Catherine Venable

Get your sweet fix by dippin that finger into a pan of left over icing. Gorgeous, radiant and brilliant women making outstanding cakes and walking the high-wire. It’s no circus act-a bunch of hard work.

A Bee in Juana’s Bonnet

The new restaurant series is now on view at TOAST, a new American Gastropub located in the Village Shopping Center at 7007 Three Chopt Road in Richmond, Virginia.  A wonderful place to eat and have a libation.  Their selection of music is outstanding!

Oyster on the Half-Shell.  Had to do it…this play on Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.  Two Croxton cousins, Travis and Ryan have breathed new energy into their family’s oyster business which is over one hundred years old.  I imagine them gathering celestial angels and blowing life into a new venture, perhaps fulfilling their great-grandfather’s dream.

This is the birth of Rappahannock, the pearl among Richmond restaurants.  As Food Critic for Style Weekly Devon Timberlake wrote, the oysters are the star attraction, arriving on the half shell with pearls of caviar, briny and bright

Listening to World Music on NPR, watching SNL and painting.  Including in the Yellow Umbrella painting this handsome face.  This establishment is the most incredible fresh seafood market located on Patterson Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

Dixie Donuts throwing Chihuly charm. They are located on Cary Street across from the Byrd Theatre and near the Museum District in the Richmond. So why not celebrate the famed glass blower, Chihuly? Virginia. Here the staff enjoys the endeavor of making delicious donuts along with outstanding creative inventions.

My muse at Amuse a restaurant located in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  The muse is reclining in the classic Odalisque position.  Behold, the silver tray holding her task:

the staff that amuses the incoming patrons of the museum, with an image of the museum in the background.

Don’t Look Back is a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia.  Nate, the owner, started with a taco truck, then recently opened a  restaurant “Don’t Look Back”  in Carytown.  When I visited, I went to the patio outside.  On the brick wall is a painting with an island scene, sky, palm trees rising out of dunes, ocean with beach.  In my rendition, I painted the image that is on the back wall, with a twist.  Nate is in the foreground on the left, adjusting his “do” rag getting ready to work, his kitchen manager, Roy is serving at the window, a family picnics on the beach tacos delivered.  Having Island fun with this one.

This is a painting I am currently working on.  Pasture opened on Grace Street in a building that was known for it’s fur vault.  As a young adult, trying on these furs provided entertainment for many.  This depicts a clearing of the furs so that pasture could be opened.  The entrepreneurs are standing to the right, speculating on their future dream.

This is a restaurant located in the fan district in the city of Richmond.  Nick opened the restaurant approximately 40 years ago.  Over time, he bought the building next door and tied the two together, one having a bar, the other side more family style.  This painting depicts the changing of the guard, from one generation to the other.