Sunday, January 24, 2010

Mooshiners - I'm Comin' Home

Let me start by saying that this band is talented and full of such wonderful people! If you haven't heard of the The New Orleans Moonshiners you should check their page on myspace. When they asked me to do their 2nd album of course said YES! haha.

I had such a wonderful time doing their first: Check it!

So here is the process of the 2nd album piece. I started sketching in my sketchbook while listening to their Pre-Released version. 



My process changes for each piece that I start. For this one, I started outlining the sketch in Photoshop. 



The coloring was brought into Painter X. Laying out the colors. "oil pastel" tool used plus custom brush was created for this.





Ze end! After painting the piece in Painter X, I took it back to Photoshop to edit the layout and text. Photoshop is recomended for editing the "Levels" and colors found within. 


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tuesday Tea

"Tuesday Tea" is something I enjoy being silly about with my friends. Every Tuesday, I had decided, was a holiday to celebrate how wonderful tea is. It felt appropriate to blog about it as it happens to be today!

To partake in this glorious affair a few tea essentials are necessary:



• Tea kettle (microwaves devalue the whole tea experience)
A cute tea cup (a feeling of specialness is important)
Loose leaf tea (NO Tea bags, "full capacity specialness" isn't reached)
(optional) Tea enhancing items (No need to be a "purist" )


Vs.

Just being silly when I said "no tea bags". It really is just a matter of personal choice (very useful when your are in a rush out the door!). There are even little disposable pouches for your loose leaf enjoyment. That being said, a choice in your tea strainer is very important. I found that the tea ball infusers, circular or heart shaped (seen in the Right photo), tend to not hold very well. At least the one's that I had purchased in the past have never lasted too long and were not fun to clean out.

For comfort, an open strainer has had great tea enjoyment success. Easy to clean, never have to worry about loose tea leaf falling out, and it sits on your cup in a very cute way (+bonus styling points). Make sure to check if it is stainless steel (longevity saves you).

Today, I enjoyed a lovely tea by Hina's called White Pearl of Fujian. It's fun to support your local shops and this is a wonderful place to stop in (Thank you Susan for finding it!). They have an entire wall just lined with assortment of loose leaf teas for you to choose from. You can smell all the different teas that they have found and are packaged well.

The advantage to loose leaf tea is that you can control how much you use allowing you to choose how strong your tea will be and (+bonus) controlling how long your tea last.

I have a few different selections from Hina's and it has lasted me more then 6 months making tea an afforadable and money effecient investment.



Today's mixture:
White Pearl of Fujian + Spoonful of raw honey + Milk
= Hmmm Yummy!






Thursday, January 14, 2010

2nd Cup of Tea...





I am very excited to finally have my website completed. Well, enough so to put it up. Perfectionist me keeps saying "there is still much to do and improve upon!" but that is quickly hushed up by excitement.

First of all, happy 2010! A new year to make good on new beginnings and seeing new possibilities. It's true, when you set up smaller goals and you can achieve them it does much for your moral. With so much going on, it's easy to get caught up with a list that keeps growing.

Someone close to me said "Just give yourself an hour to focus on one thing you really want to do. And do that everyday." Simple, eh?

Here is my new growing list:
• Sketch everyday
• Go play with Prosculpt
• Continue my Magdalen story


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Fresh cup of tea...

Make everything something special, something great. Even the little things and you may be amazed at how you feel about the world around you and yourself. I am lucky to have a wonderful father who always showed me the up side to a rainy day, spilled milk, and anything that inspires the "meh".

For 2010, my first steps have been to create a new blog and a new website. I am very close to completing the latter but for now I will enjoy what has finally been completed. Ze blog! Admire the banner, it took me 2 days to figure out what should go up there. Simplistic as it is, may I offend you with overly cute things in the future.

I am a freelance artist and this place will be my little corner to share artwork, inspiration, mistakes and hopefully how you can avoid them! Also, being a bit obsessed with tea there may be many a post dedicated to the subject matter.