I happened upon something this morning that has completely blown my mind. I had to sully the fancy micro fiber dusting cloth wiping my brains off of the monitor it was THAT GOOD. It's the marriage of two of my favorite things in the whole world: illustration and confections. I give you the Eugene and Louise Bakery.
I love her boobs!
I just don't have the words. Very inspirational. Found via Gee That's Swell via Chicken Girl Design. This made my whole month and has given me a bar to reach once my annual Holiday baking frenzy happens.
I noticed that the tulips are starting to poke through the ground and the cat is staying outside later each evening. I am very much looking forward to the summer and working out in the yard, BBQ's, iced tea...and perhaps I will get a hammock this year.
J and I have been watching a new show recently that I have fallen in love with. It's on the Discovery Home channel and it's called The Manic Organic. It's hosted by Antony John, who is seriously talented, funny, and an absolute pleasure to watch.
He used to be a wildlife artist, a dairy farmer, and now runs an organic farm in Canada with his wife Tina and their family. This show originated on Food Network Canada and I am pleased the powers that be have decided to bring it to the States. However, the recipes do not seem to be available. Boo!
My favorite thing about his show is that he gives practical tips for growing your own vegetables organically in a home environment, which, I can hardly find on TV. There is a serious hole here..find a need and fill it sort of situation. Unfortunately I don't have the foggiest idea (okay, maybe a slight misting) what I am doing when it comes to gardening, and I don't particularly think I would be good in front of the camera otherwise I would roll camera and start spreading the word.
At any rate, I really wish Antony John would have a blog, or at least a website, or a book! A book would be fantastic, but I guess I will continue taking notes off of the television. Here's a little taste of the goodness:
Oh what a great weekend! We had dinner on Friday with our friends at The Kingfish Cafe. I had the fried chicken and it was wonderful and from the shared bites I can say that the Macaroni and Cheese was also really, really good. The restaurant was totally awesome and all in all it was a fantastic night.
The next morning J and I went to the Seattle Art Museum to catch Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. This is a fantastic museum and I am going to make a point to go up there more often. We had lunch at the museum's cafe Taste. I really wish I had my camera to take pictures of the fantastic presentations. The gentlemen at the table next to us ordered cookies and milk for dessert and I was complete blown away when it came out. The milk was served in a tall, skinny shot glass and there were three small cookies (all different) stacked on top of each other. It was really stunning. Fair warning to anyone who comes to dinner at my place, I am going to recreate this sometime. It was so whimsical and fantastic. Museum cafes are some of my favorite places to eat and this one is top-notch.
Up next was the Flower and Garden show and it was quite overwhelming. I pooped out midway through seeing everything and my feet were dog-tired but here are some hightlights. The rest you can find on my flickr.
I love this trailer! I wish I could find more info on them but it looks like you can buy kits to build one off of eBay. Here are others. They are so cute.
This was my favorite garden and the only one of two that showcased vegetables. Check out the chicken coop with the garden on the roof. Love it! I would love to have chickens someday, if I can convince Jefe. He has been scarred by a traumatic chicken experience, so it may take a few years and some therapy. Har har har...
I have been looking forward to this weekend for a long time now. J and I are going up to Seattle to spend some much needed quality time with our friends. We are also going to go to the Seattle Art Museum, finally. I drive by the place every single time I go up there and always think "I need to go to that" and I am very happy to be finally doing so. Also in the "I need to go to that" category is the Northwest Flower and Garden show which we will also be attending. I am really, really, REALLY looking forward to. Really. Which reminds me, I need to recharge my camera batteries. All in all a busy weekend, but a fun one.
This is the first official day of blogging on the iMac! Yee-haw! My programs arrived yesterday and I have been installing and playing around. It's going to take a bit of time to get used to the new set-up and new features of everything, but most things like keyboard shortcuts and such are the same.
I have been reworking some older illustrations, updating them to reflect my evolving style in order to polish up my portfolio to get some of my skills dusted off and the joints oiled and in working order. Here is a sample of one I have been working on. It's a flash button, so you will have to roll over him to see the movement.
One of the new features in Illustrator CS3 and Flash CS3 is the greater compatibility between the two programs. It is pretty cool, I have to say, and I often wished (along with a ton of others) these two programs would get along better with each other so this new version is a welcome upgrade.
Alrighty...thank you SO much to those who left comments about the new blog design, it's good to be back to where I started in terms of having the banners each month and I am really going to try hard to keep that up.
I got my iMac last week and it's overwhelmingly beautiful. I can't do much with it at this point besides surfing the internet. I ordered the Adobe Creative Design Suite 3 Premium which has all of the cool programs I love so very much. It won't arrive until later this week and I am itching to get started!
So on that note I have decided to start posting sketches and progress shots, like a lot of other illustrated blogs I love so much. I am working on a new promo piece and I am going to take you through my various steps. First up: The initial idea sketch:
Kids in space. This a quick thumbnail done to get the idea out of my head and onto the paper. From here comes refining the sketch and adding more elements:
I am not entirely satisfied with the flow of the composition, but instead of tracing and resketching I think I am going do try a few more small thumbnails, or chop it up and move it around in Photoshop. After I do that I will start thinking of a color scheme and figure out my values! I post those once I get them completed.
This is only the second week of school and it's kicking my butt so hard, particularly Perspective. I swear this class should be called Advanced Perspective as I feel like I missed a whole heap of info somewhere along the way. Sheesh.
I know, I know....changed again. I can't help it. I was looking at some of my archives and realized that I really liked this shape so here we are again. Sort of. I have been wanting to redesign the site for AGES and I am finally getting around to it. Slowly but surely!
It's been an interesting week, lots of stuff happening at the moment. Some of it good, and some of it not so good. One of the good things: I am getting a new computer! Yay! My lovely new iMac will arrive sometime this week and I can't wait to see the beautiful thing.
