I thank you all, my viewers, for supporting me in what I do. Seriously its your kind words of support that keep me inspired. I really try to put a lot of effort into my artwork to give you all the quality of artwork you come here for. That said, I've put up a little PayPal "tip jar" here so that if you like what you see and might not necessarily have enough for a commission but would still like to support me in posting my artwork online and viewable to the public, you can donate or leave a tip, as it were.

Please bear in mind this is not obligatory, more like when you go to the Museum of Natural History you can pay an optional donation to help the museum curators run things behind the scenes and continue to bring you what you came to see.

Hey, an artist needs supplies to keep drawing afterall :)

Thank you all so much!

Current Commission Progress List
-Iisaw - painting - painting background
-Melody: 3.5/8 sketches done
-Fenny -Paid In Full - painting character
-Foxjump - Digital painterly commission - sketched
-Katarina - two tone badge - haven't started

*If you have an outstanding commission or shipment with me and don't see your name on this list and your commission has not already been completed and sent to you, please note me!

Current Music: Cosmic Castaway - Titan AE Soundtrack

I've pretty much stopped using this thing to post art for a few reasons. I get fewer comments than if I posted on galleries, and I've kind of migrated to Tumblr for my WIPs and sketchy doodles. It has an "instant" quality that I enjoy in that I don't have to upload my images to photobucket or LiveJournal pics to post images, I can literally just "browse" and post and it sends it to my Twitter as well.

I do still check LJ to read other people's posts and comment though, I'm just less inclined to post myself. Sorry if that bums you out D:

If you'd like to follow me there, I'm at http://thornwolfart.tumblr.com

But I do have a recipe to share with you guys!



Unfortunately my love for German Pancakes doesn’t play nice with my paleo-inspired diet, so I had to surf around the internet to find a reasonable alternative. I found this recipe online but had to modify it quite a bit through trial and error. There could still be a few modifications and it’s not a complete replacement for the real thing, but it’s pretty close and satisfies the same craving.

Makes one, but this split between two people and served with a side of scrambled eggs is perfect. These things are HUGE

Ingredients:

7 oz coconut milk (1/2 can)

4 eggs

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

1/8 tsp table salt (original recipe called for 1/2 tsp, this is WAY TOO SALTY for me)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon (original recipe called for 1/2 tsp, I don’t like a lot of cinnamon though, add to taste!)

Optional: 1 tsp honey. Original recipe doesn’t call for it but non-paleo boyfriend thought it needed a sweet element so I added a little. This satisfies me but he’s going to put powdered sugar on his next time. Not for me thanks!

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil or unsalted butter (this is for the pan, so whatever your preferred cooking oil is)

Instructions

1. Preheat 10” cast iron skillet to 450 degrees in oven

2. After 10 minutes, remove from oven and coat with coconut oil or butter

3. Reduce heat to 425 degrees

4. Blend or mix all of the other ingredients together, then pour into the skillet

5. Cook for 20 minutes or until slightly brown. It will puff up in the oven and sink back down. Delicious!

I always eat my Dutch Babies/German Pancakes with a coating of butter and some squeezes of lemon juice. My favorite!

Current Mood: full

I grew up idolizing Don Bluth, and even though there's a lot of weirdness to his movies that I notice now as an adult, I still just love his style, so I've Bluth-ified Greylock and Niko. Sparklies galore! Also obligatory Secret of NIMH necklace because this picture wasn't sparkly enough, and yeah yeah I made Niko into a Bluth girl after all. She's making the woo-woo eyes

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been awhile. Anyhoo, I'm looking to raise some money to finally grab myself a decent postage scale so I can provide more accurate shipping costs and save myself a little time when tending to furry matters and general eBay endeavors. I've put up a couple of auctions for original artwork, new and old, up on Dealer's Den. This is my first time using that auction site and I must say, I love the interface! I've just posted them today and two items have already gone to a good home, so I'm very grateful if you could take a look and see if anything strikes your fancy!

http://www.thedealersden.com/other_items.php?owner_id=101613

These auctions end this weekend so please check em out!

----

And as promised, some new art, because it's been far too long between art updates here.

This is what happens when you ask a non-fur who has only the vaguest of understanding of the fandom to design his fursona.

"I wanna be a....juggalo babyfur...CAT BUS! That uh...looks like my roommate's cat. *points to cat*"

This is for my friend Marie's roomie.


Chibi badge for Jill0r/JillCostumes of her asshole cat suit, Chingado


( 3 more pics under the cut! )

In other news I spend most of my life (probably more than I need to) on Twitter these days, you can follow me there @ThornwolfArt

Current Mood: artistic

HE SAID YES!!!!



