On a lighter and rather lovely note

This entry is straight out brown-nosing, bragging and some other word starting starting with a "b" expressing the same sentiment that I will have to think of later. My wife - Angie...easily the most wonderful woman on the face of this Earth.  A brief background: she is also a Christian but much more dedicated to studying the Bible and expanding her knowledge than I have been, mother of my two boys, volunteer to the school, church, etc, etc and a few more etc's, cook extraordinaire, artist (mediums: paint, Styrofoam board, and my favorite - cake).  

This extemporaneous exaltation will focus on her art.  Angie's fatal flaw is humility...normally a fatal flaw would be pride but in this case her humility limits the volume of painting she does.  So my prescription for humility is to brag on her endlessly until she gets a big head.  Unfortunately she discounts my compliments due to the fact that I am her husband and "have to" like what she does..not to mention she is skeptical of ulterior motives I may have.

So the first medium mentioned - paint.  While this has the fewest examples of her artistic prowess, it is the most long lasting example and the only one that can be handed down to children and grandchildren etc.  Angie loves to paint and hates to paint.  As long as she has momentum things go wonderfully.  Getting her to start a painting is like figuring out how to bring the mountain to Mohamed.  If she stops mid-stream in a painting - the mountain has mysteriously made it back to its original geographic position and she has doubled her distance from it.  The mere mention of attempting to sell a painting garners me and her art extensive condemnation (even though she has had a number of people have commissioned certain pieces and family members have the freebie orders in queue...and yes I am pushing her to get those going).  All this being said...here are two examples:

 

The first is 3 18"x24" panels that the photo does no justice to:

If you look closely you can see that she painted the sides of the canvas to ensure that there would not be white showing in the gaps between the panels.  While to an artist or critic, that is certainly a requirement if you intend for the painting to be hung without a frame...the amount of time and attention to detail she showed to this slightly less than an inch strip is an example of her insistance on things being done "right".  It also highlights why I could never be an artist.

The second Angie referred to as her "bad Bob Ross imitation".  Frankly I like it, we got it framed and it is hanging just around the corner.  

The second medium foam-board: not the most typical of artistic mediums but certainly Angie's most prolific...  Angie made the fortunate mistake of volunteering to help with the stage sets for vacation Bible school at our church.  Since then she has created Mexican themed villages, Western deserts, science labs, and even a train that stretched across an entire wall and made 3 sets of double doors look like the you are getting on the train.  

What you cannot see on the cacti is that she carved out ruts to create depth for the darker colored lines ... attention to detail again.

Each of the beakers started as a 4'x8' piece of foam-board.  While "simple" from her perspective.. my son standing in the background gives and example of the scale.

On this set...each of the beakers is an individually cut, sanded (yes we sanded the edges of the foam-board to be sure they were smooth and even) and painted.  

These are just a few examples...we have literally had close to 100 4'x8' sheets of foam-board in our garage over the years; each transformed into beautiful, detailed, large scale works of art.

On to the third and most tasty medium: cake!!!  Angie's mom did the most wonderful and horrible thing in the world for her as a child.  Each year for her birthday, Angie's mom slaved away and made beautifully decorated cakes.  In this tradition, Angie blesses us and torments herself multiple times a year to make birthday cakes.  

The first example is proof again that she does not back away from a culinary challenge...Josh asked for her to make a Bakugan cake (replicas of his favorite toy at the time).  One would clearly not be enough to feed everyone at the party so two were in order.  She proceeded to make spherical cakes and rather precisely copy the pattern from the toys onto a round surface....how I have no clue but as you can see...pretty dang cool.

Angie will likely kill me for this one as she will say it is not precise or something like that but she made a tank out of cake...the time she spent making the general form of the cake was nothing in comparison to the untold hours creating a camouflage pattern out of icing.

And yes she does girly cakes too..my niece was up here for her birthday so Angie make a cake...just threw something together.

Jake's birthday is coming up soon...yummy.

More Cake Samples