Kale Chips on Steroids

I've had plain kale chips and they taste ok but these chips are coated with cashew "cheese" and are absolutely umami delicious. First, get some kale. Perhaps from your friend who has some in her garden. Thanks Irene! Then...

Step 1. Wash kale leaves and place them on a kitchen towel to dry.

Step 2. Tear off the leaves from the stalk and place in a bowl.
Oops, I forgot to take a photo but I think you get the picture (pun intended).

Step 3. Put into a food processor: 1 cup cashews, 1 red bell pepper, 1/3 cup nutritional yeast, 4 T olive oil, 2 t salt, 1 t garlic powder, 2 t onion powder

Step 4. Process and add as much water as necessary to get a salad dressing-like consistency.

Step 5. Pour the dressing over the kale leaves.

Step 6. Toss the "salad".

Step 7. Place the coated kale leaves onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.

Step 8.  Bake in 275 degree F oven for 25 minutes or longer if not completely dry.

Step 9. Place kale chips in a bowl and marvel at how much they shrank in the oven.

Step 10. Enjoy!

Iris is not just a four letter word

It seems that every crossword puzzle I do has the 4-letter clue "popular Spring flower". I don't know if irises are all that popular but they certainly are in my garden.

I love irises, especially the tall bearded German ones. Yes, I am referring to irises and not men, ha ha. 

Irises are so finicky.

• They don't always bloom the first year after planting. Also, just because they bloom one year, does not mean that they will bloom the next year. I was so looking forward to the unnamed but super fragrant iris that I bought (while it was in full bloom at the time) at last year's garden club show, but it didn't want to bloom this year. I guess it's having a break.
• They don't like to be too overcrowded but if I divide them, they sulk by not blooming until two years later (if I'm lucky).
• They are not prolific by any means. The ratio of blooms per foliage is very low. This year I have some glorious pots of iris that contain only foliage and I'm sure they bloomed last year. I do however, have one pot that is brimming full of blooms.
• They die if they get too much winter rain, good luck with that.
• They are beloved by snails and slugs. Last year, after waiting for it seemed like forever to see a bloom, I found that the entire flower stalk had been mowed down just before it was about to open.
• They are supposed to have more than one bloom per stalk but that doesn't always happen.

It is immense fun though to check the garden each morning to see which iris has opened. For a while there, I was seeing a new iris every couple of days. Here are the irises of 2014 (so far) in order of appearance.

Rosalie Figge looks great next to the rose Royal Sunset.

Superstition is supposed to rebloom in the Fall, yeah right.

This iris loves being in it's own pot.

I haven't seen this iris anywhere on the web. It came with my parent's home when they purchased it way back in the 60s and it was an old "heritage" house even then. I would say this iris definitely qualifies as a rare heritage variety.

Enjoying the sunshine.

Good old Immortality is the white iris and is very reliable. It comes back every year without fail and one time it even rebloomed for me in the Fall. I don't know the names of the other two irises.

Wild iris spotted while going for a walk in the park.

This iris reminds me of an orchid.

What I Learned in Exercise Class

For the past seven years, four days a week, I've been attending drop-in exercise classes at my local gyms - yes, that's plural as my membership covered four different locales, two including pools. During those years, I went to every class from Aerobics to Zumba. I say "went" because I stopped going when they cancelled Step Class.

What I learned:

• Step Class Rules!
• Spinning is the most punishing but rewarding workout ever.
• All Yoga teachers seem to have inner peace.
• Don't even try to keep pace with the instructor who considers exercise her life and runs 8 miles BEFORE teaching class.
• I can't run.
• Sweating is good.
• While wearing a sweatband is totally uncool, it does keep the sweat out of one's eyes.
• Being able to follow the choreography in Step Class, doesn't make me a Hip-Hop dancer.
• Don't eat a big meal before class.
• Get over feeling that everyone is looking at you.
• Everyone falls off the Step at least once.
• Warm up is important.
• Cool down is important.
• I don't do running.
• The Plank is impossible to do at first.
• If you're the only student who showed up for class and the instructor offers to teach the class anyway, say "Yes".
• Pass on classes that don't make you sweat.
• I don't do skipping.
• Wear a special outfit only for class.
• Hot Yoga makes you sweat so you feel like you're getting a great workout but you're really not.
• Buy a special pair of runners and use them only for class.
• There's nothing like music blasting at 8:00 a.m.
• Music must be loud enough to cover up the sound of one's gasps for breath.
• What a great place to get introduced to new music.
• Music helps you forget that you're exercising.
• I like forgetting that I'm exercising!

