The Weber

The Weber. Oil on panel, 8"' x 8". $295. [buy now]

In the frenzy of finishing Mixology With a Twist and getting ready for the show at Mizuna, apparently a few things got neglected. Like posting some of my favorite paintings from the new book!

The Weber, invented by Clover's Cameron Walls, honors the memory of former Clover bartender Steven Weber. A friend of Walls, Weber was also a fellow whiskey fan. This drink is a lovely, thoughtfully-layered take on the bourbon-based sour genre. Plum bitters may not be available at every corner store, but their contribution to the Weber is worth the effort of finding them.

I think Clover must have closed its doors the night of the book release party, since so many of its bartenders were in attendance! I was thrilled to have Cameron and Kristy White among the revelers at Mizuna.

As always, Cameron's recipe, along with thirty-two other tasty originals, are available in the new book. Cheers!

Juan Connery / Book Release Tonight!

Juan Connery. Oil on panel, 12" x 12". Sold.

Mixology With a Twist comes out tonight! It's been over a year in the making and it seems unreal. So excited!

This week has been crazy. Everything had to be varnished and framed in time to hang the show Wednesday—but not before showing up at 7 a.m. to help Mike install track lighting in Mizuna's banquet room. He liked the way the room looked during last year's Mixology show, and wanted permanent art lighting. And I am always happy to help light art! 

Add to that the fact that I piled some extra projects on myself, like the new Mixology Cocktail Cards, which were designed, ordered and packaged over the past week, and well, you get the picture. 

This will be a great party. Mizuna looks beautiful and the food is always amazing. Sherrece Scott (and friends) will be on hand to make five drink specials from the book, including her own invention, El Corazon. Mixology with a Twist will be for sale along with the first book, cocktail cards, giclée reproductions and of course, the original paintings from the new book.

There's still more to do today, so Ill leave you with an excerpt from the book about a fortuitous trip to Bend, Oregon:

Phoebe Pedersen, owner of Bend’s Dogwood Cocktail Cabin, awoke one night to a phone call. Bartender Grant McFarren had the perfect name for his new spicy scotch drink and couldn’t wait to share it. A year later, as I planned a trip to Bend, my husband Paul told me about a bar with a drink named the Juan Connery. I promptly went to the Dogwood. A giant painting of a strange woodland party by artist Philip Newsome dominated the room. The extensive menu overflowed with cleverly named original drinks like the Rye-an-Gosling, but when I asked my server to surprise me, she brought the Juan Connery. It was fate.
And, it was great.

For a photo of the show hanging in progress, join me after the jump.

Cocktails are in the Cards!

My husband Paul is an idea man. 

Whenever I feel down about my business, he'll toss out twelve different things I could be doing, I won't get around to any of them, and then I'll feel worse. This time was different.

Last week, he asked out of the blue, "how many recipes do you have?" "Between both books?" I added them up in my head. "Fifty two." "What if you had them printed on playing cards?"

He went on to explain that often bartenders use flash cards to memorize drink recipes, so using my paintings and recipes on cards was a natural. While I spent maybe a minute marveling at the fact that I had exactly fifty-two recipes, Paul found an online printer that made custom playing cards. Fifty-four unique cards per deck---one for each recipe plus a front and back cover.  Three days later they were designed and ready to order. Boom!

Trouble was, the two shipping options. Free shipping would get them to me in two weeks, in the middle of Yuletide. They are perfect stocking stuffers, so that's great, but it would be nice to have more opportunities to sell them. Well okay, shipping option number two might get them to me in time for the book release party. For $165. Nope. 

Free shipping it was, with fingers crossed.

