Create: Line

Over the next eight to ten weeks Jessie Marie Studio is going to present the following Elements of Design: Line, Form, Value, Space, Balance, Shape, Color and Texture here on Cause to Gleam.  These Elements are the basic building blocks of art & design.

During this series you will have a chance to interact with the Elements of Design through short exercises. If you decide to participate please pass along your work & it will posted with the Element it represents. Enjoy & have fun!

Line

Line is the continuous movement of a point along a surface, such as by a pencil or brush on paper or canvas. The edges of shapes and forms also create lines, such as the edge of your computer screen. Line is the most basic of the elements of design. It creates the shapes and forms you see on a two-dimensional surface. Every line has length, thickness, and direction. There are curve, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, zigzag, wavy, parallel, dash, and dotted lines. When you use these different kinds of line you can create different feelings on the paper. Dark, thick lines can convey intensity whereas light thin lines can convey a tenderness to the viewer.

Watch the professionals at the typefoundry House Industries represent the element of line is a variety of ways in the below video:

Interact with Line

Collect a couple objects from your kitchen, such as a whisk, a couple bowls & an apple. Arrange them on your table. Create 3 to 5 sketches of your still life. Challenge yourself to have some of the images be the outline of the objects while others show inner detail. Try to represent different feelings of the objects through your line quality.

{Day 25: I made this amazing Creamy Quinoa Primavera for dinner last night & wanted to share!}

Happy Birthday to You!

January's trifecta of birthday celebrating: Grandpa Scheunemann, Grandma Rieder & Cadence!

Cadence's 2nd Birthday Party was held this past Saturday. We had over 20 people in our cute, little house. The menu for the day included: make your own english muffin pizzas, garlic bread, fancy raspberry-peach jell-o (made by the jell-o queen, Grandma Rieder), a mixed salad, carrot cake, angel food cake & a lemon pudding pie that was to die for.

Cadence enjoyed opening the gifts with a puppy-kitty theme. We had given Cadence multiple choice options of how she wanted to celebrate her birthday & the winner was her partnering up with the Champaign County Humane Society. The guests brought gifts for the animals at the shelter in lieu of getting Cadence a gift. And then on Sunday, Mommy & the birthday girl went over & dropped off the gifts & visited the animals. During our visit she even got to feed a pot-bellied pig!

Make your own english muffin pizzas were a hit! And I didn't even have to deprive my guests of having meat.

Learning new tricks in the kitchen.

{ Day 20 & 21: Egg Whites
I have never beat egg whites into stiff peaks before. And if it wasn't for my mom being in my kitchen on Saturday morning while I was attempting the to-die-for lemon pudding pie it would have been a failure. And then, the next morning I made my first recipe from the Vegetarian cookbook I got from Emily, Cottage Cheese & Nutmeg Pancakes. And when the recipe called for the egg whites to be beat into stiff peaks I knew what to do! The pancakes were alright. If I make them again I think I would put in cinnamon rather than the nutmeg. The nutmeg was a bit over-powering. }

It's Budget Time!

Each year during the month of December or January Jarrod will sit down & review our finances from the year before. One part of this exercise is to see how "on budget" we were the year before.

In January 2010 the numbers told us otherwise. We were depleting our savings rapidly. The fact was Cadence was born, Jarrod had gone back to school, we moved into a more expensive rental & we hadn't changed our spending habits from our Glory Days in Oshkosh. While in Oshkosh we each had well paying jobs, a super cheap apartment & no kid. Luckily we had saved a lot of money during those Glory Days. The damage had affected our savings account - not our credit cards. Others have always come to us for advice - and now we were failing ourselves.

We came up with a plan (more communication between the two of us), a new budget (putting limits on travel & extras) & went to work.

This year when Jarrod came to me, the numbers were much easier to swallow. We had made it. On average we had spent what we made on monthly expenses. We did gather some extra & dipped into savings to donate more, travel out to Wyoming again & go to many concerts (um, embarrassingly our concert spending was up over $800! Guess we should watch that).

