Gettin' Figgy wit it!

This week keeps getting better and better! In addition to entering the squid contest on Spoonflower I was working on an entry for California Figs and They Draw and Cook's Year of The Fig Contest! There were many tasty looking recipes on their website that you could choose from.

I looked at a lot of fig recipes but ultimately decided on this one from Serious Eats .

I snuck in my entry at the deadline. There were a lot of really great fig recipes: Ingvard the Terrible, Lucile Prache, and James Gulliver Hancock were among my favorites!

... I came in 1st for dried fig recipes!!

I really like having a warm bowl of oatmeal in the morning but I had never tried it with figs. Turns out figs are amazing with a bit of cinnamon, vanilla, and honey. I like adding brown sugar to mine too! I love the shape of the figs and I wanted to make sure they were highlighted in my recipe. In the past I have struggled with getting all of my directions to fit on the page. I decided to try to be minimal with the written steps and really focus on the imagery.

A big Thank you to Nate and Salli from They Draw and Cook! If you haven't seen the new website go check it out! It has all these great ways of searching for recipes by artist, meal, ingredients, art style and country. Anyone can submit an illustrated recipe on their site. So... if you also like cooking and drawing, what are you waiting for? Submit a recipe! It's fantastic to find a site like TDAC with so many other artists that are as passionate about cooking and drawing.

Etsy Giveway!

Jen of This Girl's Life So Far recently contacted me on Etsy about doing an interview and giveaway on her blog. An addition to running a blog Jen has an Etsy shop where she makes her own soap. My favorite is her cupcake bombs!

This is my first interview and it was a relief to know that someone saw my avatar/store name and liked it. Turns out she's actually been chased by a rabid Emu! Haha, how crazy is that?

Check out her blog to read my interview here and if you want a chance to win a notepad/notebook set just leave a comment. You can enter till April 4th! Thanks so much Jen!

Everyone Loves Squids!

I love squid, octopus, cuttlefish (Cephalopods in general.) I've been busy sewing things for the sale but I took a night to make this squid fabric for the Spoonflower contest.

I scanned some ink blobs and played with them on the computer! I'm really happy with how this turned out and can't wait to see it printed on fabric

Please...go vote for my fabric in the Spoonflower contest this week! Click on contest and you can select any of the designs you like, there are some really good ones! Once you've viewed all the pages just push "Save votes!" It's up until Tuesday. Thanks guys!

Hogwarts, I Wish I Had Thought of That!

Lately, I've been thinking about other things I can have on my blog. I'm sick of just writing about my work and so I've decided to start a new section called: I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT! Every two weeks or so I will share the work of another artist who is doing something awesome! I just received "Here At Hogwarts" by Lucy Knisley in the mail this week! A friend showed me her work and I've been following her blog ever since. (okay technically her RSS feed) Lucy and Nora are also big Buffy fans, like me! They have an excellent buffy shirt among other things at their joint store: The Burrow

Here at Hogwarts is a comic book about Lucy and Nora (her studio mate) and their trip to the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter." They are both big time fans as am I and when I saw they were looking for donations on Kickstarter I was delighted to send some money their way! They did a super cute video about going through nasty break ups and taking comfort in Harry Potter books. It's websites like kickstarter that may save Indie comics. I guess it seems plausible that book publishing will change and fans will be able to directly invest in artists they like and allow them to self publish their work.

Anyways, that's what Lucy and Nora did! They proposed spending a week in Orlando to scope out Harry Potter land and then do a comic about it. For just $15 I got my own signed copy and helped fund their trip! I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just show you this page, its one of my favorites in the book.

I love the way Lucy draws! I am envious of her ability to simply so that it is readable but maintain the quirky nature of her drawing too! I also got a kick out the Thank you pages at the end showing a bunch of wizards running around!

If you are also a Harry Potter fan or a fan of comic book artists you can get your own copy mailed to you or download it digitally for $3! I am also eyeing the posters that sum up the plots of each book 1-3. I wish I had thought of that!