Say hello to Mister Orange

This is a sneak preview for some holiday things I'm working on. He's off to a long day at work for sure. Speaking of work, I'm on vacation until next tuesday and I'm SUPER-MEGA-excited about it. My little sister arrives tomorrow afternoon and she's here until monday! She has been here a few times already, so we already got the super-touristy stuff out of the way. We're going to see Fuerzabruta friday night and we're going to go to Warm up at PS1 on saturday. Otherwise, it's pretty open; good food, some shopping, coney island/beach, walk around mostly.

Have a fabulous long weekend! I might post some pictures of our adventures.
<3

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I don't know where summer went, and I realize that is a common thing to say/hear this time of year, but seriously, where?! I had a relaxing sunshine weekend. I spent my summer friday (out at 2!!) at The Lucky Cat, drinking some mint iced tea and working on some sketches. I can't show you those sketches yet, as you'll be annoyed that I'm working on holiday stuff already. I'm trying to decide whether I should enter the Bust Craftacular again this year or not. If this project turns out well, I probably will enter. Besides, it's really not all that weird for me to be working on holiday stuff in the summertime (I SWEAR I'm not one of those xmas in july freaks!!). At my day job, I come up with holiday/winter themed prints for fall '09 in june/july! Cute 'lil penguins and skating snowmen and silly sledding dogs are the norm for my summertime. Weird, I know. But anyways, those sketches I was working on are for a new series of items for my Etsy shop that I'm pretty excited about. You'll see them soon enough. Gotta work out the kinks.

I was the only one in the little garden at the coffee shop, so I made friends with the fish.



Some fooood. Purslane is weird. Kinda tasteless. I got some in the CSA last week and avoided using it until the end of the week. I sauteed it in some Earth Balance, with banana peppers and sea salt, garlic, and pepper. Had some BBQ tofu (homemade peach bbq sauce!) with it. I guess it was okay, not something I would normally buy. Supposed to be super-good for you though? And it's a weed?

Got beets in the CSA this week and decided to give them one more shot. I roasted them with a little maple syrup and stuffed them into tofu over arugula. Also roasted leeks, carrots, tomatoes, and garlic. I made a maple-mustard sauce to drizzle over it. I'm just not a beet fan, even with all the added sweetness.

Now these were super-yummy. I made the Veggie Fritters from The Vegan Asian Kitchen cookbook that I picked up awhile ago. Really easy and good! I tried to counter the deep-fried part with a salad. Totally relieved my conscience! haha. :)

All Eyes on You

I've been watching a lot of the Olympics lately and thinking about how many eyes are actually watching these athletes. Creepy and scary!

This is All Eyes on You, Interpretation #1.






All Eyes on You-Interpretation #2


prints are available in my shop!

I'm getting sad that the Olympics are nearing their end. Who knew that I would get so excited over women's beach volleyball?!? The Olympics are basically like watching another species of human beings play in their wild.

Playing the Building

Yesterday, Nik and I went to go play David Byrne's building. We had to wait in a small line, so we goofed off and took pictures (or I did, Nik doesn't like his picture taken, obviously!). The sounds that people were playing were so spooky. There were motors on the low end of the organ, flutes (pipes) over the middle, and clackety-clickety noises on the high end. Most people played it with the low drone of the motors as a constant with slow flutes and fast click-clacks over.

It looks like he is growing out of my head!


Bullwinkle!

It was fun to play, but hard to hear myself and I felt rushed with the line behind me waiting their turn.



The building itself was really cool. We had to sign a waiver saying that the city is not responsible for our death, if we so happened to die while viewing the exhibit, before entering. Kinda weird.

Noon to night

Brunch this morning/afternoon:

Potato-pancake with fresh watermelon that I got in the CSA yesterday. I steamed the potatoes first, while sauteeing the onion, banana peppers, garlic, and fresh sage. I then mixed them with the steamed potatoes, mashing them, but still leaving it chunky. I fried them in a pan with some olive oil until a little crispier on the outside. Topped them with fresh cherry tomatoes, sorrel, garlic chives, and fennel. So filling.

Peach mixed with cranberry nectar and ice smoothie.


Nik hates tomatoes, cooked peppers, and quinoa, so I made two dinners tonight. I really wanted stuffed peppers with fresh tomatoes! I marinated the radishes, carrots, leeks, banana peppers, and garlic in some olive oil and vinegar (with sea salt and pepper) and then stuffed them in tofu (or pepper in my case, with quinoa) and put them over a bed of lettuce. I made a yummy peanut sauce (olive oil, vinegar, PB, some water to thin) to drizzle over it all. Freshly steamed corn on the cob (or off in nik's case) as a side! So fresh and yummy!



Peach pie ice cream for dessert. Made with soy milk. I added some cardamom and cinnamon and vanilla extract and it was just like peach pie. All it needed was some crumbled crust pieces!


We made out like bandits this week in our CSA share. So great!

