My role working for Studio Jelly was to help set the tone and create initial artwork for the print campaign, shown in the snapshot above. Striking a balance between comic book cool and a cause helping humanity was a good challenge, and I think the end result is both badass and respectful. A short video was also created, directed by Benjamin Reece with creative director Jelly Helm and writer Kathleen Lane. The girl in the red coat is basically me and every other pre-teen at that age, and we’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.

Thanks for having me, Studio Jelly. I also want to thank Aquaman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, The Flash, and Cyborg for standing so still for their group portrait. Barring one small kerfuffle when Superman stepped on Batman’s cape, their composure and professionalism was excellent.

Monster Jeff is an enigma and constantly full of contradictions – he can’t even decide what shade of brown to be! To sum this monster up I would call him sweet yet bellowing. Not many make such an effort to get their point across that one of their eyes bulges out of their furry monster forehead.

Monster Jeff measures 5.5 x 7.5 inches and was made using 39 cent felt squares, stuffed animal eyes and faux fur fabric wrapped around the back/stand portion of IKEA’s Ribba picture frame. The stand was left over from my original monster portraits, which only used the frame portion.

This is the only picture I took over a 2 week trip to Danmark this December. Not very representative, as the winters in Denmark are cold, dark, colder, and darker, with only about 6 hours of daylight and rain that drives at you from the top the side AND the bottom. This wonderful walk to visit Kalø Slot was a slice of reprieve, and probably another fraction adding to the mythic allure of Denmark as the country of smiles and peace.

A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking about the fractions of life – how events can shift your course depending on the smallest difference in circumstance or how you handle a situation. I feel this acutely every time I walk around my work neighborhood in Portland, a pocket between the Pearl and Chinatown. In the Pearl, well-to-dos get their nails buffed and highlights touched up, while a few blocks away in Chinatown down-on-their-lucks wait in line for a bowl of soup.

Fractions are funny, my friend and I agreed, in that they are intangible and hard to measure until the repercussions of an action are fully unfurled, and sometimes only become apparent when you stack each fraction of change on top of the other. I am somewhere between these two worlds of well-to-do and down-on-my-luck, but walking the line down 5th Street in Chinatown makes me wonder how many steps there actually are, between here and there. #occupywallstreet

The first task was to create a logo for Well Vegan. After a short design brainstorm, the theme of “it’s in the greens” bubbled to the top, and resulted in a happy pea pod bursting with, well, veganism.

Well Vegan logo in various color ways.

The second and main task was to design a website. Katie wanted the site to reflect her healthy, simple, and homespun take on veganism. Visually, this is reflected by using the approachable and versatile font Skolar alongside rough-edged and spare illustrations.

The font Skolar pared with a simple illustration style.

Basically, Well Vegan is a repository of vegan recipes that are partnered with shopping lists and weekly meal plans that take all the hassle out of planning how you are going to sustain yourself. Sure, some people take joy in shopping and figuring out each and every meal, but others just want to get the job done without spending hours poring over recipe books and making lists. Using Well Vegan for $9.99 a month gives you all the tools necessary for eating home-cooked meals most every day. And if that’s what it takes for some vegans to eat healthier on a regular basis, I’m all for it.

How the Well Vegan plan works. Pretty simple, and then you're full. Also, beets are pretty rad.

Some people might have the misconception that vegan food is bland, but with the right recipes it can be anything but. A series of illustrations were made to let the ingredients take center stage and focus on the uncomplicated nature of the vegan diet. I’m not sure eating a tofu cube that large is realistic, but it gets the point across! Send me some giant chopsticks and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Food for giants! Or very hungry vegans!

I even got to use my new favorite phrase on the error screen, making this my favorite error screen second only to the consolation trout I made for Under the Table with Jen.

If you’re interested in checking out the site and what Well Vegan has to offer, visit www.wellvegan.com, or follow them on twitter at @wellvegan.

Photos of the library by Jan Lykke.

Outside view of the library at night.

Looking into the library and up the channel that connects the new addition to the old building.

I was vaguely familiar with Crewdson’s work beforehand, knowing that his signature was to create elaborately produced photos. The exhibit was a great mix of showing the process he uses to set up his scenes (much like filming a movie with constructed sets, fake snow and fog machines) and a wide range of his work (from photos of Americana to ghost towns to fireflies). While I personally subscribe more closely to a “keep it real” policy, Crewdson’s ability to finely tune the details of a scene to the nth degree is exquisite. While these hyper-realistic scenes are entirely staged fiction, the talent to envision these photos is nothing but real. Here are a few photos from the exhibit that made me shiver, aptly named “In A Lonely Place”.

Ung Dame i Lyseblåt by Harald Giersing, 1918

Little Sister by Fredrik Raddum, 2010

The most recent grand addition to the museum was also very nice, the Rainbow Panorama by Olafur Eliasson. A circular pathway built atop the museum, you can see all of Århus from it thru it’s ever-shifting hues.

Rainbow Panorama by Olafur Eliasson, 2011

Inside the museum were additional parts of the exhibit, my favorite of which was a room filled with fog and that immersed you completely within seconds of entering the room. Sight was limited to three feet in front of you and as you moved around the room the color of light continuously changed, resulting in a very sensory experience.

A room filled with fog and lights. Pretty spectacular.