Damn, I love a nice surprise. This morning a cheerful Fedex man arrived at the door with a big box of Mixology Cocktail Cards. Ordered October 30th, delivered November 2. And they are beautiful. (I think a shoutout to Printerstudio.com is in order here. )

Sooooo.... get your Mixology deck o' cocktail cards this Friday at the Mizuna release party, or the following weekend at Yuletide! $10 each, and the perfect gift for your cocktail-consuming friends and relatives. Already own the books? Keep them nice and tidy, and keep these handy wipe-clean cards at the bar. I know I will.

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Willi Sheller at Liberty

8-1/2. Oil on panel, 12" x 12". $595. [buy now.]

During our first trip to Liberty on Seattle's Capitol Hill, we had the experience of meeting Willi Sheller. "Meeting" is probably not the right word. "Being entertained by"? Not sure how to explain it, but the minute I mentioned the book project to him, he disappeared behind the bar for about twenty minutes, then reemerged with this:

Meet Tikitty. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the cherries in the lime adorning this tiki drink are on fire. When I could stop laughing long enough to try it, I found it was delicious. 

After that Willi brought out some more serious original libations, including the 8-1/2 (illustrated above), which he said he named for his favorite Fellini film that he'd never seen. Then, he killed my cucumber phobia with his Pimp's Cup, a twist on the Pimm's Cup using local BroVo Jammy vermouth. Here is the painting, which is an homage to what happened next:

Pimp's Cup. Oil on panel, 12" x 12". $595. [buy now]

So, what happened next was that I tried to figure out how the hell Willi had made the intricately woven garnish on my 8-1/2. I couldn't do it, so he went to the bar, grabbed a cutting board, some tools, and a few pieces of fruit, and proceeded to spend several minutes demonstrating garnishes.

Please keep in mind that, a) I am not a videographer, and b) I was at least two drinks in at this point, and not expecting to make a video. I did my best under the circumstances, and here are the results:

For another video and an actual photo of Willi, join me after the jump.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Bitter Honey and Spice, November Rain)

Bitter, Honey and Spice. Oil on panel, 12" x 12". NFS.

Mixology With a Twist is almost done! All of the paintings are done, too... and in several cases, more than once.

As these things happen, the book progressed, and so it evolved. The paintings' style became more consistent over weeks and months. Which is great. Except that the earliest efforts now looked out of place. Worse yet, they didn't do justice to the amazing drinks they represent.

So, back to the drawing board I went. Repeatedly. Bitter, Honey and Spice (above) is the third iteration of the illustration that is now, just maybe, fit to represent my favorite cocktail from Eugene, Oregon's Izakaya Meiji Company.

But for all that, B, H, & S is not the record holder for bad paintings. It comes in a distant second to Curtis Day's November Rain (below), which I painted no fewer than five times. Five!

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November Rain. Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

As much as I love the drink, it almost got cut from the book owing to the creative block it inspired. Thankfully the fifth time was the charm. I used a bit of reflection trickery to bring some color into the almost-black drink set against Casper Fry's signature brick wall, finally making it pop.

Both original paintings, along with thirty-one others, will be on display at Mizuna for the Mixology With a Twist First Friday book release party.

In the meantime and against my better judgement, I have posted most of the rejected paintings below the fold (two versions of November Rain were so bad they were never photographed).

New Work Available on Daily Paintworks

Manhattans by the Pitcher Study. Oil on panel, 6" x 6". $125. Sold.

I'm back from the Bend/Sausalito trip, and it was a great experience. I met lots of fun new customers and many paintings found new homes. And of course, I tried new cocktails! I'm super excited about a new drink I discovered at the Dogwood Cocktail Cabin in Bend, Oregon.

More on that later, but in the meantime, a few of my favorites are still looking for love. This sweet little Manhattan painting is now available at my Daily Paintworks Mixology Gallery. I'll post more over the next week or so, along with new paintings for Mixology With a Twist.

