An owl a day...

...and I have no good way to finish that statement. Any ideas? (I'm just too tired for this right now)
On another note, I think I got Livestream figured out today :) Maybe I'll have to set something up soon and actually put it to use.

Chocolate Cake

With chocolate frosting and cherry pie filling. :)

 I attempted to plate it all nice and pretty...and ended up just getting distracted playing with the cherry sauce.

The brownie mix I used called for about a quarter cup of oil and two eggs... I think. I ended up using a bit less than 1/4 cup water, a little over 3/4 cup oil and two eggs. The frosting was meant to be a ganache, but it ended up being more of a rich chocolate frosting. My friend had managed to find a cherry pie filling with no corn syrup, (which tastes a ton better anyway) so I was able to have as much of those as I wanted!

Food note for the day...

If you are preparing elk, this is pretty simple and turned out rather spectacularly today:
saute onions in butter until they just begin to caramelize.
cut meat into strips about an inch thick and add to onions.
brown and turn the heat down a touch so nothing burns.
cover, stirring occasionally, until the meat is nearly cooked through
add sliced mushrooms, salt, pepper
add a touch of milk to the pan and stir with the juices in the pan, add a bit of flour as desired to thicken into a gravy.
Enjoy the awesome.

We also steamed some green beans with a bit of butter, then when the beans were about ready we added sliced roma tomatoes. That we had with goat cheese. We also made spaetzle and grated gouda over it.

It was a very rich meal. I should have taken pictures. The green beans and tomatoes and cheese looked so gorgeous on the plate.

My stomach can't decide whether to be happy at all the good stuff I ate or upset over how much too much of the good stuff I ate. :)

So, if you saw my first post ever...

you'll recognize this character :)

Digitally inked and flat colors dropped in. I'm starting to like her. I may just have to give her a story. Any suggestions?

Moar... of the same

more figure drawing practice for today :) This is my favorite from the bunch. I think I'm getting the hang of the tablet, finally.

So, now that I have time to establish the habit, this is going to turn into a daily sketch/food blog. I will sketch, I will cook, I will sketch what I cook... :D
This weekend I decided I had too many eggs and they needed to be used. Somehow that turned into making shortbread cookies Saturday night, and then custard tartlettes with shortbread crusts last night. The cookies were far prettier but got eaten before I thought to take a picture, so here's some shots of the tarts and notes on what -not- to do with custard tarts (hahah, I find a lot of those things out...)

Okay, so things not to do:
-don't be impatient when cooking the custard. That just messes up the texture, and you'll end up with some weird sort of tapioca thing going on. (I'm hoping that the shortbread crusts will mask the texture enough that no one will really notice...)
-don't overcook the crusts. I had wanted to throw them back in the oven after putting the custard in to brown the tops so it looked pretty, but I let the crusts cook fully before-hand and couldn't put them back in for fear of singeing the edges.
But I think the biggest don't is just don't worry. I figure now I've done it once the next attempt should be much more successful. Also, I'll be giving these away, so I don't have to eat them all myself and everyone who's getting them will just be happy for the free desserts XD
Oh, and for a little extra something I dropped a spoonful of cherry preserves in the bottom of each crust before baking them. I don't know if it will be too much or just right. I'll let you know once we've actually tried them.

Figure drawing practice

Now that finals are over and I'm recovering from the traditional post-semester-sinus infection, things are going to start happening around here!

I'm trying to get used to drawing on my tablet, so this is some of what I did today (these are all between 30 sec-6 min). A bit rough, but I think I'm getting the hang of this thing.