Embassy

Original oil on panel, 12" x 12".

One September I went to Boots vegan bakery and lounge with a friend. It was the first cool day in a long while, and I asked the owner, Alison, to make me a drink that "tastes like Fall." I've known Alison long enough to know she would pull it off, and she did not disappoint.

The drink she made was the Embassy, and it was about to become my new favorite drink. The Embassy is richly layered, warming and a bit spicy. Basically, Fall in a glass. It has three different liquors and liqueurs, plus citrus and bitters.

As I debated how to represent so many ingredients, I had a stroke of luck. Raising the Bar, a vintage travel trailer filled with old-school barware goodness, appeared in my neighborhood. Just inside the door was a fantastic set of multicolored cordial glasses, three of which appear here with dark rum, Cointreau and brandy.

To top it all off, the fall theme gave me the perfect excuse to use some leftover wallpaper from my parents' old house. All of this added up to a fun challenge, and I'm happy with the result.

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The Green Fairy

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Original oil on panel, 8' x 8". 

Sazerac's absinthe bottle and light palette were enough fun to do again. Plus the stirring spoon that came with the absinthe bottle looked like a good challenge. This is not that bottle, though. It was too modern looking, so I googled absinthe, found a (hopefully) vintage label, printed it out and applied it to a clear bottle that showed the gorgeous color of the absinthe inside. 

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Sazerac

Original oil on panel. 12" x 12".

The amazing colors of the Sazerac ingredients inspired something really different. Despite the complex label, this painting came together as if it wanted to be! 

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Manhattan

Original oil on panel, 12" x 12".

This one has been a long time coming! In an earlier post the Angostura bottle became a bottleneck (literally?). No Manhattan painting could possibly be complete without a vintage bottle, so weeks passed as various prop parts arrived and assembly commenced. 

The final bottle looked pretty good, except… while matching the original in size, it dwarfed the glassware. For an ingredient you basically look at from across the room while mixing the drink, the proportions were all wrong. The solution: move the bottle just out of frame and paint its reflection in the mixing cup.

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Old Fashioned

Original oil on panel, 12" x 12".

This one gave me fits---not so much the painting as the set up! The plan is to include every ingredient for every drink. There's not a lot to this one, so it seemed simple enough. The problem came with the bitters. My recipe uses Peychaud's, and the bottle dwarfed the glasses. So, I bought a tiny bottle the same shape and added a fake label. It looked silly yet dull. Luckily I had also picked up a pale purple bottle that was a miniature of my "soda" bottle. It shows the beautiful color of the bitters, and the repetition of shapes was a bonus, too.

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Margarita

Margarita. Original oil on panel, 12" x 12".

This weekend my husband Paul made his Top Shelf Margaritas for the second of many tasting parties. The recipe dates back to his bar tending days and is pretty much perfect. Our friends Tom and Teya hosted, and made two beautiful paellas to go with the drinks. (Below is a photo of the vegetarian one in their beyond-cool mid-century oven.)

The painting required a lot more prop wrangling than I would have expected. Once I finally got started, though, it came together pretty painlessly for as complex as it is. Paintings for the book will become available after the book release this fall.

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Cosmo-tology

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Original oil on panel, 8" x 8".

I have no idea what is actually in a Cosmo; I've never made one. But something about all the pinks and reds on the silver tray reminded me of makeup.

Another quick painting while I prepare to do more "book work."

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Waiting

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Original oil on panel. 8" x 8".

Today I intended to paint the "Manhattan" piece for the book and SQUIRREL!!!

The Manhattan recipe includes Angostura bitters, which are great, but no great shakes bottle-wise. I was pondering this when my husband found a photo of a vintage Angostura bottle. Well out of my price range on ebay, it was so cool. Shaped like a light bulb in frosted glass, it sported a long neck and a metal pour spout. I decided a vintage Manhattan painting would not be complete without at least a reasonable facsimile of this bottle. Now I am waiting for my cheap knock-off bottle to arrive, so…

In the meantime I painted Waiting with the props I already have, plus one I picked up last night. I thought my new skinny glass was perfect to show off the deep red Sweet Vermouth. I love how the lit part echoes the color of the cherry. I had fun keeping this one super loose, in contrast to the somewhat tighter pieces for the book.

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Gimlet

Gimlet. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

Finally! Gimlet is the first of a series of around eighteen pieces for my upcoming Mixology art and recipe book. Vodka Gimlets are my specialty, so it was a natural to start with this one. There will have to be some in-depth experimentation with recipes after this. I know, it sucks to be me. 

