Halloween 2017

Another Halloween done, and it was a good one.  For the past 3 or 4 years we've been invited to a Halloween party to help give out candy to and watch 600 to 700 kids trick or treating in Lexington. It's a good excuse for us mature (better than saying old) people to get together,  wear costumes, eat, drink and be merry.

The thing I like most about being invited to this party is coming up with costumes, though, I'll admit, I find it a bit challenging and make a bigger deal out of it than I probably should.  I don't want to have the lamest costumes.  It's also great fun hanging out with friends and seeing the kids all dressed up and watching them look at us and all the decorations.  Some kids seem scared and some fascinated.

This year James and I were Van Gogh and his self-portrait.

 By the time I took these last two pictures, James (or, my portrait) had worn off his beard.  It could have been from eating all the tasty snacks and wiping his mouth.

I had envisioned this wonderful portrait painted on his face but Walmart face paints were not very good paints and no matter what I did, I couldn't make it look like real paint on his face.  I was tempted to use acrylic paints but was afraid it would stain, or worse.

Here are some other interesting looking characters.

 I wish you could see the line to come up to this house.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

Neither does this video.  The steady stream of kids trick or treating is pretty amazing.  So are our friends' decorations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKbu-P_hR-Q&feature=youtu.be

Happy Halloween.

Elk Cliff Farm Poker

I've been dressing the animals for Halloween for the past 4 or 5 years.  It gets more and more challenging coming up with costume ideas, and ones that fit animals, and I can put on them quickly and get a photo. This year I got really lazy.  Since it's 5 days before Halloween I can say this isn't really a Halloween post anyway.  I decided to anthropomorphize the animals in paint, using the Dogs Playing Poker theme.

James and I will still be dressing up for Halloween.  That post will follow.

Different strokes for different folks

I've been on a portrait painting kick lately.  I've mentioned before how I've been trying to figure out what my painting style is but it never seems to get any clearer, because one day I can paint a face a particular way and it feels really good.  Then another day I'll paint another face in a different way and it feels equally as right.  Here are 3 portraits I've painted just a few weeks apart.  Maybe it just happens to be the mood I'm in that day that affects my style.  Or maybe the face says, "paint me this way".

 Casual pose, palette knife.

 More serious, serene, smaller brushes and more realistic.

 Loose and happy.

Beef tongue tacos

This was one of my more successful offal dinners.  We try to use what we can from every animal we butcher but some parts just aren't palatable.  Remember my kidney fail?  Well, turns out, beef tongue is very tender and delicious, and is also very large.

It was very simple to cook too.  I boiled it for 2 hours, peeled it, cut it up and prepared it like you would any other meat for tacos.

James thought it was good.  I thought it was great.