Punch bowl

punchbowl
Originally uploaded by Lucky Haskins.

Mike didn't think I could fit the punch bowl I got for Christmas over my head.

Ha.

My foray into freelance art

Lately I’ve been doing some drawing for my friend Dave, who’s getting married this year.

It all started when Dave saw this little cartoon that I drew when Mike and I were engaged:



We used it on our wedding website, and I shrunk it into an icon for my LiveJournal. I used the icon to comment on his engagement post, and he mentioned how much he liked it. So after looking at photos of Dave and his fiancé, Karen, from Dave’s Flickr account, I drew one up for the happy couple:



It was easy enough to doodle it in pencil, go over it with an ink pen, and then scan it. The actual drawing took, like, ten minutes.

I figured that would be the end of it. After all, it was just a cute little drawing. But Dave really liked it, and wanted to use it on their wedding programs. Karen and her mother thought it was okay, but wanted her eyes to be open in the picture. Dave asked if I could alter it, and so I did. It was pretty easy to change her eyes in Photoshop with a few strokes of the stylus on Mike’s Wacom tablet (by the way, his is way nicer than mine). I also fattened up the lines and, just for fun, added some color.



After that Dave and Karen decided to put the image on hoodies for the bridesmaids. But Dave’s arm looked strange being chopped off at the elbow, so he asked if I could finish his arm. This was a little trickier since I’m not skilled enough to draw hands using the Wacom, and also because the filter I use to smooth out the lines distorts them the more I do it. So I traced my original design in pencil and inked it for re-scanning.

Then load it up into Photoshop for some line alterations and color, and viola:



This has been a surprising amount of work. It makes me realize why graphic artists charge what they do. However, it’s also been really gratifying. Since I only draw for fun I rarely push myself…I just whip off a doodle to amuse myself or Mike and than wander on to something else. Even though my work on Dave’s picture isn’t exactly great artwork, it’s made me go back, revise, and rethink what I do. I think the end result is better than that first hasty sketch. It’s also so cool to see how they’re using it. Dave sent me a picture of their hoodie idea, and even though it’s just a CafePress mock-up it was neat to see my drawing being put to use.

It’s made me kind of wish that I’d thought more about going into graphic design, even as a freelancer.

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Dinner with the In-Laws

Last night Mike's parents came over for dinner. It was kind of a big deal for me since it was the first time his parents had been to the apartment in a long time, so I felt like I was kind of being inspected. During the summer when I first moved in they'd joke about how the apartment looked different with a woman's touch. But now instead of being the fiance that was girling up their son's apartment I am the wife and, in his mom's mind, the one in charge of running our new household. Even though Mike and I split the cooking and chores and I don't subscribe to Mike's mom's old-fashioned beliefs, I'm stubborn about proving myself. I wanted to show that I could handle my job as well as take care of myself, Mike, and the apartment.

Now, this was originally supposed to be a low-stress visit. We hadn't seen his parents in a few weeks, and we're seeing mine next weekend, so this seemed like a good opportunity to let them come over. Mike originally suggested that we go out to dinner with them, but his mom wanted to see our newest cat, Juneau. I figured we'd just order pizza until Mike mentioned that his mom asked if she could bring anything.

I just groaned. "Oh man, she's thinking I'm gonna cook!" Now, I'd like to point out that, contrary to popular belief, I can cook. I'm actually not bad. I just hate it, especially after a long day of work or when my mother-in-law is going to be consuming it. But it seemed like there would be no way out...it was time to show what I could do.

I decided to make cranberry chicken for dinner, with noodles to go with it, corn, crescent rolls, and cookies for dessert. Normally when I throw dinner together I'm not too concerned, but this time I found myself second-guessing everything. For example, when I went shopping I found some good-sized noodles in the dollar aisle, but they were made with wheat instead of...well, whatever noodles are normally made of. They were brown. I picked up the package and tried to remember...someone had once told me that wheat noodles were more filling than normal noodles, but they tasted almost the same. I think it was Meghan, that sounds like the type of thing she'd say. Or was it some other type of grain that made noodles filling? Was it rye? Do they even make rye noodles? Would that even be good? Did any of this matter if the noodles were only a dollar? In the end I chucked the noodles into the cart because I just couldn't think about it anymore.

I spent Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday cleaning, and even asked Mike to go get a new fitted sheet to cover our futon (we have a really odd-shaped futon and it's useless to try to buy futon covers, so I use sheets - classy, I know). Then, on Sunday evening they arrived. It was the moment of truth.

I guess they thought it was okay. They didn't complain, anyway. Dinner went well, and Mike's mom was impressed by my cranberry chicken recipe. I actually regretted it when she asked for the recipe, since it's extremely simple. Here it is, so you can try it too:

8 oz of French dressing (I used the generic lite stuff, because it's cheap and lower-calorie)
1 package dry onion soup mix
1 can whole cranberries

Marinate 4 - 6 chicken breasts in the above mixture for several hours. Cook in a 350 degree oven for one hour covered and one hour uncovered (so it's two hours total).

That's it. I like to serve it with wide egg noodles (wheat noodles are actually pretty good) so that nice marinade serves as a sauce. If you don't use noodles it just gets wasted. Really though, you can't imagine the yuminess of this recipe just by looking at it...you have to try it!

Anyway, it was kind of anti-climactic after all the work and worry I went through, although I suppose that's better than coming away with some kind of horror story. I just hope that his parents thought it was a good evening too.