Gimlets are pretty colorless, except for the limes. Everything else--vodka or gin, simple syrup---is clear. I used sugar cubes instead of the s.s. to add some interest, but still wanted a complimentary color. That ended up being the fun part. A run to a local flooring store yielded some Marmoleum samples, one of which is seen here as the "countertop." I love the pattern, and found it fairly easy to imply with a few strokes. Working a bit bigger felt weird, but it allowed me to add details like the pattern in the depression glass bowl.

These paintings will be available after the book is released, hopefully in November. 

p.s. Don't worry, I'm not a total jerk. I will return the samples and buy a few strips of Marmoleum for future paintings.

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Rose Reflections

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Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

This was a really challenging project---so many reflections! The shaker, serving tray, glasses, ice, spoon… the back wall was the only non-reflective thing in the whole setup. I really like the patchwork effect of the reflections in the shaker.

Starting tomorrow I will work on pieces for the mysterious Big Project---a Mixology book containing a collection of paintings and corresponding cocktail recipes. I will post the book paintings as I go, but they won't be available for purchase until the book release. I will try to mix in some small paintings for Daily Paintworks as I have time.

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Chilled

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Original oil on panel. 8" x 8".

Today I felt like a totally different color scheme. I forget when I don't work with this particular green for a while, how invasive it is! It gets into absolutely everything, and the strong pigment can beat up all my other pigments without breaking a sweat. I do love the brilliant kelly and turquoise colors I can get with it, though. I had fun with the reflections in the shaker, and the big, one-stroke highlight in the shot glass.

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Fresh Mix

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Fresh Mix. Original oil on panel, 8" x 8".

Happy with this. I finally ran out of 6" x 6" panels, and moved on to one of the 8" x 8"s I had made. It was nice to work a bit bigger, and it was getting to be time. Had a much better go at the ice here, too. A combination of careful arranging and less-is-more seemed to be the key. The toughest parts: the measuring end of the bar spoon, and taking the photo. This one really wanted to glare!

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A Rocky Start

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A Rocky Start. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

The title refers to the beginnings of a drink on the rocks, but it may have well have described the painting session. I wanted to do something a bit different and fairly simple, and succeeded with the "different" aspect. I lost the "simple" when I tackled my new prop ice cubes! Not sure how much they look like ice cubes in the end. The painted ice cubes look like the prop ice cubes, but the jury is still out on the props themselves...

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Candy Store

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Candy Store. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

After a week away at a plein-air pastel landscape workshop, I was feeling a bit out of touch with my oil still life series. The only thing that appealed this morning was this collection of modern glasses. They didn't look like much on their own, so I started filling them with odd combinations of liquids. I was almost done painting when I realized there wasn't a real focal point. Enter the cherry, which gave the whole thing a candy-like feel.

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I'll Make Manhattans

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I'll Make Manhattans. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

I learned recently that Manhattans should be stirred rather than shaken. Shaking makes the drink cloudy, while stirring preserves the beautiful golden-ruby color and clarity. You can still use your shaker for mixing, of course! I like to add a tiny splash of the cherry juice as well. 

I am really happy with the Bakelite strainer handle in this piece especially, and the color harmony between it, the countertop, and the warm orange tone of the Bulleit Rye in the shot glass.

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The Usual Suspects

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The Usual Suspects. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

With a name like "the Usual Suspects," I suppose I ought to have turned the beadboard backdrop on its side. It would look more like a proper lineup. Still really happy with this piece.

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Summertime

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Summertime. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

This piece looked fairly summery to me, with all the citrus and bright green depression glass. The combo of that, and the onset of really good porch nights, contributed to the title. That, and the Django Reinhardt Pandora station I've been playing to get in a "vintagey" mood. I'm sure the song Summertime played at least twice in the time I spent painting today.

French 37-1/2

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French 37-1/2. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

I only had about half the ingredients for a French 75, but the perfect glass! I love this yellow depression glass piece. It has a cute molded pattern that I will never capture in this lifetime. Maybe if I come back as a photo realist...

Peony in Pink

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Peony in Pink. Original oil on panel, 6" x 6".

Some peonies were sitting around for my open studio, and they looked great with the vintage cranberry glass decanter set. It seemed like it would be so much fun to go back to some more familiar subject matter. Meh. Turns out the most fun part was the decanter. The least fun part was keeping red out of things that weren't supposed to be red.

Moontinis

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Moontinis. Original oil on panel, 7" x 5".

While I still had the rocketshaker, I couldn't resist taking another shot at it. I'm surprised at how much I enjoy painting shiny things. Somehow I always assumed it would be a giant pain. Not so much.