Another Cupcake Holiday Tomorrow

Just a heads up for all you bakers and cupcake-lovers out there that tomorrow is National Vanilla Cupcake Day. I'll be making cupcakes to celebrate, not that I need an excuse to bake cake. I wanted to make them today, but last night I made my weekly batch of sandwich rolls, as well as some Peanut Butter Dog Treats, and I didn't want to heat up the house two days in a row. It's still warm here, and my kitchen gets outrageously hot when I use the oven. Jasmine and Harley loved the treats, which require only four ingredients and were a snap to make. I got the recipe from Katy at sugarlaws, who got it from Brown Eyed Baker. I don't have a bone-shaped cookie cutter, so I just cut them into bars, because my mutts usually aren't picky about presentation. I don't think they noticed.

Tagged!

I was tagged by Amanda to reveal 6 random things about myself. I don't think I'm terribly interesting, but I'll play along anyway.

1. I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I would rather have dessert than any other part of a meal (except maybe bread), and I use any excuse I can come up with to bake cookies and cakes. It is absolutely astounding that I'm not big.

2. I think maybe I'm a cat whisperer. No, really! Although I'm extremely allergic to cats, they do love me, and when I walk through my yard there's usually a trail of kitties right behind me. They tell me lengthy stories. And they hang on my every word. Great conversation, for sure!

3. I am one of the most stubborn people you will ever meet. I hate to give up. It's not my fault -- I inherited this from multiple family members.

4. I have the ability to tune out almost anything (including D's high-volume trumpet-playing) - my mind will travel far, far away and I'll be completely oblivious to everything that's going on around me. This isn't my fault either - I inherited the gift from Daddy.

5. I have extremely vivid dreams, and I usually remember them because they're so bizarre. I'm afraid to know what this says about me.

6. I take at least one photograph every day, but I'm so picky that I delete a lot of them.

I don't have many blogging friends, so I'll have to think about who I'll pass this tag along to.

And speaking of my sweet tooth, I thought you'd all like to know that tomorrow is National Chocolate Cupcake Day.

TMTA - Cats

Monday's prompt at Think Monday-Think ATC was cats. Above, I've used an image transfer of my cat, Daisy, that didn't quite work out for another project. I'm so glad I saved it! It has been lightly tinted with Prismacolor pencils, and surrounded with cutouts from scrapbooking paper. I've been hoarding that piece of ribbon forever, but decided that Daisy was worth using a bit of it.

Create a Connection - Getting to Know You

Over at Create a Connection, Holly is hosting "Getting to Know You Day" for the month of July, and she has posed the following questions:

1) What are some of your memories about the "great outdoors?" (games played outside, camping, hiking, bike riding, running in the rain)

Wow, this question prompted a flood of memories for me. My most memorable "growing up" years were spent in LaPorte, Texas, where I spent my summers with the boys - my 3 brothers and my 4 cousins (all boys). Back in the day, the neighborhoods all had shallow ditches running along the streets, and every time it rained and the ditches filled up, we would be out catching crawfish, or crawdads, as we called them. My oldest brother, Brandt, had built a cage of sorts, made of scrap wood and window screen, and we would submerse it enough to keep our catch alive, get as many of the poor critters as we could, then release them all til the next rain. There were many long evenings of play -- usually we wouldn't come inside until Mama called us for supper, and by then our bare feet were filthy and I'm sure we didn't smell so good either! There were also hours of lying on the trampoline, looking at the stars with my cousin John, who knew all the constellations and who made sure I knew quite a few of them too. And then there were the afternoons crabbing from one pier or another, and two weeks of camping with the family every summer... Those really were the good old days!

2) Do you spend a lot of time in the outdoors, or have you lost touch with nature? If you've lost touch with it, how could you incorporate more of the outdoors in your every day life or would you want to?

I don't spend nearly as much time outdoors as I used to, but I haven't lost touch with nature either. I do try to spend as much time as possible in my flower beds, we go to the beach fairly often (it's so close, there's no excuse not to!), and we frequently spend time on the causeway over Mobile Bay. Like Holly, I have some asthma issues, so if the air quality is very poor, I try to stay indoors as much as possible on those days.

3) What small thing can you do (or are you doing) to ensure that the earth and all it's bounty will be here for future generations?

We've been trying hard to minimize our impact on the environment, by carefully planning all our errands and keeping our driving to a minimum, and by recycling. We have also started composting, and I'm amazed at the volume of stuff we were throwing in the trash that we could have been composting. Maybe next summer I'll be growing some vegetables in nutrient-rich compost! I also like to shop for little treasures for my artwork at second-hand shops -- might as well rescue all that good stuff and use it to make something pretty!

