Mastering Manga 2: Cat Character

      Draw the face again with a round circle.  But the jaw is slightly tilted to the side as a base.  Following that sketch three horizontal lines as the guidelines for the eyes, mouth, and nose but emphasize the lines at the top (Crilley, 28).  Given that we are working with proportion; these are specific instructions on how to give dimension to the head.  This picture is supposed to have the character looking at another direction so unlike the last one, we need to tilt it slightly to give it that action effect to make the person look more realistic.

       “The interior section of the far ear is largely obscured.  I’ve indicated little tufts of hair near the tips of the cat ears” (Crilley, 29).  This step really emphasizes the ears.   It explains how to make the manga look realistic, matching the character since that’s the point of the picture. The points to lightly sketch out the cropped hair and add cat ears on the side of the hair which gives life to the picture.  The main point of this picture are the cat ears, which is creating a fictional character so focusing on just that part is super important.

Would there be any more tips on adding dimension or direction to a character?

Crilley, Mark.  Mastering Manga 2: Level up with Mark Crilley. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2013. Print.

Face To Face With "The Club Princess"

As a second blog post, I wanted to try something outside of a "normal look". Something that you wouldn't see everyday let alone, in America. Page by page I turned until I found this specific look called "The Club Princess". In Tokyo, this look is often worn by many females who are attempting to express their moods and personalities through makeup. This is also considered "Bold" look in Tokyo.

As you can see, the pink/red eyeshadow travels up her brow bone and fades into the center of her eyes with a nicely applied light pink lip gloss. While this look is simple. It also takes a lot of work. One thing I've learned is that with simplicity; takes the cost of time and practice. Alyssa Giacobbe first started by applying foundation onto this models skin, she neglected to add bronzer, highlighter or any other makeup product besides a completely nude face. She says "Make bright makeup stands out even more by leaving the rest of the face completely nude." (Giacobbe155)

While after I had completed this look, Personally. I did not prefer the nude foundation alone, so I added highlighter to my nose and a thick line of bronzer under my cheek bones which thinned out my face. I also adjusted my eyeshadow to my own eyes to look proportional to hers.

One thing i found quiet interesting is that Alyssa did not use mascara and instead used blush to cover her eyelashes. "I kept the rest of her face nude, with no blush or mascara." (Giacobbe154)

In the end, this is not a look I would wear outside of the house. Maybe a look for fun and to try something new, but not something I'd like to present to the student body at my school or in a public place.

I left my hair wavy; thinking it matched the look a bit nicer than if I had my hair down or up, the look seems a bit more... Exotic. And for an exotic look, you have to have an exotic hair style.

Questions:

1. What "exotic" or crazy makeup styles have you tried on your own?

2. Do you have any tips or tricks i may not know about?

#makeup #exotic #different

Reading a Food Label

Reading a Food Label

Picture this, you’re at the grocery store and you can’t move your cart full of unhealthy food because someone is looking at the ingredients and label on a box of crackers or something like that. Yes, it can seem annoying but maybe we should all be looking at the food label and seeing what’s really in our food like that person in the store. “For my clients eating cereal, reading the label would have saved them about 200 calories at breakfast (and a potential weight gain of about 20 pounds in one year)” (Stollman 75). This shows that maybe that person knows what they’re eating and is especially helpful when trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy or healthier lifestyle like I’m trying to do.

Here we have a picture of everyone’s favorite sugary cereal with a leprechaun mascot. Looks innocent right? Kids eat this so it must be healthy. Well that’s a wrong assumption, Lucky Charms is not a cereal that should be eaten every day for breakfast based on the food label.

You can learn so much more about the food you’re eating by reading the label. The book mentioned all the different nutrients you’ll find the specific amounts for like fiber, sugar, sodium, fat and more (Stollman 75). Knowing these things could make us all more mindful eaters and allow all of us to know what we’re actually putting in our bodies instead of eating unknown substances. Also knowing the ingredients and how much of each nutrient you’re eating can help you eat healthier which I know I will be using to help me start eating better.

