Skethes and Such

This weekend is Free Comic Book Day! Hooray! The Spokane Comicsmiths Guild is going to be at our local Merlyns for the event, so I'm gonna stop by and get a free sketch and free comics on Sunday. Awesome! In that vein, here's some sketches of my own.



This next one has to be dedicated to my friend Meg because she loves mages and magic so much. Not. She's a mage hater! How can you hate mages?! Feh on STR, INT ftw!

Although, this mage doesn't quite seemed packed with int or str, but everyone's gotta start somewhere; especially mages who live in the local park and learn magic spells from sorcerer zines he finds laying around. At least he's trying!
This book is a drawing project gone mad. I couldn't help adding some colored construction paper beneath the tracing paper and binding it all into a book. Sorry Chris, I got carried away!


Check out that stitching! I'm strangely fascinated by sewing and especially any sewing involving paper. If I had multiple copies of this book I might offer them up as a give-away, sweepstake, or contest of some such. Tell ya what, since I mentioned it, anyone who wants a hand sewn little booklet email me your address (hobbes_10_98 (at) hotmail.com). Let's call it a Free Comic Book Day give-away! It'll be a blank comic that you can make, haha. I'll keep the offer valid till May 7th. Word? Go!

In other news:

• I can't get enough of this song! Handlebars by Flobots, is sooo smooth! The 'official' music video isn't that well done, but it's alright. Check out the official video here, it has a few nice visual tricks, but the animation is fairly jerky and the cel shading could be done better. Plus I imagined the narrator being a single character with split ideas, not two separate characters, but maybe that's just me.
  
• Inspired by Free Comic Book comes Free RPG Day! June 19th, you going to be there? Wherever 'there' is I hope I'm there!
  
• Since I'm talking about FCBD and The Spokane Comicsmiths, then I have to mention the Spokane Comicon! It's coming up, only about a month to go.
  

peacepeace

Fresh Fridays

Almost every Friday for the last two months I've been doing my grocery shopping in Spokane. I have two places that I go to; Lorien and Fresh Abundance. I can't get enough of either of these stores and I refuse to shop anywhere else (buy local!). I only go to Lorien's once every two or three months to hoard up on spices, but visits to Fresh Abundance have become weekly rituals. They have an awesome organic bulk section, all organic (and some local) produce and everyone who works there is super chill. So, of course, last Friday I got me some groceries and cooked up some food!


Local Raw Milk! Eat Well, Be Well, Do Good! Gluton Free Foods! Local Organic Foods!

How can you not love a store front with a fence and gate!
Some orzo with onions, shallots, carrots, garlic, lentils, leek and cilantro.

My friend Meg gave me half of a white onion over the weekend and I said I would do something special with it. I couldn't decide on a special meal, so I cut it into strips for lentil soup (because I don't have noodles) and added a little onion flower.

Potatoes and carrots covered in a creamy, spicy tomato soup. Delicious!
The cilantro is sprouting!
I'm going to take this opportunity to point out that the super new and hi-tech camera I'm using casts a shadow from the lens. Well done, Olympus, good juxtaposition of lens to flash. Not that I'm complaining, I'm super stoked to have a camera again! It just seems like rather silly placement.

That's all for today, folks! Check back tomorrow for some arty shtuff.

peacepeace

Paper Trails

What a fantastic weekend! Got to jam with my buddy Leif, played a Lobster Jaw concert & hung out with a ton of friends that night, went mini-adventuring with Jason, Marissa & Adara, and had an awesome diner party for my good friend Tony's birthday. Come Monday morning I had a couple photos in my inbox my mom, Ruth, had taken the last time I visited Bellingham. And I finally got around to uploading some photos my friend Jamie took of my first installation at the Bruce Neuman gallery in the EWU Art Building.

For those of you not in the know, now you are; this is me. Hi.

This is our dog Oreo, she's amazing!

Here's where it starts!

Here's where it floats and twists across the room.

Here's where it cascades to the floor and crawls on the wall.


Yeah, Jamie's an awesome photographer! Check out his shtuff over in his online gallery.

In other news:

• Yard Sale! All Lobster Jaw recordings are now online for free download!
  
