Pink roses, azalea, sweet lilacs, bleeding hearts, quince blossoms and pansies sit waiting in a bowl. Washed and picked for sugar coating they await their transformation…they will become sugar coated flowers. Lovingly painting their petals with a brush, I cover the flowers with a special mix of frothy white of egg, a touch of confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice. Some flowers can be dipped into the liquid. I then pour crystal showers of finely ground, almost powdered castor sugar over them in waves until thee petals are covered. I do it again , catching the empty spots until they are all covered , then allow them to dry. The flowers can be gently placed on a sieve or a screen placed over a plate to catch the excess coating that will drip off the petals while drying. More o the fine castor sugar can be poured over the drying blossoms and after sitting overnight they will be dry and sugar coated and sparklingly preserved. The crystal covered flowers make wonderful cake decorations , especially for fancy tortes and cakes made with rose petal jam.
Category Archives: making art
Fairy Cuisine, in the Raw
Venus meets Mars in Aries…
The Cosmic Lovers join in celestial embrace in the Heavens, interlocking flames like two Dragons in love while kissing in the sky; their wings becoming one in their moment of passion.
The Heavens alight, we traverse the milky snows of Embolic, electric with the proximity of Uranus, the cosmic lovers opening our wings with hope into Aquarian skies.
From the Celestial Hearts series, the two images above are both digitally manipulated photographs of paintings and available to order. The Golden Wing painting is 40 by 96 inches and is a duet composed of two canvasses.
Venus enters Aries
Venus slips from Pisces to Aries… Her body is touched by flames as she rushes now, to meet her lover Mars, who calls to her.Venus is on fire and has no patience …she leaves the angel wings of Pisces behind, letting them drop like an unneeded costume. She feels her passion ignite and slips into the beckoning flames.
Venus on Fire in the Golden Lake
A new painting is flowing like music, as if pouring out of my hands and my heart. It is like a golden lake. A work in progress, soft coral clouds form a sky on the canvas, painted with layers of paint mixed in thin washes of time.Dull gold gleams as a base somewhere beneath the reds and creams. Placed there about ten years ago, like time trapped on canvas and preserved, glazes hold floating fragments of gold. Small fires and soft explosions are caught there forever like old loves that continue to smoulder; their beauty never dies, gold in our hearts. Venus is now fully in Chiron’s embrace. I feel them mingled together… the wise teacher and healer and the Goddess of beauty are meeting in the last sign of Pisces, the fully opened heart, yet they are restricted in their expression and flow by a square from Saturn. Love and compassion merge in their embrace like a joyous lake inviting us to swim in its magical waters healing our collective heart through gentleness. The square to Saturn in Sagittarius enables us now with the concerted effort to speak out, for our beliefs and collective truth – to have heart, the message of Venus in embrace with Chiron and in the realm of Neptune – the message of love.
Clouds of bright gold leaf are forming in the foreground. I see the changes coming in this beautiful inner sky that is unfolding before me and can manipulate them into what I wish to create – into a future reflection, my own inner sky. The canvas has been waiting for its completion patiently for years.Now marked by layers of time, a patina is giving its own gift of depth into the background that makes the foreground sing.
There is a certain degree of possession in painting… I must admit it. It cannot be denied, and is true of most art. The artist can become possessed; obsessed completely by his Muse. Once experienced, the artist seeks the same communion, hungering for the presence of the Muse, wanting to be once again hers, taken over, like an instrument. Once kissed fully on the lips by the Muse when she comes to him or her, the artist, singer or dancer is never the same. A divine elixir has been tasted. The desire for that sweet essence can become so keen and so subtly invasive that it takes over the human heart with a deep love and yearning. Perhaps this is the secret truth behind the passion of the artist…
the seduction of his Muse.
Abstracts and Wings
Painting again, and completing a large abstract duet – a pair. The canvasses are perfect either way, alone or together, but together they can be hung together in various combinations, and together – they have more power…
“Golden Wing “… 36 by 48 inches , mixed media and oils on canvas.
“Breaking through Golden Clouds”… mixed media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
The two canvasses in progress are 3 by 8 feet side by side, and six by four when hung vertically. The paintings just flow into each other, any way you put them. They are like a couple who who get along very well, each bringing out the best in the other until the shared energy is ecstatic from their flow, yet each is beautiful alone.
June Roses
Blessing us with their beauty, the roses bloom, celebrating Midsummer. Regardless of the madness of our human world and the aspects of the stars. they whisper love as summer graces our world once again… filling me with inspiration.