I rarely give up on a painting. I rarely throw one away, but two minutes ago I did just that. My vision didn't work. It was total fantasy, but it looked awful, even Danny said so. Instead I'll show you a photo I took yesterday of Isabella who loves to draw, especially on herself. Apparently, she was very happy with her work. Don't you just love the chubby fingers? This was just the beginning. I'll show you one of her after she was finished another time. I took her back to Maryland today. It is SO quiet here without her.

I don't usually post on Sundays, but since I haven't posted anything since Wednesday I thought you should know why. Sadly, my Uncle Nickie passed away on Thursday.

I was working on this dahlia when my cousin Nicky called to tell me.

Uncle Nickie, this flower is dedicated to you.

"Burgundy Dahlia-Dedicated to Uncle Nickie", oil on gessoboard, 5"x7", $50. SOLD.

The painting for today really looks much better in person. For once there's not enough contrast, meaning that the lights aren't light enough. The colors tend to be a little muddy in this image as well.The actual painting is lighter, clearer and brighter.

Enrico Gammalinda brought a bunch of giant dahlias for me on Sunday. I painted one last summer from him also, except it was a deep burgundy color. Him mother grows them. They're enormous.

He also brought me two corms early this summer, with the promise of burgundy and yellow flowers. The burgundy one has buds on it. It appears the deer ate the entire top off of the yellow one. The great thing about dahlias is that I can dig up the corms in the fall and try again next summer. This painting is 7"x5", oil on gessoboard-framed, $50. SOLD.

Speaking of deer, there's an excellent product called "Deer Off" that truly works...no, I didn't use it on the dahlias....as soon as I saw the deer eating my phlox, daylilies, purple coneflowers and Joe Pye weed, I got this stuff and sprayed. The deer have wiped out all of my purple coneflower over the years, so I bought four new plants this year, sprayed them as soon as I saw deer damage and I have flowers now. I have had daylily plants, but again no flowers for years, since the deer love to eat the flower buds. I have lots of flowers this year. Same holds true for the phlox and Joe Pye weed. I'm just thrilled with this stuff. The only problem is that the sprayer keeps clogging and I have to get new spray bottles. You only need to respray when there are heavy rains. I now order the concentrate. I found it at http://www.arbico-organics.com/ . I get their catalog and use their beneficial insect control products for my vegetable and flower gardens to keep everything organic. The giant 6' plastic snake scarecrow that I use to keep the birds and chipmunks out of my strawberries may not scare the chipmunks, but it does get plenty of attention from people driving by!

We had another full weekend. Jeanie came up with Isabella and spent Saturday and Sunday. Isabella is still here and will remain until next Monday. She's using the potty now. Big girl Bella!

Jeanie had a bridal shower to attend for Christie Phillips. A friend since 3rd grade.

We had another dinner party here for 25+/- people on Sunday. Joe Frost, Jay Jr. and myself prepared three different main courses. I even had enough tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden to make salads. Laura's Mom brought a veggie tray and her Dad brought beer. Everyone else brought wine, but Danny Kane brought wine along with a magnum of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin! That's a great friend. It was a really good time.

The weather was wonderful. Has this not been the best summer weather-wise? Sure, we've had hot, humid days, but the cool dry days have way outnumbered them. I don't remember many summers with daytime temps in the low 70's in July. How about last night with the temperature in the 50's?! The rest of this week, the nights will be in the low 60's. We always have to wait for mid-August for those numbers. What a blessing-thanx God.

Today I set up the pool for Isabella. I put it right in front of the studio where I have a cafe' table and chairs. She took her tea set in the pool while I did a plein air watercolor study of part of my flower beds by the rose arch. Again, it was loose and as fast as I could do it between taking Isabella to the potty and for drink and snack breaks. When we came in for dinner, I cleaned the brushes while Isabella, under her Uncle Jay's influence gave herself a magic marker moustache and decorated her legs and arms as well. Hopefully it will all be worn off by the time her parents get her on Monday.

