Unexpected

[liralen]

Life is sometimes unexpected...

I did not expect to spend three days on icons for y!Gallery. I did not expect but did welcome a chance to make more painting cards and do more experimentation on mounting (which has ended up with our having a big plexiglass plate in our living room). I did not expect to have to do mild skin surgery on a duck in order to roast it this evening (for some reason all the skin was missing off the leg/thigh/back of a discount duck, maybe that's why?). I did not expect to have Jet get madly interested in Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection. Perhaps I need to introduce Jet to Alton Brown, too.



My sister sent me avi's of all the shows that have come out so far. And I love them to pieces; but an unintended side effect is that Jet's now utterly fascinated by the show, and is willing to try foods that... bemuse me. We spent an evening frying and eating tempura vegetables and a few tiger shrimp (talk about a cheap night out compared to buying the stuff). He really, really, really wants to try the skin off a duck, which is why the purchase while we were at H-Mart. A four dollar duck is something of a deal... but now I see why. *sigh*

It is not the duck Heston got that was specifically made for Peking duck, but then I'm not blowing up the carcass or taking all the skin off in order to poach the breast and cook the skin separately, either. Though that would have been a viable solution, come to think of it.

*headdesk*

Also gotta make the cardamom ice cream today, and the egg mushu for after the duck for the pancakes... Just to have it be an all cooking day...

Hmmm... paintings... here is a card line up from the last few days.




I *tried* to mount one of the bamboo failed painting, and failed because I did the gluing and mounting over newspaper and squishing it under a pad of practice paper, rather than doing it on a really flat surface that I could glue the mounting paper to, so it ended up with bubbles, wrinkles, and isn't flat... but that's why I sacrificed something I was okay with, but... *shrugs* Now I have actually bought the plexiglass, and need to try and mount something else. Maybe one of the orchid fails before I get to the successes...

And I'm not embarrassing myself by posting fan art here, yet, but I do have to say that using GIMP is a lot easier than using Paint. Now I just have to figure out layers. *grins* I mean, I get it conceptually, but figuring out exactly how to stack them... I'll probably just have to google around for a tutorial or something.

I really should be writing. REALLY SHOULD be writing... and after this warm up, I shall.

Comments

[crimini.livejournal.com]

Are you using a brayer to help with mounting and what type of adhesive are you using to mount your paintings? If you wanted to go the quick and easy route, there are tons and tons of adhesives in easy-to-mount packaging meant for scrapbookers (so is acid-free/archival quality), which might help you mount the pictures faster with less mess and ease of use.

Unless you're doing something totally different than just putting your painted paper on a firmer cardstock or mat board... :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Well, I got the cards to work just fine, i.e. mounting the paintings on the cardstock, which is probably just like the easy-to-mount stuff you're speaking of...

... uhm... I've been using wallpaper paste *laughs* It's thin enough to spread easily, doesn't dry instantly in this climate, so I have time to set things up, and it has little enough water so that the inks and watercolors, on the most part, don't leech into it.

The paintings need to get stuck to another sheet of the same kind of paper they're painted from in order to be firm enough to stick to a mat board, because the paper's too thin by itself to go through traditional mounting without the backing paper. Plus the inks and colors will run through without the backing paper.

So it's a little different, but not *that* different, especially when I'm just doing the cards. *grins* I'll have to look into that...

[incandescens]

Lovely paintings!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I'm getting more of them to be more like I want them to be... *laughs* I guess that's the point, hm?

[cmc42.livejournal.com]

If you go into the windows menu on the Gimp toolbar and select 'Layers' that will show you which order they are currently in. From there you can rearrange them or delete a particular layer, or change the styling of a layer. (The styling thing is a little more complex to explain but if you change a new transparent layer ontop of lineart and set the new layer to 'multiply' then colouring on that layer will not go over the black lines. :-) ).

If you need help with anything Gimp related don't hesitate to ask me on Yahoo, I use Gimp a lot. ^^;

[liralen.livejournal.com]

AH HA! That's exactly what I needed. I shall bug you on Yahoo if I try that again. I'm trying to write more than draw at the moment, but just having *THAT* helps immensely. *laughs*

It was the "multiply" that I had no clue about. Whew.

Thank you!!

Good Eats DVD

[amberley.livejournal.com]

That art's very pretty, thanks for posting it!

12 volumes (36 DVDs) of Alton Brown's Good Eats are available at the Food Network store.

The Good Eats Fan Page has recipes and even transcripts of many shows.

Perhaps you can ease in to fan art, like "What if Shunsui and Ukitake were butterflies or hummingbirds?"

Re: Good Eats DVD

[liralen.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! Hee.

I actually have a bunch of the early episodes on tape... and I'll admit that the first two seasons I liked a lot more than the latter ones. I mean hey, once Ma-Mae made biscuits how could anyone top that? *laughs*

Jet and I may well watch those... *hugs*

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

If you're running Windows, paint.net is very nice. I have basically stopped believing that anything GPL will have a user interface. :-)-

[liralen.livejournal.com]

OOOo.... (does the coder strut) I don' need no stinkin' interface! I just need it ta work (deflates)... uhm...

oooo... that's nice.... *giggles*

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

(raps cane on floor) Now in my day...well, no, actually, I never programmed in binary or used a plugboard. But I have entered a boot loader from console switches.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Hee. I did use a plug board, and I did microcode on silicon, laying the gates out for a co-processors for a 68020 back when they were the latest and greatest processor. *shakes head*

Mmmm... boot loaders with console switches. THAT I've never done. *laughs*

[annieroo2.livejournal.com]

Oh those are incredibly lovely! I'm torn between the butterfly and the birds, but think I'm leaning towards the butterfly just because they always hold such happy memories for me.

Your son always bemuses me. It's as if he was born on another plant from my boys. *laughs* He is just so completely adorable.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yay! Butterflies! I have a whole page of butterflies I forgot to take a picture of... hm...

Yeah... Jet does seem... really different from other kids, I think it's partially just who he is... and some of it is us, too, I'm afraid. *laughs* There aren't many parents that would sit around watching "In Search of Perfection" with their kids... *laughs*

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Oh your paintings are lovely, the butterfly and swallow ones made me smile. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Mmmm... thank you so much! Yay for smiles! Glad you like them. *happy sighs*