Karin Wanderer Learns

Long ago when we were young, the esteemed Wolfe3D visited this blog & showed us how to make delicious homemade pizza! That recipe makes 4 pizza’s worth of dough from scratch. This week I’ll be showing you 2 wonderful recipes you can make with that dough! (You could also make these recipes with store-bought pizza dough if you like.) These recipes are great if you are out of pizza toppings or not in the mood for pizza (which I have been assured happens, although I don’t quite believe it.) Each recipe uses 1 pizza’s worth of dough

Fougasse

Fougasse is kind of like French focaccia. Back in the days when wood-fired ovens were cutting-edge technology, fougasse was used as a sort of “test loaf” to make sure the oven was the right temperature for further baking. This recipe is super easy, delicious, & fast! It is also highly customizable; I tend to make it with whatever I have on hand. Even if all you have is pizza dough & olive oil this makes a delicious bread!

Baked Fougasse

Ingredients

• One pizza dough
• Olive oil
• Dried or fresh herbs, finely grated cheese, or sea salt (optional)

Unbaked Fougasse

Instructions

• Shape the pizza dough like a leaf, then use a sharp knife to make the slashes for the leaf’s veins.
• Pull the cuts further apart than I did so they stay open while baking.
• Let rest for 20 minutes
• Brush generously with olive oil
• Sprinkle on any toppings- keep it light!
• Bake 20 minutes at 425 F (220 c)
• It is common to brush on even more oil after the fougasse comes out of the oven. I tend to skip this step.
• This bread cools quickly!

Scallion Pancake Bread

This bread is everything you love about scallion pancakes, in a delicious loaf of bread. I like to say it’s healthier due to being baked instead of fried, but eating the entire loaf in one sitting probably negates that. Worth it!

Baked Scallion Pancake Bread

Ingredients

• One pizza dough
• Toasted sesame oil
• Toasted sesame seeds
• Scallions (green onions), sliced

Instructions

Unrolled Scallion Pancake Bread

• Stretch out the dough, brush with toasted sesame oil, sprinkle on sesame seeds and lots of green onions. Roll tightly into a long skinny log.

Rolled Scallion Pancake Bread

• Curl dough into a spiral
• Let rest 30 min

Ready to bake!

• Brush on more sesame oil and seeds and a little salt.
• Bake 35 min @ 400 F (205 c)
• Bake until very nicely browned; stuffed dough bakes slow!
• Give this bread a good long time to cool

Enjoy!

I hope you like these recipes. If you make them, please post pictures & tag me (@KarinWanderer on all the socials). We'll be back next week with a brand-new #KWPrompts art challenge, & the week after that I'll be back to geeking out about color in my ColorFull series.

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
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Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt! The new #KWPrompts is #CoolCats

The Calm Before The Storm

Let’s spend the next 2 weeks playing with Cats! You can submit cats every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pictures randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want. Just make sure you tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Imp Cat wants to play

Use #KWPrompts #CoolCats &/or tag me so I can see how you think!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed.

If I Fits…

Good news, everyone! All of the paintings seen here are available as useful art in my Wandering Art Shop! You can buy my art on mugs, notebooks, & practically indestructible vinyl stickers for you to put on even more useful things!

Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Welcome to #ColorFull part 3!

Logos are a bit of visual shorthand; a symbol used as an identifier for an organization in place of (or supplementary to) their name. They have been around a long time, in one form or another. Nobility had seals, signets, & coats of arms. Expert crafters, such as jewelers or blacksmiths, often stamped their works with their ‘maker's mark.’ Today, logos are a pervasive part of our culture. Even science gets logos: NASA’s logo is just as recognizable as their stellar photography

Take a moment to look around you. The odds are good that, wherever you are, you are surrounded by logos right now. There may even be one on the screen you’re using to read this very article!

This picture has a notable lack of branding on the electronics & food.