In any case, the painting di giorno or daily painting is "Garden Color Study", approx. 8"x6", watercolor on Moleskine watercolor paper, $25. SOLD-THANK YOU PENNY BIRD

Last night we watched the movie " 'Round Midnight". It starred Dexter Gordon. For those of you not familiar with him, he was a famous saxophone player. He was an influence on John Coltrane, but then Coltrane went and influenced him right back! Look him up at Wikipedia. There were many other famous musicians in the movie as well. The movie is worth watching just for the music, the acting wasn't all that. A lot of it was filmed in France. On that note, my painting du jour is titled "Ethereal Araucana Egg Ascending", 6"x8", oil on deep, gallery-wrapped canvas, $75., framed. Sold. The color is tropical to me and today was hot and humid and rainy... i.e., tropical. Although I really like the darks and strong contrast of the other ethereal eggs, today was so heavy that I wanted to see how ethereal looks when it's light. I may do more, even lighter. Back to music, I got Jay our first iPod for our anniversary. Our indoor stereo faces the driveway and when we want music outside on the other side of the house we have to blast the stereo so that the music is loud enough to wrap around. It's not good. The portable CD players don't hold enough music for the hours we spend outside for dinners and parties, so the iPod seemed like a good fit. It is, it's a lime-green, 4GB Nano. The color was for me. I got it for a fabulous price. I also got speakers for it which Jay and I are impressed with. The fidelity is very good. I'm just thrilled with the iPod, it holds about a thousand songs! The first thing I did was go to the iPod store and buy a bunch of Coltrane and Miles Davis. Now I have to get some more Dexter Gordon. Jay's home--gotta go see what he picked up for dinner.

I love to paint the ethereal eggs. It's a challenge, but it's definitely fun. I enjoy creating the special- effect lighting. In reality, the light would travel straight down from the egg's reflections, but there's some, well, actually quite a bit of symbolism in this work and I wanted to emphasize the reflection of the eggs. My goal was to make them appear more like holes, as well as the reflections. I've noticed that the contrast in the shadows on the last few paintings is very dark. Maybe your computer screen is different, but on mine there is too much contrast that doesn't show the reflected colors and nuances in the shadows and background. Looking at it now, I believe I chose this kind of painting today because it's truly the end of an era in my family. My parent's house was sold today. That just makes me so happy. I have no idea who bought it, but I can't wait for a new family to move in, or maybe someone just bought it to be demolished and build a great new house there instead. That would be wonderful too. Anyway, that all being said, it's time for me to look more closely at this painting and apply more symbolism to it. "ETHEREAL FOUND EGGS ASCENDING"-6"X6", OIL ON CANVAS, $50. SOLD.

My daily....in reality, not daily at all, because it took me two days....is a first for me. This is an egg tempera painting. I thought it appropriate to paint eggs with egg tempera paint, so yesterday I started this painting. Well, I worked on it almost all night. I need to do some more research about this medium, because I found it very difficult to work with. I knew it wouldn't be like oils, maybe more like acrylics, well not like acrylics either. I will say that the tomato in the actual painting looks better than this image.

Titled "Found Eggs, Tomato and Fig", 7"x5", egg tempera on gessoboard, $50. SOLD.

Andrew Wyeth did many of his paintings with egg tempera.

Just when I was getting happy with the looser, more free style of painting, I try something tedious. I'm not a quitter, so I'll just keep at it until I get a good understanding of it, but until I get some more reading in, I'll be doing oils so I can produce more "daily" paintings.

We had plenty of company this weekend, but on Sunday, a production company taped a demo here of Executive Chef, Joe Frost--from Georges Perrier's " Georges' "-yes, where Danny is the bar manager,-for a TV food show. Dan Kane was his assistant, which is probably why our sides still hurt. He could make millions as a comedian. He just kept us laughing with his amazing wit and one liners.

The demo was taped in our side yard next to the vegetable garden. When the taping was over, we got to eat the "better burger", which was actually a burger stuffed with cheese, mushrooms and caramelized onions. Stuffing the burger prevents losing all of the good fixings when they slide off of the burger and out the back of the bun.

Of course the burgers were so delicious.

When most of the crew left, the party started, but by 11 PM we were hungry again and there was Joe with Danny fixing foie gras, with fresh figs braised in a balsamic-honey vinegar on truffle-buttered crostini . The complexity and different taste sensations of all of those ingredients was just sublime.

Things wound down with Jay playing the piano, Laura sang and Danny did a surprise impersonation. All of it memorable.