However, after looking at this year's numbers we thought to ourselves "We can do better." We have now started to implement some of Dave Ramsey's tips & tricks that we've heard on his podcast. And we purchased iBank 4 for Jarrod's mac so we can pay closer attention to our spending habits.

{Day 12: 

Jessie: "It's Girl Scout Cookie time!" 

Jarrod: "It's Budget time!"

Jessie: "Come on Girl Scout Cookie's only come around once a year."

Jarrod: "Girl Scout Cookies have meat in them."}

At the Water Cooler

Day 10: I had an interesting conversation with a coworker while getting my tea this morning.

coworker: "How has the New Year been treating you?"
me: "Good. I started a fun New Year's resolution."
c: "What's that?"
m: "I'm going to be vegetarian for the year."
c: "WHAT?! Not eat meat the whole year! But you have to eat meat."
m: "No you don't. You can get protein other ways - like from nuts."
c: "You are telling me you would rather eat nuts than a steak grilled to perfection?"
m: "I really don't like red meat."
c: "Ok, a piece of chicken grilled to perfection?"
m: "Um, you have a point. I like chicken. It's only a year."
c (after a long pause): "I would die if I didn't eat meat."

Outside Supporter

Day 8: In the mail today I received Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison as motivation for the year from my friend, Emily. What a great gift! The intro says that Deborah is to vegetarian cooking what Julia Child is to gourmet cooking. Hmmmm... do I dare start making a recipe a day out of this new book?

Beans to Greens

Vegetarian 2011 has been entertaining to say the least. I had a minor meltdown on Day 5 when I attempted to make the first family meal that had to accommodate our different eating habits, Chicken & Black-Bean Stuffed Burritos:

I replaced the chicken with portabella mushrooms in mine. I thought they were delicious; however, Jarrod & Cadence didn't like them - so now the ones filled with chicken are still sitting in our fridge. So sad.

Day 6: Made our first Mommy-is-eating-Vegetarian grocery shopping trip. We spent under $100 for two weeks! And that was with some extra fruits & veggies from the produce department. That night I made my Homemade Pizza for dinner. Mmmmmm yummy.

Day 7: Attempted my first green smoothie, Kale & Banana. Lets just say it wasn't as yummy as the pizza the night before. I'm thinking that my blender isn't powerful enough to handle chopping up greens. I may need a vita-mix by the end of the year!

Kinetic Typography

Enjoy this fun kinetic typography video of Jonathan Coulton's song Shop Vac my friend Dave told me about tonight. Good stuff.

Mail Call

I always love getting my cardboard wrapped Communications Arts in the mail. Opening it up is like opening a Christmas present. And this one was extra special: Communication Arts First Typography Annual! Oh the eye-candy to enjoy. I've attached three of my favs after my first flip through:

1. Advertising Series: Wisconsin Cheese

Check out the calligrapher, Holly Dickens & the advertising agency, Shine Advertising Co. for this project.

2. New Font: Carrosserie Fat 

Check out the entire typeface here on myfonts.com.

3. Packaging: Honey & Mackie's Ice Cream Shop

Check out all of the packaging & the story about the shop here on thedieline.com.

***
Hmmmm anyone know why my links are showing up in different colors? Or are they fine for you?

{Day 4: The most delicious salad for lunch: lettuce, shredded 4 cheese, tomatoes, green peppers, pecans, croutons, raspberry vinaigrette dressing.}

Happy 2011!

Many of you know I have practiced a New Year's Resolution or two in the past & this year is no different. I am going to be a Vegetarian for 2011! I have always thought of myself as a wanna-be vegetarian/vegan & I have decided to put my food where my mouth is this year.

Start Date: Monday, January 3rd

Day One: threw a package of sun-dried tomato turkey lunch meat at my mom
Day Two: Jarrod surprised me with two full crispers of veggies to make my favorite portabella sandwich. mmmmmm
Day Three: I made turkey bacon for Jarrod & Cadence for breakfast & didn't sneak a piece