A lot goes into designing logos. There is so much variety! Anyone trying to come up with a new logo is truly spoiled for choice. Is your logo going to use symbols? Letters? A mix of both? Will it be colorful or monochromatic? Is it intended to be used alongside a slogan, or to stand on its own? Will there be different versions for different uses, or are you looking for a one-size-fits-all type of logo? The questions go on & on. Lucky for me- this is a #ColorFull series, so I don’t have to go on & on.

Color is Crucial

Color is an absolutely essential aspect to consider when designing a logo. To understand why, look no further than classic rivals Pepsi & Coca-Cola. I didn’t link to their logos there, but did I need to? When you read their names you were probably able to picture each soda’s distinctive logo. Just in case you can’t: Coca-Cola has a red can with white script reading ‘Coca-Cola’. Pepsi has a blue can with the Pepsi Globe on it- a circle with red, white, & blue lines swooshing across it with black or dark blue print reading ‘Pepsi’. These competing brands have such incredibly different logos that you could never mistake one for the other.

Color plays an enormous part in making sure you can discern which brand is which, even at a distance. Way back when Pepsi was still Pepsi-Cola its label looked quite different: red script on a white background. If I walked into a supermarket aisle these days & saw red cans with white script & white cans with red script, I might just think all of it was regular & diet Coca-Cola. Pepsi-Cola must have had the same thought, because as competition between themselves & Coca-Cola ramped up they dropped the “-Cola” from their name & changed their logo to the now-famous Pepsi Globe. The logo has been presented with more & more blue, until the most recent version is the Pepsi Globe on a can that is not only blue, but electric blue. Coca-Cola has responded by leaning heavily on the red/white logos. Recently when Disney Parks opened Star War attractions their Coca-Cola sodas had labels in Aubresh, but they are still perfectly recognizable.

Color is so powerful it can sometimes represent the company even better than the logo. Google’s capital G logo is just an unremarkable letter- until you add the rainbow coloring, at which point it is recognizably the Google logo. Do you know offhand what the UPS logo looks like? I don’t. I had to look it up. But I could tell you without looking that UPS colors are brown & yellow. If I see a person in a brown uniform getting out of a brown & yellow truck I will immediately assume they are delivering something. Once in Italy I saw a person in a brown uniform getting out of a brown & yellow truck & I was genuinely surprised to find out it was a moving company!

Of course, not all logos depend so heavily on color. The logo on your iPhone can be just about any color, but it is still the same recognizable apple. The same goes for Android’s logo; although the Robot is usually green, that is not a hard & fast rule. Do you even know what the “official” color of the Nike Swoosh or the Disney Castle are? Such ‘color-flexible’ logos can shift & change with the times or situation, but the color is still an important element that is carefully considered before such changes are made. You’re probably not going to see a pukey brown Nike Swoosh, unless that color somehow becomes trendy. It has happened before.

Now that you’ve read this, spend some more time paying attention to the logos that surround you day after day. Are the logos reliant on color, or are they color flexible? What colors did the organization choose? How does the color choice make you feel? What message is the organization trying to convey with their color choice? What if the colors were wildly different, e.g. a blue logo was orange, or a dark logo was neon? Would that change what you feel when you see the logo? How? Color psychology is its own whole can of worms, & so we will have to give it its own article in the future!

I don’t have a logo, but I do have an avatar. Do you think that counts? Last time in the #ColorFull series, we talked about how different people see color. Did you figure out your CPT? How do you think that affects the way you feel about different logos? Let me know! Mastodon BlueSky

Tune in on future Tuesdays to learn more about color!

We’ll be talking about how our ancestors made pigments & what they used them for. We’ll be talking about how we currently make pigments & what we use them for. We’ll be talking about how we physically see color, how we categorize it, & how we organize it. Additionally, we’ll be getting down to brass tacks & talking about specific colors! It’s going to be a wild ride.

My 2-week #KWPrompts art challenge is ongoing!

