Happy Birthday Miles! (and nation)

Happy Birthday today to Miles!! He turns SIX. Aww, my little boy is growing up! *sniff* And his claws come out when he's happy (I'm petting him while taking the picture). Cuuuuute.


Gallery-hopping yesterday was awesome. Super-humid outside, but I walked over to Chelsea after work and went straight to the Philip Pearlstein exhibit to be blown away, just the way I had anticipated. I popped in a few more galleries that caught my eye walking by and happened upon some other awesome works. Scott King had some fluorescent printed posters and wall paintings in the Bortolami gallery on W. 25th st., called "The Trial Continues." I inconspicuously tried to snap a few photos. Ha, I was aiming while not looking, as the room is small and the people working there were eyeing me.




I happened upon a group show that had this painting (painted on a plastic fence! with some super-plastic-like paint) that I really was taken by. I thought I grabbed a flier with the artist's name on it, but I didn't. d'oh.


Buckminster Fuller exhibit! It was geo-tastic!


I curated another treasury yesterday for the Vegan Etsy team that I belong to. Check it out here for the next few days (and this image here for posterity).

Happy 4th everyone. I have a bowl of cherries and pancakes and my doodles to work on all day. I love holidays! I might or might not watch the Macy's display tonight. Rain looks imminent anyways...

Oh today, how I love you so

I have a crazy new series I'm in the process of sketching out right now and I thought I'd offer a few sneak peeks. I'm going to try a different process this time and fully ink out my sketches and possibly digitally color them up, before I make a bigger and brighter painting out of them. I usually just do a small not-so-detailed sketch and then transform it. I'm excited to have the whole long holiday weekend to go sit in coffee shops and work on these. Speaking of coffee shops, last night I went to this new place that replaced my all-time favorite. It made me pretty sad over how much they had changed the place (and most definitely NOT for the better.) It is now this sterile and uncomfortable room with a bare garden area, whereas it used to be one of the comfiest places with it's clutter and randomness and lush garden. So, so sad. I love my neighborhood dearly, but seriously, why do all my favorite places have to bite the dust? Anyways, they make some good iced tea at least (tropicalia!), and once I put my headphones on and concentrate on my work, I usually drown my environment out anyways.

So yeah, those sneak-peeks:




I get out of work early today, at 2pm! I'm gonna go see one of my FAVORITE artist's exhibit afterwards. Philip Pearlstein has a "then and now" exhibit of his work from the 1960's spanning all the way up to the present. I'm so excited! His paintings are quite awe-inspiring in print, not to mention in person. Here is an example, now picture it HUGE. Also, the detail is 10,000,000x insane in real life.

Helloooo

Busy, busy bee: is me!

I don't know where the month of June went, whatsoever, but here we are in July. Holiday weekend coming up and I'm excited to get out early on thursday and have friday completely free. What should I do?!

I finally gave in last night and bought a gocco machine. I have coveted one from afar for a long time now, but they announced they are officially discontinuing the machine this month, so I had to jump or lose my chance foreverrrr. It should be coming from Japan in a few days! Soo excited! If only I get it before the holiday weekend so I can PLAY! Must start sketching some ideas.

Speaking of sketches, here are some doodles:

*swoon*

Liz Phair at the Hiro Ballroom in Manhattan

So I didn't really expect to feel all sorts of emotion while seeing Liz Phair tonight, but hearing Exile in Guyville played in it's entirety brought me straight down memory lane back to college. If I was to pick a defining album for that part of my life, especially the last two years of college, this would be it. Hard to believe this album came out 15 years ago, and it was a really happy moment tonight to realize how well it held up over time and how I still utterly adore it. Liz was great! Very, very happy and carefree and genuinely just rocking out. The crowd also adored her, which I was very glad to see, as she hasn't had the kindest reviews after her last couple of albums and live shows. I feel like I can check this off my "things to do/see in life" list. Hopefully she doesn't fade out of the spotlight again! I left Hiro feeling all sorts of smiley and happy. And now I'm going to listen to the album over and over. :)

I might go to Prospect park tomorrow night to see Cold War Kids and Elvis Perkins. It will be Me vs. Rain on whether I go or not.

Endless berries and other yummers

Kittee's strawberry pie!! SOOOOO good and really easy to make. I added some Rhubarb in with the strawberry jam part. mmm.

My mom made a blueberry bunny pie! She knows the way to my heart: blueberries, bunnies, and hearts. <3 <3 <3 She even gave me the bunny cookie cutter she used, after seeing how much I flipped out over how cute it was! score!




Strawberry buns!! I made the roll part using this recipe, but just used some mushed strawberries (and rhubarb!) with a bit of sugar, as the filling. And, I don't have a spice grinder, so my flax seeds never get ground and they look like bugs. But they're super-yummy, i swear!

Strawberry salad:

Taco Salad! Can you tell I have had a lot of lettuce in my CSA?? Salads galore. I loosely based it off of this recipe (just for the Catalina Dressing idea. Layers go like this: bed of lettuce, pea shoots (!), carrots, and radish, topped with crunched up blue corn chips, topped with homemade catalina dressing, topped with TVP, black beans, lots of spices, topped with GUAC and a chip.


Family BBQ!

Some scenery from home...

Spuddy!!

Sitting on the dock by the lake...the clouds were rolling in really fast and it downpoured about 20 minutes later.


Pansies are the cutest flowers ever! They're totally smiley.

My mom's rosemary:

basil:

random flowers:

Tuesday, Wednesday, break my heart

I'm back from a well-rested and happy weekend with my family. I got to see a lot of my extended family as well, with a big mega-bbq picnic on sunday. I had to leave early to go to the airport at 6, but should have stayed. I didn't even board my plane until 10:30pm! Super-delayed, I didn't get home to my apartment until almost 1am. I was mostly grumbly yesterday and if I did say or anything, it was probably in the form of "!#$!!#@%!." Ha. Much better (and rested) today. I'm going to work late tonight and then make a strawberry pie (!!!) when I get home.

Here are some doodles from this past weekend:

big tall man with big tall shoes


sitting on the dock of the lake


blooming flowers on my parent's deck

peaceful weekend

This is what i see when squirrels come near me. Oh, they scare me so. They don't know how to keep their distance, especially NYC squirrels. Forget ever trying to eat in a park. It's depressing how much they terrify me, really.

I'm going home to visit my family this weekend (leaving tonight actually!) and I cannot wait for some peace and quiet. This week has been crazy-hectic at work and it's been making me feel all googley-eyed and zombie-like. It will be nice to be out in the countryside. Plus, I haven't seen my family since xmas!!

No computer access there, so the shop is kinda closed up for the weekend and I won't have internet access (which is a good thing every once in awhile...)

adios!