I AM THE LUCKIEST ANTWIFE!

Seriously though, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, and especially to my schmoopsy poo, skorzy

Merlot is red,
Pinot Noir is too,
So let's raise a glass
To me and you!

Current Mood: loved

And I guess this has turned into a food blog! I don't have much finished art to show that isn't already on FA, but I figured I'd share last night's dinner with you guys.

Recently skorzy and I went to Napa with some NorCal friends, commodoremarie and mooglepower, and at Marie's suggestion we started out at the Saddleback Cellars winery. They had an amazing Chardonnay that we fell in love with. I don't normally care for Chardonnay, but this had all the right notes without being too bitey, it was really mellow. Marie can probably better describe it because she's better with the wine lingo, but needless to say, it was amazing. I wanted to make a dinner that paired well with this wine.



Mediterranean Lemon Chicken with Spaghetti Squash

Your best bet is to start off making the spaghetti squash, since while that is baking you can do the prep for the chicken and get that going.

Spaghetti Squash
This recipe I got from our friend stevefoxx who first introduced me to spaghetti squash in general. He made it for dinner once and I was so impressed, I just had to get the recipe! I thought this side dish would go well with the flavor profile of the chicken, and bonus, it fits well with my paleo/primal influenced diet.

-1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeded (be very careful doing this, they can be hard! Use a sharp knife)
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 onion, chopped (I used a sweet onion)
-1 clove garlic, minced (I used the jarred garlic you can buy in bulk)
-1 1/2 cups chopped roma tomatoes
-3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
-3 tablespoons sliced kalamata olives
-2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet
2. Place spaghetti squash cut side down on the prepared baking sheet and bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a sharp knife can be inserted with only a little resistance. Remove squash from oven and set aside to cool enough to be easily handled
3. While it's cooling, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion until tender. Add garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and cook until they're warm (not mushy, just slightly cooked)
4. Use a fork to scrape stringy spaghetti squash pulp out of the halves and place in a medium bowl. Toss onion/tomato/garlic mixture in with olives, feta cheese and basil. Serve warm

The original recipe called for regular black olives but since I'm using kalamata olives already in the other recipe, I went with that. I like them better anyways. Mmm salty :)

Chicken
Start this while the spaghetti squash is baking.

-1/4 cup butter (or ghee), or coconut oil (I used butter)
-1/2 lb kalamata olives, cut in half
-8 chicken thighs with bones and skin (No one but me likes chicken thighs in this house so I used 3 chicken breasts. I would have preferred it with thighs but the family loved it so, whatever)
-10 tsp minced jarred garlic (or 30 cloves fresh garlic, mashed into a paste)
-1/2 cup lemon juice (I used fresh lemons from our back yard! Yum!)
-2 extra lemons, thickly sliced (remove the seeds with a knife)
-1 1/2 cups chicken stock
-a bunch of picked thyme leaves
-Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

-Your oven is already preheated to 350 degrees because the squash is in there. Good! Leave it that way, because you're going to pop this mixture in there and do a swap out
-Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a dutch oven or large hot pan with a lid and brown the chicken pieces on all sides. It will take about 6 minutes total (I did the chicken breasts 3 minutes on each side). Set the chicken aside on a plate
-Cook onions until soft, approximately 3 minutes
-Add garlic and cook for another minute. At this point you can add your salt and pepper
-Add chicken stock, thyme, and lemon juice. Deglaze the pan with the acid from the lemon juice and get all that chickeny goodness off the sides of the pan. Return your chicken to the pan (if using thighs, skin side up)
-Bring to a simmer and put the Dutch oven, covered, into the oven for 20 minutes
-After 20 minutes is up, put in the olives and lemon slices, and bake for another 15-20 minutes uncovered
-Serve the chicken with the olive, garlic, and lemon sauce as well as some of the lemon slices.




The perfect bite is getting an olive with a piece of the cooked lemon (yep, peel and all, it's softened in the chicken juice) with some of the chicken. Oh my goodness YES! I don't feel this dish needs a lot of added salt if you eat the bites with the olives, since they're salty. Without the olives, yeah, needs salt.

My only real complaint is that there's all this amazing broth left over. Normally, if I were eating that sort of thing, I would have served this with couscous to sop up all of that broth, but I'm not really sure how to do that now on a no grain diet? I mean, I sometimes allow myself SOME gimmes like 1/2 a cup of rice or something, but I wonder if there's a paleo friendly alternative to a sop.

The spaghetti squash was a hit, and just one of them served 3 people with ample leftovers. The recipe says it can serve 6, so...be prepared for lots of squash.

And for those curious, it paired AMAZINGLY well with the wine :) Would do again!

