Peachtober 2023

Peachtober 2023 paper art pieces in full display.

Lemon drizzle cake

Since I haven't done a baking post in a while and it's GBBO day, I thought i'd pop up a delicious recipe for lemon drizzle cake. It's really easy to make and is split into two parts, the cake and the drizzle. This mix fills a whole loaf tin, so be prepared to eat it all yourself or having people to share it with. I also think lemon curd would be amazing baked into the middle of this, I haven't tried it this time but maybe next time.

You'll need:
3 large eggs
170g self-raising flour
170g caster sugar
170g butter (soft)
1 teaspoon baking powder
110g icing sugar
2 lemons

What you have to do:

Preheat oven to 180°C
Mix your eggs together and slowly add the flour so there's no lumps.
Add in the sugar and butter until combined.
Add baking powder and the zest of the 2 lemons.
Cook for 30-45 minutes depending on your oven.
Check if it's done by putting a knife into the centre and if it comes out clean, then it's done.
Pop out of the cake tin and put on display plate or dish.
Next you'll want to poke holes in your cake with a skewer.
Mix the icing and juice of 2 lemons, and pour on top of your cake.
slice and EAT!

Enjoy,
Jess x

August Faves

It's that time of the month again, no not that time, the monthly favorites part of the month! When I was trying to compile the list of things I was loving this month nearly everything was repeating from last month, because i'm clearly such an exciting person, but mainly because I binge watched Once Upon a Time and finished it. I totally regretted flying through all of the episodes as the new series won't be out till the end of September and now I've to wait a whole month to see what happens next. But after listing everything that i've been loving this month, I actually had more than I thought, and decided not to add in Once Upon a Time again as this little paragraph summed up how much i'm still addicted! SO lets get into it..

1. Mac Retro Matte: Relentlessly Red
This has been my favourite lipstick as it's the perfect shade between pink and red. If you apply it lightly and smudge it with your finger you get this beautiful deep dusty pink shade and if you apply it normally then you get the amazing pinky red shade. I'm also a huge fan of matte lipsticks so this is perfect, and also stays put on your lips, no need for much re-applying, unless you're eating.

2. Wacom Bamboo tablet
Since the month of August has been really busy for me with work, i've been using my Wacom drawing tablet a lot more. It's so easy to use and great if you want to creating digital lettering pieces with your own hand lettering as it's the same as using pen on paper.

3. Urban Outfitters WIP nail varnish: Burst
This is such a fun top coat with any colour nail varnish as a base. It has different shapes and sizes of confetti pieces such as pink hexagons, black dots, smaller blue hexagons and more. It's great for making any plain nail varnish colour that bit more fun.

4. Aldi Pizza base and homemade pizza with dough balls
I've been loving using this roll out pizza dough from Aldi as it's ready to go and you just have to add your sauce and toppings. As our oven is a little bit smaller than regular ovens, the whole dough doesn't quite fit so I have to cut a section off from the side, but then I just use that small section to make garlic butter dough balls by making garlic butter, spreading it on the smaller bit of dough, rolling the long end in, cutting it into sections and standing them on baking paper on an oven tray on their opened rolled side. They cook at the same amount of time as the pizza. I use my pasta sauce recipe, without the added ingredients, for the sauce base then add whatever toppings and cheese I want. It's such a delicious dinner and so easy to make.

5. Swatch watch
Since wearing my other swatch watch to death everyday for about 3 years it was time to get a new one for my birthday in March, so after having a navy one that went with every outfit, I decided to get a more colourful one. I got the Shunbukin swatch watch with the pink and purple straps with the green face. I've been loving it for the whole summer as it's so bright and goes with all my summer outfits, not that i'm going to take it off for winter, but I just thought i'd share it as it's one of my favourite fashion accessories at the minute.

6. This American life podcast
After listening to the whole Serial podcast series, I needed something else to listen to, so keeping with the same people I decided to give the 'This American Life' podcast series a go and i'm really enjoying it. It always has a great narrative and different interview with different topics about American life each week. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for something new and interesting to listen to.

7. The Great British Bake Off
The best time of the year is when The Great British Bake Off comes back on our screens. This has to be one of my most favourite things to watch, I love seeing the amazing ideas and learning new tips and tricks about baking, mostly what not to do when making particular things. And it also means we get to watch Mary Berry on our screens again! This show makes my love for baking grow more and more with each episode.