His goal in life was to be an echo

I have had an excess of yellow and red plums lately, so I made a Pflaumenkuchen. Unbelievably easy and delicious. It's got a great sweet/tart combo going on. I'm going to try this with other fruits!


Pancakes with yellow plum sauce. Mmmm.


Roasted veggie pizza with tofu basil ricotta and homemade golden cherry tomato sauce. Roasted veggies include: radish, onion, garlic, zucchini, banana peppers, and carrots. Crust from VWAV.


I have had a few not so good days lately, but I just got back from seeing Wilco and they made me feel WORLDS better. I love that. I'm hoping for smooth sailing the rest of the week.

Hopefully some new work soon. I'm working on two different paintings right now and a few random doodles.

I always say that I'm going to go to the beach next weekend, but then I never do. Maybe I'll go to the beach next weekend.

All Point's West!

Friday:

horse sculpture:

"solar Pavilion 2 is a light-weight reconfigurable structure that utilizes properties of self-organization found in natural systems. The easily deployable structure was designed with a zero-waste mandate and constructed with a range of innovative eco-friendly materials."




Pretty lady friends:

New Pornographers! They had these really terrible video projections in back of the bands, doing all sorts of corny spiraling effects and whatnot. Somewhat amusing with the crowd-shots they did. It was always the same reaction; person is surprised, then embarrassed, then happy and waving like crazy.


Underworld!! I was so excited and danced like crazy. It's a shame they had to play in broad daylight, but they played some of my favorite songs of theirs, so that was quickly forgotten.

Crowd behind me waiting for Radiohead to come on...
*bonus lady liberty butt


I was pretty wiped out after Underworld and it was utterly amazing to have two of my favorite bands ever, back-to-back. Radiohead had the best light show I have ever seen in my life, including those from their previous tours. Pretty mesmerizing overall and my brain felt like mush by the end of the set.





Saturday:

Loungin' in the sun, waiting for Metric to go on. Lot's of people-watching.



I love Emily Haines. Metric:


I stopped taking pictures at this point. In summary: K and I sat through the most torturous sets by Animal Collective and Kings of Leon ever. So, so bad! After 4+ hours of ear violation, we were both pretty fidgety and anxious for Radiohead to come on. We were further back this time, with waaay more people in attendance than friday night. It was fine though; I was the crazy-dancing girl. Friday I concentrated much more on the light show, as I was so worn out by the crazy weather and Underworld. Saturday was much, much more energized.

Setlists:
Underworld - APW Night One Setlist (8/8/08): from here
1. Glam Bucket
2. Cowgirl/Rez Outro
3. Pearl's Girl
4. Jumbo
5. Two Months Off
6. Born Slippy .NUXX
7. Shudder/King of Snake
8. Moaner

Radiohead - APW Night One Setist (8/8/08):
1. 15 Step
2. There There
3. Morning Bell
4. All I Need
5. Lucky
6. Nude
7. Arpeggi
8. The Gloaming
9. Optimistic
10. Videotape
11. Reckoner
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. You And Whose Army
14. Idioteque
15. Climbing Up The Walls
16. Bodysnatchers
17. How to Disappear Completely

Encore 1
18. House of Cards
19. Pyramid Song
20. Paranoid Android
21. Dollars & Cents
22. Street Spirit

Encore 2
23. Cymbal Rush
24. Just
25. Everything In Its Right Place

Radiohead - APW Night Two Setist (8/9/08):
01. Reckoner
02. 15 Step
03. The National Anthem
04. Kid A
05. All I Need
06. Nude
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. Where I End And You Begin
09. The Gloaming
10. Faust Arp
11. No Surprises
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. The Bends
14. Bangers and Mash
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Exit Music (For A Film)
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. Pyramid Song
19. Videotape
20. Airbag
21. Fake Plastic Trees
22. There There

Encore 2
23. House of Cards
24. Planet Telex
25. Idioteque

CSA rules

Nik and I received an abundance of peaches, apricots, and plums last week from the CSA, since we worked the distribution and were able to take some leftovers. Nik made super-awesome smoothies with peaches and some mango juice. Behold the floating mug:


I made a pie with peaches, plums, and apricots. Pre-cooking, sprinkled with sugar:

Out of the oven:

So delicious!

I was also able to take a pretty bouquet of flowers from the CSA distribution. Miles was so confused by them (he doesn't go outside and I don't ever have flowers or plants, due to lack of direct sunshine in the apt.).

bonus konked out Miles:

Experimenting with Gocco

So I've been playing around with different papers and techniques with my new 'lil Gocco lately. I can't seem to leave well enough alone, and usually make the final print mixed media. I've only used black ink so far, printing it over watercolors, rolled ink, and colored paper. Here are some samples:

Printed over rolled ink (using a brayer) on a moleskine notebook, with colored pencils for raindrop details:

Back View of Moleskine, with added colored pencils:


Printed on a gessoed watercolor paper, and then painted with watercolors:


Printed on bright green card stock:

Printed on recycled card stock:

Printed on watercolor paper, and then painted with dyes.


Fun!