This entry marks almost one year of this blog! Sadly, The Burrow studio is parting locationally for the time being due to Lucy setting sail for her hometown of New York while Nora remains in beautiful Chicago. But our collaborations and adventures will continue, via long-distance art fun as well as frequent visits. The blog won't update as frequently, but keep us in your feed for our irregular posts of collaborative fun! Thanks so much for keeping up with our amazing year of art and nerdiness. We hope you've enjoyed our adventures and artwork, and thanks for all your support!
Studio Project of the Week: "The Double Tavern" screenprint! This great bar opened over the winter at the end of our block. We love it there, and are very fond of the bartender, Henry. We made this two-color screenprinted poster as an homage and thanks to Henry for all the great times and good drinks.
Studio Event of the Week: The Defeat of the Dark Lord! As you may have guessed, we were pretty excited about the final Harry Potter release. We had a few friends over for costumed butterbeer and photoboothing before the movie. Here's a favorite Burrow Studio photobooth shot as "The Grey Lady" and "Ron."
The beginning sequence is our trial print of the negative image on an undyed piece of canvas. Then we use discharge paste on a piece of dyed fabric to print the image, which removes the dye where it's printed and then steamed with an iron. A cool, one-might-say MAGICAL process.
To commemorate our year of studio time and mutual affection for HP,
on the week of the last movie's release, and one of our last weekends together.
By our fabulous, speedy and amazing tattoo artist, Kit Hall.
Studio Obsession of the Week:Kyle XY! Continuing on in our quest to catch up on every cancelled TV show of the last decade, we're getting out ABC Family dramedy on. Thanks, instant-watch. To illustrate the genius of this show, here is an old illustration of Lucy's.
Studio Jam of the Week:The Winner Takes it All, By Abba, as performed by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Did you guys see "The Trip?" This scene was our favorite in the whole movie.
We seem to be doing this in 2-week increments. We'll try to be better about that. And as the rockets red glare burns outside our apartment from our neighbors' (likely extremely dangerous and illegal) 4th of July fireworks, WE BLOG.
(Incomplete) Studio Project of the Week: Just a little process shot, as they're not totally finished, but it should give you an idea of what we're making for ourselves. We stayed up all night in the print studio at Lillstreet Arts Center, using a complicated printing process that involved crazy chemicals, respirators, hair-dryers and (of course) sexy 4-AM print-table poses.
We should be totally done next week, so we'll post more photos of it then.
Apocalyptic Weather of the Week: HAIL YES. Chicago got ping-pong-ball-sized lightening hail last thursday. We were having dinner with friends, when we looked outside and saw this:
Except... I don't think you're ready for these jellies.
Which brings us to the...
Studio Jam of The Week:Bootylicious, by Destiny's Child. The color thematics... THE COLOR THEMATICS. Anyway, ever since we decided to go to the Jellies exhibit, we've been singing this song around the house.
Studio Jam of LAST WEEK: DARREN CRISS! ARTIE! REBECCA BLACK! Kenny G? HANSON!??? Corey Feldman? Debbie Gibson!? WHAT IS GOING ON THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING.
Studio Quotes of the Week: Guess the context.
"That movie was Thorrible. It made me want to Thor up. What's worse, it was so Thoring! At least Natalie Portman looked Thorgeous. I'm so Thorry we had to see that movie. We're still going to be doing this at Thor in the Thorning, aren't we? THEY'VE ISSUED A THORNADO WARNING."
Cooking Adventures of the Week: Tea sandwiches, to celebrate Nora's birthday.
Cat Photo of the Week: SLEEPY FRIENDS!
Cat Video of the Week: Wild outdoor jungle cat! Linney went out into the backyard to go exploring. She didn't much care for it, as it turned out. Apologies for calling my cat an asshole.
We've been busy the last couple of Sundays, so this is a big one!
Studio Obsession of the Season: XENA.
We've been watching a lot of Xena... Warrior Princess.
Have you heard, she was forged in the heat of battle?
Studio Event of the Season: GLEE LIVE. Nora's birthday presents from Lucy were two tickets to Glee Live (under the condition that one of the tickets would be for her). Of course, it was fantastic and ridiculous and we weren't even the oldest people there!* It was in a packed arena full of screaming nerds such as ourselves, being blown away by TV people and pyrotechnics and epic lighting and assorted types of home-made costumes.
*There were definitely some parents who were older than us. We checked.
We were right next to the teeny rear stage, where the actors would occasionally sneak-surprise us with a number about five feet from our heads. It was amazing. Look how close we were to Chris Colfer:
If you watch Glee, you'll know that the meaning behind these particular T-shirt phrases are coded for other actual attributes that fit us rather well. Hint: Nora's not actually Lebanese.