We still have another week of the #Animals prompt Check out the #KWPrompts list for more information!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt! The new #KWPrompts is #Animals

Let’s spend the next 2 weeks playing with #Animals! You can submit pictures every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pictures randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want. Just make sure you tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Use #KWPrompts #Animals &/or tag me so I can see how you think!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed.

Good news, everyone! All of the animal paintings seen here are available as useful art in my Wandering Art Shop! Get these wonderful animals on mugs, notebooks, & practically indestructible vinyl stickers for you to stick on even more useful things!

Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Welcome to #ColorFull part 2!

What is Your Personality Type?

Forget Myers-Briggs, HEXACO, & whatever else is trending right now- the only personality type that matters is your Color Personality Type! I found this breakdown in “Color Theory For Dummies” by Eric Hibit, & I absolutely love it. I think this is something he came up with for the book, but I genuinely could not tell you if it exists in other places as well. This is because “color-based personality tests” are so popular on the internet that it is impossible to find a specific one! All of them want to know if you are a “red” personality type, or a “blue-orange” one, but Hibit’s test is different. These CPTs are much more revelatory; people are categorized according to how they view color & think it should be used. Doesn’t that make more sense?

What Are the Different Color Personality Types?

Color Conformists

Color conformists – you guessed it! – comply with the color stereotypes associated with the time, place, & culture they live in. They may, for example, have specific ideas about which babies should wear which colors or when to stop wearing white clothing. If society’s opinion of a color shifts, then a color conformist may begin to follow the new standard (e.g- the “white after Labor Day” rule is pretty outdated) but they will never be an early adopter.

Red cardinal, brown branch; all is right in the Color Conformists’ world.

Color Outliers

Color outliers recognize the color stereotypes that exist in the time, place, & culture they live in. Unlike color conformists, they enjoy defying those stereotypes. Think Pierce Brosnan & Dwayne Johnson wearing pink to their movie premier, or all the lovely games people play with bridal gowns these days. This basilisk is a terrifying monster in a friendly color palette.

Color Iconoclasts

Color iconoclasts are the exact opposite of color conformists. Color iconoclasts recognize the color stereotypes that exist in the time, place, & culture they live in, & they want to burn it all down! They are radical in the truest sense of the word- they want to challenge color traditions at the root. They defy traditions that insist they must wear a particular color for a vaguely cultural reason. Child Me was certainly a color iconoclast; frequently being forced to wear pink made me question the veracity of any & all color traditions from a very early age!

Color Expressives

Color expressives use color to proclaim something about themselves. Such a person may wear their favorite color all the time, or red when they need to be assertive, or funeral colors to weddings. They may dye their hair a color that they feel suits them better. They may be very specific about how they paint/decorate their homes- relaxing colors in the bedroom, fun ones in the den, somber ones in a workroom… For color expressives, colors are never just a nice thing to look at, but a conscious choice made after deliberate thought.

I want a turtle in my favorite colors & I will not let reality get in my way!

Color Fluid

Color fluid people are neither one thing nor the other—neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring! They combine any/all of the color personality types described above. They also are very flexible; they are more likely to shift & change which aspects of what Color Personality Types they ascribe to over time than anyone who identifies with one single type.

What Is Your Color Personality Type

So, what do you think? Are you an Outlier? An Iconoclast? A more Fluid combination? Have you always felt that way, or has your type shifted over time? I’ve been reading a lot about color theory over the last few months, & I have to say this style of categorization really appeals to me. I’m mostly a Color Expressive, but occasionally a knee jerk Iconoclast. I guess that makes me Color Fluid! Which are you?

Tune in on future Tuesdays to learn more about color!

We’ll be talking about how our ancestors made pigments & what they used them for. We’ll be talking about how we currently make pigments & what we use them for. We’ll be talking about how we physically see color, how we categorize it, & how we organize it. Finally, we’ll be getting down to brass tacks & talking about specific colors! It’s going to be a wild ride.

My 2-week #KWPrompts art challenge is ongoing!