My daily painting is of the first, ripe tomato from my garden and the two found sparrow eggs. It's always a huge deal here when the tomato flowers appear on the plants, then the little tomatoes and finally the first ripe one. I picked and ate the second one today. I made a sandwich with it and put on some sweet, baby onions, also from the garden, along with a hot wax pepper that I picked today too. It was just wonderful. It couldn't have been anything but wonderful, even if it was rotten. If you've worked a vegetable garden, you know what I mean.Having said all of that, back to the painting, "Found Eggs and First Tomato", which is 6"x4", oil on deep, gallery-wrapped canvas. $50.,framed.SOLD

My Aunt Jeannie sent me an email this morning about our family and gardenias. She mentioned that my grandmother always had a gardenia and it brought back my memory of seeing a plant in her kitchen.

So here is the email from my aunt--

"Was struck when I saw your painting today and thought of Grandmom immediately. Couldn't wait to tell you, but then I read your blog.Well, here's your next family tidbit ... The gardenia was Grandmom's very favorite flower, too. True, she loved her roses but she lived with gardenias. She always tried to have one blooming in the house.

From the time we moved to Cherry Hill, I cannot begin to estimate the number of gardenia plants that came and went in my house. Uncle Nickie always knew he had a winner with a gardenia. Even for their short durations, having one in the house gave me happiness and somehow always solidified the connection from grandmom to me, from my first home to this one.Was never ever successful in my efforts. My last one exited about 2years ago. It's amazing the small things that forge such large connections and wonderful memories.I love you.J"

I loved reading this...my grandmother, father, mother and sister-in-law would like my little gardenia tree and I know they would like the painting as well.

After visiting the Jamie Wyeth "Dog Days" exhibit, I was thinking that maybe I'll do a portrait of Senor and give the eggs a rest for a while. But it seems that there are still eggs to paint.

My painting di giorno at right is titled "Found Eggs and Gardenia", 8"x6", oil on deep, gallery-wrapped canvas. $75. SOLD.

It's of two tiny eggs that Jay found in the bed of his truck! There were four, these two are slightly cracked, but the other two of them were broken. I think they may be white-throated sparrow eggs, but I'm far from sure. They're tiny and pretty. Pale greenish-blue base color with a heavy splash of speckles that are a rusty color. I put them with the gardenia because it had just bloomed on my little tree and is so fragrant and beautiful. I thought it would also give a sense of scale to the eggs.

The gardenia was tough to paint because the underpaint was taking so long to dry, that adding the highlights was just making mud. I used some Venice turpentine and that helped.

Gardenias have special meaning to me. Along with the Narcissus--my maiden name being Narcisi--we've always considered them our family flower. My father usually had one growing in the kitchen. My older brother Danny and his deceased wife Shirley, had one for something like 25 years.

When my father was dying last December, my same gardenia tree bloomed one flower. The single bloom was the last thing that I gave him.

Jonah went home today. Boy is it quiet around here. Not for too long though, Jeanie's coming with the kids for the weekend of the 20th. Can't wait.

Spiderman and Lightning Bugs

Jonah has been here for a week now and we've been totally immersed in Spiderman. Movies, Gameboy, action figures, sprinkler, coloring books, books, underwear and a costume.

I ordered a new tiny, travel camera--a Canon Powershot TX1-- and it arrived today.

Since Jonah had just gotten into his costume, he thought it would be a good idea to do a photo shoot to test the camera. As you can see, he's serious as a heart attack when it comes to being Spiderman.

Even with the near 100 degree temperature today, the only time he took the costume off was when Danny took him to the movies. Of course when he came home he put it back on. He's sleeping in it now.

I decided last night as Jay and I were sitting outside by the pond that the high heat is tolerable for some things. We have a few tomatoes that will be ripe, probably by tomorrow. We've already picked some cucumbers and peppers. They practically appear out of nowhere after just a couple of days of high heat. Last night someone was shooting off fireworks so I took Jonah outside to see them and there were so many lightning bugs aka fireflies that he thought that they were the fireworks! Again, the heat seems to really bring them to life. It looked like the trees were covered in tiny white Christmas lights.

I'm working on a painting that just has to dry at least overnight to continue, so hopefully I can post it tomorrow.

Stay cool.

