Just keep swimming

The malaise of winter pounding its fist routinely against our shaky walls was rubbing away at what few nerves I had left. When not fighting battle with this new fabric softener allergy (oh did I mention I had that? Yeah kinda fun surprise after a week of wearing clothes that were doused in the stuff to find your chest in pain and itchy leading to a week of bendryl loopy highs and aloe baths) I was sitting in my painting room pretending I was far away from cold, snow and anything arctic.

Thus was born my first 12X12 animal painting, but not my first turtle:

It looks all warm and inviting and nothing like the icy doldrums that is late January.

I've got the original for sale here as usual, but I really like my turtle so much I thought I'd try putting this one up for prints and amazingly I've already sold two of him (the first print sales through the place so now to see how they do). He was actually done over top an old painting I had gathering dust that I came to despise rather quickly. I can see why so many masterpieces have things hidden underneath, sometimes ideas go wrong and well the canvas is right there.

The weather here has turned and is warming just in time to make a giant muddy mess for the visit of Essie's family - all 4 of them. The carpet cleaner is going to put in some major over time when they finally go home.

But it did put me back into a tree painting mood so one more for the road:

Wish me luck this weekend, I'm gonna need it.

A Very Dragon Valentines

As I have alluded in many of my own special and rather passive aggressive ways I am not a big fan of Valentines day. It, like most who don't go doe eyed at the sight of 10 yards of pink, strikes me as a bit strange that on a day when a man was beheaded and then later shot out of a cannon by the catholic church (that wacky pope) all couples everywhere are supposed to venture out into the sphincter freezing cold to suffer through a crowded restaurant that's understaffed, making forced small talk and exchange chalk colored brown and stuffed inside not very accurate anatomical organ shaped boxes.

In my world romance isn't just dead, it's stuffed and mounted in the back room of the Smithsonian near that two headed crocodile in a jar and Lincoln's backup hat.

But on occasion I like to rise to the challenge and reclaim a small piece of that day of love and flowers and other things that are trying to kill me. In that spirit and with march 8th looming ever closer I took to photoshop and created some Valentines for the RPGer in your life.

There's quite a few Dragon Age images so I'm going to hide them after the break. Feel free to print them off and share if you feel so inclined.

SNOW DAY

Whatever weather that skipped past us this Christmas has finally decided to visit us.

And when the white stuff piles across the ground and eves there's only one thing I want to do: take gobs of pictures.

This big Snowpocalypse I decided to pull some various props out and have a little photoshoot. First up: my Tom Servo in a little santa hat that Essie extricated from her toy hedgehog.

It was a fun challenge as Essie was pretty certain she was supposed to be eating that hat and kept trying to nose poor Servo's head off.

Bundling Servo up so he could thaw and dry off inside I then called out my Odin - the Norse god seemed at home in the snow:

 I used this as an excuse to play with photoshop some more, giving the god a diffused glow and aging the photo with a filter.

Why not try a bit of blue for Odin:

 

And a final Odin - using a top picture to make him look like a sad lonely man.

Moving on I had a wacky idea to pull one of our halloween props out for some juxtaposition of the white purity of snow against the ragged blackened death of a skull. My husband thought I was nuts.

Moving on from skulls and Odins to the Planet Express Ship that crash landed on Hoth (and also shows off the large flakes)

And to complete the snow photoshoot my friend the Gargoyle:

Finally, because it isn't a snow storm without my wacky lab puppy who adores the white stuff a quick movie of Essie hopping along like a crazed jack rabbit.

Happy Snow Day everyone!

The Birthday Cake - Take 3

If you've been with this blog from the beginning (I think there's me and one other person and possibly an ogre that's got weird stalking problems) you know that come early January I pull out my cake pans, my frosting tips and I make a banana cake for my husband.

The cake part itself is usually quite tasty (don't ask why it always has to be banana, it just does and as everyone knows once something becomes tradition it can never be changed upon pain of catapult) it's the frosting it bit when things start to get a bit interesting and the whole thing hits a wall.

Take two years ago - my first attempt when we were living together back in the apartment I created whatever in the hell this is:

It looks like big bird took a big yellow dump all over a chocolate cake. Also people should really stop feeding gravel to him, it doesn't seem to sit well with his digestion. I have vague memories of yellow frosting left over from the wedding and that's why there are yellow turds all along the thing but truly there is no penance I can pay for this monstrosity.

Fast forward to last year and ashamed of my previous attempt (of course why I shared it with the world lord knows) I worked extra hard to make something decent. Another banana cake, with a few spices added, and the first time I would try cream cheese frosting at home.

I actually had piping tips (which a blind monkey with a hand cramp could use better than I) to scrawl out some sort of writing on top and whatever in the hell is on the side. The turtles were tossed on in the hopes people would only see, awe cute turtles and I could run and hide.

Well, another January 8th is coming close so I bet you all know where this is coming.

I made the cake a bit different this time with the addition of a bit of molasses and some rum. But the big problem came when I realized that all of our cream cheese was moldy so I had to once again make a new untested frosting. We had no powdered sugar, so I looked to a recipe that called for milk, flour, sugar and butter. Big mistake.

Instead of fluffy and white I got goopy and pale yellow. I was adding anything I could think of to bind the sea green slop up into something passable but almost nothing seemed to be working (perhaps the gorilla glue was a bad idea). Tired of looking at it I slopped it onto the cake and called it a day.

May I present my husband's 28th birthday cake:

Note the giant sea green drips all around the bottom - this was the second round of it. It'd already wiped up the mess from round one.

I may be able to do a lot of random creative things but I think it's safe to say that cake decorating is like floral arranging or unicorn taming far out of my range. But this won't stop me from come next January pulling out those baking utensils and making yet another banana cake, except now I know that each cake will be the greatest eyesore to ever grace a cake stand.

After all, it's tradition.

Tree of Life

It's January which means everyone is working hard to fix themselves normally in some way that requires lots of really expensive products and unguents.

I, however; am not one much for resolutions. Mostly because I never know what I'm about to get into. I never thought I'd actually write a novel manuscript or create some Rifftrax shorts (the 5,000 or so hours of ball playing with the puppy I did see coming through). So about the only way I know to celebrate is by sharing some new paintings.

This first one I liked so much I've listed for sale as a print.

This tree grows from a rocky outcropping in front of a waterfall, but it is so much more. The branches start out dark and black and slowly blend to the blues of the sky and then to the greens of the land beneath. It grants a spark of life to all it touches as green grass and flowers begin to bloom upon the rock.

I've also got the original painting for sale here.

And I actually spent the New Year weekend working on this large 16X20 painting that's already been sold but well sometimes people like to picture rubberneck. Here is the 2010 meet 2011 painting:

Happy New Year