Liiisa's PhotoBlog

February's wan light

2013-02-19T00:18:53Z

I do like the warmth of summer, but there's something about the pale light of winter that appeals to me more.

Introducing Lulu the Baby

2013-02-13T04:26:58Z

Today one of my lovely colleagues brought in a King Cake for Mardi Gras. These cakes (more like a large multicolored iced cinnamon bread, really) traditionally have a baby (or something) hidden in them, and I happened to have the baby in my piece! That wiki says that I have certain privileges and obligations now, but I am not sure what... hmm.

Back to the Aquatic Gardens

2013-02-11T00:56:39Z

Still not particularly garden-like, but pretty nonetheless (at least from my aesthetic perspective).

Pearl Jasmine Tea

2013-02-09T23:24:13Z

I'm quite fond of Pearl Jasmine tea, which comes in these little balls and is incredibly fragrant and delicious. But you know, someone in China is hand-rolling all these tea leaves and jasmine flowers into these tiny balls...! So it occurs to me that it would be good to check with my tea shop to see if this is a fair trade product. It's costly enough to support people getting paid for all this hand work, at least.

Here we go again

2013-02-08T05:20:20Z

Lately I've been spending a bit too much time at the dentist, but hopefully this is it for now.

Various clouds and other aerial effects

2013-02-05T04:42:35Z

Taken out my office window. You can definitely tell that I had my nice Olympus camera with me yesterday and my old Panasonic today. Well, also it was murkier out there today.

Altagonum pallinox

2013-02-02T00:14:01Z

Altagonum pallinox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altagonum_pallinox An insect! Oh happy jeebus hooray: insects are much easier to draw than Polish airplanes. This article is a stub: there just isn’t a whole lot of information about this insect accessible to someone like me who is looking in a casual sort of fashion. Of course we know from the fact that it’s in the family Carabidae that it’s a ground beetle, since that’s what Carabidae are: ground beetles. Searching around has told me that it may be from New Guinea, which means that it may be LARGE, which is cool. Anyone who’s been in the tropics can’t help but be amazed at the sheer scale of the insects, which smack into you wetly on warm summer nights and sound like a small helicopter that morphs into a housecat when it lands on the mosquito netting. WE KNOW THIS, we don’t need wikipedia to tell us this. The other thing that the internet has told me is that you can take a university course called “Maggots, Larvae, and Cutworms,” thus reminding me that I like adult insects, but please, leave the children at home. Since the wiki was a stub, I found the photo on which I based this drawing on a site sponsored by the Papua Insects Foundation. To be honest I may have drawn some other ground beetle rather than Altagonum pallinox itself, because it's much nicer to draw a living beetle wandering around in the vegetation than it is to draw a dead beetle from a drawer in someone’s entomology department. I am not the John Jay Audubon of beetles, let’s just say get that out of the way now. But for most of you this will probably be ok. Right? I hope so.

Two mornings

2013-01-30T04:28:57Z

Two very different mornings, just 24 hours apart.

Lunch

2013-01-29T04:19:31Z

I have finally found a really tasty lunch to bring from home that's varied, low-fat, fresh, and fast to prepare! I generally eat lunch at my desk. Most of the time I'll work while eating and then take my actual break later at the gym, but if I skip the gym, then I'll read a book.

Storm and the cherub

2013-01-26T19:30:50Z

Seem to be having a bit of a fling