by niya christine

Summer Salmon & Really Good Wine

YUM

YUM

I’m just here today to remind you that cooking outside with loved ones, friends and well behaved furry ones is a really lovely thing right about now. If you have my book The Art of Daily Cultivation, this beautiful recipe from Shauna Prince is on page 110. And if you don’t have the book, you now have one of the best parts of the book. See, I don’t consider myself a foodie, but I am wise enough to have talented, festive foodie friends. Thank you Shauna and Daniel!

BBQ’d salmon with lemon, capers, and dill

Ingredients – serves 8

2 whole fillets of salmon (skin on or skin off, ideally wild, around 2 ½ pounds each fillet)

4 medium lemons – two sliced in rounds (with skin on), one juiced, one sliced in wedges for garnish

1½ oz butter

1/2 of a medium white or brown onion, cut in thin slices or wedges

3 tablespoons of white wine (optional)

1½ teaspoons of Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons of fresh dill – chopped. Plus sprigs for garnish

1 – 2 tablespoons of capers (to your taste)

Salt (approx. ¼ tsp Kosher salt)

Freshly ground pepper (approx. ¼ tsp)

1½  tablespoons of olive oil

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in Creative Practice / Creative Space Design / Project 365
 by niya christine

Circles or Triangles

The Art of Daily Cultivation, A Celebration of 365 Story Paintings has gone to print. The book cover design kept me awake at night. So like most would, I went out to my friends and book supporters to vote. I figured this would make everything clear. Guess what? A tie. 50/50. I think it stumped them for the same reasons it stumped me.

Final Dust Jacket Cover

Tough decision, the cover of a book, especially a hardback book with a fancy dust jacket can bring radically change the temperament of blood pressure. I thought a post about the design would be worthy thought note.

Early Design Version-Circles

Early Design Version-Circles

The project content of paintings and stories was created over a 12 month period with 12 themes in 30 day sets. I wanted the cover to express this somehow. While the circles reveal the image more clearly and in a way is more aesthetically pleasing, the composition was a challenge. You see the space to fill here in a 9 x 11 book is large. I worked on making the title larger and more typographically interesting. I filled the cover with the images at one point. I made the circles into a flower to represent blossoming with the months in the center at another point in the design process. In all examples it ended up looking like a splatter plot. The months not in order. I lined up the months with the images in line and it looked like a totem pole or a multi-directional wine country sign.

Triangles Cover

In the end, I agreed with viewers that the triangles – though jagged and not as aesthetically pleasing as the circles did convey integration and the sense of building. The mountainous feeling with the months woven through is more accurate than the scatter plot representation.

So, I’m marinating on the final cover. Hopefully, in time, I will grow more affectionate towards it. It’s never easy to love a product in the initial stages of shipping. I know this as a product designer over the years. You are simply raw initially — wrung out and hopeful that everything will go smoothly.

I am thrilled to be here at this stage of development. I can’t wait to see the proofs. I will post ordering information in the weeks to come. For now, it’s teatime and hot baths.

 

in Creative Practice / New Work 2014 / Project 365
 by niya christine

That’s a Wrap

Copyright

#367/365 Paintings

From the book: How to be an Explorer of the World. Portable life museum. Keri Smith.

“You are an explorer. Your mission is to document and observe the world around you as if you’ve never seen it before. Take notes. Collect things you find on your travels. Document your findings. Notice patterns. Copy. Trace. Focus on one thing as a time. Record what you are drawn to.”

……….

I love this book and it seemed the perfect thing to leave you with after this year of exploring coffee, bunnies, cows, kites, Dr. Seuss, food, wine, horses, dogs, Europe, fishes, literary inspirations and more together. I’m overwhelmed that this project is coming to a close. If I didn’t have so many wonderful things to look forward to creating from it in 2014, I just might be too much of a puddle to conclude it. ; )

I have some wrap up pages for you. One is a calendar of ALL of the paintings over the year. It’s a quick way to see them all and click to the posts. The other is the reflections article I promised. It chronicles in short summation the beginning, middle and end of this project and a few practices that made it happy/healthy. Click on images below to get there.

[one_half]JanCover[/one_half][one_half_last]Copyright

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I intend to keep you in the loop about gallery plans, Kickstarter book stuff, fun photos, coaching, articles and new works when the year long children’s book illustration study course begins in Jan. So this is not goodbye—just to this format. Still, I look forward to some down time — chocolate and bubbly.

H A P P Y   N E W  Y E A R’ S  Change is your friend. So am I!

 

in December | Word & Image / Project 365
 by niya christine

D O G story: A dog with many lives

#365/365 Paintings. WAHOO!

#365/365 Paintings. WAHOO!

D O G by Niya Christine.

I’m an old dog—a yellow lab as handsome as the day is long. I know that’s a cliché thing to say but I’m not a creative type like my friend Bosely—he’s an Irish Setter. I’m what you’d call a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

I’ve had three names in my life. Max, Sirus and Jonesy—and this divides my life into three, four year parts. I’m glad I was Max in the first four years of my life. I lived with a family…a pretty good one too! But the woman, Grace…

If you want to read this story in full, click here

………….

I enjoyed writing this story. Max, Sirus and Jonesy had a life that we either pity or envy depending upon your point of view. ; )

………….

in December | Word & Image / Project 365
 by niya christine

Susan Cain: The Introverts Among Us

Copyright

#366/365 Paintings

Susan Cain. “Quiet” the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking

“Poets and philosophers have been thinking about introverts and extroverts since the dawn of recorded time. Both personalities appear in the Bible and in the writings of Greek and Roman physicians, and some evolutionary psychologists say that the history of these types reaches back even farther than that: the animal kingdom also boasts “introverts” and “extroverts,” and we’ll see from fruit flies to pumpkinseed fish to rhesus monkeys.
Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are. Depending upon which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts—in other words one out of every two or three people you know. {…}
If these statistics surprise you, that’s probably because so many people pretend to be extroverts.
…………..
If you are wondering why I’m going over 365 to a total of 367, I’m making up for 2 sick days (I posted replacements so it adds up to 367 now).
On Monday you will get the final wrap up posts. A painting and a lead in to the reflections article. Ugh, change… I need some chocolate.

 

in December | Word & Image / Project 365