Mark W. Stevens claims…

Butterfly, abstract oil painting

Just wanted to give a quick update that I’ve added more oil paintings to my drying rack page.

Green Machine, 18" x 24" nature inspired original abstract oil painting

FREE SHIPPING to anywhere in the United States

Howdy, just wanted to let you all I’ve got about 20 oil paintings that are dry enough to ship. I’ll be listing them at Mark’s Corner, my Etsy shop, over the next month. I’m thinking about listing a painting or two a day until I run out.

Rocks, 18 x 24 oil painting

From November 27th through November 30th I’ll be offering my paintings at 22% – 26% off their current price. Please visit Mark’s Corner at Etsy.com during those dates to take advantage of the savings! Or you can click on the art for sale link at the top of this page to do the same thing.

- Mark

Turbulence

Just a quick note to let you know I added another 6 abstract oil paintings to my drying rack. Enjoy!

- Mark

This is the basic bread recipe and method that we use for burger buns, pizza dough, etc… Actually, it’s not so much a recipe as, I dunno, guidelines? I’ve found bread making to be as much an art as a science, so forgive me if some of the details are kind of vague.

From left to right: Starter, Yeast, Oats, White Wheat Flour, Kosher Salt, & Bread Flour.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Starter
• 1 tsp Yeast
• 1/2 cup water (filtered tastes better)
• 1/2 cup Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 cup White Whole Wheat
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1 cup Bread Flour (give or take a little, more on that in Step 5)
• A few drops of Olive Oil (to lightly coat the dough before letting it rise)

The Procedure:

1. Combine and mix starter, yeast, water, and oats in mixing bowl. Let sit 10 minutes to hydrate the oats and dissolve the yeast.
2. Add all the White Whole Wheat flour, salt, and 1/2 cup of the Bread flour.
3. Turn the mixer  on setting 2 (with a dough hook) just until the ingredients pull together into a ball.
4. Cover the doughball with plastic wrap let let sit for 20 minutes. This lets the flour fully hydrate before kneading.
   

   Dough hydrating under wrap.

5. Knead the dough on setting 3 for about 25 minutes until the dough is smooth. Slowly add as much of the remaining Bread Flour as needed during this stage. We like the dough somewhat sticky for burger buns and somewhat firmer for pizza dough. I know, I know, that’s kinda vague. I’d say we only add about 1/4 cup of the Bread Flour for buns, but we use most of the remaining 1/2 cup for pizza dough. We almost never use the full leftover 1/2 cup for either version. Experience is the best teacher when it comes to bread (see pic below). My rule of thumb, however, is sticky dough = soft light bread and not sticky dough = dense heavy bread.
   

   Our pizza dough after 25 minutes in the mixer.

6. Place dough onto a floured surface and knead it by hand for a few minutes just to make it look nice and to add anymore flour if you think it needs it.
7. Form dough into a ball, roll it around in a lightly oiled bowl to coat the dough (we use olive oil).
8. Let dough rise, covered with plastic wrap for about 2 hours (if you use more yeast it will take less time) until it doubles in bulk.
   

   Our fully risen dough.

9. Form dough into a pizza shape or burger buns or whatever you want to make. We get 8 burger buns from this recipe. They are formed into flattened disks about 3″ in diameter (I use my middle finger as a guide. I know, it looks like I’m angry at them).
10. Let formed buns or pizza rise again for about 30 – 45 minutes, until they look like they’re a little puffy.

We cook our burger buns at 375°F for 15 minutes, and our pizza (with toppings) at 475°F for about 12-13 minutes.  We don’t make loaves, so I can’t tell you how to cook them. When our pizza looks like the picture below, it’s ready. I use the color of the crust as a guideline. If it gets too dark it tastes a little burnt. Our rule of thumb: Golden = Yummy. Once again, experience is the best teacher.

Our finished pizza. The moisture from the onions on the left half inhibits cheese browning.

…and that is how we make our breads. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment and I will reply!

- Mark

The Passing of Autumn - One of my favorite new paintings.

Just a quick note to let you know I’ve added the ‘drying rack‘ to my site. This page is for paintings that are finished but still need to dry before I can list them for sale.  It takes about 2 months for a painting to dry before I feel comfortable enough to ship it.  I’ll be fine tuning the new page over the next few days to include potential sale dates for each painting. Thanks everyone!

