Honeymoon Magic, Male Strippers, etc.

Wedding Season    | wed-ing see-zuhn |

noun

• the time when a bunch of our friends start getting married and make us wonder where time went. 

In honor of wedding season, I give you the bingo game I made for my sister's bachelorette party.


Unfortunately, there were no *actual* male strippers involved. :[ Sorry, guys.

End phase 1.

My spring break consisted of pre-wedding planning and wrapping up the documentation process of all the large images from my time at MIAD. That was a huge project, and I am so so so grateful to my dad for helping me with that! Between spring break and the arrival of this amazing weather, I am struggling still to get back into the swing of class work. Hello, crunch time.. Everything is fine.

Self-Portrait Monotype.

Circa 2010, from a self-portrait series I did with Rina Yoon at MIAD.

'Absurdities in Life' Monoprints.

This is the second series I did in my screen printing class with Chris Dacre at IU. I cannot tell you how much I struggled with myself and my brain while drawing and printing these.  I have a relationship with drawing that varies from pure love, to embarrassment, to sarcasm.  That is probably a lot better than always being static, but take this as my disclaimer for the days I hate looking at these.

 

I will say that I have never had a critique quite like the one I had for these - where I was smiling and laughing the whole time.  I got so much positivity from that critique, contrasting my inward struggle with what I was physically doing.

Art is not just about the artist, but hugely about the viewer.  Sometimes I have a hard time understanding that until I share it.  Nevertheless, this project ended with a bunch of good conversations and even some references to South Park.

I'll take it!

The Best Chocolate Syrup of Your Life.

... for your never-ending chocolate craving.

3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup water
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla


Whisk together the water, salt, and cocoa powder in a small saucepan and heat over low to medium heat. Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Boil for three minutes and stir frequently. Be sure to watch the temperature - if it looks like it is about to boil over, it probably will boil over. (Totally not speaking from experience on that one..) Mix in the vanilla and let cool for 5 minutes. Pour into a clean glass jar and refrigerate.

This syrup will last for several months, and is the most delicious chocolate syrup ever. 1570902x better than Hershey's. You also did not hear from me that I am awfully biased against Hershey's cop-out chocolate products.

Ehem.


........



So. I have been slacking on getting my scans together, but I wanted to share what I have been working on as far as screen printing goes. My second project after the polar bear portrait was six monotypes about "Absurdities in Life." These revolved around my experiences in Bloomington so far.  At some points, I wanted to take back all the wonderful things I said about the place previously, but I won't.  I had a really silly time with the series, and it definitely shows with the final prints.

I am currently exploring poster art and am in the middle of an 8 layer print.

'Sexy molasses lady' is all I can say about that.

Better Chocolate Chip Cookies.

1/2 cup Earth Balance
3/4 cup cane sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
egg replacer equivalent of 1 egg (I used half a banana this time.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional, but it's delicious)
1/2 - 3/4 cup chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350° F. Beat Earth Balance and sugar until fluffy.  Add the molasses, banana (or other egg replacer) and vanilla extract. Mix well.

Sift together dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes and move to a cooling rack.


...


I was craving chocolate chip cookies this week like you wouldn't believe. And I didn't want to make that one recipe that never ever turns out the same for me again. I also didn't have ener-g egg replacer or flax seeds on hand that I found suggested in other recipes - thus the banana and my first(ish) own cookie recipe!

They good. Real good.




On a side note, I had an awfully silly week.  What was better about today? Putting sweet fenders on my bike (aka no more wet butt), getting my hands in some flour, actually finishing homework, drinking too much coffee, and finally listening to In the Face of War again.

Portrait of Caitlin.