8. Insomnia Orea Ice Caps
When I downloaded the new 3Plus app I noticed that you could get 2 free Insomnia Ice Caps to try, only one at a time, so I was curious to see what they we're like. When I went in there was 4 different flavours to choose from, but of course I opted for the oreo one and it was amazing! Almost like an oreo milkshake but cool and refreshing like a slushy.

9. Audiology Portable Phone Charger
I got this charge in the sale in Urban Outfitters for €6 (usually €32) and it's great. It's small enough that it fits into any bag. You simply leave it on charge until you see a blue light and then it charges your phone on the go. I think it has usually lasted 3 full charges until i've needed to recharge it again. But this is so handy to have on the go, especially since I usually watch Netflix on the bus. I got the plain pink one but you can find the same ones here with different patterns.

10. 3 Plus app and 2 for €10 cinema
I'm such a huge cinema fan, especially if it's just an excuse to get cinema popcorn (YUM!). So when I heard about the new 3Plus app and the 2 for €10 cinema tickets in any IMC, ODEON, Screen and Savoy cinema, I was sold! This deal starts from Sundays after 6pm till Thursdays, and you can book online with the code or show the code on the app in the cinema when you're purchasing the tickets.

11. Pixar's Lava short film and song
Since getting the 3Plus app we've been going the cinema a lot more than we used to, and recently went to see InsideOut, which was such an amazing movie by Pixar, as usual! But before the movie started, we we're shown the new Pixar short film, which is usually shown before each Pixar movie. This one was about a singing volcano with a play on the phrase 'I Lava You', it was so heart warming and I immediately fell in love with the song, and have been playing in on my Spotify playlist almost every day.

Hope you enjoyed my favourites this month,
Jess x

Disastrous Dates: The process

This week I thought I'd show you how I create my paper cut stop motion animations. I started this project in my last year in college, and hope to continue it with more disastrous dates that i've heard. This is such a long process as it takes hundreds of photographs to complete. You can see the full videos here.

My top products to use when you are making a stop motion animation using flat objects are show above. These are a good quality camera, tweezers to move the little pieces of paper, blue tac to temporarily hold the pieces of paper in place, a tripod so you can keep your camera steady, a flat surface, and some sort of lighting (I usually try and use the daylight from the window, but you can get good lighting from amazon or you can make your own using white lightbulbs).

All of the stop motion ideas started out the same, with a storyboard. This is where I decided what I wanted the animation to look like. I wanted it to seem as if you're friend was talking to you or bitching about their terrible dates, and then little images that they we're talking about would pop up in the video as if you were imagining what they are talking about. Each of these videos took around 300-400 photographs to make and then put together with the voice overs, that I forced my friends and boyfriend to do.

Behind the scenes of the stop motion animation

To make different pieces of the face move, you have to move one of the pieces of cut paper a little bit and photograph it each time you move it. I wanted to keep it all about the expression in the face, of you looking at your friend when they are talking, so this bit was very important to get right. Each part of the stop motion is made from watercolour illustrations which are then cut out individually and made into separate moving pieces.

Moving the mouth piece by piece so it seems like she is talking in the video.

The titles are also the same process of using watercolour cut out letters and a hand drawn signature. I wanted the titles to seem messy and a bit of a disaster to match the theme of the animations. I originally had the titles coming in one letter at a time and really neat but it didn't seem right having neat and perfect titles when the rest of the animation was supposed to be about a disaster. I'd also thought i'd show you how I test these stop motions out on my phone (using an app called iMotion on the capture setting) before taking proper photographs. The iMotion app is so handy for when you want to see what your video will look like, or to see you idea come to life, roughly and quickly, so you can see if it will work or if it needs to be changed or altered in anyway. For me, I thought this title sequence was too neat to match the disasterous dates that were being told so I made it more messy. But here is a sneak peek no one else has seen yet.

Disastrous Dates: Title draft from Jessica Rooney Deane on Vimeo.

This was always going to be a time consuming process, but the end result is always worth it. With having a 4 year old laptop, this was going to take a little bit longer than expected to match up the voices with each of the photographs in the sequence that I wanted, but I liked how it turned out in the end and I can't wait to make more. I've also added the little moustache test that I made with the iMotion app below.

Disastrous Dates: Moustache test from Jessica Rooney Deane on Vimeo.

Send your disastrous dates to: jessrooneydeane@gmail.com and you might see them come to life in the same way!

