The black lamb began a little differently. One of my very first drafts of the poster had a rough line sketch of a lamb, but the lamb looked a little too innocent and not unimpressed enough. I submitted some more refined roughs of the lamb, with more exaggerated facial expressions. The client chose the first sketch below, and I worked it up in a South Park-inspired style, using Erudite’s colours. Something about the second lamb reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson.

I’m very happy with the sketch the client chose and how it integrates into the poster. Don’t Make Me Zealous will be playing at various times during the Fringe festival; it sounds like a fascinating show and I know I will be going. Comments and critiques regarding my designs are always welcome!

Cara

Cilantro Vodka
1 bunch cilantro, rinsed, stems and wilted leaves removed
1 bottle vodka
Filter the vodka 10 times through a Brita water filter – this will make the vodka taste smoother. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While it comes to a boil, create an ice bath. Dunk the cilantro in the boiling water for 30 seconds, then plunge into the ice bath for about a minute. Spin it dry in a salad spinner, or dry the best you can using a lint-free towel or paper towels.
Stuff the cilantro into a large Mason jar. Pour the vodka over. Let the cilantro infuse the vodka for 2 to 2 and a half days – any longer and the cilantro will break down. Strain the vodka. Pour the vodka back into its bottle and store in the freezer.

Roasted Jalapeño Simple Syrup
5 jalapeño peppers
1 cup sugar
2 cups water

Preheat the broiler to high. Set the jalapeño peppers on a baking tray and broil until the skins are blackened, anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Remove to a plastic container. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove lid. Peel the skin off of each jalapeño and set on a cutting board. Coarsely chop the roasted jalapeños.
Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Stir once to be sure the sugar is moistened. Over medium heat, without stirring, bring the mixture just to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the chopped roasted jalapeño peppers, including the seeds. Let steep for 5 minutes and taste. If the syrup has a strong amount of heat, strain into a glass jar. If the syrup needs more heat and flavour, let steep for 5 more minutes, or until desired flavour is achieved.

Simple Syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups water

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Stir once to be sure the sugar is moistened. Over medium heat, without stirring, bring the mixture just to a boil. Turn off heat and let syrup stand for 10 minutes. Decant into a glass jar or squeeze bottle.

Herbaceous Mojito
Makes 2 cocktails
4 lime wedges (1 lime)
2 handfuls of fresh cilantro
a generous amount of ice
2 tbsp  (1 ounce) jalapeño simple syrup
2 tbsp (1 ounce) simple syrup
4 tbsp (2 ounces) cilantro vodka
1/3 cup (3 ounces) pineapple juice, fresh, if at all possible
1/3 cup (3 ounces) fresh lime juice
club soda (optional)

Fill 2 highball glasses with ice. In a large container or glass, muddle together the lime wedges and cilantro (if you don’t have a muddler, use anything with a sturdy handle and bash everything around). Add the muddled mixture to a cocktail shaker. Add ice, jalapeño syrup, simple syrup, cilantro vodka, pinapple juice and lime juice to the shaker. Shake until too cold to continue shaking. Strain into the highball glasses. Top each with a splash of club soda, if using. Garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro and serve.

My list lay dormant until yesterday, when we had a huge slab of pork thawed in the fridge, just waiting to be seasoned. I decided to finally attempt my own version of the Iron Chef”s spice rub, and I’m incredibly happy with the results. The original list contained espresso, cocoa, chili powder, cinnamon, and garlic powder, but I decided to omit the cinnamon and add some salt. I opted for a quick dry-aging in the refrigerator (about 3 hours) and the results were succulent and flavourful. I can’t wait for barbeque season, when the grill will serve to really highlight the flavours of the rub!

Smoky Mocha Spice Rub for Pork, Steak, or Venison

1 tablespoon espresso powder

2 teaspoons cocoa powder

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl. Pat the surface of the meat dry with a paper towel. Pour rub over meat and press to adhere. Repeat on all sides of the meat.

Place a small rack over a shallow dish. Set meat on the rack and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours. Cook meat as desired. Enjoy!

So I’ve been on a somewhat specific drawing kick lately. I’ve been drawing monsters, monsters and more monsters. This is primarily the fault of the deviantart Cute Monster T-Shirt Design Battle, whose design deadline was this past Tuesday. I drew several monsters that I felt were cute, then narrowed down my choices and drew even more cute monsters based on my favourites. Each of them cropped up with distinct personalities, and I chose the ones that stood out most for me. In the end, I chose to make Stanley and his Wonderful Balloon my t-shirt design submission. However, I had all these other monster designs I was still reasonably happy with, so I did what I’ve done with most of my designs lately – I made it into a Spoonflower pattern. Even still, that wasn’t enough. After I’d inked my favourites in Illustrator for the Spoonflower swatch, I could still separate out and colour my favourite monsters. Soon, they will be added to my revamped and reorganized Cafepress shop, launching on Thursday. Until then, I thought I’d post these here. If you like Stanley and his Wonderful Balloon, please follow the link to deviantart to vote for the design (voting closes March 6).

I have added all of the above designs to my Spoonflower shop. Some designs have multiple entries to accomodate different scale sizes. If you’re thinking about designing on Spoonflower, I highly recommend it. But it’s tough to stop once you start!

This makes 1 1/2 to 2 litres of juice, depending on how much you can extract from your oranges.

I created some sketches of dolls in various poses and submitted those. I then worked up some sketches to ink in illustrator. I finalized the dolls as they were, then printed them out to flip and draw fitted uniforms. Each doll has 3 uniforms, one to correspond to each of the RVRG teams – Riot Squad, Vixens, and Slaughter Daughters. I inked each uniform and added the tabs to it, and colour filled the whole thing.

This was perhaps my favourite commissioned work last year; and it really got me enthused to go back to some of my old personal characters and give them full-fledged outfit treatment.

I did this drawing first in Col-erase light blue, then in pencil. I scanned it in pieces and set it to grayscale in Photoshop. The reference I used is here.

Green and Black Fruit Salad

Makes 2 generous servings

1/2 pint container of blackberries

2 kiwifruits, peeled and diced

A large handful of grapes, halved

1/4 honeydew melon, peeled, seeded and diced, or balled with a melon baller

2 tablespoons Green Tea and Lime Syrup (recipe below)

In a large bowl, combine the blackberries, diced kiwifruits, grapes, and melon. Toss together to evenly distribute the fruit. Drizzle the syrup over and toss to combine. Serve.

I was thrilled to create more of the signs, as I really enjoy working with traditional media. The signs were 8 feet by 2 feet plywood that I prepped by priming them. For the entrance and exit signs, I then taped off a border and painted a coat of dark green acrylic over the surface. When that was dry, I re-taped the sign leaving the border free, and painted 2 coats of gold around the border. I printed out the letters I needed using Harrington in a large point size, cut them out and traced them onto the sign. I first painted the letters with a mixture of light blue and white, then painted over that with a coat of silver. I used foam and wooden snowflakes as stamps and pressed them randomly over the surface of each sign.

For the train sign, I painted over the balloon dog and sketched in a train with charcoal. I then painted it using a variety of reds, greens, black and gold.

The smoke on the train was added at the last minute at the venue, where I also did touch-ups on last year’s signs. It’s always fun to work on city events; I’m thrilled I got the chance to do so again.