Chore Day, Jan 23, 2021 -- Chores and Cooking a WFPB Cheese-like Sauce

View fullsize

Taco, on a bench at the Letterman Digital Arts Center, San Francisco, 2011. In this pose Taco is staring at our Staffie, whom he hates.

Today’s chores were the same as last week’s chores. Truly, there must be a loop in time that repeats on a weekly basis: laundry, vacuuming, cooking. It’s not a rut — it’s a groove.

I cooked up a batch of a highly-touted vegan cheese-like sauce. The creator guaranteed that even carnivores and omnivores would mistake the sauce for actual queso. My review: it’s okay, but, as a former cheese-eater, I wasn’t fooled. Listen up, vegan Youtubers: overselling a recipe raises my expectations so high that I may feel that an otherwise decent recipe doesn’t live up to the hype. Skip the sales pitch — you’re preaching to the choir, remember — and let the food speak for itself.

Final Dedication Page Picture -- Taco the Pug with His Favorite Squid Minion

View fullsize

I’ve finished Taco the Pug’s picture to the best of my ability. As I was finishing up the picture, I realized that he was never without his pink squid. The squid was the first of many toys that I bought for him. He had the unusual habit of moving his toys to whatever room he happened to be in. If we were lounging in living room, he would suddenly spring up as if he had forgotten an important task, and run through the house collecting his toys. Once he had them all arranged in a pile, he would sit down and place his long legs on them, as if to say, “These are mine.” He was such a sweet fellow.

Taco's Portrait for Dedication Page

View fullsize

With just a bit more tweaking I’ll be done with this picture. I’m undecided whether to eliminate the background altogether or leave it as it is. One thing I will do is place a solid background beneath his silhouette where the brown background is bleeding through. Other than that, I like it. I feel really good working on this picture.

Chore Day, Oct 3, 2020: Laundry, WFPB Queso Salsa, and Krita

This picture need some highlights. I’m struggling with Krita — all of the keyboard shortcuts are neither like Photoshop nor Clip Studio Paint.

My chores today were laundry (check) and cooking (check). There’s not much to say about doing laundry, but I always enjoy doing it. I usually spend my time studying Japanese, surfing the web, watching videos, sketching, or reading. Today I started reading David Chang’s Eat a Peach: A Memoir.

After doing laundry I cooked up a big batch of wfpb (whole food, plant based) queso dip, the recipe for which came from The Jaroudi Family’s Youtube channel. Simple and delicious.

In Memoriam, Taco the Pug

My picture of Taco the Pug is the last image I’ll be painting. I’m dedicating my second book to his memory. I had a devil of a time capturing his likeness, but this is as close to realistic and I’m capable of. I’ll color this sketch tomorrow.

He was a handsome pug with a demonic obsession with food. For most of his life, dinner time was always preceded with a mad dash to the kitchen, with squealing, whining, and howling with every meal. I believe that his first owners didn’t feed him regularly and he was simply traumatized by random states of starvation. Over the years he calmed down as we fed him on a fixed schedule. What a guy! I miss his antics. He was the most amusing guy I’ve ever known. Fabulous!

Al Fresco Art Day, May 22, 2020: Taco Sleeping

View fullsize

Taco is on everyone’s mind. Today we decided that everyone should draw Taco using any media. I chose charcoal and graphite — I’ve been watching Smooth77’s Youtube channel this week — he specializes in traditional sketching and painting. His graphite drawings are inspiring.

I learned that charcoal is messy. Really messy. When I finished this sketch (Taco’s sleeping on my lap), the darks were dark as night. But after I tapped the paper over the sink to release the charcoal dust, the loose pigment fell away and revealed a much brighter, lower contrast image. To perk up the image, I duplicated the image Photoshop set it to 50% multiply to darken the blacks.

Chore Day, May 16, 2020 -- Collecting Old Photos from Old Hard Drives

Taco’s eyes are gorgeous! — 2011

Today, for the first time in a long time, I cooked really good food for only one dog, my hairless Pomeranian, Willy. He’s a fussy eater and I’m hoping he will deign to try the delicious tofu veggie loaf that I baked for him. If I were a diligent blogger I would have taken a picture of my culinary vegan masterpiece, but, nah! Taking pictures sometimes just takes me out of a meaningful experience. I have a good memory and I like to use it.

I spent much of the day sending my gratitude into the Universe, gratitude that I was fortunate to share many years with Taco. I’ve been going through my photo archives on old hard drives. Keeping precious pictures on digital media is a gamble. One hard drive failure and all is lost. CD’s deteriorate in a matter of years. SSDs conk out every day. On the other hand, paper lasts for centuries. I’m going to go through my digital pictures and get them printed and put them into albums that I can enjoy by simply opening a book. No electricity required.