I sign up now. Free installation! A discount on my first 3 months! And if I sign up for cable too they'll throw in even more extras! Stupid smile still plastered to my face and with the most cheerfulness I can muster I say: "Well by golly, sign me up!" I say this because I know that due to where I live it's quite impossible to get high-speed installed and, as I mentioned before, I'm spreading my own brand of cheer.

The excited telemarketer starts filling out the form on their computer asking me my name, phone number and address. As soon as he gets to address there's silence. It seems we've hit a stumbling block when it comes to the address because what I already know has now been revealed to the telemarketer. With a tone of utter defeat he says to me: "Ma'am, I'm really sorry but we can't give you the high-speed access."
"Oh," I say, "but I was so looking forward to getting high-speed access, I need you to sell me the high-speed access! You wanted me to buy it and now I've got my credit card ready and I can't have it? Please, is there nothing you can do?"
There was some silence and then he said: "Uh, I don't know. I'll have to ask my supervisor."
He puts me on hold and I get to listen to part of America's "Muskrat Love" followed by an unidentifiable singer who bellows out "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". When he comes back I tell him there was nice music on the phone while I was waiting. Again, a confused silence and then: "I'm sorry, we can't get the high-speed access to you. Due to your location it's just not possible."

I'll spare you the rest of the details but I proceed to have a mild breakdown on the phone because of the tragic loss of what never was, namely the high-speed internet access. I compose myself, thank the telemarketer for calling and wish him a Merry Christmas even though he couldn't provide me with what I really wished for this holiday season, a high-speed Christmas. I hang up the phone and pat myself on the back for not losing my temper and swearing at the telemarketer like I normally do.

That's right, I'm just spreading the Christmas season cheer, one telemarketer at a time.

A Bit Off Schedule

Okay, okay. So I know I said I was just going to dedicate Friday's to cookies, but Jennifer over at Fuzzy Dragons said she'd lost her sugar cookie recipe. Quite frankly, a Christmas baking bonanza without sugar cookies just isn't acceptable. In fact, you might as well cancel Christmas altogether.

So, to prevent that from happening I'll post the sugar cookie recipe today. However, I did say that I would have art content this week, didn't I? Far be it from me to go back on my word so it's quite fortunate that the cookie posting today ties in nicely with my art.


At the risk of being overly dramatic I will say that this recipe has been with me many moons, dating back (as best I can remember) to about 1983 when my brother and I would make Christmas cookies with my Mom. Actually, it was more like my Mom made the dough and did the baking while I played with the cookie cutters that looked like little animals and my brother wielded the rolling pin and pretended that he was Luke Skywalker...but I digress.
In the booklet that the recipe was written in I liked to draw things, making my artistic prowess and penchant for eating sugary foods well known to my immediate family early in my life. You can see one of the aforementioned doodles below:

The template was supposed to be for toy soldier cookies and I guess I must've thought they looked a little dull... or too manly. I'm really not sure what I was thinking, but I was 4 years old at the time so it's basically a moot point. Besides which, we're not concerned with toy soldier cookies, we're concerned with:


Sugar Cookies

1 cup softened butter (unsalted)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt


In large bowl, beat butter and sugar together. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined with sugar mixture. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt into butter mixture.
Divide dough into thirds then wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

When dough has firmed up sufficiently (don't let it get rock solid though), preheat oven to 350 degrees.
On lightly floured surface, roll dough to approx. 1/4 inch thickness (or thinner if you like crispy cookies). Cut desired shapes and place on non-stick cookie sheet. Re-roll scraps from cut outs and continue to make more cookies until the dough has been used up.

Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes, less time the thinner the cookie.


Note:
Some folks like to put icing on the cookies so make sure that they've cooled off enough before icing them or you'll have some crazy psychedelic looking cookies. I prefer to use the little sprinkles prior to popping them in the oven because after spending several hours rolling, cutting and baking the last thing I want to do is decorate the cookies, I want to eat them.
These are also a great cookie to prepare on one day and bake on another since the dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days. So, you could bake one batch and a day or so after that when you realize that you've eaten most of the cookies from the first batch you can just take another ball of the dough from the fridge and make some more.

Time for baking? You betcha!

Mmmmm, sugar....

"Grateful" ACEO can be bid on here.

Copyright Rita Woodburne

Happy Friday!

So in the sugar-induced spirit of the season I've decided to dedicate the next 3 Fridays to posting cookie recipes.
The first recipe is one that I've made many, many times, mostly for family functions. The best part of making these is that they don't take a lot of time, taste really good and are comprised of only 4 ingredients. So, without further ado:

Caramel Squares

1 box graham crackers
1 cup unsalted butter (do not substitute with margarine, it just won't work...trust me)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup (give or take) sliced almonds

Pre-heat the oven to 350 Celsius. Line one cookie sheet with aluminum foil, making sure to cover over the edges of the cookie sheet (this is for easier clean up). Arrange the graham crackers over the entire cookie sheet, overlapping them if necessary.

In a pot over medium-high heat melt the butter and sugar together, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and let boil for 1 minute, continuing to stir constantly. Pour butter/ sugar mixture over graham crackers and then sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Place in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Once done baking let stand for approximately 1 hour to cool, do not cool in refrigerator. Separate crackers into squares and devour.


You can use salted butter if you like the flavour instead but just note that the butter/ sugar sauce will be a bit runnier and may take longer to solidify after removing them from the oven. In addition, I've only ever made these with the almonds but I imagine that chopped pecans would taste pretty darn good too.


So there you have it. I'm still art-ing away and I'm hoping to have some more finished art to show off by next week.
Also, tis' the season for having a short fuse, as can be seen in many a mall parking lot all over North America. So folks, while you're out shopping just remember to breathe, count to 10 or whatever else you have to do to not blow a gasket. Mind your P's and Q's and remember that sometimes just being nice to someone else by holding open a door or saying 'Thank you' can really make their day...and yours. Oh, and never forget:

...to smile. It'll make people wonder what you're up to.

Until next week!

Show the library the money!!

"Do You See What I See?" ACEO can be bid on here.
Copyright Rita Woodburne

Happy December, dear reader!

So the show on Saturday was super, still a bit quieter than we had hoped, but it was the first year we've done this show and all in all the library made a tidy little profit and everyone was happy about that. In addition, I also accepted to be the assistant to the library's Art-Coordinator, Cynthia Guthrie. It's a volunteer position, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and already we're kicking around oodles of fundraiser ideas for next year.

Since we're getting closer to the Holidays, as I mentioned before, my free time has become increasingly sparse. With that in mind I may be missing a few posts here and there this month, I just figured I should warn you so that you don't go into withdrawl. Try to pull yourself together and cope with the situation and rest assured that once the higglety-pigglety nature of the season passes I'll be back to posting regularly... primarily because I'll be strung out on Christmas chocolate and will need an outlet that forces me to sit still for longer than 10 minutes.

So, on that note I'll sign off. I have commissions that need to be finished up and several other pieces that need to be started. I also have to go stoke the fireplace because I can't feel my fingertips anymore.

Toodles!