Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Apple of my Eye

Beautiful day out! This is that painting I was talking about. I've been eating a whole lot of apples lately, which is something that isn't very common this time of year. It's the only fruit at the farmer's market though! Lonely apples. And they have been pretty tasty too. Ohhh, I can't wait for summer fruits though. This is the time of year when I get antsy for more variety in my fruits/veggies. No more root veggies!

Anyways, this was painted with watercolor and gouache on a heavily gessoed pine board. 16"x20". Prints are available in my shop!




Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Yeah, I like pet worms

So I haven't had a chance to scan that painting yet, as it's been rainy and gross here and I don't want to chance taking it outside to bring to work and scan. Hopefully it will be nice out tomorrow and I can bring it.

I've been up to my ears in planters! I almost had a crisis when Home Depot ran out of the terracotta planters and the sales associate was real lame about telling me when the next shipment would come in. I scoured the flower shops of Greenpoint looking for planters and managed to find 6 and this cute little lady's shop. Thankfully, Home Depot restocked today so I bought a big supply (now to get them home without breaking any...hmm). People like cuteycakes. :)

I do have a drawing I have been working on to show though! I have had a thing for fat 'lil birds lately. I think it is because of all the twitterpated boy birds I've seen outside, chasing after the girl birds, with their chests all puffed up. I'm not quite done with this image yet; I think I want to do an antiqued version with sepia-colored lines on a yellowed watercolor wash. Anyways, pet worms make me smile.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

apples with pb on it is so awesome.

First off, this makes me sad. I carefully gessoed this piece of cedar, that I got at the farmer's market, and sketched everything all out. The next morning, there was this GIANT crack right down the middle of it and it keeps growing everyday. Boo!! Lesson learned: fresh cedar does not like me and my painterly ideas and impatient ways, and this is what i get for contributing to its downfall. :(

see? sad.


Yesterday was Dr. Sketchy's Anti-art school and Amelia Danger was the model, in full ballerina awesomeness. She was a great model; Sometimes a little too good, with some kinda unnaturally bendy poses that just made me look like I drew her wrong. Her outfit was pretty awesome also, paired with the pink and yellow lights. I forgot my brushes, so just pen this week. She's holding a metric-ton of tulle in both doodles. 10 min. and 20 min., respectively.



I bought a big paper bag of apples at the farmer's market yesterday, so they made their way into breakfast this morning: apple cinnamon pancakes. mmm...


This morning, I woke up all bleary-eyed and rushed a few blocks down to Warsaw for Bust's Spring Fling craft fair. Had to beat the crowds! I got there at 11:30 and it was already bustling. I got myself some yummy smelly things from Lollibomb's booth and called it a day. Lots of fun free things too.

I have a brand new painting that I will, hopefully, be able to scan tomorrow. It's a bit on the big side. This will be a busy week; trying to square a bunch of things away before I leave for Portland, OR on thursday night. Yay vacation!!

Monday, April 21, 2008

New ACEO's

I made some new ACEOs last night. The "Bee & Tipper" one is my favorite. I'll put them up in my shop later on when I get home from work.

Bee & Tipper:


Lady Loo:

Oh Sister:

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Picnic in Central Park!

Yesterday was one of those absolutely perfect Spring Days, and Nik, Amina, and I took full advantage and packed up a picnic to take to Central Park. I made an Eggplant and Spinach Muffaletta (From Veganomicon, with olive relish, roasted red and yellow peppers in a fresh sourdough bread) and brought some fruit from the fruit stand. A yummy Avocado Bean salad and marinated Eggplant was also gobbled up, thanks to Amina. I forgot to take a picture of my plate. I was excited because I got to play my favorite card game in the world: Uno! Nik totally sucks at it. Ha!

Central Park is such a great people-watching place, and in the springtime it is especially beautiful with the blooming flowers surrounding you. It never gets old. And even though you know that there a million other people enjoying the park alongside you, it never really feels extremely overwhelmingly crowded.

After our picnic, we meandered around random paths, taking in the lack of traffic noises and enjoying all the fresh blooms and sights. All the Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom! And we're talking MASSIVE trees here. So Beautiful.

People carved their names with their sweethearts on this tree, as high up as we could see. The higher up you go, the more serious it is, you know.



I loved these leaves. They felt fake! like thin foam core or something. So much detail in them though.



I always remark on how "cute" flowers are. Cute flowers always remind me of Alice in Wonderland. Best part of the story! These flowers most definitely fall into the cute category.



That girl in the rowboat had two shirtless boys rowing her around!


This has to have been the most pimped out bike I have ever seen. We were all mesmerized for a good 15 minutes by this Roller-dancing party we stumbled across. Girls with synchronized dance moves and coordinating outfits; Guys with some serious 12-packs moving in slowmotion around the "dance floor", senior citizens getting down with their bad selves on their rollerskates to the bumping beats. Pretty insane.

This is one of my favorite parts of Central Park; The mall area, with these enchanted looking trees surrounding you. I think I like it because it's hard to see the buildings surrounding the park, so you feel like you are in the middle of grand forest with happy people all around you.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Girl in the sunshine doodling the girl in the shadows

What the title says. This is the first time, in I can't even remember how long, where I did NOTHING on my lunch break. I'm always so busy running errands or getting supplies or just doing work; I never get to just sit in the sunshine and doodle to my heart's content. Not that there has been much sunshine anyways. But today! It's amazing the mood boost sitting in sun will give you.