We still have another week of the #IdleHues prompt Check out the #KWPrompts list for more information!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt! The new #KWPrompts is #IdleHues

I’ve been reading & writing a lot about color lately. This has been making me examine my old art with a new eye, & I’ve realized something: I hardly ever use the color red!

How is this possible? How can I paint so much without using red, a primary color? Simple: I like to paint with a palette that uses cyan-magenta-yellow, not blue-red-yellow.

These are all my colors, the wheel is my 3 favorite CMY primaries

I practically never use red. I very rarely use orange. I don’t even see a lot of reddish browns in my older paintings! So, Red Hues are my #IdleHues. I will spend the next 2 weeks focusing on using more reds!

Take a little time & look at your old art. What color(s) are missing? What are your #IdleHues?

Let’s spend the next 2 weeks using colors we usually leave alone!

90% of my red paintings are foxes.

Use #KWPrompts #IdleHues &/or tag me @KarinWanderer so I can see how you think!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky IG

10% of my red paintings are fan art

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Welcome to #ColorFull part 1!

Color is light alone, but it is experienced so directly & powerfully that we think of it as a physical entity. ~Linda Holtzschue

Do you remember learning your colors? I don’t. I can remember learning fancy color words like “camel” or “periwinkle,” but broad categories like “brown” & “purple” feel like they have always been in my vocabulary! How old were you when you learned that color is perceived a little bit differently from person to person? How old were you when you learned that you see color a little bit differently from moment to moment?

Color perception depends on many things. It depends on who is looking at the color- as we’ve mentioned before, everyone is the same in that everyone is different! That extends to colors as well. A small percentage of the population has Color Vision Deficiency (CVD – sometimes referred to as being ‘color blind’) but people with typical color vision will each see colors differently, too. Color perception also depends on what other colors are around it- yellow will look brighter against a dull gray background than it will against a hot pink one. It depends on the medium the color is made of- the same soft blue will look different in colored pencil than it will in acrylic paint, or cake frosting, or on a computer screen. It depends on the light you are using to look at the color- a red couch can seem brown or even black in dim light.

This hummingbird’s bright green feathers look even brighter against beige

At the same time, your own knowledge can change how you perceive color. Most people could tell you that a couch is red. An interior decorator might specify that the couch is crimson, or alizarin, or cadmium. And if you know the couch is red, then see it in the dark, you won’t find yourself wondering “OMG who painted my couch black!!!???” This is because of a little thing called “color constancy,” where your brain will still be telling you that the couch is red.

‘Color constancy’ is a nice little shortcut for your brain to take, handily remembering what color things should be & filling that information in for you. This means your brain doesn’t have to note the hue of every single thing you see every single time you see it. Considering all the other things your brain is keeping track of all the time, this is very convenient! Maybe a little too convenient…

Once you “know” what color something is going to be, that ‘memory color’ can get you into trouble. Memory color is why people often paint the ocean blue, even if the water in front of them is gray or green or clear. They “know” it’s blue, so they don’t really look at their reference.

Your brain plays a lot with color, actually. Most people these days report that their memory, dreams, & daydreams are typically in color. In the 1940s, when television was still black & white, a much higher percentage of people reported that their dreams were “rarely” or “never” in color! Headaches & head trauma can make you see color, or even feel it. For example, when I get a particularly bad headache everything ‘feels’ red, even though I don’t actually see anything as red.

This series of articles about color will be focused mainly on the visible spectrum (or as we tend to call it, “light”), as humans typically perceive it. I have to limit the focus to humans, or this series would never end as I talked about all the animals who see differently than we do! But you all know me, I can’t just not talk about animals. As such I’m going to take a paragraph now to infodump talk about how other animals see color. Many insects & birds see in ultraviolet light, which completely changes how plants look. Some snakes see infrared light, aiding their heat detection even in pitch black environments. Nocturnal animals often, but not always, see almost entirely in achromatic tones- also known as grayscale. Insectivorous bats see in grayscale, & fruit bats see colors, which helps them spot the ripest fruit! Animals also use color in the wild, most notably the bowerbirds and their famous nests. Zoos use color as enrichment activities for the animals they care for, so I will end this digression with a lovely video from the Smithsonian that shows lots of different animals painting!.