Studio Update of the Week: Here at Sowmoles! We have a "new" comic available for sale as a digital download and/or minicomic. It might look familiar to some of you... With one crucial (legal) difference.
We hope you and our good Brothers Warner like the change!
Studio Project of the Week:Center for Cartoon Studies Pencil Cases! Designed by Lucy and printed by Nora this week.
Studio Outing of EVERY Week: The Logan Square Farmer's Market! Every week we skip through the glorious hipster-filled morning market located in our neighborhood. Nora goes crazy buying plants for the garden and Lucy goes crazy buying food like this tiny ice-cream cone ("tea-and-cookies" flavored).
Last week we saw were trampled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's camera crew, as Mr. Mayor wandered through the market shaking babies and kissing hands and preventing us from getting to the free samples of fancy jam. Somewhere there's probably a news feature where you can barely hear Rahm answering some constituent's question over Nora yelling "I JUST WANT SOME JAM, RAHM!" in the background. Please send a link if you find this video.
Studio Improvement of the Week: Garden Overhaul! Nora has been toiling in the hot sun over our teeny backyard to transform it into a nice little garden space. Here's what she's done so far-- it's WORLDS away from the desert-cement of urban depression that it once was.
Studio Drink of the Week: MOREjitos! Nora took about a metric ton of mint out of the back garden in preparation for planting a wider assortment of herbs. And since we had all this mint, plus we were on our way to see the latest Pirates spectacle at the $4 movie theater (which = RUM), there was only one thing we could do.
Smuggle mojitos into the movie in our water bottles!
Our recipe:
(over ice)
Muddled Mint
A Couple Muddled Strawberries
Coconut Rum
Club Soda
Two Limes
One half Lemon
Honey or Maple Syrup (to taste)
Studio Jam of the Week: Vegetables! (Beach Boys Cover by Kayla Willi)
kitty photo of the Week: Linney had to get some butthair shaved off because it was dreadlocking. Ripley HATES the new 'do. But when has Ripley really needed an excuse to chase Linney around the apartment?
Hey! We're in the midst of one seriously bipolar spring here in Chicago. It was 90 degrees... It was 35 degrees. And mostly there's just been wind. If The Burrow blows away, we'll be updating next week from a tree. We're all over the place. Now that Lucy's convention schedule is winding down, there should be more collabs and blog posts up in here.
Studio Project of the Week: Elephant planter! We've been going to thrift shops to find various items to hold all our plants. This is the first of many, converted from a small dog chew toy. (holds one wee eschevaria)
Studio Visitors of the Week:Erika Moen and Dylan Meconis stopped by to pick up Lucy on the way to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! You can read about their visit and see Erika's lovely photos of The Burrow on Erika's Blog Entry.
Studio Outing of the Week: We went to see Girlyman in concert with Coyote Grace up at Evanston Space (this very cool small concert venue). Nora and Nelly have been Girlyman fans for, like, ever, so this was a big deal.
Our signed Coyote Grace CD:
Which leads us to...
Studio Jam of the Week: "Do You Like Me" by Coyote Grace (Awesome and creepy and lovely, and check out Ingrid's amazing poppy dress!)
Kitty Photos of the Week:
Studio Fanart of the Week: By the delightful Peter N. Trinh, it's us as VAMPIRE SLAYERS!
We're back from our miniature blog sabbatical! Lucy was traveling East for a New York comic convention, and is now returned to the bosom of The Burrow. And now that we're all here again, let's BLOG.
(Above, Lucy's welcome-home banner that Nora made for her triumphant return.)
Studio Obsession of the Week Forever:
Guess which crazy studio duo are going to a GLEE LIVE SHOW? Guess which SAME duo will probably cry during the solos? You guessed it, the SAME duo who will be waiting outside the stage doors with a home-made Pigfarts T-Shirt for Darren Criss. So. Excited. Countdown to June.
Sad Studio News of the Week:
Our good BFF Nelly headed off to grad school this week, departing Chicago for Austin, Texas. To see her off properly, we ate a metric ton of encased meat at local fancy-hot-dog venue, Hot Doug's. We'll miss her greatly, but at least she will be full of fancy meat to remember us by. (hee hee)
Nelly has started (and we hope, will continue) a new blog to chronicle her adventures and creations at Costume Technology school and in her new Texas residence. Check out the first little photo post here (featuring The Burrow):
Again, we apologize for the pause in updating. You see, we were attending a VERY special event, and it was simply impossible for us to leave the side of the royal family at any time over the last month. They absolutely NEED us. Good thing no-one managed to upstage us at the wedding.
More photos of our amazing Royal Wedding Hats here.