Enjoy,
Jess x

Favourite art materials

Since finishing college, I've been focusing a lot more on my illustration and the pieces I want to create or what I have been creating for clients. Since I have been working in my own studio space, and not lugging all my materials in and out of college, i've noticed a lot more of what i've been using lately, and what I have been loving. I wanted to share with you the materials that I think work the best for me and why I love them.

After deciding to write this blog and laying out everything I needed to account for, I realised I use a lot of different art materials. Now, I don't use these every day, or for every project but these are the main things I have in my desk and what i'll grab when creating a new piece. I'll try link everything so that, if you like the sound of it, you can get it for yourself.

Muji pens
If you already seen my July Favourites you'll already know that I have a new found love for these pens. I find they're so easy to use to get a good line and they come in a variety of colours. You can buy them online or in the Muji shop off Grafton street.

Winson & Newton watercolour palette
I got this during my portfolio course and haven't stopped using it since. It's a well loved item and most of the colours I have are almost completely used up. This palette is so handy as you can use the lid to mix the colours on and all of the colours can be changed to suit the palette you want. My palette came with 12 colours which are Cad yellow pale, Cad yellow, Viridian green, Sap green, Chinese white, Yellow ochre, Burnt sienna, Cobalt blue, Aliz crimson, Cad red pale, Burnt umber and Ultramarine. You can buy all the colours separately as well, and change the palette to suit you. You can buy this palette from Evans and Easons in store, or here, or there is a similar one here.

Letraset Promarkers
I like these markers as they have an opaque finish to them, so you can draw over them with a different colour and they will change to a mix of both colours. These are great to use when you want to see what something will look like in colour before you put it on screen. I also like these markers as they come with a thin side and a thick flat side. You can get them in Easons and Evans, and also from amazon.

Tweezers
These are great for when i'm making my paper illustration because if you have a small piece of paper that needs to be stuck down then you can do it with precision with the tweezers, it also saves you from getting glue all over your fingers.

Scalpel
This is a necessary tool for making my paper illustrations, and cutting anything really as you can always get a precision line. I use the Swann-Morton scalpel with 10A blades. I usually wrap the handle with a lot of masking tape (as you can see in the photo below) to stop getting blisters on my fingers from the constant rubbing of the metal on my skin when i'm using it.

Art & Hobbie shop paper
This paper is great as they usually have a variety of colours and textures to choose from. You choose a normal folder (€5) or a large folder (€10) and fill it with whatever paper you want and then you pay for it. Simple.

Pentel watercolour travel brush
This brush is amazing for using with watercolour, you simply fill it with water and it's ready to use whenever you want. The tip is thin and flexible as well so you can use it for a variety of lines or details. It's so handy on the go too because the water is already in the brush so there's no need to bring a little water container with you.

Cutting mat
A much need accessory for making my paper illustrations and for cutting my prints down to size. This is also good as it is gridded so you can line up your print and cut it correctly. You can get the same A3 one I have here.

Notebooks
I like to try out and use a variety of different notebooks. I like to use my Moleskin notebook when I know I need thick paper for painting or using markers as they never seep through to the other side of the page. I really like Muji gridded and dot notebooks for working out lettering pieces and other designs with precision. Paperchase have a beautiful range of sketchbooks with amazing covers on every one, or you can get good quality, plain classic ones.

Ecoline liquid watercolour
If you seen my July Favourites you will have also seen these. These are amazing for getting a solid colour without having to mix any colours together. They come as a little pot but last for ages, as a little goes a long way. You can buy them here.

On.The.Run:202 luxusliner
This market is great as it has a fine tip so it's great for outlining a drawing or creating some hand lettering. I bought this from All City in Temple bar, Dublin.

Uni Pin fine line pens
I really like these pens as they come in a variety of sizes. My favourites to use are the 0.05mm pen for when I need to draw with a really thin line, the 0.2mm pen for drawing normal lines, and the 0.8mm pen when I need a thick line but don't want to use a marker. You can find them here.

Extra things which don't really need explaining:
Pritt stick
Rubber (eraser)
2B pencil
Tissue (for watercolour brush)
Metal ruler
Watercolour paper (300 gsm)

These materials are the main things that I use physically from day to day. There are so many more materials that I could name that I might use on the off chance for one or two projects but these materials are my most loved ones when doing things by hand before editing or doing something digitally. Let me know what your favourite art materials are!

Enjoy,
Jess x