Mr. Slug

I met this slug a long time ago, over the summer I guess. As astonished as I was that he had made his way up to my third floor porch, I was even more amazed to see he made it all the way up there with a giant hole in his side - it went all the way to the other side of his body. Don't slugs have guts?

More Food???

Yup, you got it. Here's some stuff I've baked recently...

sundried tomato & rosemary rolls

the sponge

incorporating the good stuff

the dough

est voila

these were absolutely delicious and i made them thinking that they'd be great for thanksgiving. it turned out they were, and all i could imagine while munching them was how delish they'd be with turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce. unfortunately, i forgot to bring the recipe to my mom's house with me for the holiday, and so instead i made...

sweet potato rolls


i also made a really yummy
apple blueberry pie

i also made a cherry torte, and i used the cherry juice as the base for a blueberry sauce, to be poured over the apples in the pie. i cooked down a package of blueberries into the juice, strained it, put it back on the heat, added some spices, a little corn starch, and was good to go.

straining the cooked blueberries to make the sauce

yum yum, the sauce

a bad picture of the inside

nom nom nom

Apple Crumb...

I don't know what you'd call this. It's based on a recipe I have for a dessert called 'cherry crumb torte', but I dont think this is really a torte. Anyways, the cherry one is one of my favorite desserts to make - unbelievably easy and looks gorgeous everytime. I had a bag of some getting-old apples and some big hunkin fresh guys from the farmers market the other day all ready to be used for a pie. When I was cooking the apples though I decided it'd be delicious to try the crumb idea with apples instead of cherries. I was right - it was!

I forgot to put an egg in the crumb mix, but I think it worked out perfectly. I was really worried when I realized I had done that cause I thought it was going to fall, but it didn't! It's a little doughy in the center layer but otherwise it's delicious - the apples are AMAZING in texture and taste and the top and bottom crust are crisp and sweet. I shaved some manchego on top but could have done much much more.

Enamel Bunny

A bunny charm I made for my enamels class - he's jointed!

Illustration Model

In my illustration class that I go to way more often than I planned to, we're building model rooms to photograph for reference. We were supposed to pick a room that was the scene of an emotionally impressive moment in our lives, so that we're invested in the scene and will therefore be invested in our drawings. I chose something that happened in the living room of the apartment Rachel and I shared on Evergreen St., the night before we moved out - therefore it's pretty empty. I'm not done yet - and these are really (really) shitty photos, but I wanted to get this up here before I forgot.






I've still got to make a boombox, papasan chair and light out of clay - then the figures.

Illuminated Text

I've been working on the project I started talking about in my last post. I don't really like the text I wrote but I think it works really well as a text to illuminate. So far I've only done work on one spread - I have a feeling the book will be four spreads, 8 pages. I'm really liking where it's going, though. I have been borrowing the general gist of the decorative aspects from manuscript plates I've found in the books I have on illuminated manuscripts. I sort of want to go back and re-do the initial letter with gold leaf - that was my original intention but I don't have tools to do a small guilding job like that. Hopefully a trip to Michaels will solve that problem.

Here are some pictures of the work in progress -









All I want to do is work on it! Wonderfully inconvenient though, it takes a long time to do anything on it, and without a doubt a very certain calm and focused mindset (which is not always easy to come by...)

I'm working with acryla gouache for the color and a higgins calligraphy ink and flexible nib pen for the text

Also, check out my mixtape blog, i just uploaded a new tape chock full of 80's pop bombs and i bet you'd dig it!

New Project

In Letterform Anatomy today Joe gave us all rolls of tuppence to work on. This was awesome (especially he gave me two extras to take home!). I decided to do some free writing and I ended up with a sweet little story/poem/rhyme - don't ask where it came from, it just did. Here are photos of the scroll, and below that is the edited/completed text that I finished tonight.

_____________________________________________

A nightingale once said to me,

“in time, my dear,
wait and you will see,
your heart will shine,
as once before,
and while I can not promise
nevermore, for a while
at least, your tears shall be cured.”

As time went by, my head hung low, I waited for a sign to show. A little key to prove her right, to bring her prophesy to light. I went about my daily tasks, doing my best to stay unmasked. For the nightingale, she also said,

“I know my dear,
as you do tend, to keep
your life up in your head.
Your face, it shows
contentment yes, while
really what you feel’s a mess.
Restless, darling, as you
may be, I think it’s time for
them to see, what’s in your head,
upon your face, and only then
may you find grace.”

And so I took her words to heart, believing if I did my part, keeping my face (heart) honest and true, that someday, oh, I would find you. And thus I went about my days, relating to people in different ways, taking comfort in honesty, letting myself, well, just be.

Quickly, though, it did not come, a change, a shift, had begun. Where once my days, they had been cold, a bright new warmth I now did hold. No longer did I feel the need, to find myself part of a ‘we’. Content I was, truly this time, on my own, for I did find, the nightingale, her words were true,

“the most important company to find is you.”

It was then, and only then, that I saw you there. You came to me as in a dream, for now I was prepared, to love someone as once before, no longer was I scared. For the nightingale, taught me she, in order to find your care, that I must find, for myself, that which must be bared. And as my eyes, open now, found your pensive gaze, I heard her words, so clearly now, over once again,

“And once he comes,
for you will know,
as if the world did bend,
to bring you two together then,
and draw you hand to hand.
Your love will grow with strength, with hope,
and with honesty, for at this point,
you will have become
what you are meant to be.”

_____________________________________________

I think i'm going to keep working with this because I like the text and I think it'd be fun/good practice to write it out and sort of illuminate it. I'm going to keep working with the scroll because it's awesome, and I want to do really ornate initial letters and illuminated borders. I think it could be pretty awesome when I'm done - although I have very little idea how to do it all. Time to stick my nose back in those books about illuminated manuscripts...

Lately

in class doodles

taking letterform anatomy, again

there are monsters among us
(unfinished)

Benches, Benches, Benches

I want to buy a bench for my living room. Yesterday Anna, Jamie, Elliott and I all went to Ikea and I finally bought some stuff for the house I've been wanting, including some DVD racks. When we got back home we rearranged our living room into something not-so-bad and finally moved out our shitty ugly uncomfortable broken 'couch', moved in jamie's plush comfy love seat. Now, I want a bench to double as a seat and a coffee table. I started searching for some this morning, knowing that ideally I'd love a slat-stlye bench, but also knowing I may not be able to afford one. So far I've looked on Etsy and Ebay, and these are what I've found that I like.

Slat bench on Ebay, $99 with $30 shipping

'danish modern' dark stained slat bench on Ebay $25 with $45 shipping, stamped 'made in yugoslovia'

mid-century danish modern slat bench on Ebay $45 with $55 shipping. i love, love, love this bench - it's expandable!





'primitive' bench on etsy, pine, stained red $45 with $15 shipping






hilariously awesome budweiser bench?? $25 on craigslist, pickup in hanson, ma

So what do you think? I think I really want the expandable slat bench. $100 is more than I should spend on this but I really like that a lot and it seems pretty perfect. I need to double measure and make sure it works though.


Got any other suggestions?