• Red Dead Redemption looks amazing... especially the open world multiplayer. Insane!
  
• I can't get enough of this video; Pixels.
  

peace peace

Something About Soy

On a whim I bought a little under a pound of soybeans last Friday. I've been using the soybeans with lentils and rice, but the idea of homemade soy milk, soy kifer, and tofu tickles my fancy. So, yesterday, I tried my hand at making some soy milk!



Soaked the soybeans for about eight hours before working with them. After soaking the beans I put some in the bullet blender (thanks to my mom!) with some water and pureed. The resulting paste was brought to boil.



I had to add more water as I was heating the soy paste because I didn't use enough when I pureed the mixture. As this mess was coming to a boil I was skimming foam and skin (like boiling milk). After boiling and briefly cooling I poured the contents into a cheesecloth bag I've got and milked me some soy!



Twist, squeeze, repeat. I had to do two batches of blending and boiling due to the size of the bullet blender and my cooking pot. After milking two rounds of soy I was left with about a cup of soy milk.



My homemade soymilk (in the background) ended up working really well! The flavor is a little odd to me, so I added a small amount of agave and vanilla extract which helped to mellow out the milk. So what do you do for breakfast when you're out of breakfast-ish food? Toss a banana, some blueberries and fresh soymilk into a blender and have yourself an awesome smoothie!



The dry pulp leftover from the milking process is called okara and I ended up with about a cup or a cup and a half (I don't measure anything). Since I still needed to cook diner I decided to fry me some okara! Heated up some olive oil and tossed in some fresh okara. Used a lid to steam it and added salt, cilantro, parsley, black pepper and vinegar as the okara cooked.



It ended up being pretty awesome! Protein! I've already got plenty of ideas of what to do with this stuff (I still have half of my soybeans and more than half of my okara). Okara seems like it could be a good thickener for some soups, a good addition to bread or fried okara would be great with some stir fried veggies! Since I can get organic soybeans for only $1.86 at my local market, I expect to see more of this on the way; I haven't even experimented with soy kifer or homemade tofu yet!

Stuff and Things

Today is cloudy, but it's Spring! These last few days have been sunny and awesome in Cheney, Washington. Since it has been sunny Chris, our drawing teacher, let us wander campus and draw whatever. Since my house is just a few blocks away from the art building I ended up wandering back there for some food and art. Here's a drawing I came up with while I was sitting on the stump in front of the house.




We've started moving from line work to value work. So, obviously, our most recent homework has been a value study. Here's my favorite attempt at adding some shading to a contour drawing, I think this one was pretty successful, too!


Lentil and soybean soup! With some carrot greens for color and texture, tasty!


How do you power a body through four hours of class, including a presentation, with a single meal? Oven omelette! Cubed russet potato, red potato & sweet potato with carrot and garlic rounds and plenty of onion (plus more carrot greens). Mix up a couple eggs and mix into the cooked mess and toss into the oven for 20-25 minutes and enjoy!


This rice turned out amazing! Cooked the rice with the juice and zest of a lime and cilantro. Stirred in some pre-soaked lentils and soybeans about 2/3 through the cooking process and steamed carrots, leek, onion, shallot and garlic on the side. Mix up the mess and top with pepper and paprika. I'm stoked that this bowl has a similar volume to my smaller cooking pot, cooking for one just got more efficient.

So, last Saturday I had the pleasure of listening to Lars Brown talk about some One Piece philosophy and the awesome-tacity of comic books & graphic novels. He was on back to back panels for this years Get Lit! in Spokane. And (on a similar geek topic) even though I haven't been playing video games, I still like to keep up with the industry through magazines I find and the occasional blog. Plus dorking out to some nerdcore, chiptunes and, of course, JoCo. Gotta keep flexing my dork muscles and get ready for next PAX!

Sunday Afternoon

Studying for tests, prepping presentations, thinking about typography... gotta fuel the body somehow.


If I were forced to pick one specific food to eat forever, it would be pancakes. There's so much you can do with pancakes it blows my mind. Here's some molasses pancakes coming out of the warmer prior to getting coated with homemade blueberry syrup and promptly devoured.


