Blackberry Biscotti

Happy Friday!

Not bread, biscotti. They're more pink inside if you snap them in half.

No art to post today, though I do have a few small things in the works. Therefore, instead I'm posting recipe I tried out today. Desserts are better than art anyway, right? ;)`
I took this "Raspberry Lemonade Biscotti" recipe by MCBARTKO and adapted it to my tastes/ingredients/servings. Here's my adapted recipe below: (Makes about 20 pieces, hopefully. I was taste testing too much to keep an accurate count.)

Maybe I should have dusted them with some powdered sugar so they'd look more like dessert...

Blackberry + Lemon Biscotti

1+ cup fresh blackberries     2 tablespoons  brown sugar     1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1/2 cup unsalted margarine 2/4 (1/2) cup brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 2 eggs 3 teaspoons grated lemon zest 1 tablespoon blackberry jam 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour  1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.      Place the blackberries and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar with a splash of water into a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about 1/3. Remove from heat, and strain through a sieve or cheese cloth to remove the seeds. Set aside to cool.

2.      In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 3/4 cup of sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Stir in the blackberry sauce and blackberry jam and lemon zest until well blended. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir into the batter. Cover and refrigerate for about 10 minutes.

3.      Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease the cookie sheet(s) or line them with parchment paper. Shape the dough into a log, or a couple of small logs. *The wider and flatter the log - the longer your biscotti pieces will be. The longer and taller the log - the rounder your biscotti pieces will be, like mine turned out. Looking more like some crostinis, as mine turned out be. But hey, the taste is the most important part...isn't it?

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4.      Bake for 27-30 minutes in the preheated oven, until firm but not crisp. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.

5.      Place the biscotti bars on a cutting board, and use a serrated knife to cut into 3/4 inch wide slices. Return the slices to the baking sheet(s), cut side down.

6.      Bake for 8 minutes, then turn the cookies over, and bake for an additional 8 minutes, or until lightly toasted on each side. Cool completely, then store in an airtight container. 

7.      Enjoy with coffee or tea =)

They look like little bread pieces, but they're not!

Art-School Owls

This piece is contribution to a project happening at my university. Long story short, a few of my illustration classmates and I are illustrating different locations from our school for a book/booklet that will be printed for 1st year students this fall. Without revealing the exact location, I'll just say it's a place where certain students meet up to discuss various issues.

As usual, my process was to start with some thumbnail sketches (which I'm too lazy to scan, and they're hardly that fascinating).

Then the rough version looked like this:

Then, after refining the rough sketch, I did my line work, which I scanned in, should I screw up later when I'm painting.

And the final piece:

 And there we have it -- some artsy art-school owls chatting and what not.

Original is painted on 9x12 Bristol Smooth paper
I used a mix of micron pens, watercolours, waterproof inks, and touches of gouache.

Coffee & Tea Show

For my Digital Illustration class we had to create a poster for an event. Browsing the web I found this "Canadian Coffee and Tea Show" which I thought sounded amazing! I would absolutely love to go! And who knows, maybe I will, since it's still about a year away.=)

Anyhow. Here's my poster process below. I'm not wholeheartedly satisfied, but working predominantly digitally is still fairly new for me and I have a ton of other work to do too. =)

1st came the thumbnail sketches, which I'm not posting and shall remain a mystery:)

hand drawn line work, afterwards live traced and digitally inked with the pen tool

playing around with the colour palette

Adding some background textures and stuff

rethinking the colours...

experimenting with patterns...

rethinking some stuff

That's it!

Used my own texture resources +

Credits:

Grungy Coffee Rings and Stains: by onthinair
Coffee Stain Brushes: by korn-field- 102
Texture: Tea Stain I : by frameofthoughts
Paper Pack 5: by dierat
Garton Font: by David Rakowski

Happy Sunday!

Tea With One's Former Self

Last illustration assignment: Self-portrait in any media/any style

So this is kind of a "double" self portrait illustration -- of me having tea with my younger self. Back in the day I used to dump lots of sugar in my tea, where as now I don't because I'm more healthy:)

Again, just something playful and humorous:)

Waterproof colored inks (and a little of white gouache) on Bristol Smooth Paper
Original about 6 x 6 inches

some planning thumbs:

Pastel Proprieties

Here is an assignment for my Illustration Essentials class which came before the lino-cut one.

We had to do another self portrait, but this time use chalk pastels.

For mine I used: Koh-I-Noor chalk pastels + conte pencils + cream pastel paper

Again, it's not a physically realistic portrait of myself, but more of personality portraying kind. I portrayed myself as a character that could be found in a Jane Austen novel:)
Tea, pastries anyone?

Side 1 (approximately 8 x 6")

Side 2

sketch