little black journal

My screenprinting class continues to be all kinds of awesome – my head is spinning with ideas and colors and so much exciting potential.  I took Friday off and spent the whole day in the studio, burning screens and inking prints.  It was exhausting but so creatively fulfilling.  I fell onto the couch that evening with paint on my sweatshirt and a big ol’ smile on my face.  The latest…

Still playing around with my foggy trees, layering on text and color:

Pompidou:

Grande Arche:

I am two classes into my screenprinting workshop at Pratt, and hot dang, it feels good to be in the studio!  I am already hooked on the feel of pulling that ink-filled squeegee across my silkscreens.  And my eyes are open again – I’m looking for inspiration everywhere, picking up dead leaves, combing through old photos to see if anything deserves a second go-around, poring over art books I haven’t cracked open in years.  It’s exciting and fun to watch my fuzzy ideas translate into actual colors on paper, to see my myriad of interests and talents come together into something new.  I’m not a master painter, or a rockstar photographer, or an accomplished graphic designer, but printmaking doesn’t demand perfection – a creative spark and a little bit of elbow grease is all it takes to pull a beautiful print.

I collected a few decomposing leaves when we were playing at the park with Morgan and Elise last weekend, knowing there was a seed of something good in there.

A photo I took of a foggy walk in the woods at the Oregon Coast a couple of years ago has new perspective.

And finally, after a looooong artistic dry spell, I am back in the game.  Feels good to have ink under my fingernails again!

I’m finding our TV is on less and less these days, as Shane and I prefer more and more to spend our evenings on the couch with a couple of good books.  I’ve always wanted to be one of those couples that reads together and talks about books and finally, here we are – we’re livin’ the dream, folks (maybe 30 years prematurely, but whatever).  I finished 18 books in 2012 from a decently wide range of genres.  There were a couple of knocked-my-socks-off good reads, a couple of major disappointments, and a pile of perfect pals for Sunday afternoons on the back porch (or the blanket-laden couch, as of late).

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

God Behaving Badly:Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? by David T. Lamb

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner

Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

11/22/63 by Steven King

Best books of 2012:  Two-way tie between The Book Thief and Unbroken, because they both brought me joy and sadness in equal measure, and damn if I’m not a sucker for a book that makes me actually feel something.  First runner-up goes to Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, for all of Lauren Winner’s nuggets of spiritual wisdom.

Worst book of 2012:  The Night Circus.  This one had been on my to-read list for awhile, and it left me completely underwhelmed.  It had all the potential in the world to be beautiful and moving and completely fantastical, but…blah.  And bah humbug.

On the docket for 2013:  Those 850 pages of Steven King’s time travel page-turner derailed me a bit, so I’m still working on my 2012 list - The Great Gatsby and The Power of One  are at the top of the list for this year.  Also in the queue are Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  And with that, good night – my Kindle beckons!

Yep, I’m a knittin’ fiend these days!  I whipped these out in just over a week, which felt like some kind of record after spending nearly a year on my last project.  And I love them – soft, simple, super-cute.  Bring it, winter – I’m ready for you now.

Pattern is Camp Out Fingerless Mitts, found on Ravelry.  Yarn is Mal Abrigo merino wool, color Mariposa.

This project has been 8 months in the making – I got about 12 inches into it, then stuffed it in a box and lost my knitting mojo (this seems to happen every Spring/Summer).  Then the Giants made the play-offs and we were spending loads of time in front of the TV, and I needed something to keep my hands busy while I fretted over whether or not Zito truly was going to come through in a clutch.  I finished my last row a week ago and am glad to have another neck cozy, as the weather in Seattle has officially turned terrible.  The scarf is a little more drapy than I imagined (I may try it again with bulkier yarn), but it’s super-comfy and I’m loving the color.  Ta and da:

Pattern is Northern Loop, found on Ravelry.  Yarn is Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton.

Confession:  I’ve been a little lax on my sweets resolution as of late.  While it’s been over two months since I’ve had a Skittle or a Red Vine or even one precious gummy bear, I’ve been a little fast and loose with the desserts.  But whatever – I’m still huffin’ through those evening jogs, and I ate a cucumber for dinner the other night (I had a big lunch), so I’m giving myself a pass and indulging in a few home-baked goodies.

First, after a whoa-there piece of biscotti from Cafe Fiore in Ballard on Friday, I came home and tried out this recipe from David Lebovitz.  I love the crunch of the cornmeal and have been wolfing down these things with my morning (and evening) cup of tea.  Note:  I added a couple handfuls of dried cranberries to my batch and was glad for the extra tang.  Also, don’t feel bad if your pieces aren’t as crisply sliced as Lebovitz’s.  There’s charm in the little bulges and cracks and smooshed edges, right?  Right?

I’ve been on a citrus kick lately and tried out a new lemon bar recipe on Sunday – sweet, tart, and Buttery with a capitol B.  Also perfect with a cup of tea.