Devil's Garden

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Devil's Garden. Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

About the drink:

This is another one from our own tasting crew, and a delicious one it is! Tom Musselwhite, famous for his one-and-you're-done, all-booze cocktails, surprised the hell out of me with this complex, herbaceous twist on a whiskey sour. Or some kind of Manhattan. Or both. In any case, it is absolutely right up my alley (intentionally, perhaps?).  Inspired by a recipe he found online, Tom experimented until he had something that may or may not even remotely resemble the original drink. Basil-infused simple syrup, vermouth, lime juice, bay leaf and a topping of Iron Goat Goatmeal Stout add a balanced complexity to two ounces of 100-proof Rittenhouse Rye. Mmmm.

About the painting:

This one had been rolling around in my head for a while as I worked on other projects. I was excited to include all the leafy bits, since leaves have kind of been my thing for a while. I knew I wanted some of the leaves to hang down for a spooky, live-oak-in-a-southern-garden effect. But that was about all I had. When I went to paint it, I found I had exactly the glass that Tom had used to serve the drink, as well as the perfect backdrop in another William Morris calendar page (thanks Mom!). The leaves worked out exactly as planned to balance the composition Everything seemed to fall together. Except it looked boring. Until, I did the unthinkable… I moved my light to the other side of the still life stage. I'm sure other artists do this daily, but through over a year of still life painting I have kept my light on the left side. Probably this was due to laziness, but for whatever reason, I will not make that mistake in the future. When I moved the light, this formerly boring setup sprang to life, and inspired me to very quickly paint one of my favorite pieces to date. I love it when a plan comes together!

Mixology at Artfest 2015!

Moontinis at Midnight. Oil on panel, 14" x 10".

Artfest is coming! Spokane's own Northwest Museum of Art and Culture hosts its annual juried art festival May 29 through 31st this year. The festival takes place at Coeur d'Alene Park in Browne's Addition, just west of dowtown Spokane and a few blocks from the museum.

I'll be back at Artfest with Mixology paintings, reproductions and books this year. I'm so excited! Many of the original 12" x 12" paintings from my first book will be available for purchase, along with dozens of smaller pieces and some new larger works created just for the show.

Here are the vital details:

When: May 29–31, 2015
Where: Coeur d"Alene Park, Spokane, Washington
Hours: Friday, Noon–8, Saturday, 10–8, Sunday, 10–5.
Booth # TBD.

And here are some more new pieces I'll have available:

The Pink Lady. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

The Mile High Club. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

Clouds Over Manhattan. Oil on panel, 6" x 6".

Manhattans by the Pitcher. Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

Two Olives. Oil on panel, 6" x 6".

Artini. Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

Bourbon Renewal

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Bourbon Renewal. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

Clyde Common is one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. Its bar manager, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, is well known for his inventive cocktails, a blog, videos, a regular drinks column in Playboy, and a book on cocktail technique. 

When I visited Clyde Common a few weeks ago in search of recipes, Freddy (the bartender on duty) immediately suggested the Bourbon Renewal. I tried to explain that I was looking for original drinks, not old classics. I had seen the Bourbon Renewal on menus at bars all over the Pacific Northwest so it had to be an oldie but goodie, right? Embarrassingly, not so much.

I looked it up while I sat a the bar enjoying another delicious drink, then sheepishly admitted my mistake to Freddy. The drink is indeed the invention of Mr. Morgenthaler, who named it after his business partner's band. Freddy kindly shared the recipe and J.M.'s business card.

When I emailed Jeffrey later, he bent over backward to help, answering my many questions and offering any additional assistance I might require in the future. Which, given his extremely busy schedule, went above and beyond.

The painting is inspired by the bar at Clyde Common; the chalkboard behind lists the many top-shelf offerings available. The beautiful ruby-red color of the drink comes from small amount of Creme de Cassis added to the bourbon. 

Brouwer's Manhattan

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Brouwer's Manhattan. Oil on panel, 8" x 8".

I felt like a bit of an ass ordering a cocktail at a statewide triple-IPA event, but I'm glad I did.