I sat by the dog park so the squirrels wouldn't try to eat me.



oh, and i was prolly kidding about the gold leaf part. I have a queau of about 10 sketches that are ready to become paintings. I always change my mind once I get to them!

ahhh weekend! Free Regina Spektor show! Picnic in Central Park tomorrow! Muffaletta! These are the plans anyways. Also: repair bike; get dirt for plants; uh, clean? (yeah right.)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Apfel Kuchen


Apples mixed with cinnamon and sugar, baking, has to be one of the great smells of all time. Nik's mom sent us one of his grandmother's apple pie recipes (nik calls it a cake, but it is so not a cake; pie! there is no batter!) and I veganized it. So yum! It came out pretty too. I had bought some Granny Smith apples at the farmer's market a couple weekends ago, and they just, well, weren't very good apples. They weren't very juicy and they were SUPER waxy. I figured baking them would miraculously make them awesome, and I was right! I scrubbed the wax off first though. I really liked the crust on this; not the traditional shortening-laden crust that I am used to. Denser.

I just got back from seeing Parts and Labor play at Studio B. So good! so happy! I picked up their new 51 song (!!!) EP also and am pretty psyched to rock out to it tomorrow at work. Yacht was the headliner, but screw them. P&L are a bajillion times more talented and interesting, yet the kids who sing along to their laptop get to headline? Heck if I understand.

These last two sun-filled days (spent indoors at work) have me extremely hopeful that this coming weekend will be just as sun-filled (yay outside time!). Am I right or am I right?

Monday, April 14, 2008

Geisha gone wild

Dr. Sketchy's was this past Saturday! The Black Pearl was an awesome model and very pretty to boot. Also, those splits she held: man.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

new planter photo shoot

it was a GORGEOUS day outside yesterday, so I took full advantage of the pretty light in the evening and went to the park to take nicer photos of my planters. people were giving me strange looks, but I didn't care. Nothing gets me down in the sunshine! I found the pretty piece of cedar at the farmer's market on friday and also got some wheatgrass (that miles LOVES, and hence why it looks a bit disheveled) for props.










In other news, I turned 28 today.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Chillin' Broccoli Planter!

New planter for my shop! I love broccoli. broccoli loves me. Also, notecards were added to the shop earlier today.



I'm excited for this weekend! This has been SUCH a busy and hectic week. I feel like I haven't breathed in five years. It's my birthday this sunday, so I'm just gonna take it easy and just have a fun weekend. Dance!

hugs and kisses.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Notecards!

hello! Today is a sluggish monday, after a rather lovely weekend. I hung out with Amina friday night at 'Snice and discussed the underlying meaning of The Babysitter's Club series. Quite intellectual, I'm telling you. :) Saturday, I got up early and rocked the gym and the farmer's market. It was SUCH a nice day out! When there hasn't been a really nice day in awhile, I'm always amazed at how instant the mood boost is. I had some work to do, so I moved my stuff to the kitchen table and basked in the sunshine while doing so. Mr. Miles joined me. I finally figured out a good solution for my broccoli planters and will be posting them in the next few days, after they are all painted and varnished and whatnot. Nik and I went to Monkeytown saturday night, and we had a great time. Awesome dinner (they changed their menu, so there is actual vegetarian with vegan options section now! that is the only thing that has prevented me from going in the past.) The setup is cool: 4 projectors on each wall, futons and tables around the perimeter, and a live band in the center. They played THX 1138. Also, some trippy videos at the end. Why don't more places do this?! I hear it happens in the west all the time; the movie theater/restaurant/bar combo. It would make a KILLING here, I think. Have I mentioned I'm going to Portland, OR in a few weeks? EXCITED! I wanna check out their movie theater/restaurant combo! I hear movies are only like $4?? Heck yeah!

I made it to the opening day of the Brooklyn Flea Market on sunday and bought a cuuuuuuute guinea pig card that I'm gonna frame and hang. I was, as you can imagine, pretty excited about this. There were a lot of cool vendors there, a lot I recognized from Etsy and lots that were new to me. It was like, half flea market, half craft fair.

I made these kickass veggie burgers and fries yesterday, but my camera batteries died and I was unable to capture the beauty forever. I'm telling you though, it was a fantastic lunch today. This was my first successful veggie burger, meaning, it actually didn't fall apart. hoo-ray.

Anyways, I made some notecards from my recipe card designs. Almost done, except for a redo on the Carrot one, that I'm gonna fix tomorrow. They will be in the shop soon!



Thursday, April 3, 2008

Fun new things

I made an ACEO! This is the first time I have made one and they're kinda fun. I like the challenge of going super-small. Mini is always good in my book. And i like poppies lately, if you couldn't tell.



I also painted up some cards. I think I'm going to make a large assortment and sell them as a "buy all your cards for the whole year" kind of bundle. I mean, people hate buying cards right, so why not buy them all at once? I like the smores one. poor 'lil smores.