I am fully on-board with the fro-yo fad and would visit Red Mango daily if I could for a small plain yogurt topped with berries.  Alas, this isn’t really convenient (or cheap), so on Monday I tried making my own tart frozen yogurt at home.  We don’t have an ice cream machine, so bear with me on this poor man’s version of my favorite treat:  I stirred about two tablespoons of honey into a cup of Greek yogurt (must be plain flavor for optimum tartness!) and popped it in the freezer.  I gave it a stir after an hour hour to break up the icy chunks, put it in for about one more hour, gave it another stir, topped it with fresh raspberries, and chowed down on the easiest dessert ever!  This certainly isn’t soft-serve, but if you’re craving something refreshing and simple, this will hit the spot.  I’m adding an ice cream maker to my Summer 2013 wish list – I can only imagine how good this would be if made properly.

And with that, it’s looking like maybe it should be another cucumber kind of night…

I still remember the day we closed on our house.  After 7 years of being renters, moving every year to a different apartment, we were settling down into a place of our very own.  Ohhhh, I was excited – I had picked up a gallon of paint on our way to get the keys and was rolling that blue-gray on the walls before we’d moved even a single box into the place.  Add a smattering of framed photos to the wall, some orange-red damask curtains fashioned out of remnants from the Joann Fabrics clearance bin, and I was really starting to feel like all those years of watching Trading Spaces had finally paid off.

Those rash, antsy-new-home-owner decorating decisions have served us well over the last six years – I was really content in our cozy little living room…until we visited Mitch and Kathryn a few weeks ago and I went a little gaga over their new deep gray bedroom walls.  That blue I had loved quickly lost its charm.  And then I started looking at our photos more closely – good Lord, when was the last time I had updated anything on that wall?  And black picture frames?  Ugh.  I was so over those black picture frames – they needed to be white.  And bigger.  With large mats.  Set against a warm gray wall.  Stat!  I was suddenly jonesin’ for change in a bad, bad way.  A couple of trips to Lowes for paint and supplies, one 9 pm mad dash to IKEA for picture frames, an online print order to Costco for the photos, and I busted this facelift out in just a few days – it’s done!  And we love it.  For now. (Gray is the new blue, but it’s only a matter of time before green is the new gray.)

The deets:

Wall Color:  Valspar ‘Cathedral Gray’

Frames:  IKEA ‘Ribba’

Photos:  mine, printed at Costco

Summer has settled upon Seattle with a vengeance, and O – M – G.  The days are gloriously warm, the evenings long and full of leisure.  Shane played basketball and volleyball with the boys on Tuesday night and came home with a sweat-soaked shirt, a twisted ankle, and mile-wide grin on his face.  I met with my book club gals on the lawn of Seward Park last night and watched the last of the sun’s rays glint off Lake Washington.  I finally got around to planting my little herb garden tonight, and then we sat on the back patio until 9:00 and ate grilled nectarines over ice cream.  In shorts!  Until 9 pm!  This weather makes me want to end all my sentences in exclamation points!  And then I want to crank up Sublime on the stereo and let it rip until the neighbors come over to tell me to turn it down, at which point I’ll hand them a Corona with a lime in it and they’ll shrug their shoulders and join the party.  Anyone who says Disneyland is the happiest place on earth clearly hasn’t enjoyed a string of 80-degree days in Seattle…

My watercolor sketchbook is now full, and I’m taking that as a sign that it’s time to move into a larger format – I think I feel my next collection brewing…

raindrops (2012.04.09):

fisheye (2012.04.11):

tree canopy (inspired by influx_studio’s ‘urban oasis’) (2012.04.28):

It’s Springtime in Seattle!  Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and the sun is streaming through our windows as I type.  It feels so good to be in a home full of daylight…until that daylight starts illuminating dust on the floors and scuffs on the walls and crusty char on the stovetop.  And so it’s been home improvement month at Chez Schnell (insert sympathetic sigh for Shane here).  I’m cleaning with a vengeance, scrubbing the oven and repainting walls and generally sprucing things up in this little abode of ours.

Our downstairs white walls received a fresh coat of paint (next time Shane suggests we hire someone for all those hard-to-reach places, I think I might cave…).

The air plant that Mitch and Kathryn gave me for Christmas found a home in our dining room, along with a couple of new friends:

The white pot that’s been sitting empty on our table for the last two years was finally filled with a fresh green succulent:

Our bookshelves have been “West Elmed”…

Our bathroom received new art on the walls and a fresh zig-zaggy bathmat:

And our front yard was just planted with a row of newly blooming flowers in cheery shades of purple.

And with all that, project spruce-up is nearly complete – we’ve still got windows to wash and dust bunnies to evict from under our bed, but things are shaping up around here*.  Shane has been dreaming about this little lake-view plot of land for sale in Mount Baker, but I don’t know – I think we’ve got a good thing goin’ on in this place…

*This post was sponsored in part by our good friends at West Elm.  Ok, not really, but they owe me one, right?