Tags: food

We've been wanting to try this recipe for awhile, but skorzy finds it unfitting to eat "cold weather" food when we don't really have cold weather here in SoCal. With the blustery winter winds we've been experiencing this week, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to pull out a stick-to-your-ribs meal!

This recipe is taken and modified from http://www.paleodietlifestyle.com, specifically one of their Halloween recipes which can be found here:
http://paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-halloween-recipes/#s9

The problem I found with this recipe right off the bat, it's entirely too much food. We're a 3 person household, 5 lbs of beef creates just WAY too many leftovers, so we've halved the recipe provided, with some modifications (such as more garlic! You can never have too much garlic).

Also, we had a hard time finding any pumpkin. It would seem that with Halloween and Thanksgiving passing, pumpkins just aren't that popular, and I couldn't find any frozen chunks, so I had to substitute butternut squash.

Last month we dried our own Pasilla chilies from this fall's harvest and rehydrated them for this recipe. We also used some fresh jalapeños from our garden.



Ingredients

6 large chilies of your favorite kind (we used 4 dried pasillas and 2 jalapeños)
1/2 cup diced bacon
2 cups chopped onions (we used sweet yellow onions)
2 1/2 pound stewing beef, cut into 3 inch cubes
4 garlic cloves, peeled;
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 can roasted and diced tomatoes (we bought "fire roasted" canned tomatoes)
3/4 cups beef stock
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro stems (keeping the leaves for garnish)
3 cups frozen butternut squash cubes, thawed

Place the chilies in a bowl, cover with boiling water and let soak for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 F.
Sauté the bacon in a oven proof pot until it begins to brown. Add the onions and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the beef to the pot, season generously with salt and pepper and stir to coat everything well. Set the pot aside.
Drain the chilies and reserve the soaking liquid. Place the chilies in a blander with 1 cup of the soaking liquid, the garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, coriander and the sea salt. Blend to a puree and add more of the soaking liquid if the puree is too thick.
Add the chilies puree to the pot with the beef with the tomatoes, stock and cilantro stems. Stir well to coat.
Bring the whole pot to a simmer and then cover and put in the oven to cook for about 2 hours.
Uncover and cook for another hour, until beef is almost fork tender.
Add the pumpkin and stir well. Roast again uncovered for about 45 minutes, until pumpkin is soft, adding some of the soaking liquid if the meat becomes uncovered.
Season with salt and pepper and serve with garnishes like cilantro leaves, mint leaves, chopped red onion or diced avocado.



Sorry for the photo, this was skorzy's round 2 bowl (with cilantro, sour cream and avocado), it was that good, we forgot to photograph it before digging in!

Honestly it turned out more like a flavorful stew with a kick to it than a chili. If I were going to do it over again I would cut the stew meat into smaller chunks and add sweet potatoes or yams into it and call it a stew. Some argue this isn't adhering to Paleo diets but meh. I eat them, and I'm not going whole-hog anyways, I'm just limiting my grains and cooking Paleo and gluten-free recipes when available. It was VERY good and VERY flavorful though. We will be doing this again in the future.

Tags: food
Current Mood: full

Still doing your holiday shopping and running out of ideas? Why not pick up a 2012 Werewolf Calendar! We still have a few left but they're going quickly!

http://werewolfcalendar.com/

This project is near and dear to my heart and the quality of the images this year amazes me both in content and in printing quality. I just received mine and, wow. So many great artists put a lot of work into this, and it shows!

Thanks for looking and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

It's Cyber Monday! If you've been keeping up on the sales you'll know I'm offering a 15% discount off of EVERYTHING in my store, including originals!

http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/
http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/
http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/

Use this coupon code at checkout to take advantage of this discount: GOBBLE

Offer ends this evening at 10PM Eastern, so if there's something in my store you've always wanted but hesitated to get due to price, please check out this deal!

Thank you, and happy Monday!

I know I said that I wouldn't be doing a Black Friday sale outside of my MFF Holiday Sale, but my awesome awesome S/O, Skorzy, has agreed to help me out with this. So, I've gone through my leftover MFF merch, added some originals to the store, and here we have it! I'm starting it today because we had our turkey dinner super early and I needed something to do XD

15% off of ANYTHING in my Storenvy, even ORIGINALS

http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/
http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/
http://thornwolf.storenvy.com/

That's right, that 15% applies to your entire purchase and anything in the store. This is a screaming deal I only do once a year around this time, but it's an excellent opportunity to get some nice holiday gifts for friends, relatives, or even yourself!

All you have to do is type in this coupon code at check out: GOBBLE

Thank you and Happy Holidays!