The Green Fairy Returns

The Green Fairy Returns. Oil on panel, 7" x 5". ©2019.

On a recent trip to Portland, Rick and I visited a favorite cocktail spot from when he lived in the city. It's a hotel bar with a perfectly preserved mid-century vibe, called the Driftwood Room. Everything is spot on, down to the original(?) menu covers. The walls, made of hundreds of strips of interwoven dark wood, had recently been taken down, steam cleaned and replaced in their exact spots from before.

The Driftwood Room is a place where it appears nothing will change, ever. Yet, when we arrived, the bartenders were more than a little excited to show off a new addition to their repertoire: an absinthe fountain which they carried from customer to customer, enthusiastically explaining the correct process of serving and consuming absinthe.

Of course, we tried it. Neither of us is much into licorice, so the flavor was challenging. This in no way stopped me from buying my own absinthe fountain, just to paint. It's almost like the one at the Driftwood Room, except mine has wings.

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Manhattan Nº3

Manhattan Nº3. OIl on panel, 6" x 6". ©2019.

I've noticed that sometimes when I order a drink that has cherries for garnish, the first drink will come with one cherry and the second drink with two. Although I don't always stop at two, I'm pretty sure I have never received a cocktail with three cherries. Three-cherry drinks appear only to exist on Pinterest. Too bad, that is.

Let's pretend this drink came from some mythical Pinterest bar.

Mid Mod Gods

Mid Mod Gods. Oil on panel, 6" x 6". ©2019.

This one was fun! When I was in the thick of making the Mixology with a Twist book, tiki drinks started to make a comeback in some of the on-trend bars where I got my recipes. There is such a wealth of tiki drinks (and great props) out there, I toyed with the idea of making a third, strictly tiki book. By the time I was done making the book, I was ready to stop making books.

But, there were still tiki things to hoard. This glass is new and has been waiting to model for a painting for almost two years. The little jade tiki god picks are mid-century and were a perfectly thoughtful gift from an old friend. The drink is a Mai Tai.

I loved painting the face on this guy. His little whiskers(?) were especially fun. I'm sure we will be seeing him again in the future.

Drunk (Natural) History

This beautiful book has been laying around the house for years, and it never occurred to me to paint it. Then once I started painting it, of course, I wondered what the hell I was thinking. The cover is so busy! But in the end, that helped rather than hurt. After struggling with the title lettering, I started putting in all the frilly green stuff, and it seemed to come together. 

The drink happens to be a Corpse Reviver 2. It's a favorite classic recipe included in my own first illustrated cocktail book, which is not nearly so fancy as the one in the painting.

Dirty, Two Olives

Dirty, Two Olives. Oil on panel, 6" x 6". ©2019.

I'd forgotten how fun olives are to paint. Not that I've painted a lot of them. I rarely paint martinis, even though people love them. They don't have any color! For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me until now to make a dirty martini. That little bit of brine adds just enough haze to the gin* to give it some contrast.

It's been fun the past several days to see how my painting has progressed. Back at the beginning of the Mixology project, it took months for my painting style to simplify and loosen up. This time, the abstraction settled in far more quickly. I'm sure it will come and go depending on the subject matter. But the looseness of this piece works for me. Especially in the olives and cocktail pick.

I think this martini might star in more than one painting this week.

*don't worry, no actual gin was wasted in the making of this painting.

The Prohibition

The Prohibition. Oil on panel, 6"x6". ©2019.

While I may have stopped painting drinks for a few years, I never stopped hoarding props. After the second book printed, a pub in my neighborhood started serving drinks in these cool vintage Luminarc coupes, a set of which they found at a garage sale for a dollar or something. This never happens to me for some reason, maybe because I don't go to garage sales? I think that might be part of it.

Anyway, with a little research, I found my own set on Etsy. They were more than a dollar. But I love them! And at last, one has starred in a painting. It made a great subject, with its graceful shape and just enough detail in the cut glass to be interesting. The Prohibition cocktail was the perfect color to go with the backdrop I randomly collected a year ago, also while not painting cocktails.