Brouwer's Cafe, a slightly gothic, belgian-style pub built in an old warehouse in Seattle, hosted the opening party for the high-octane hopfest. Along with the rest of the Iron Goat Crew, I drank my share of beer before succumbing to the temptations of the cocktail menu. Thanks to the generosity of Lucas Brouwers, I came away with a surprise new addition to Mixology with a Twist.

Heavy wooden booths and bars, rock walls and lots of ironwork make Brouwer's both cozy and impressive. The problem was, how to capture the old-world feel of the pub without building a complicated set? After mulling it over for several days, I found a refreshingly uncomplicated answer: an old wooden yoga block and an 88-cent vinyl floor tile.

This small, simple piece was a joy to paint. I was afraid it might be a bit too simple. But the second I switched the light onto the beautifully-colored drink, the setup came to life. Colors projected gorgeously onto the ice cubes in the mixing pitcher, creating a series of bright, graphic shapes. The result, I think, is an interesting combo of modern style and natural materials.

I'm especially happy with the looseness of the piece. I only had a few hours to do it, which pushed me to make quicker decisions and bolder strokes. Maybe I should give myself a time limit for every painting!

Accordance Cocktail

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Accordance Cocktail. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

A delicious drink, a sunshine-filled distillery, and Seattle in springtime: it doesn't get much better than this! As I mentioned in my last post, we stopped in at Sun Liquor in Seattle several weeks ago. I ordered an Accordance and fell in love.

I tried to capture the afternoon in this painting, and with extra inspiration from their website, give it a Sun Liquor feel. 

Planning ahead, I grabbed a coaster from the bar and took a photo of the cool, pentagonal-based glass. I thought it would be no problem to find a similar glass, since it appeared to be new. Not so much. The glasses were available—from the UK, by the case. That was not gonna happen. Instead, I found a similar-ish Libbey glass and made a painting. Meh.

Then, a dangerous discovery. A search for "vintage cocktail glass" on Etsy brought up 146 pages of listings for every imaginable glass, including exactly one listing for a pair of silver-rimmed, hexagonal-based, mid-century beauties. I ordered them immediately, dooming myself to yet another painting do-over. (Obsessive much? Right?) And as if that wasn't bad enough, the glasses were tiny, so I recreated the coasters to scale with an ink jet printer and card stock. 

Obsessiveness and scale issues aside, I'm finally happy with the painting and excited to see it in the new book. That's all that matters, isn't it?

65th Street Cocktail (Redux)

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65th Street Cocktail. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

Like a few other paintings for this book, the first effort or two didn't quite hit the mark. But deja vu smacked me upside the head as I started this post. Then it dawned---the first painting is already posted here. Awkward-ish. But this was the first drink I painted for Mixology With a Twist, and it had not occurred that I would get so damned picky.

So much happier with this one! I imagine it as Curtis Day's view as he makes his signature cocktail at Casper Fry. Oddly, I didn't tell the story of this drink in the original post. The night we met Curtis, he told us that his girlfriend lived on 65th street in NYC. But the very next day, she was moving here and they would be together. So cool! 

Happy for him, happy with the final piece. Joy.

Tamarind Whiskey Sour

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Tamarind Whiskey Sour. Oil on panel, 12" x 12".

I had my first tamarind whiskey sour at an Indian restaurant in Portland, Oregon a year or so ago. Mixology (the project) didn't exist yet. It was so delicious, though, that later I looked for a recipe online. I found one on Bon Appetit's website, and noticed it was contributed by someone in Portland. That someone, it turned out, was chef Andy Ricker, owner of Portland's famous Pok Pok Thai restaurant. 

It was this drink that gave me the idea to start a second book of original recipes and twists on classics from the Pacific Northwest. I contacted Pok Pok, and they were kind enough to give me permission to use the recipe. A few weeks ago I went to the source and had the drink at Pok Pok's bar, looking for inspiration for the painting.

