Sketchbook Pages – Week 3

I’ve had Neapolitan Cake on my mind lately so I thought it would be fun to use that as inspiration for a sketchbook page.

I also have lots of art, design, illustration supplies and projects on my mind with the first few classes already behind me. Having four classes is keeping me quite busy, so I didn’t spend too much time on this page. I just wanted to capture a few simple ideas on a mock notebook page.

I previously mentioned this Sketchbook Delight class I’m taking on line, which generated some interest in the comments and email discussions. If you’re looking for a drawing, illustration, or sketchbook class to jumpstart your creative mojo, I highly recommend looking into this class. The instructor, Alisa Burke, is an amazing artist, who creates the most fabulous art, in my opinion. I love her laid-back attitude and creative style, which definitely keep me motivated to experiment with a sketchbook and tools to find my own style.

Neapolitan Cake

I have always loved Neapolitan Ice Cream, but I hardly ever have it. So I thought it would be fun to try making Neapolitan Cake.

Here is the recipe I used, from Betty Crocker:

1 box of Betty Crocker Super Moist White Cake

1 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

10 drops Red food color

1/4 cup chocolate-flavored syrup

Chocolate Frosting (I don’t like making frosting, so I usually buy a tub from the grocery store.)

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Grease and lightly flour 12-cup fluted tube cake pan, or spray with baking spray with flour. (I couldn’t find my bundt pan so I used my Giant Donut Cake pans, which are basically two small bundt pans.)

2. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and egg whites with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour about 1-2/3 cups batter into pan. (Since I used two pans, I split up this amount into each pan.)

3. Into small bowl, pour 1 1/3 cups batter; stir in almond extract and food color. Carefully pour half pink batter over white batter in each pan. Stir chocolate syrup into remaining batter. Carefully pour half chocolate batter over pink batter in each pan.

4. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted 1 1/2 inches from side of cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Turn pans upside down onto cooling rack or heatproof serving plate; remove pans. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

5. In microwavable bowl, microwave frosting uncovered on High about 15 seconds or until frosting can be stirred smooth and is thin enough to drizzle. Spread over top of cake, allowing some to drizzle down side. Since I used two pans, I did a layer of frosting in between the two cakes and just spread the frosting over the two layers.

This cake turned out so delicious that we devoured it!

For my next baking experiment, I might try making these Neapolitan Bars, which call for devil’s food cake, white or vanilla cake, and strawberry cake. It’s fun to experiment like this, especially when things turn out so good. (I don’t show you the flops because what fun would that be.)

Art Journal-Week 2

So far, I am managing to keep up in my art journal with some cool pages.

I enjoyed a girls’ day out with my mom, which was great fun, so that was on my mind for this first illustration. I did a rough sketch of a skyline, painted a darkening sky in the background with a full moon rising, and journaled all the fun things we did in the outer border.

We got our first snow storm of the 2012 winter season later in the week, so I illustrated this page page with that on my mind. We got five inches of snow, so it was quite a lovely scene.

In addition to my semester of four graphic design classes, I am taking this fabulous online sketchbook class that I’m really excited for, so I’m hoping to learn a lot more and continue to practice my drawing and illustration techniques.

New Sketchbook Covers

I made two new sketchbook covers to take notes and doodle in classes this semester.

Each of them has an accompanying zipper pouch that velcros to the back of the cover so I can keep my essential drawing tools attached to my sketchbook.

I’m so excited over all these fun prints! They are going to be quite handy too.

I am officially ready for the new semester to start. Well, until I get the syllabuses for my courses, and then I’ll probably have to make a trip to the art supply store and the camera store.

Holiday Drawing

I have been continuing to keep up with my drawing practice using everyday objects. I am finding it’s a great way to train my eyes to really look at something, and to train my hand to interpret the shapes, shading and details.

Dang, the handle on that vintage coffee grinder was hard! I originally had the handle going to the left, but after drawing the box, the handle no longer fit on the page. Good thing I could swivel it to the right so I didn’t have to scrap this one!

I’ve been saving this sketchbook for my pencil drawing practice of everyday objects. It’s kind of a boring sketchbook, but I do love the paper and the size of the pages at 6 inches wide by 9.5 inches tall. As I’ve mentioned before, I can always make a pretty cover for this sketchbook too.

I got that cool little set of drawing tools (I do love that vintage box) from my cousin Linda for Christmas, so I tried them out on a few holiday sketches.