4) Can you share one or two links that showcase the great outdoors or some way to help heal the earth?

I love to visit You Grow Girl, where I got the inspiration for my compost bin. I also enjoy reading treehugger.

5) Feel free to share a picture of you in your environment, enjoying the outdoors and just plain having fun.

Well, it's not me, but that's a photo of a special family member, Charley, at the beginning of this post. She's a portly girl....

Inspire Me Thursday - Light

This week's prompt for Inspire Me Thursday is light. I didn't expect to participate this week, but last night I was noticing how bright the moon was, and I was thinking about all the things that happen by the light of the moon, right here in my own yard. Like the armadillo who comes out occasionally, only to scurry off when she realizes I'm watching her; the frog who sits by my front door, as if watching for it to open; the night calls of birds all about the neighborhood; my fat cat Charley carefully patting the grass, trying to capture something; and the sounds of the nocturnal insects. So much artistic inspiration, but where do I start? Then I remembered a bland, boring photo of the moon I had snapped a while back, and decided to have a go at it in Photoshop. The result -- my digital painting of the moon.

Market in the Park

Today we went to Mobile to run some errands, and we stopped by the Mobile Museum of Art for Market in the Park, where we met several artisans, listened to some free music, and admired some of the biggest blackberries I've ever seen. We had a nice chat with Theresa Collins-McPherson, who is a relaxation specialist and also sells handmade natural bath and beauty products, candles, and home fragrances. I'm signed up for one of her classes at the University of South Alabama, where she'll be teaching us how to make organic soap, bath salts, sugar scrubs and more. It was nice to meet the teacher and have an opportunity to ask a few questions before next week's class. We also met Mary Bower, who makes baskets from pine needles. She also weaves with marine rope and does a lot of embellishment with beads and colorful fibers. Beautiful!

I had not seen a gingko tree since I lived near Valley Forge a few years back, so I was pleased to see that some small gingkos had been planted at the museum. I love the way the veins of the gingko leaf radiate out from the stem, and have always seen some design possibilities with the unusual leaf shape. Maybe now I'll act on that inspiration.

We also went to the University of South Alabama library to see an art exhibit, which included some amazing batiks and watercolors by Jean Schulman and photographs by B.J. Ray. Definitely worth the trip!

While in Mobile we also stopped by B&B Pet Stop, which is my favorite pet store ever. They don't sell dogs and cats, but they do host a pet adoption event every Thursday afternoon, so I got to admire all the little kittens and puppies that were looking for new homes. Unfortunately, there's no more room at the inn -- we have all the dogs and cats we can handle now -- so I had to mightily resist temptation and be satisfied with buying 3 harlequin rasboras for my freshwater aquarium.

Illustration Friday - Suit

This is my first ever submission for Illustration Friday. Now, by no stretch of the imagination am I an illustrator, but I was playing around with this character for another project, and thought it fit this week's IF prompt, which is "suit". This little guy resembles my cat, Lenny, except that Lenny is a scrawny fellow. The tie hanging out of the frame is in honor of a 2-D design professor who would insist that we complete all our assignments within a box of the specified size, only to praise anyone who broke out of the box.

(Prismacolor pencils, pen and ink on Bristol)

Welcome!

Lenny da Vinci

Welcome to my new blog! On these pages I’ll be showing you samples of my creative work, sharing my inspiration, and keeping you up-to-date on all the little life events that, in the end, contribute to my creative process.

You will find that I love animals, have an uncontrollable sweet tooth, and think just about everything is beautiful. Although most of my photography is digital, and all the post processing is done on the computer, there’s still nothing quite like the smell of oil paints or the texture of a nicely hand-dyed piece of fabric to get me going creatively.

I am also a musician, I love to bake (although the cooking of “real” food is usually left to my husband, who enjoys it more than I do, unless it involves turning on an oven), and I like to dig in the dirt, always hopeful that I’ll get something to grow.

Pictured above is Lenny, who inspired the name of this blog. The poor little guy gets called an abundance of names, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lazy Lenny, Lenny da Vinny, and Lenny da Vinci, to mention just a few. Anyway, it’s only fitting that he be included in this first post. He is one of five, all cats who were strays that crossed our paths or were adopted from shelters.

Thanks for visiting, and please stop by every now and then to see what I’m up to!