But this painting had been swirling around in my head for a while, and I already knew what I wanted to put in the painting. So in went the statuary Buddha hand and brass shaker, even though Pok Pok is modern and non-traditional. But hey. Their recipe, my painting.

Below is the 6" x 6" sketch that brought me out of my painting funk. It's for sale at Daily Paintworks.

Tamarind Whiskey Sour Study. oil on panel, 6" x 6". Sold. 

November Rain

November Rain. Oil on panel, 8" x 8". NFS (yet).

November Rain is the very first recipe I was given for my second Mixology book. I had just received the first shipment of Mixology #1 and was waiting for the release party, when I saw a news article about Curtis Day, bar manager at Casper Fry. Casper Fry is four blocks from my house, but I had only recently discovered their great cocktails.

As luck would have it, we ended up there that night. I wanted to try the November Rain, a drink Curtis had invented that was mentioned in the news story. I had never met Curtis, but it turned out he already knew about my first book project. Not only did he make the off-menu drink, he offered that recipe and more.

Curtis has since become my unofficial advisor, and I his mixology guinea pig.

I should mention that I LOVED the November Rain. So much so that I painted it three times before even remotely doing it justice. Above, the charmed number three.

Red Rocks

Red Rocks. Oil on panel, 5" x 5". $75.

Daily painting number two: quick and tiny! I ran out of 6" x 6" panels, which may have been the best thing that could have happened. Smaller = quicker = looser = fresher. 

The higher viewpoint is fun, too. I've been meaning to start playing with perspective. Starting to feel a bit warmer at last! Ahhh!

Bitter, Honey and Spice (a reboot)

Bitter, Honey and Spice. Original oil on panel, 8" x 8".

Three paintings into my second Mixology book, I decided to scrap it.

Not the book---the three paintings. When I finished the first book I already had an idea how the second book would look. A book of modern recipes should look, well, modern. In my mind that means a clean design and simple, fresh-looking paintings. 

But, a little too taken with my new collection of props, I overloaded still life setups and made busy, futzy paintings. Not exactly what I was after. I didn't even want to post them, which was telling.

It nagged at me until I reached a decision: reboot. It's early days, there's time. I sketched out some composition ideas and re-painted Bitter, Honey and Spice. I'm so much happier with this one!

I should also mention that the drink deserved better. Bitter, Honey and Spice is the creation of Ryan at Izakaya Meiji Company in Eugene, Oregon. Kate and I discovered the place, and the drink, during our Carol Marine workshop last January. Meiji's drinks were so good, we went back every night we were there. Ryan generously shared his recipe with me last month. It took some sleuthing to find all the crazy ingredients for the B., H. & S., but it is so worth it! (Allspice Dram, Vanilla Paste, and Batavia-Arrack are a few components…)

I suppose since I mentioned it, I should probably post the first painting. Grudgingly. If you're curious, it's below the break.

Sixty-Fifth Street Cocktail

65th Street Cocktail. Oil on panel, 8"x 8".

It's official: Mixology With a Twist is underway! 65th Street Cocktail is the first illustration for a new book with all new recipes from talented Northwest bartenders. This recipe comes from Curtis Day, bar manager for Casper Fry here in Spokane, and it's a tasty one.

I've got about seven recipes collected so far, and already I've noticed some trends. First, while the vintage cocktails were heavy on the gin, the new cocktails all contain bourbon or rye whiskey. (I'll have to make a point of requesting some different liquors going forward.) Also, the old recipes were fairly simple. But modern bartenders love obscure ingredients: small batch craft bitters, hard-to-find liqueurs, and house-made syrups. Oh, and lots of giant ice cubes!

For the new book's paintings, I'm trying to capture the feel of the places where the drinks were invented. This has meant finding and creating new backdrops and bringing in new props (two of my favorite things!) I've made faux "old brick" walls, bought Edison bulbs, and even ordered a pack of flocked wallpaper samples. I'm so excited to start putting together this book! I'm hoping for around thirty recipes in all, and a release date in November, so I've got my work cut out for me….