- Mark

Blue Swirl, 9x12 Oil Painting on Canvas

Howdy hey! I’ve almost completed the change from goatlike to markwstevens. My new etsy shop, Mark’s Corner, is now online and I’m slowly listing my paintings for sale again. The official address for the shop is http://www.markwstevens.etsy.com.

Thanks for lookin’! – Mark

If you were to do a search for “goatlike” the results would be Satan and me. I don’t like that, never have. I’ve decided just to be myself. My main domain name will soon be www.markwstevens.com. Goatlike will still get you to my site, but it will no longer be the dominant address.

Sure, I thought it was clever and fun, but I have no desire to have my life and art associated with the devil. I’m not an evil guy, I’m just another schlub muddling his way through life like everyone else. There will be few “goatlike” remnants around the web. Most notably my etsy shop. I can’t change my username over there, so I’ll be keeping that for the near term. Once the current batch of listings expires I may change my mind and start a new shop under a new name. It actually might happen sooner than that if the mood hits me.

(11/9/09 – I’ve decided to switch my etsy shop in the next few days. Thanks!)

- Mark

Tinker, my neighbors cat. Missing since at least 10/26/09

We got a flier in our mailbox yesterday. One of our neighbors is missing their cat. Losing a pet is heartbreaking enough, not knowing what happened… is a feeling I can’t describe.

I used to have a cat, Kato. And I am guilty of letting him roam free. Had I known then what I know now about the damage house cats to do local wildlife (and what local wildlife can do to a cat) I never would have let him outside in the first place. He would meow at the door, I’d let him out, and he’d go missing for days… even during blizzards!  Those were the longest days of my life. When he got older and we moved into a new home we decided to keep him indoors, and boy am I glad we did. When he died (on Oct 20th, 2007) he was at home on the foot of my bed. I was with him when he coughed his last breath. It was painful, but at least I knew what happened and why. He was old, his time had come, and we were together.

The last photo we took of my buddy, Kato. He died of old age a few weeks after this photo was taken.

The heartache of not knowing what happened to a pet is not the only reason to keep your cat indoors. There are people out there who shoot “stray” cats, people who trap them and have them fixed without your knowledge, and wild animals that can kill them. House cats also do great damage to local wildlife, with birds and rodents being the primary victims. Granted a good mouser is hard to find, but local wildlife needs those rodents too.

Here are a couple links to websites and forum threads about the issue:

Laws on Shooting Feral Cats – Whether you agree or disagree with the content of the posts is irrelevant. Your cat’s life is at risk if you let it wander outside.

Feral house cat control and management – Your cat may be trapped and taken to animal control, then your buddy’s fate is in someone else’s hands.

Endangered Shorebirds Killed by Feral Cats – From New Hampshire Fish and Game. Cats are indiscriminate killers of wildlife.

“Managed” Cat Colonies: The Wrong Solution – From www.wildspirit.org, a wild animal rescue organization.

House Cat Control and Management Information – Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management. Several good links on the issue at the bottom of their page.

A quick search on the topic will show how big the problem is. Feral cat, stray cat, or house cat it doesn’t matter.  Your cat doesn’t care if the wildlife it kills is endangered, and the people who are fed up with the problem will probably not care if your cat is a pet or a stray. A coyote won’t care how much you love your pet anymore than a car, a parasite, or a disease will.

I hope my neighbors find their pet, but I fear that Tinker is gone. We often see him on our trail camera, but the shot at the top of this article is the last one we got. My guess is he got taken by a coyote or bobcat. Maybe he ate something poisonous or diseased. Or maybe another neighbor shot him. I just don’t know and his owners probably never will either.

The solution is simple, keep your house cats in the house and you’ll never have to worry about where it is, what it’s killing, what it’s eating, or what something or someone is doing to it.

- Mark

I was watching game 6 of the world series last night and on twitter as well. Sure enough, “Yanks” was trending, so I clicked on it to see what people had to say. I didn’t expect to go back in time!

What's wrong with this picture? Aside from the fact that I'm on twitter, that is.