Pi Smoothie

I made a pumpkin pie, then made it into a pi pie, then made it into a smoothie. Mhmm. 

Ok, first of all; I had been planning on making pumpkin pie smoothies for a while, but since today is Pi Day it seemed like the opportune time to do it. And yes, I know, linking pi to pie is very cliché... But hey, I live in America, that's what we do. 

I found the idea here, but why just go there when you can learn how on my blog instead?

All you need is a pumpkin pie, vanilla ice cream, and milk.

 Then put 1 piece of pie, and 1 1/2ish scoops of ice cream, and 1 cupish milk into the blender. Alright, my measurements weren't very exact. Maybe you should just go read that other blog...

Blenderize for a little bit then.... Bam! Pumpkin pie smoothie.

Me and my brother both thought is was delicious, but my parents opted for the more conventional route and ate it without it having been in the blender.

  

Picture Transfer

I have been spending my day attempting to get some school work done. But as a motivator I find it helpful to do some school, then do something else for 15 minutes or so. That way I can turn on some music and think about something other than chemical equations and John Quincy Adams. 

This is one of today's side projects, it's a super easy, looks harder than it is, project. Canvas transfer, or picture transfer.

It went from this picture (which I took this morning from that wonderful bouquet of roses):

To this: a perfectly imperfect picture.

To make, start with a reasonably simple black and white photo on normal printer paper. I turned the photo of the a rose black and white using Picasa's filtered B&W effect. That way I can make the colors have as much contrast as possible.

Then cover a canvas in white paint, pretty thick, but not gloppy. Lay the photo face down on the wet paint and press on so the whole paper is firmly stuck to the paint.

 Once it is fully dry (I waited about 10 minute then got impatient and used a blow dryer) start to careful spray or rub a small amount of water on to the paper. You want it to be damp, not wet and not to dry. Then lightly begin rubbing the paper off. This takes some patience since if you rub to hard the ink will come off with the paper. Not all of the paper ever comes off, there will always be fuzzys left over.

 After using the canvas I tried it with a piece of cardstock, it worked all right but the ink rubs off a lot easier.

Alright, now I'm going to keep reading To Kill A Mockingbird. I'm lucky that reading such a good book is part of my literature curriculum :). 

Back To Life

Alright, I haven't posted anything in a month, and quite the month it has been.

I have spent pretty much all of my time either rehearsing or performing Much Ado About Nothing with the wonderful folks of SMASH, with a few days taken off for snow or sickness. Marry, I'm already suffering from P.T.S.D.  (Post Traumatic Smash Disorder) which my friend Petra talks about here.

Moreover, here are some of my favourite shots from the performances, taken by my brother Adam.

Claudio, Don Pedro, Leonato, and Benedick in the orchard. 

 The watch interrogating Conrade and Borachio. Yup, I'm Borachio. The one with the bright red vest.

 The Villains! Conrade, Don John, and Borachio.

The first wedding scene. Beatrice, Hero, Leonato, Bendick, and Antonio. "This looks not like a nuptial!"

And lastly.... In order to stay on topic and talk a little bit about something artsy, here are some of my most recent drawings. All of characters from the play, of course! I have 8 sketches down, 67 more to go...

 George Bruce Seacoal, the loveliest member of the watch! 

 Dogberry, the leader of the watch, who doesn't know anything about anything :P.

 Hugh Oatcake, another watchmen. (Yes, I know, his right eye seems to be trying to run away...)

And to conclude; below is a picture of roses my mother gave to me last night. Are they not beautiful? Since I got my Olympus "fancy" camera I have slowly gotten better at using only manual settings. I took this picture this morning and it required no editing, not even to be cropped. I think that is a milestone.

Yes. I styled this post after Dogberry's speech. What now.

Much Ado

This year I am privileged to be a part of SMASH's production of Much Ado About Nothing!!!! Wooohooo!!

I am playing Borachio, an evil henchmen to the villain, Don John. :D

It's only 3 weeks away, so a lot of my time has and will be spent rehearsing, but it's totally worth it. It will be an amazing show, so I definitely encourage everyone to come!

Thank you in advance :).

7th On The List

 I made a list around my birthday titled 15 Before 16. 15 things to accomplish before I turn 16. 

So far I have done one of them, I went skiing! That was quite an interesting day... 

Thankfully by the end I was getting the hang of it. 

Any ways, one of the other things on my list is to fill up a whole sketch book full of sketches, charcoal drawings, and pastels. I usually end up using my sketch books for scrap paper, practice, or end up crumpling the pages; so it's going to be a challenge to have a complete notebook, with no pages missing, full of drawings. 4 down, 71 more pages to go.

This is the first page, I started out simple and drew one of my wall hangings. 

A collection of porcelain figures, hung by a bigger one. I love the old circus like look of them! 

This is the 4th drawing. I drew it from a picture that I took of my friend Maggie,

 and she kindly allowed me to put it here, with the original below :D.

I have rarely surrounded my drawings of people with charcoal, But I like how this looks so much I think I shall do it more often...