Herbs...the cornerstone of fine dining and other wonders of the world

Herbs are a wonderful addition to any meal. Pasta and boring tomato sauce? Add fresh basil and suddenly everyone's impressed. I recently got some fresh herbs from the supermarket and put them in water, as though they were flowers. A week (or two?) later they had sprouted roots so I transferred them to a pot with soil. How easy was that? It got me thinking about growing other things at home. Radish? Chili peppers? Other herbs?

With most people living in urban areas not many people have a garden, much less a space large enough to allow a section to be dedicated to growing your own vegetables. If I were the President of the World (is there such a title?) or Ruler of All Things Great (I like that one) my first topic of discussion would be living roofs. I would want all buildings to have living, or "green roofs". You know, "green roofs" as in grass and trees and gardens and such. If no living roof was possible, the area should be covered with solar panels or rain water catching thing-a-ma-bob. Fine, this last idea is perhaps not so thought out, but I like the living rooftops. I always imagine that from space Earth would suddenly look very, very green and lush. And no matter where you lived, your view would include nature and trees. How wonderful would that be? I digress...we were discussing herbs in our food and growing your own.

Jamie Oliver gives us no excuses. At least, no excuse to not grow herbs.

Jamie always makes it look so easy and gives a "if I can do it, anyone can" attitude. Hmm, he forgets to mention just how long he's been cooking and working with food, but anyhow, he's got some lovely advice and tips and it really is possible to emulate a little Jamie in your kitchen. So, the next time you're cooking up some boring ol' pasta, don't let it be boring and add some fresh herbs to (literally) spice up your life!

Also, I absolutely love the turquoise Eames DSW chair next to Jamie. Love it!

Cheating on the prints

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: screen printing is all about the preparation. You prepare steps 1 through to Almost Ready and the finally you get to pull the paint over the screen (so exciting) and lift the frame to reveal your...masterpiece? Too often I have lifted only to be disappointed that the paint didn't go through everywhere or I entirely missed the corner of the pattern. Great. As I usually print on t-shirts, it's not an entirely cheap loss. Anyways, so there I am, staring at my not-so-great outcome and it occurs to me that it's my design, I can do whatever I want with it. I'm the creator, if I don't like it, I can change it to something I do! 

I have fabric markers, fabric spray paint and 3D fabric paint that I can add to the original print. Sometimes it just makes things worse, which leads me to add more colors, more paint, more cover-up. Gah! In the end it looks like some hodge podge mix, like a Versace shirt gone bad. Real bad. At some point I have to give in and accept that long gone are any chances of saving the design but at least I tried.

 This print was one of the very early ones. Two kayaks on the water, as seen from perhaps Jericho Beach. The sky is a result of spray paint, so it bled onto the mountains. Then, I added waves or ripples on the water using a fabric marker. The kayakers are also done with marker. I should probably have stopped right before I started outlining the mountains, but the owner of the t-shirt loves it, and still wears it after 5 years! I guess it's a good sign that the image is outlasting the actual cotton t-shirt! Perhaps it's time for a revised version?

"Would you like some Tea?"

The Queen

My latest creation! Perhaps I got carried away in the grocery aisle, reading Hello Magazine's endless royal gossip or maybe it's the looming royal wedding. Regardless, of the source, something stuck in my head. It's the Queen and Her Royal Highness rocks!

Into the Wild...really wild

A trip to Kenya got me all into the wild. The one week safari started immediately upon arrival in Nairobi. There was no time to lose. We arrived to the Masai Mara jet-lagged, tired, and feeling achy after 10 hours of driving on Kenyan potholes, I mean roads. Kenya is an amazing country, rich with culture, fantastic wildlife, smiling faces and, potholes. With some common sense, safety precautions and a good guide book, Kenya is a traveler's paradise.

 Most tourists consider it a "goal" to see the Big Five: Lions, Buffalo, Elephant, Rhinos and Leopards. It is a humbling experience and one that is not forgotten. For the purpose of my t-shirt prints I decided on my own Big Five, the Big Four: an elephant, a buffalo, a zebra (no picture) and a giraffe (because where else in nature do you find such great patterns than on a giraffe?).

