It's a Beautiful Wednesday

2011-10-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. In no particular order:

2011-08-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some things that I've made from a while ago. Some character cupcakes: Keroppi and Hello Kitty.

And here is a cake with large all over decorations.

And here's a plain cake waiting for an inscription.

Here's a detail shot of a cake that I did that I really liked the border on.

And here are a military vehicles kit cake, and a fly-away balloon cake.

There are many other interesting cakes that I haven't posted - but you'll just have to come into the store to see them!

2011-07-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

So here are some cakes and cupcakes from various times this week and last week.

First a summery basketweave. This person wanted -lots- of frosting, and as the basketweave is actually another layer on top of the base icing, it's perfect for that purpose.

Next... the beginnings of a galaxy cake, and then finished. I made one in green and one in blue and put little starquins on it.

And here is the second gluten free cake that I've decorated. The first one was princess themed, but this little girl wanted tinkerbell, and her favorite color was blue, so I obliged and got it all decorated and boxed up in about a half hour.

Here are some character cupcakes. Batman and Joker, if you couldn't tell, and it's all right if you think they're lumpy and sticky looking... because they are. I'll try it again sometime, and probably freeze or refrigerate it before smoothing it, so that the smoothing part will be easier and better looking. As for the previous set of character cupcakes (Star Wars themed), Chewbacca sold first, and then Luke and Leia, but nobody wanted Han. Poor Han Solo.

And lastly, a very basic cake with roses. The color theme is "summer".

2011-07-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a Princess Leia and Chewbacca character cupcake that I made the other day. I also made Han Solo and Luke cupcakes, but they're not as good as I'd like.

Here are some other cakes that I made between yesterday and today.

Here is a yacht cake... I reallllly don't want to do another one.

Here is a mint green x pink cake, with plastic high heel picks and frosting pearls.

The lady that bought this cake didn't seem to appreciate how nice it looked. I don't think she understood how time consuming it is to actually make all of those mums with the horseshoe tip... especially with buttercream frosting (It doesn't stand up quite like whipped does). It's a replica of one of the cakes that I made for the case.

2011-07-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple birthday cake orders.

And here are some mini cakes, first some typical ones, then some unfinished, and then the unfinished ones when they are finished. Probably I put too many roses on, but they were particularly fun to do today.

And here are some cookie creatures. They're supposed to peeking out of a 'clamshell'.

2011-07-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some cakes that I made for the display case.

Then I made a replica of one the rose lattice cake....

And then a fireworks cake and a teddy bear cake...

And then some cakes for the freezer. The white frosting one with the puppy picks is nice... It would be cute in the winter because the white frosting looks a lot like snow and then the swirly frosting bushes (star tip) are like evergreen trees.

2011-06-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Here are two of today's cakes. First, a Hello Kitty cake for the pastry case!

And then a practice piece (on a styrofoam cake board). A different kind of border, and some mums on the top. Something reminiscent of summer.

2011-06-24T04:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a promotional display I helped set up for Cars 2. A closeup of the cake, and a view of the actual display. The balloons weren't up yet when I took the pic, but we did get some balloons up there.

And here are some mini cakes.

And here is a Gerbera Daisy cake from last week.

2011-06-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

Here are today's cakes. First, a Tinkerbell cake.

Then a cake with red roses.

Here's a beach theme! Similar to the one last post, only 1/4 sheet and no picks.

An engagement party cake. Very last minute. The woman wanted burgundy and and orchids, but this is such a last minute cake - I don't know how to do frosting orchids. And I've got a dozen other cakes to worry about. So she agreed to roses, and I mixed up some burgundy whipped frosting.

Here's my wreck of the day. I'm sure it's self explanatory.

2011-06-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Some practice stuff. Here's a basketweave.

And here's the basketweave all smushed up.

Here are some line designs

Some lettering practice.

Some border practice.

Some string practice. I'm going to have to work on this some more.

Flowers.

2011-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if you can tell but I am taking all of my cake photos with my camera phone, which isn't very good. This patriotic cake is from yesterday.

I really like this surfboarding/beach cake that I made today for the pastry case.

A Hello Kitty cake. The colors are all off on my camera phone pics - the frosting on Ms. Kitty's cake should be hot pink - neon pink. Instead it looks kind of orange-ish here.

These are kid's cakes, or mini cakes. They're about five? inches across. These ones aren't as interesting as the larger ones that I made, but if you look at the top set, you'll notice a couple dinosaurs engaged in a duel to the death, and in the bottom there is both an autobots and decepticons cake :D. There were no decepticon figurines, so I just put two picks in there - oh! and the picks spin, it's really fun to play with. The crayon cake sold today before I left - I was so surprised because I thought that was the worst cake out of the bunch, badly designed and you can see the spot where I couldn't frost it quite even on the top.

2011-06-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

So I completely forgot to take pics of cakes that I made today, but here is one from last week.

A really cool detail of a flower that I made with a tip that had pink in it and then blue in the middle.

2011-06-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

Cat cake, part of a deco pack, it's two layers, no filling, with vanilla whipped frosting and airbrushing.

Also decorated another cake, chocolate with chocolate buttercream frosting and really cool white fancy lettering and white flowers, but I won't post that one because the names are really individual.

2011-06-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

I got a job in a bakery - it's going on full time. Right now I'm just an associate, but I'm aiming for a cake decorator position. Here's the first order I've filled. It's for a middle school boy. The person ordering specified something to do with skateboarding, and of course we've got no picks or paraphernalia related to skateboarding (we have surfboards picks though!). Luckily I'm pretty good at drawing stuff, so I just drew a couple skateboarders, cut out silhouettes and used the airbrush to make a graffiti like silhouette-y effect. The person also specified the colors red and green - otherwise trust me! I would not have chosen those colors! I wanted to make the green dark hunter green, but it's no use as the icing is premade and bright christmas green anyway. Check out the border (boarder?) on the side of the cake! I <3 it!