Lastly we’re going to talk about ingredient lists on food. We all should know what we should look out for in our foods. “You may also want to avoid products with harmful colorings, additives and preservatives” (Stollman 79). This section of text is flat out saying ingredients you don’t want in your foods. Another thing to look out for is in the past I was taught to avoid foods that contain ingredients you can’t pronounce the names of. Now we can all be more mindful while eating and know what we’re really eating. 

What’s your favorite cereal? Is that cereal considered a food to avoid?

MLA Citation:

Stollman, Lisa, MA, RD, CDE, CDN. The Teen Eating Manifesto: The Ten Essential Steps to Losing Weight, Looking Great and Getting Healthy. Northport, NY: Nirvana, 2012. Print.

Find Joy in Mushrooms

Honestly, mushrooms are my favorite type of food. The texture, taste, and even feel of mushrooms gives me so much joy. Since it is almost the holiday, I wanted to correspond the food that gives me joy in my blog. Cheesy, but oh well.

In the book I am reading for this quarter, All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking, it provides so much information about mushrooms in general and different recipes you can make with mushrooms. However, in this blog, I will be talking about the different kinds of mushrooms and some tricks to use while cooking mushrooms.

"Mushrooms lend elegance and earthiness to a dish. While we are grateful for the abundance of cultivated small button mushrooms, wild mushrooms have considerably more character, and an assortment of them is available in specialty groceries and super markets" (Becker and Rombauer 383).

While shopping for mushrooms, you want to choose the mushrooms that are heavy in size, with dry, firm caps and stems-nothing damp or shriveled, no dark or soft spots, and all close to the same size. Mushrooms go tremendously well with cream, lemon, garlic, shallots, onions, cheese, fennel, fish, chicken, veal, peas, dill, chervil, parsley, tarragon, basil, oregano, and capers.

No doubt, in my opinion, I agree with this book about mushrooms being great and a wonderful food too eat. However, the book also provides a caution that needs to be acknowledged. "A number of poisonous forms of wild mushrooms, during various stages of their development, resemble edible forms" (Becker and Rombauer 384). This is also part of the importance of this blog. It is important to take the time to become familiar with the mushrooms you wish to pick.

Here are some mushrooms that are known to be good to eat:
1. Button or Commerial Mushrooms -- only buy the ones with closed caps
2. Porcini Mushrooms
3. Chanterelles Mushrooms
4. Creminis or Italian Browns
5. Enoki --good with broth
6. Enoki --good with salad or both
7. Morels Mushrooms
8. Oyster Mushrooms
9. Portbelos --useful in sautes
10. Shiitakes

Do you like mushrooms? Do you know the difference between your mushrooms and how to pick the right ones? What are some recipes you make with mushrooms?

Bombauer, Irma Von Starkloff. Joy Of Cooking / All New All Purpose. NY, NY: Scribner, 1997. Print.

How to Make: the Flying Ninja

The Flying Ninja 

as said in the description "They Flying Ninja is a fast, sharp-looking, tight-cornering stunt plane" this plane is one of the most difficult planes to fold. the Flying Ninja is one of the fastest planes in the book, it has the ability and shape to allow it to do flips and make sharper turns than other planes. the durability enables it to fly successfully indoor as well as outdoor.

Step 1: fold one of the top corners to the bottom

Step 2: fold the other corner to the opposite side

  Step 3: flip the paper over and fold the top of the paper to the bottom of the X

Step 4: press on the center of the X then the sides should pop up, then you will want to pull the sides toward to middle

Step 5: guide the sides down toward the middle, it should create a triangle at the top

Next Page

Step 6: move one side of the top layer to the opposite side

Step 7: align the tip of the top layer with the corner of the bottom layer

Step 8: flip the paper over

Step 9: fold in half and move one side to the other side like in the beginning of step 9

Step 10: fold the opposite bottom layer to the opposite bottom corner

Step 11: fold the top of the paper so the tip just about lines up one inch away from the bottom of the paper

Step 12: fold the paper in half to create vertical creases

Step 12 Shown

Step 13: fold one side of the wing down to diagonally then align the other side up with the first wing