Surprisingly, pinecones aren’t as hard to draw as they look. In fact, I love drawing them!

I was happy to finish these drawings so I could put away the last of our Christmas decorations.

There are lots of things I still haven’t attempted to draw, such as people and animals, that I’m hoping to attempt one of these days.

Decorating for Guests

We have been working on adding some decorating to our guest room lately.

We hung a few pictures of various urban scenes, from Paris to Vegas to Madison to Hong Kong.

I made a few mini quilts for the nightstands, beginning with this fabric of vintage New York City postcards.

I used this fabric of vintage NYC street scenes for the backing because it was so adorable, I didn’t want to cut it up into smaller pieces.

These mini quilts were especially easy projects because I used one fabric for the top and one for the backing, so there wasn’t much cutting, no piecing and easy quilting.

I bought these city collection fabrics on our last trip to New York City that I want to staple to art canvases for another large blank wall in that room.

It’s been fun to liven up our guest room, which always seems to be a work in progress.

A Girls’ Day Out

My mom and I had a girls’ day out earlier this week.

Our first stop was Utrecht Art Supply, a national chain full of every art supply a professional, amateur or student could ever need. I didn’t buy a lot because I’m waiting to get my supply list for the upcoming semester of design classes. But I thought this pad of disposable palette paper looked fun to try. It’s specially treated heavy paper, like really thick wax paper, you can put any media on, mix it up, water it down, and then throw away the paper, saving yourself the clean up mess.

We headed to the historic Third Ward, known as the new art and fashion district. We started with Broadway Paper, a stationery store full of greeting cards, calendars, notebooks, gift wrap, stationery, and gifts. It had everything I was hoping for, and reminded me of the Paper Source in Chicago, so I will definitely go back again. I bought this cool letter set, which included a great selection of vintage-style papers, airmail paper and envelopes, graph paper, ledger paper, and stickers. I am hoping to use these supplies in some handmade books I want to try making this year.

I also picked up this great magazine Anthology that can be hard to find in my neighborhood. It’s always full of interesting articles about creative people from all over the world, featuring home decor, travel, design, entertaining, and culture. This particular issue has an excellent article with Lotta Jansdotter!

We had lunch with my mom’s friends, which is always great fun! We ate well, had great conversation, and shared our goals for 2012. I brought my homemade caramels for a hostess gift, which were a hit.

After a little window-shopping at a couple more boutiques, we stopped by the yacht club for a cocktail. My husband and I got married there ten years ago, so it’s always fun to hang out and enjoy the atmosphere. Plus, they make the best mojitos!

I’m so happy we were able to spend another great day together, so I’m adding this to my list for 2012, to have a girls’ day out with my mom every month.

Art Cards – Winter Swap

I wanted to share with you the final sets of art cards for the Winter solstice swap Michelle and I agreed to do. Winter is a time of year when the days are shortest and the nights are longest. The first day of Winter came just a few days before Christmas, so I took advantage of the opportunity to make a “gift card” for my partner as well as to illustrate a winter solstice star.

Here’s the adorable set I received from Michelle which makes me smile! Now I have the urge to try making mulled wine.

This officially concludes our year of art cards! I have to confess that I already miss this tiny form of art and expression as well as the weekly routine. Our Flickr group, with contributions from Michelle and Sandra, is full of a variety of art, capturing wonderful illustrated life experiences from the past year.

Color Maps

I ordered one of those big color map fabrics from Spoonflower, full of 3600 color chips and their RGB codes. So Cool!

I was stumped to figure out what to do with it. I thought about hanging it on the wall to have handy for reference, but I don’t have enough wall space in my creative studio for such a large piece. Not without rearranging, which I don’t feel like doing.

Then I decided to keep it simple and make my favorite thing as well as the most useful thing – a fun zippered bag.

I started out with the orange one since it’s the color of the year, but then I got carried away and picked a few other colors to try.

I made that teal one a little fancier with darts in the corners and piping.

Fun bags to make in anticipation of taking a color theory class this semester!

Today, I’m Making…

… Homemade Granola, using this recipe, as usual. For this batch, I threw in some additional ingredients, including flax seed, wheat germ, brown sugar, dried apricots and dried cranberries, making it more filling and quite tasty.

… Homemade Caramels, using this recipe. This was my first try making caramels, so we’ll see how they turn out.

It’s been fun to try some experiments on a Friday afternoon!