Quite honestly, even though I like it a lot, I know I can do sooooo much better. Plan out the lettering better, for one, and figure out color mixing with premade frostings for two. I've never been traditionally trained - these past two days two different people were supposed to come in to train me, but it didn't work out. I've been doing my best looking up stuff online and practicing on the case cakes.... but it'd be cool if I could get some training so that I can apply for the -actual- cake decorator position. Fun fact, before this I've only decorated one (1!) cake! It was the time that I learned how to use a rose nail. I think part of the reason that my boss thinks I picked it up so fast is because I went to art school, and I helped run the henna booth for the renaissance festival a couple times! Henna and cakes have some similarities - design work, and also it kills your hands after a while!

Symphonies and Dutch Dancers

2011-05-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Click to make bigger!

A harpist from the Calvin College Community Orchestra tuning her harp.

A pretty cellist from the Calvin College Community Orchestra

A violinist, and another cellist from the back.

The conductor.

Dutch dancers again.

Cute dutch dancers.

Dutch dancers are pretty much awesome to draw :)

Tulip Time 2011

2011-05-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

A sketch of some dutch dancers from Tulip Time. I rather like it, but I'm having difficulty drawing faces.

2011-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend putting the show up! Thursday is the reception :)

2011-04-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Preparing for my senior show has been a whirlwind of activity with stretches of quiet despondency when I thought it wasn't going well. Now that the climax is nearly here, I'm starting to wonder what series/body of work I should tackle next. I don't want to have too large of a break once Groundings (title chosen for the show) is over because I don't know if I can get up the motivation to keep working at it. Better to just keep working in a steady trickle - after all, a little each day must add up to something, right? I think the first thing I'm going to do once my review is over is go out and sketch people, something light and refreshing.

2011-04-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

Here are all of the pieces for my senior show on a bulletin board, as of last week. The pen and ink drawings are finished, but they are not all done yet - some of them still need watercolor.

A close up view of several.

2011-04-06T05:13:00.000-07:00

Here are some practice pieces from much earlier in the semester.

And also a close up view.

BFA sketches

2011-03-30T04:20:00.001-07:00

Here are some more sketches for my B.F.A. Exhibition.

A view of Pew campus.

Some composition layouts for the new Connections dining building.

Another couple ideas for Pew campus comps.

The Commons area.

Another view of the Commons.

A statue and bench with magnificent trees coming up from the ravines.

Great Room, Calder Residence and Commons, again.

2011-03-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick thumb/sketch that I was inspired to make by a scene in either Kushiel's Avatar or Kushiel's Mercy both by Jacqueline Carey - I can't remember which book it was from. Sidonie as the sun princess, kissing Imriel behind a stage prop. I really like this one, I'll probably enlarge it and make a final composition later.

2011-03-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some thumbnail sketches for my senior show. I'll post the final enlarged pieces once the show is over. My working process starts out pretty messy, but it gets refined as I continue.

Senior Show is coming up!

2011-03-03T06:21:00.001-08:00

Hi there, my senior show is coming up very soon. Here is the style of some of the drawings that I have been working on.

It's a shame that they're so small, because the drawings are actually 19" x 24". Here's a link to my facebook gallery that will show them a bit larger.

Hakama Tutorial

2010-11-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

For Halloween, DigitalKoifish wanted a samurai costume. Of course, we forgot all about it until the day before it was needed (he was lending it to a friend) and we stayed up past midnight making Japanese samurai pants. Luckily, he had all of the other bits already (sword, top, hat, etc). We managed to make it in a couple hours but I completely forgot to take photos of it as we went along, because we were in such a rush, but I really wanted to make a tutorial for hakama to post here. We're planning to recreate it (and take photos this time!) and put a couple up on etsy to see if anyone is interested.

DigitalKoifish and I are planning to do artist alley at JAFAX in 2011, so we'll bring along some hakama and see if there is any interest there. I'm planning on tricking out his booth really nicely, with a table cover and maybe a cover for the stand as well :) It'll have his logo black on white fabric, either painted on or embroidered on. Black satin stitch embroidery would look SO lush, but for practicality and washing, we may have to make templates and go at it with fabric paint instead.

Keep a weather eye out for that tutorial!

2010-02-16T09:02:00.001-08:00

Here are some newer things I sketched.

Just sketches. I plan to have a lot more - only what do I sketch? Everything? I find I'm falling in love with india ink - diluted, full strength, painted with a brush, a nib pen... and inky ink pens.

2010-02-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

Here are some sketches from the beginning of the year.

The top one was from a sketching session in the library where I felt much too self conscious to sketch the library patrons, so I sketched my sketch buddy Ang, instead. Very dream like, no? I'm not so good at adjusting images in photoshop, so I had a hard time getting the pencil to show up as nicely as it does in my sketchbook. And yes, the lead is red. You can buy red lead! And blue lead!

The second sketch was for an assignment. The theme was vanity. I didn't have a mirror at the time, so I had her hold a paint palette instead. The pose, in case you can't tell, is her sitting in a chair, leaning back quite a lot, and I was behind her drawing.

2009-05-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

Here is an illustration I created two weeks ago.

The bottom photo is an in progress shot. I think that it could use some more values and gradations to distinguish certain parts more, but I have some trepidations about going over the watercolor again. Probably I will just make a new one.