After the jump: Fun with $27 brick paneling (before-and-after faux brick paint jobs).

Whiskey Sour

Original oil on panel, 12" x 12".

"Whiskey Sour, an Epic Journey" would be a better title. Whiskey Sours have been a favorite drink of mine for a long time, until a visit to the (sadly defunct) Central in Portland ruined them for me. Their amazing, from-scratch-with-an-egg-white version was unlike anything else.

Properly motivated to attempt the Central version, I started testing on myself (I didn't think any of my friends were big W.S. fans). I came close-ish a time or two, but never quite got there. On the last night of recipes, I put it to our most discerning tasters: Paul, Tom, Teya, Kate and Richard. 

By the time I got to the W.S., we had tried something like four versions of Aviation. We test with half-servings, but still. As Teya dished up some tasty soup, I took my most recent recipe, made a slight tweak, and sized it up for three portions.

Upon delivery of the drinks, my guests' eyes widened a bit. It was delicious! So good in fact, I went to make another batch and... SHIT. I knew as soon as I started that I had multiplied the recipe wrong the first time, but I had NO IDEA WHAT I HAD DONE. Damn you, Aviation!

I took a guess, but no. Four attempts and an egg run (thanks, Paul!) later, we finally nailed it down. Whew. 

Not to be outdone, the painting put me through my paces as well. Unhappy with the setup in the first version, I set out to do it again. Happily, the painting only took two tries, and all things Whiskey Sour are, at long last, right with the world. 

BONUS: In honor of Mixology's imminent release, here is the elusive recipe:

Whiskey Sour
11/2 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1 egg white
Dash of orange bitters
Combine all ingredients in a shaker without adding ice. Shake for 30 seconds. Add ice, shake and serve in a sour glass.

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Work in Progress and Book Release Party

While it may appear that I have given up at the eleventh hour and stopped painting altogether, nothing could be further from the truth. I'm painting nonstop. The trouble is just that I ordered a new camera.

My lovely 10-megapixel Canon SLR has served me well for many years, and aside from being covered in paint, it is in perfect condition. I love it. But I realized as I started putting this book together that although at one foot square, these paintings are not huge, 10MP doesn't allow me to reproduce them at full size. And I may want to do that someday. And after the opening I may not have them all in one place again.

So I bumped it up to eighteen megapixels, and immediately lost all motivation to photograph artwork until the camera arrives. Doing it once is hard enough, so I feel no need to photograph any more work twice than is completely necessary.

In the meantime, I've created a new page for the Art Exhibit/Book Release/Cocktail Party.

And, here is a detail of Whiskey Sour V2 in progress from my easel (a long story for another post).

Twelve Miles Out

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

I veered off course a bit from my list of vintage drinks to try with this one. The plan was to feature old drinks that were still a bit familiar, or had experienced a popular revival. This drink, I'd never heard of. Someone mentioned it in an article about old drinks worth trying (Serious Eats, maybe?) and it was definitely worth a try. Plus, the story of the name was great. Twelve miles was the distance ships carrying alcohol were required to stay from US shores during Prohibition. And, no doubt, where the party was.

I'm in the home stretch for book paintings, and I have so many props I don't have anyplace to put them all, BUT… Raising the Bar was in my neighborhood this past weekend, and you know how that always ends. This time it was the amazing etched and cut-glass shaker. Who could resist? Well, luckily for me, I guess everyone that had already looked in the Travel Trailer of Vintage Barware Wonders before I got there could resist. But I couldn't.

My beautiful new find was definitely a challenge to paint. It's been a while since I had to wipe part of a painting down and start over. The second attempt was a huge improvement though. Whew.

Oh, by the way, Raising the Bar, along with Atticus, will be selling my book after the Book Release Cocktail Party on November 7. Yay!

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