Sketch Guru App is a Lot of Fun

I just discovered the SketchGuru App for Android. It's free at the Google Play Store. After you select any of the suggested cropping formats, there are nine different sketches you can choose. I did these on my tablet. It's easier and faster than Photoshop!

I'd love to put Water Colour 2 on a silk scarf.

Crayon really does look like a crayon!




original



Gouache



Pencil Sketch



Colour Pencil



Colour Pencil 2



Crayon



Water Colour



Water Colour 2



Engraving

Halftone

Painting the Tulip Yellow This Time

Here is a photo of a "blown" tulip that I think is interesting. This is one of those varieties of tulips that have a tendency to open up wide in the morning (especially in a warm room in a vase) and then close at night. Also, did you know that cut tulips can "grow" as much as 2 inches in a vase?

Of course it was just begging to be photoshopped.

original

Here is the watercolour painting technique shown step-by-step.

The "watercolour painting technique" is:

• duplicate the background layer 3 times
• to first layer, filter>artistic>cutout>4, 4, 2 luminosity
• to second layer, filter>artistic>dry brush>10, 10, 3 screen
• to third layer, filter>noise>median 12 soft light

Layer 1:


filter>artistic>cutout>4, 4, 2 luminosity

Layer 2 added:


filter>artistic>dry brush>10, 10, 3 screen

The addition of Layer 3 gives you the finished "watercolour painted" product:


filter>noise>median 12 soft light

Here is what Fresco looks like:


filter>artistic>fresco>2, 8, 1

Here is what Rough Pastel (my personal favourite) looks like. There are many variables in Rough Pastel so it took a long time to get just the right look.


filter>artistic>rough pastels, stroke length 1, stroke detail 12, texture sandstone, scaling 100%, relief 10

Painting the Tulips Red

The tulips look gorgeous just the way they are, but I wondered what would happen if I used the "watercolour painting technique" and other filters.

The "watercolour painting technique" is:

• duplicate the background layer 3 times
• to first layer, filter>artistic>cutout>4, 4, 2 luminosity
• to second layer, filter>artistic>dry brush>10, 10, 3 screen
• to third layer, filter>noise>median 12 soft light

original

watercolour painting technique

Here is a close up of a tulip with one petal opening past what is our normal image of tulips. I think tulips past their prime are very interesting.

original

watercolour painting technique

Here the tulips are reaching towards the sun in the west which is streaming through them. It already looks like a watercolour painting.

original

watercolour painting technique

Here is where I used the actual "watercolour" filter.

artistic>filter>watercolour>brush detail 14

Of course, I had to see what it would look like posterized.

image adjustments>posterize>level 10

Tulip "Painting"

It took me a while but I turned this:

into this:

• Crop image
• Isolate tulips from background
• Add a solid black fill layer on top
• Clean up by erasing the white pixels that show up after you add the black background
• Apply Filter>Artistic>Watercolour
• Paint in the rainbow and run the smudge tool over it

Then I thought I'd go a little further and this is what happened.

• Apply Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush 10, 1, 1

This looked pretty good but there were a lot of tiny little white dots around the outlines of the tulips and vase, so I zoomed in on them and used the Smudge Tool set on Natural Brushes>Dry Brushes to "smudge" over them.

• Cleanup image by using the Smudge Tool

Why stop at the edges only? I ended up smudging where ever it looked like it needed it, mostly where there were a lot of jagged looking pixels. I felt like I was painting!

The Smudge Tool is my new best friend!