Fair Food

"Crinkle Fries" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Gessobord, 6" x 6". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Here’s another painting of something I can’t eat. I loved these things when I still ate white potatoes.

These days I have a new love – sweet potato fries! OMG, they are so good! Much tastier than white potato fries, and they barely raise my blood sugar. I serve them with a garlicky dipping sauce made with Greek yogurt. Yum!

A few images from along the way:

"Caramel Apple, No Nuts" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Gessobord, 5" x 7". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Ten years ago this week, I gave up sugar forever. So I’ll celebrate by painting apples covered in caramelized sugar. I used to love these things! Ate a lot of them as a kid growing up next to a ten acre apple orchard. My mom would melt Kraft caramels in a double boiler with a little cream, then dip the crisp fresh apples in it. Yum! The taste of Autumn. No nuts for me, though.

Here are a few images captured along the way:

"Dogs" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Multimedia Artboard, 5 x 7". Copyright ©2010 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

It was early morning at the State Fair, and the food vendors were setting up for the day. This brightly colored hot dog booth glowed in the sunlight. My favorite part was the giant graphic hot dog with mustard displayed on the skirt of the booth.

Here are a few shots taken along the way:

Sign backgrounds go on first…

Then the scary part – the lettering. I tried to go slowly, then fixed my mistakes with the background color.

Whew! Adding those final details was a bit nerve-wracking. In an effort to keep from overworking today’s painting, I told myself I couldn’t stop for dinner until this one was done. That provided the incentive I needed to finish quickly. Now I am off to enjoy my reward, grilled chicken and summer squash fresh from the garden.

"Candy Apple Reds" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Raymar canvas panel, 12 x 9". Copyright ©2010 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

One of the things I’ll be painting this summer is Fair Food. My diet is very controlled so I’m painting things I’d never dream of putting in my mouth. Like these candied apples, which to me are pretty but deadly. Does anyone really eat these things? When I was a kid, we thought the caramel ones were good, but the red candied apples usually got tossed after a bite or two.