Final Product

The Difficulties of Drybrush

Drybrush

So, from my previous post I detailed specifically about Wet on Dry, and since Watercolor is all about exploring and experimenting, I decided to try a different technique out of the four, that was quite foreign and the most difficult to me, the Drybrush technique. Excerpt from the book, Basic Watercolor Techniques, by Grey Albert and Rachel Wolf; “Sometimes called dry on dry, as the brush has very little paint in it and the paper is dry” (Albert and Wolf 19). Using the same colors from my previous post, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Prussian Blue, I wanted to see how it contrasted to the Wet on Dry technique. Of course, it’s quite obvious, one is slightly wet and one is completely dry. But I truly wanted to put myself in a new area where I wasn’t so confident.

Trying the Drybrush technique was quite difficult, there seemed to be a conflict between putting too much paint or putting too little that it was close to none. Though, according to Albert and Wolf, the Wet on Dry Technique is commonly used for the background of a painting, while the Drybrush technique is most often used to create texture for trees and wood (Albert and Wolf 19)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Perhaps, this is another reason why it is so difficult for me to use it, I rarely apply this of technique for painting trees and nature, it never really occurred to me.  I had often just wetted my brush with some color and painted in an outline of a tree and filled it in. Never with a drybrush and paint.

In the two pictures below, I’m going to be using the Wet on Dry and the Drybrush technique for adding texture to the tree. Using the same little background from my last post, I’m going to be using the color Black and both the Wet on Dry and Drybrush technique to paint some trees. 

First, on the right side, using a dry brush with some black paint, I’m going to try to add some texture to the tree. Then on the left side, using the Wet on Dry technique I’m going to do the same.

Drybrush

Wet on Dry

Comparing the two techniques below, in which one of them I’m not so good at, there’s a difference and it affects the painting. The Drybrush leaves a rougher edge to the tree while the Wet on Dry blends in and adds some shadows. Though, I’m not quite capable of using the Drybrush technique, and I honestly find it difficult to use, it’s useful for experimenting with different textures and ways to paint. 

Wet on Dry & Drybrush

Do you believe that to be good at any skill, you need to master every technique? 

Albert, Greg, and Rachel Wolf. Basic Watercolor Techniques. Cincinnati, Ohio: North Light Books, 1991. Print.

 

Peanut/Walnut, Bacon, and Chicken Fried Rice

I decided to make fried rice which is a common recipe that goes throughout my family. In the recipe, it calls for a cup of peanuts per serving of fried rice. Before we get started, let me give you a little cooking tip. Set out all of the ingredients AND utensils that you will be using by looking at the recipe. Once you set them all out you will know what (if anything) you need to get/buy before starting the dish. Since we make fried rice at my house a lot, I usually skip this precaution because I'm so familiar with us having all the needed ingredients. But as I was cooking the bacon and onions, I reached into my cabinet to find that we had run out of peanuts.The next best thing was a bag of chopped walnuts that we bought in bulk from WinCo. I was in a hurry because the peanuts have to soften with the bacon before you move on with the recipe. I poured the walnuts in as a substitute and didn't think that there would be much of a difference. After this step the recipe calls for you to "create a well in the middle of the bacon and peanut pile and pour in the egg, scrambling quickly and mixing together ingredients" (Family Recipe). I used my spatula to gather all the ingredients and brought them to the middle of the pan. From there, I made an indent in the mountain of bacon, shredded chicken, onions, and walnuts. I poured the egg in the middle of it and let it sit on the heat for a few seconds. Then I stirred it all together. From there I added the rest of the ingredients: Rice, sliced water chestnuts, minced garlic, cayenne, paprika, and red wine vinegar. I incorporated the sauce mixture (soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce, minced garlic, sliced green onions, distilled white vinegar, and sesame seeds) in tablespoons at a time until it all came together. I let it cool off a little before I scooped some into a bowl. I have always loved this recipe, but the walnuts dulled the flavor in my opinion. I know now that for that particular recipe, peanuts would best suit it. It was still good, but the peanuts brought out flavors while the walnuts absorbed and destroyed it.

Have you ever had to use a substitution while cooking? If so, did it taste even better than the original?