Asbury Park is a lovely place...

for zombies. And for artists. And for people too. Lovely, just lovely!

I am referring to the NJ Zombie Walk that was held this past Saturday in Asbury Park along with some gallery show openings and general good times. Ed and I are very excited by our new friends over at Parlor Gallery and Asbury Lanes and went out Saturday to support them. At first we needed to do a drive by of the boardwalk to take in all the zombie walking. Such an awesome site to see bloodied faces basking in the dying light of a great day at the seashore. You don't get these images from other zombie walks and apparantly their sites are firmly set on setting the record next year, so watch out Monroeville!

Then it was a quick walk over to Shelter Home which is my new favorite shop. Reminiscent of Tokyo shops and every good thing I've ever seen on the internet, it also has two lovely owners (Scott and Gene) and their beautiful standard poodles, Diego (pure black) and Lucia (pure white). Seems I may have seen these guys running around Washington Square Park back in my NYU days as well. Walking to and from classes I loved it when the black and white poodles were romping around the doggie section of the park. After telling Scott this, he said he had lived in the Washington Square Park area and has always had a black and a white standard poodle! Love it when things work out...

Across the street was Parlor Gallery and their newest show, ART Bloc. What a great show! Honestly haven't seen such great art from an array of artists in...well...in a long, long time. And only one week ago we had wandered into Shelter Home, talked with Scott and Gene who introduced us to Jenn who runs Parlor. Jenn also organizes some great events over at Asbury Lanes and we'll be talking with her very soon about showing some of our work there.

Small world, wonderful sights, ocean breezes and all 30 minutes from our house.

Oooh Cute! Whathehellisthatthing?!#&

This is the reaction I seem to have when looking at What's That Bug? Insect indentification blog It is chock full of the most amazing looking bugs from everyday folks who just want to know, what's that bug? Simple enough. But once I started scrolling around, I just couldn't stop.

Beautiful moths

Followed closely by this Monkey Slug that can sting you!

and then this adorable Tribble looking thing aptly called an Asp-- that can also sting ya!

What's that little icon called?

The one up in your browser's address bar -- it's a favicon! How cute. And I learned this today through Squarespace and am trying to get one to work for Cuddly's page. So when you come here you'll see this:

next to our address. It's a wingless version of CRuM, a heart/skull/angel icon that Ed had worked up for our packaging awhile ago and I always liked him.  Hopefully this little guy will start to show up. If you want to learn a bit more about favicons check out Wikipedia.

Holy Crap! That's a big fish!

I absolutely love anything having to do with nature. There is always something new and creepy and huge appearing on tv or the web that no one has ever seen before. We live here and no one has seen everything there is to be seen. Like this thing:

Zeb Hogan that awesome guy doing the Megafishes project over at National Geographic found this which appears to be the world's largest known Giant Stingray. This is just unbelieavable to me. Not only that I just stumbled upon this article but that it was posted Feb 24! I really need to visit National Geographic more often. Also note to self: do not take swimming in bodies of fresh water in Thailand lightly.

Cocks have no cocks

I finished up the cherry painting and am now working on one involving a chicken. So I was able to pull out all of my chicken books (I have a crush on chickens. I can watch, listen and eat them all day long) and look for some photo reference.

"The Fairest Fowl: Portraits of Championship Chickens" photographs by Tamara Staples is brilliant. You never knew chickens could be this beautiful and diverse.

"Extraordinary Chickens" by Stephen Green-Armytage is equally brilliant and informative.

"The Complete Chicken: An Entertaining History of Chickens" by Pam Percy has it all. History, yes, along with photos, artwork, and such informative tidbits as:

'How the rooster became the Cock' (thought to derive from stopcock or spigot),

Until 1830, 'cock' was an acceptable term for male genitalia. Not until the 'onset of Victorian mores' did it become vulgar

And cocks have no cocks. "Instead both he and the hen each have a single orafice called a cloaca (stemming from the French word for sewer), which serves a multitude of functions, including reproduction."

"Niwatori: The Graphics of Japanese Cock" by Kazuya Takaoka and Sachiko Kuru is a japanese publication with 400 pages of chicken eye candy. Every photograph is a treasure and although I can't read a word of it (due to it being in japanese) it's still my favorite.

Photoreference

I always loved doing research. So the fact that I have to look up photo reference for my paintings adds a bonus point to the process. Today I am researching maraschino cherries as a new painting will have one in it and I've always loved them.

Did you know that the modern maraschino cherry was developed by Ernest H. Wiegand at the
Oregon Agricultural College at Oregon State University in 1919? You can still take a class about it.

Did you know the primary flavor added to Maraschino cherries is almond if they are red and peppermint if they are green?

And (unfortunately) it is a myth that red #40 which is used to dye the cherries red is made from carmine which is derived from beetles (sorry Kevin).

And a company called Roland makes extra flavors (lemon, lime, passion fruit and wild berry), but I guess they wouldn't be considered maraschino...

I'm chilling my ginger ale for this evening to make myself a Shirley Temple (did you know that at any Disney resort they call a Shirley Temple a Mickey Mouse?)

I am not a girl

Well I am, but I am most definitely not girly. I do however, love to look at blogs from other women who seem to be able to stop time and accomplish so much in a single day. They are typically creative, they have a shop, they sew, they paint. They also have at least one small child, more than likely two or three. And their postings are filled with spectacular photos of all the lovely things they made that day. Usually involving a meal for their families with fresh ingrediants that they grew themselves then carved into cute little shapes or creatures. I am envious but realize that I will never and have never had the energy to do those types of things. So thankfully I can sit and live vicariously through these amazing women who seem to be able to do it all with flair.

There are many of these women but one in particular who I have had the pleasure of sitting down to coffee with and meeting her adorable youngest son and her husband Tom (In fact, Tom did Ed's new wrist tattoos last month ) is Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane. Enjoy. Visit her site and then specifically her blog here