Chanticleer and 29 Years of Marriage

We went to Chanticleer again yesterday. I decided to take some watercolors and my Moleskine watercolor pad with me. I got the watercolors from Garnet Hill. They are in little plastic, pencil-sized cases called ArtPods. Very portable and cute.

By the time we got to the "tea house", which I think should be called the "pee house", because it's a restroom, albeit beautiful, we only had about 20 minutes or so to sit by the creek. This was actually better for me than to have unlimited time to paint. So I did a very loose, plein air, 10 minute +- color study of an area by the stream. "Chanticleer Color Study", approx. 6"x8", watercolor, $25. SOLD.

Last Sunday was our 29th wedding anniversary. We went to the Brandywine River Museum to see Jamie Wyeth's dog exhibit. It was fun and refreshing. The lighting in his Iggy Pup paintings was great, especially the vole hunting one.

We just loved it. My favorite was the "Wolf Dog", really haunting.

After, we went to the Dilworthtown Inn for dinner. Very nice. The foie gras was some of the best I've ever had. The crab cakes were decent too.

I'm know that I'm very lucky to be married to Jay. The past 31 years that we've been together have just zipped by. It never ceases to amaze me at how much I still love him and even more amazing is that it gets deeper. Must be that "Soul Eyes" he keeps playing for me.

I'm so far behind on recording my day's events that I'll just have to skip some and go back to them when it seems a good time to fit them in.

Our 4th of July was spent at a dear friend's party. I realized that I've known Mary Von Czoernig, affectionately known as Mere Mere, for over 23 years. She's just someone that everyone loves. What an amazing place she has. Huge, yet so warm and inviting. The outside is spectacular. It's like a not so mini theme park. A pond to sit by and reflect. It's crystal clear water allows you to see every beautiful koi. The plantings around it are meticulously maintained, but it's that way everywhere. There are areas all over the property--a gazebo, playhouse, playground, porches, pool, cabana, bar with big screen TV, small groupings of tables and chairs tucked away in smaller gardens, etc., etc., for young and old to just sit, relax, converse, play or meditate. Again that's just the outside. The inside of the house is just too much to go into here. The food and other friends were terrific. Thanx for a great time Mere Mere.

Jonah is staying with me this week. He's four. We went to Barnes and Noble for Spiderman, Star Wars and Transformer books yesterday. There was an escalator to the upstairs and after a few attempts and Jonah telling me to "come on, be brave Mom Mom", we finally rode it upstairs. We got four books and started to plan some strategic maneuvers about the way we would ride the escalator down. I would hold the books and my purse and Jonah's hand and he would step on and then I would step on. Well after four times of Jonah putting one foot on and his leg going alone while I tried to hold him up and put the rest of him on the step at the same time, we decided to try one more time. Well the only thing that made it safely on the step and took the ride down was Jonah's flip-flop. We took the elevator.

The painting di giorno, or painting of the day, is titled "TROPICAL TURKEY EGGS", inspired by the beautiful weather today. It was so much appreciated after the brutally high humidity and cool, damp weather yesterday, with the torrential downpours last night. It's 8"x6", oil on deep, gallery-wrapped canvas, $75. framed.SOLD

Have a wonderful weekend if I don't get back here tomorrow.

Our post-Father's Day celebration was a great day. We decided, in Jay Sr.'s honor to do a southern-style dinner. Fried chicken, potato salad, Swiss chard with bacon and biscuits. For my brother Pat, we included Ugli tomato salad, tomato pie from Bakemiester and hot peppers that he brought from Florida. We did strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was all good. All of the children and grandchildren were here along with Pat's son, his girlfriend and brother. The "Truth Serum" struck again, but we won't go there. It looks like we're going to put a ban on it.

Friends from South Carolina came -Pam and Rob, along with their bulldog, Bluto and more friends. We did a photo shoot of Bluto and later got Isabella and Josie in their adorable ice cream cone smocked dresses and took pictures of them. As always these visits are too short and intense. We need to do a family vacation.

If you look under land/seascapes/nature on this website, the first photo you'll see is "Little Boy Under A Big Tree". It's of Gabriel when he was three years old at Chanticleer under an enormous beech tree. He's been here for the past week and we went to Chanticleer on Saturday, so I took the photo above of him with that same tree. Obviously a totally different shot, but four years later the tree still dwarfs him

Happy Fourth!