Vegan Pizzas from Pieology

Not really sure if these pizzas really do qualify as vegan because of the crust, but I think that Landon said that the cheese was vegan cheese and for sure there is no meat topping. I liked both of them. 

I Made Manju!

WHAAAAT??!!  I know . . . I made manju! First time! And was good!

Leslie gave me some pumpkin butter manju about a month ago, and it was so ono that I kept craving it. I asked her for the recipe even though I was thinking that it probably was too hard for me.

I decided to make it for Thanksgiving and was totally shocked that it came out. 



Sorry, too lazy to type out the recipe for you.

Last Page

Here's the last page in my art journal. I started the journal on October 1st and it's become a good record of the progress that I've made in the past 2 months. 

I bought a "real" journal from Fisher to use for my Volume 2. It has a spiral binding so I'm not sure how that's gonna work for two-page spreads, but it was on sale and at least I don't have to glue two pages together like I had to for this journal. 

For this page, I used Liquitex black gesso, Shinhan watercolor paints, Prismacolor colored pencils and uniball white gel pen. 

Color Burst Powders

Do you remember CQ? She's a friend that I used to work with. If you search "CQ" on my blog you'll find that she's in it a lot.

CQ took a class at Ben Franklin about a month ago and learned how to use Ken Oliver's Color Burst powders. She came over to my house the other weekend and taught me!! 

Here's my Flowers in Vase.  


Color Burst are watercolor powders that are activated with water. It's very, very potent, kinda scary to use, and very, very fun. 


Here's CQ's masterpiece.  !!!!!!  Holy Crap, right!!!??


Thanks CQ!! You can come over again anytime!!!

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING, PEOPLES!!!

Webcam on Mt. Kongo in Osaka

I just watched a Document 72 Hours program on NHK that was about a live webcam on the top of Mt. Kondo in Osaka. 

A photo is taken at the top of the hour every hour and is posted online. People gather there at the top of the hour so that they can be in the photo.

I just took this screenshot at 6:00 p.m. tonight! Funny, yah!!

Mt. Kongo Webcam




Update:  Wednesday, 12:00 p.m. our time. Raining. Hahaha. 

'Ai Love Nalo

I went to pick up eggs from OK Poultry the other day, and on the spur of the moment I decided to go check out 'Ai Love Nalo.



Landon's Medi Bowl ($14).  Kalo falafel, fire-roasted baba ganoush, beet hummus, millet tabouleh, greens and creamy balsamic dressing. Lan liked it a lot.


My Buddha Bowl ($12).  Roasted kabocha, sauteed mushrooms and kale, kim chee, wakame, avocado, brown rice and ginger tahini dressing. Was ono.


It might be a good idea to call in your order before going. Even though it wasn't busy, they took kinda long to make my food. 

Inktense Ink Pencils

I want to put some kind of quote on this page, but can't decide which one yet. Thought I'd share anyway. 

Cute circles on torn origami in the sky as well as Dalai Lama sayings on the ground are obscured due to too-thick/opaque acrylic paint, but it's all a learning process . . . I guess (bah).

Cute da sun, yah. Got the stamp at a rummage sale this past weekend . . . so perfect.

Four people helped contribute to the supplies that I used for this page! Honolulu Aunty, Izsmom, CQ and Sweetie. Thank you peoples!! Love love love, mwah!



I used this to color the houses. It's different from watercolor pencils in that when it's wet it turns to ink!


I brushed water onto the right half of each square. It's very, very cool. 

Don't Believe

I find that a lot of times I make assumptions that are not true.

My Mop Brush

I bought this Winsor and Newton brush from Ben Franklin with a 40% off coupon. Even with the coupon it was around $8 . . . sooo expensive. 

It soaks up a lot of water and is great for painting background washes. As good as it is though, it has one drawback, and I only used it once because of this drawback.

When the brush is wet (and only when it's wet), it smells like . . . 



GOAT!

My First "Beautiful Face"

I love Jane Davenport's book entitled Beautiful Faces. It didn't disappoint.

I decided to do my first attempt at a "beautiful face" upside down in my art journal book because (1) one of Jane's samples in the book was upside down and I thought that it was cool, and (2) I was pretty sure that it would be a failure, and I figured that if it was upside down you couldn't tell right away how bad it was. 



I'm happy with how the sketch came out, but am stymied with the color blending of the skin tone. Not sure if it's the type of paint that I used (2/$4 at Ben Franklin) or my technique. Or maybe I should water down the paint . . . or . . .  hmmmm . . . 

I used origami paper from Honolulu Aunty for the background, painted over with one of the paints that I used for the girl's face. Thanks again, Aunty!

Friends

Here are a few of the Fuji Instax selfies that I took of me and my former coworkers. I kinda don't like calling them "former" anything. I think I'll just call them friends now. 

I wore sunglasses to hide my crying eyes. Some joined me.



My art journal is almost full already! And to think I only started it on October 1st. You should start one too! It's fun and will probably become something that you'll treasure for a long time. 

Cow

I thought this saying was funny. Now that I'm retired, it should be more like "nobody else knows what day of the week it is either!"

Kylie's Dress

Geri's granddaughter wore a cute black and white dress to a luncheon that we had to celebrate my mom's birthday this past weekend. She was the inspiration for this page.

I decided to stop hoarding the beautiful washi origami paper that Honolulu Aunty gave me and used it for the background. Thank you, Aunty!




I ordered a book by Jane Davenport called Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces. It's coming tomorrow!