watercolored heart

Okay, watercoloredheart was a lame screen name I used when I was like 14, but whatever, I'm reusing it as a blog title because today I want to share some of my watercolory artwork with you guys.

It's probably apparent that my weapon of choice is the ballpoint pen, but sometimes I use ballpoint or india ink pens and watercolor paints.


reminiscent of much of my high school era stuff


I made this Colossus for my friend Ryan ages ago


flower girl in a moleskin


The Joker, for an old coworker

All of these are a two or more years old, whoops! (I listed them oldest to newest, so this is a tiny glimpse at the evolution of my work--fun for me to see!) Check out more of my older art here. Some of my newer watercolors have been featured in Moleskin Monday posts here (this is a very Halloween-inspired moleskin post!) and here.

I have been a busy bee! I started a new full time job and school is trying its best to kick my butt. I'm keeping my head just above the water though, and I'll be back later in the week with some fun Halloween DIYs. I hope everyone is having a great week!

DIY sweater resurrection

When debating what to wear today I picked up a frumpy old sweater and had an idea.



I forgot to take a "before" picture of the sweater because my mind does not yet shout "get your camera!" whenever I wish it would (seriously, I miss so many photographable moments because I haven't trained myself to think of taking pictures yet). So, it DID have sleeves, but I cut them off, making the sweater that once made me feel like a giant blob into a cute short sleeved sweater I could style with layers.


But what to do with those sleeves?


Leg warmers!



I'm all about revamping old clothes, which is kind of a bad thing because I'm a borderline clothes hoarder. But I often reconstruct or restyle something and think so this is why I've been keeping this! That makes it okay to save old clothes, right? If you have some old sweater you don't wear but can't part with, try this easy DIY. People will admire how crafty you are. Actually, they'll probably think you bought it like that, but do it any way!

moleskin monday: a cage to you

I'm actually not particularly fond of this sketch. To be honest, I had nearly forgotten about it. But I decided to feature it today because at some point I must have gotten bored and adorned it with song lyrics, and I happen to love the song. I've actually had it on repeat quite often lately, so it was a fun surprise to flip through my moleskin and find the all but forgotten sketch. It seems this time of year I always have Right Away, Great Captain! playing. So, the sketch and, more importantly, the song.









This was the first Right Away, Great Captain! song I heard and I was hooked immediately. Apparently so hooked I decorated my drawing with its lyrics, high school style.

what does a vegan eat?

I love to cook, and I love to take pictures of what I cook. I've got a lot of these food pictures lying around so I thought I'd share a bunch of them! I personally LOVE food porn and I could stare at glorious food pictures all day. My pictures may be less than glorious, but they can help me answer a question I get asked all the time because I'm vegan, which is what do you eat?! Well, here's a little taste of the things I eat!























I don't know if this is exactly representative of my diet, because while we only have a few staples around here, I hardly photograph things I make all the time--that's not exciting! I try to make sure I make nutritious, healthy(-ish) meals and I try new dishes all the time. I'll be happy to provide recipes if anyone is interested!

octolantern!

Who has several hundred bucks to throw down on Photoshop? Not me! I get by with free alternatives. While they're nowhere near as powerful as Photoshop, photo-editing apps like Picnik and Fotoflexer are great for prettying up your pictures. But a lot of us do more than edit photos! I have two Wacom tablets and I never use them because I don't have pricey painting software. Okay, so we may or may not have all stolen Photoshop at one time or other, but I feel sort of guilty showing off a drawing I made ~illegally. This dilemma drove me to discover GIMP. As the website says, it's "like Photoshop, but 100% free". Need I say more?

I played around with the program the other day and drew this Halloweeny little guy. (You'll never catch me boasting of any computer art skills, I just like digital-doodling from time to time!)


Octolantern! Or is he a Jacktopus?!

GIMP is super easy to use, especially if you're already familiar with Photoshop. I definitely recommend trying it out if you're looking for a worthy alternative to popular (and expensive!) programs.

