A House You Can Eat, Q . Cassetti, 2010, pen and inkWhoa. Dreary. Right? Need to pop those Ds to keep the happy factor going.... What a weekend. Friday night was Pourhouse with the Yardvarks. Last night it was rocking with the Zydeco Trail Riders. They were very good with many in the room jumping up to dance with each other. Quite fun, quite convivial.
Today we stay home and celebrate Saint Patricks Day with the crew (all 6 of us) and the neighbors and their friends. So, 10 for dinner. We are boiling up slabs of corned beef with a Pizza Rustica for those that cannot fathom or stand the corned beef. I bought a cabbage and a bag of potatoes that are going into the pot after the meat stews. I have been blowing the fuse of the electric range (my Fridgidaire circa 1942, complete with the frightening Thermonizer (which, to the uninitiated is an integrated aluminum stock pot taking up the 4th burner on the top)--with great scary pops and lights. I am a bit frayed from that so I am writing you and planning my next attack. Additionally, I busted (sounds like I stripped the gears) of my Kitchen Aid mixer making bread, so I ordered a new powertool, a Viking 7 quart, 1000 watt machine. The bread baking continues as does making granola. Next trick is the granola bar as we spend a fortune on them and they seem to be predominantly corn syrup.
These gingerbread houses are running their course for now. I need to take them further with pix of the kids, the witch, the mom etc. but I am done with it. I have exhausted my sketchbook, so I am changing channels and going back to a smaller book with watercolor paper just for a break. The bees are on the horizon for the next few weeks. Then, per the 3x3 entries, I need to rap out a bunch of portraits as I am missing doing them and they get me a bunch of traction (or at least they have been). The key learning with the gingerbread houses is that in Adobe illustrator, (I was drawing the images in ink, scanning them and then reversing them in photoshop--and then bringing the image into illustrator to color them (new approach for me)-- I am using the multiply function to get the color in...laying on layers and layers of color. But the new thing is the sensational blob brush (shift+ B) as a drawing tool and also, that the eraser (shift+e) can be used to erase spots out of established objects or shapes. Small stuff, but very cool as a pair of tools go. Feeling charged with my new tricks.
Gotta make this short as there is amendment with the Hangar Theatre posters that needs to happen this p.m.Then on to finalizing the dinner.