Tune in on future Tuesdays to learn more about color!

We’ll be talking about how our ancestors made pigments & what they used them for. We’ll be talking about how we currently make pigments & what we use them for. We’ll be talking about how we physically see color, how we categorize it, & how we organize it. Finally, we’ll be getting down to brass tacks & talking about specific colors! It’s going to be a wild ride. I can't wait!

In the meantime – in between times – my #KWPrompts art challenge is ongoing!

We still have another week of the #LimitedPalette prompt Check out this link for more information!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt!

The new #KWPrompts is #LimitedPalette

Two colors

What counts as a “limited palette” is up to you! Will you limit yourself to only 2 colors? Only analogous colors? Only neon? Let's spend the next 2 weeks focusing on what we can do within these arbitrary boundaries. Would you like to learn more? Check out is Hazel Soan’s The Art of the Limited Palette (#NotSponsored)

Three colors

Use #KWPrompts #LimitedPalette &/or tag me @KarinWanderer so I can see how you think!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

Three colors

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed.

Three colors This duck was supposed to just use yellow & sienna, but then I splattered it with blue from another painting & didn't notice until it had dried. Always protect you work, friends, & be prepared to roll with your mistakes!

Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Hello & Hello again! Every so often on this blog, we take a break & share a recipe instead of talking about art. Here is where you can find every #recipe. Would you like to share a recipe in a future blog post? Let me know!

These jam tarts are fantastic & easy to make! Use whatever flavor of jam you like- just make sure it is seedless. The original recipe was for an 8 inch tart but I prefer to bake them in a 12-cup muffin tin.

This Week We’re Making Jam Tarts!

Ingredients

Crust: * ½ c butter, melted * 1 c 2 tbl AP flour * ½ c sugar * 1 tsp vanilla extract * ½ tsp almond extract * ½ tsp salt

Instructions

• Mix all to a crumbly dough & press lightly into muffin tin

• Bake ~12 minutes at 350°F – until the crust is just barely starting to brown

• While the crust bakes, mix everything in the Topping list except for the jam

Ingredients

Topping: * 1 c Greek yogurt or ricotta cheese * 1 egg, lightly beaten * 2 tbl sugar * ½ tsp vanilla * 1 tsp of whatever spices pair well with your jam (I used cardamom)

• 12 tbl seedless jam (I used blueberry)

Instructions

• Take the muffin tin out of the oven, but LEAVE THE OVEN ON with the door closed.
• Divide topping mix evenly between muffin cups- it's about 1 tablespoon each
• Top each with 1 tablespoon jam
• Put it back in the oven ~45 minutes (still at 350°F) – until the jam starts to caramelize.
• Let the tart(s) cool for a bit in the tin, then remove from tin(s) & let them cool entirely on a wire rack.
• Do not eat them before they are fully cooled as they will burn the heck out of your mouth (ask me how I know!)

The #KWPrompt is #Monochrome for 1 more week!

Let's spend the next week focusing on what we can do with only one color. Show me how you think!

Use #KWPrompts #Monochrome &/or tag me @KarinWanderer so I can see your art

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky IG

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed.

Have a fantastic day, enjoy these tarts while you draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt!

The new #KWPrompts is #Monochrome

Some subjects are already monochromatic, which makes things easy

Let's spend the next 2 weeks focusing on what we can do with one color at a time.

This art challenge is a tribute to the #NDDoodle challenge, now retired

Use #KWPrompts #Monochrome &/or tag me @KarinWanderer so I see your art

Show me how you think!

Don't sleep on this art challenge!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky IG

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, the best art challenge on the internet!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.