P.S. I gave the blog a tiny make over. Check it out!

make this: hummamole

Hi, blog! Right now it's a bit difficult for me to pull my head out of the book I'm reading, Abarat: Absolute Midnight. (It's the third installation in a really fun series by Clive Barker, one of my favorite authors, and I waited seven long years to read it! It does not disappoint and I want to do nothing but read it. Whoops!) But I reluctantly left its pages to drop by the blog and share this awesome recipe with you guys.


(see, told you I can't leave the book alone.)

Hummamole! If you are anything like me and you obsessively love hummus and guacamole and make them all the time, you will not be disappointed by this recipe, which is from Quick-fix Vegan and can be found here. It may sound weird but it's actually a great combination. Hopefully you're luckier than me and possess an actual food processor instead of a blender and a magic bullet, the combined efforts of which are nearly futile with making hummus. I didn't have the pinch of cayenne but it did fine without. I also think next time I'll substitute lime juice for the lemon to play up the taste of the avocado a little more. I made pita chips (easy: bake lightly oiled pita bread in the oven at 400 for fiveish minutes) to eat it with, but I think it would taste really great with plantain chips, too.

So make this tasty dip and enjoy!

birds dress are the best dresses

I found this dress at a thrift store and I knew I had to have it. Anything covered in birds belongs in my closet. The belt is also thrifted and the tights and shoes are from Target, I think (I am bad at this). Since I wore this it's gotten much colder and It looks like it's finally time for layers for the rest of the year.

Today I went to school but apparently I shouldn't have. This semester I have the worst professor I've encountered so far. She teaches an elective anthropology course (a required elective, mind you) and by "teaches" I mean she stands in front of the class and demands our attention so she can look down on us haughtily and insist we Google words like "coercion" since we obviously are too young and naive to have come across such a word before. Unfortunately the torture doesn't end there. She dresses so unprofessionally I really can't stand to look at her (once she wore a see-through shirt, I kid you not) and she assigned an advanced text containing only essays written by anthropologists for anthropologists. All of the assignments are turned in online so I'm not exactly sure why she insists we meet twice a week, but she does, so each week the students diminish in numbers and lately we refuse to take part in her misguided discussions. As a result she has been dismissing class earlier and earlier and this morning she released us in a fit of rage after five minutes and stormed out of the class room. It's hard to convey how insufferable she manages to be, but it's becoming far less difficult to convey how unprofessional she is.

I'm really starting to feel like going to that class is a waste of time, but at least she freed up my day so I can hang out with the animals and get things done around the house.

moleskin monday: tree vomit

It's Monday and that means we dive into my moleskin and look at a thing I drew!







This is a bit of an oldie but I recently added the color. I used to shade my drawings strictly within the gray scale unless I was using colored pencils or pastels (so rarely, because I almost always use pens), but then I realized pens totally come in a variety of colors and I should be utilizing that. Now I love making colorful drawings, even if they're still largely black and gray with splashes of brightness. My favorite pretty-colored ballpoints are all running out of ink, and I think I'm going to invest in an even larger selection of colors soon.

This is one of many trees I have drawn (though it is the only one being puked out of a mouth). Is anyone else obsessed with trees like I am?

happy october

Every year on the first of October I like to get silly and dress in black and orange and jack-o-lanterns to let the world know, "hey, Halloween is here and it's not over till November!" because yes, I absolutely subscribe to the belief that Halloween is every day. And it's ESPECIALLY every day in October. So, on to my October uniform!




I guess I confused "walk like a zombie" with "walk like an Egyptian", whoops



Of course when my brain finally decided to differentiate between zombies and Egyptians Phoenix infiltrated the photos...


Jack-o-lantern earrings

While sporting my festive clothes today I traveled to a far off Barnes & Noble (RIP Borders, I will always miss you) to purchase Abarat: Absolute Midnight, a book I have been waiting to read for seven freaking years. I'm trying not to let myself devour it just yet, because I know once I begin I won't be able to do anything else (read: sleep, eat, or breathe). Other than buying a horror-laden kid's book, blasting silly Halloween tunes (listen above!) and wearing my pumpkin suit, making monstery cookies, carving pumpkins, and scattering jack-o-lanterns and spiderwebs around the house to celebrate my favorite holiday. What are you doing to prepare for Halloween?