These prints were made by cutting out a transparency with an exacto knife. I wanted each animal to appear like a stamp, simple edges and visible from afar. Knowing what I know now about screen printing I would like to revisit the Kenya wildlife theme. I am certain that I can do the giraffe more justice, taking advantage of the aforementioned fantastic natural patterns on its body.

We're bombarded with images, colors, information all day, every day. Non stop. Sometimes I feel the only way to get anything done, I mean really done, is to take the leap and settle on something, anything. It's the only way to avoid rambling on and on, getting lost on the internet, losing countless hours trolling through magazines, city streets, and (insert source of inspiration here) to eventually end up with something equally good as the first image I saw. 

Marimekko. Need I say more? I love the colors. I love the patterns. I love the photos on the site. I love that their products can be spotted a mile away and you just know it's from Marimekko.

Throughout the entire process of my apron production, I was thinking of Marimekko. I wanted large, colorful patterns on an item you can actually use. For the color scheme I came across a colorful little "catchall" in the April issue of Dwell magazine. Again, it was from the infamous Finnish textile giant.

 I set out, with the best intentions, a "look" but the final result of my productivity becomes something organic, somehow changed, improved, (one can only hope) and morphed into something new and slightly off center from where I had originally aimed to be.

Love / Hate

I have a strange love/hate relationship with printing. With creative activities I like big arm movements, bold colors, and if I can use a hammer, well that's super cool. I'm not much into pencil shading, origami or water color. I like it when other people create water color paintings and form intricate delicate swans, but for me personally I am just left frustrated. I'm thinking that big arm movements don't well with origami.  So, in a similar situation with screen printing I'm fighting and arguing with myself throughout the entire prep time. Prepare the stencil. Prepare the drying rack or in my case, clear some closet space. Prepare the screen with emulsion. Wait for it to dry. Mix the paint. Prepare the desk to work on. Prepare the fabric. Prepare, prepare, prepare. When does the FUN start? Gah! So when I've finally got all my ducks in a line, or a row, or whatever formation is needed, the design I've thought of had better be something I'm happy with. I don't use Illustrator or Photoshop or a printer. I sketch and hand cut all my designs which takes time. But once I get going and I lift up the screen for the initial reveal, well, I've already forgotten all the aches and pains of Prep Time and I love printing all over again!

Stretching new fabric on the frame

Covering the screen with photo sensitive emulsion

Frames drying in a dark closet over night

Burning the image onto the frame using a regular household light bulb. This takes about 1.5 hours.

Rinsing out the emulsion. The areas covered with the stencil wash away, allowing paint to go through the frame. All other areas are covered and sealed with the emulsion.

I heart my dog

To this day, I haven't been able to find a t-shirt with an image of a dog I actually like. I see loads of logo-looking images, cheesy silhouettes or designs put together with prefab images and font. So, a few years ago I set out to make a t-shirt with a dog that I liked. As usual, I had great plans for these t-shirts. I was going to revolutionize fashion for dog lovers all around! I figured I'd sell them wholesale in pet stores and dog lovers would come running from all parks and beaches (where else would dog lovers be?) in order to get one of my fantastic dog designs. But alas, one thing lead to another and I forgot about it, other things filled my schedule and suddenly I just plain forgot about it.



I still haven't seen another cool dog t-shirt I really liked. But for now, the prints remain another item on my To Do list and the template is in the folder marked "Develop".

Bornholm, a Baltic Gem

Bornholm is truly one of Denmark's best holiday destinations for both tourists and locals alike. First off, it's the sunniest location in the country. The tiny island is full of bike paths, leading to unique galleries, local eateries and granite cliffs leading to hidden beaches.

A few years ago I made some t-shirts for a family reunion. We were all gathering on the small Baltic island of Bornholm, off the coast of Sweden. I wanted the t-shirts to be something everyone could actually use and not have something boring written on it, like "Family Reunion 2008". I settled for a simple image, but one that is iconic and well-recognized once you know Bornholm, the smokehouse.

Back then I had never used photo emulsion to print an image and had always relied on cutting out the template by hand. I knew I needed thin lines and was determined to get a good result for the reunion. A bit of beginner's luck, reading the instructions and off I went.

I even added sparkly stars to some of the shirts, giving them a very cute effect. The end result was an almost watercolor look from the paint being transferred freely on the sky and then overlapped by the contrasting black lines, like permanent marker.