Here's some mush I made with that molasses cake and the last two slices from a loaf of spelt bread. I'm sure it's not technically a bread pudding, but it was damn tasty. Soaked the bread in water, added some oil and salt and brought it to a boil. Removed from heat and added a slice of that molasses cake/brownie/bread thing, some raisins and Ruth's hemp mix. Good to go!


Finally used one of the cans of sliced tomatoes I've had sitting around for a couple months. Ended up making this tomato soup pasta dish.



Got these in the mail a week or so ago from my dad and they are awesome! Vibram 5, kickass. Haven't gone on a run in a long while, but these were begging for it. So we went out on a farm trail near me and had a great morning run last Sunday.

The Vibrams are a little difficult to put on, but they're fairly comfortable and they breathe well. They have nice padding so you don't have to be worried about the gravel, but you can feel the freedom of the grass. I wouldn't wear them for road runs, but they seem great for trails. I'll keep updating with my thoughts on the Vibrams as time goes on, but for now I like them (I'm wearing them right now).

Diner, Desert and Packing Peanuts

The problem with my relationship with recipes is that when I cook, I dive headfirst and I'm in a trance. I'm measuring and mixing by taste and sight. I could give you a recipe of vague proportions if you want, but I'm not sure that would be quite the same. Maybe I'll find recipes that we all love and perfect the chaos into a pattern. Who knows...

I just turn the oven on and see what comes out.



Molasses Brownies? Molasses Cake? Some delicious desert that is fantastic when topped with some homemade apple butter and raisins!




And a vegan cobbler! Steamed and fried sweet potato, yam, red pepper, garlic, onion, squash and green onion mixed up with some biscuit-esque dough and roasted for half of an hour. Plus I have some oh-so-rare leftovers, I was stuffed after a couple servings (3 more to go!) and a slice of that molasses cake. Awesome.



Here is my second installation in the Bruce Newmann Gallery in EWU's art building.





Complacent Obsolescence. It's one part word joke, one part packing peanut joke, one part mass produced produce commentary. The main purpose of the piece is a giggle or two, I couldn't help but snicker every time I saw it. It's so silly! Oh art.

Some uploads! An update!

Made some stuff. Took pictures of that stuff. Posted pictures of stuff on Shmeriousblahg.


Since the over was on, I decided to try toasting some oats and walnuts that were coated in agave and molasses. Granola!


And while I'm at it, might as well try making some molasses cookies to use up the last of my bananas.


This is why the over was on.


And here is why I needed some bread; homemade bread for a fried cheese sandwich goes perfectly with homemade tomato soup! So, two tomatoes walk into a blender with some kifer. They wake up the next morning in a pot with some oil, salt and herbs! Add some cilantro, paprika, cayenne, parsley in the mix with some melted cheese and you're good to go! Adventure time!


Since I was running a little low on peanut butter, I ended up using the leftover walnuts for some walnut butter. Tasty!



Homemade bread and some homemade spread. Shdaisy!

Hot grain in the shape of cereal

I'm being creepy right now. Well, actually I'm just creeping around. Really I'm just hanging out around a corner drawing people when they're not looking. I look most like a creeper when they realize they're being studied.

People don't seem too keen on random scrutiny. But it's totally justified, I swear! It's homework! My sketchbook pages are slowly filling with frantic sketches of people I've never met and I'll probably never know. Gesture drawings are fun!


So, here's another food based entry, but I threw in some design for funsies. The track titles are mockeries of the ingredients to my surprisingly delicious sludge. (I know it's not monday, but Tuesday Morning Sludge doesn't sound as appealing as Monday Morning Sludge. I blame the alliteration)

Pre-soaked oats
Kifer
track 3 was just a fact of the morning
Walnut chunks
Banana!
raisins
Light Agave Sweetener
and the second helping of sludge included blueberries

I used some spelt (local and organic!) to thicken up the oatmeal and added some Cranberry and Ginger Chia to make the sludge a little heartier. I was rather surprised by the flavor in this breakfast and I would bet my pleasure was multiplied because I wasn't exactly expecting it. Consensus? Delicious!