Whew, the holidays threw me for a loop! Hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to Illinois to see my family and had a great time! I was remiss in my photo taking, but I drew a lot. :) All my daily sketches are on instagram.
This month up until Christmas, I am doing an Advent Challenge put together by Faye Brown Designs. Every day (in place of my daily sketches) I do an illustration inspired by her prompt. At first I wasn’t going to do one every day, but so far, I’ve done seven, so that’s seven for seven! They are all made digitally, and it is the first time I’m actually painting with digital brushes. I bought these amazing brushes you from Kyle T. Webster for Photoshop, and they’ve really changed the way I work. They are SOOO much better than the ones that come with Photoshop. There is no comparison. Here is a nice review of them in Wired Magazine. He is an amazing illustrator and he started making brushes for himself. When he started selling them, he made a bucketful of money because they are so awesome.
The illustrations I’m making take a lot longer than my 30 minute paintings – sometimes an hour to two hours! So it’s kind of a heavy load to carry… But I’m having so much fun with these brushes and at the end of the challenge, I’ll have 25 designs (if I can maintain the pace) to choose from to make into some greeting cards. :) Wish me luck!
Here are some of my favorites so far:
Today’s was:
To see more daily, I’ll be posting at: http://instagram.com/melissaiwai1/
I’ll leave you with a quick recipe I made up for a high fiber high protein low sugar snack. I love Kashi cereals, and I had a coupon which I used to buy a box of Kashi GoLean Crunch cereal. These crunchy treats satisfy my craving for a crunchy sweet chocolate snack, but are packed with fiber and protein without artificial ingredients. :)
Kashi Healthy Treats
1 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped finely
2 teaspoons coconut oil
stevia or other sweetener to taste
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 cup Kashi GoLean Crunch Cereal or other Kashi cereal
1. Melt chocolate and coconut oil together in a medium sized bowl in the microwave at 30 second intervals until melted.
2. Stir in stevia and peanut butter until combined. Add cereal and coat evenly.
3. Line a large plate or baking sheet with parchment paper. Make six balls of cereal mixture and arrange on plate.
4. Chill for about an hour until set.
Makes six treats.
