#yayhamlet

I am of the opinion that if Pierre Trudeau were running Canada in the Smartphone era, he would be social media’s favourite world leader.

Happy New Year everyone. Thank you so much to you all for taking an interest in my work. Over 3.9 million likes on 192 posts on @instagram in 2015. Over 1.4 million accounts following me across social media. Such big plans for my art career in 2016. It is daunting but I’m going to give it everything I’ve got. I hope 2016 is a great year for all of you. #2015bestnine #seblester #thankyou

Ooooooooh, @ave-puella added some closeups!  

A present I made for my dear friend @ave-puella.  You may recognize it as a short Temeraire fic she posted a little while back.  It’s done entirely by hand, and was my first time attempting borders and illumination.  I’m still figuring out gold leaf, but it was super fun to work with (there’s also some gold work on the border of the third page).  For those of you unfamiliar with the Temeraire universe, there are dragons, hence the second page border.

It was a heck of a lot of work, but was entirely worth it for her face and incredulous ‘what did you do?!’

Stanley Cup Playoff Drinks

Here are some drinks to celebrate the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! Just like the playoffs themselves, playoff drinks have to strike the tricky balance inherent to a winter sport being played in June, like seriously why did we ever let the California teams get good enough to make it into the later rounds it’s like a million degrees what the hell are we doing trying to play scoot and shoot on ice. These are some of my favourites for watching the Cup while in your cups.

The PIMs Cup

By Ethanbentley at en.wikipedia [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

A playoff version of the classic British summer drink, prepare a fruit cup per your favourite recipe, but serve in a glass with a salted rim. Discretely brush off the salt before drinking, it’s just there to provoke horrified looks. Celebrate bright fruity spring flavours and your favourite heavily-penalized dillhole at the same time

Toast: To a different little shit who has his own towel in the penalty box each time you take a sip. Toasted players should be unique, unless toasting Brad Marchand, who is unique enough on his own. Like a proverbial river, you can’t step in the same Marchie twice

Garnish: A smug look at your friend having a shrieky meltdown that you would celebrate such a classless goon

The Playoff Beard

By Chris huh [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Mix a sex on the beach or a tangerini or similarly coloured drink and then serve in a scotch tumbler with a single pretentiously-large ice cube.

For some people loving sports means sometimes having to pass as Totally One Of The Guys, Nothing To See Here. This drink gives the option to do that while remaining true to an identity as a smouldering queer dumpster fire. Looks like a manly drink for manly men but tastes like an afternoon cackling at a matinee performance of one of the funny tragedies at Shakespeare in the Park

Toast: The patron saint of smouldering queer dumpster fires in the NHL, Tyson Barrie. Alternatively Tyson Barrie’s dignity, which needs all the help it can get, or the boat his cardiologist gets a little closer to buying every time he hits on a teammate on camera and then isn’t sure if they’re going along with it jokingly or are actually into it

The Flannel Shirt

Mostly I go for fruity drinks to celebrate playoff joy, but sometimes you need a soothing wintry drink for playoff heartbreak. The flannel shirt can be an excellent balm for postseason hard times. Feel free to play around with the spice mixture (allspice in the above recipe, but other mulling spices can also be good) for comforting nostalgia suited to you.

Toast: Those halcyon winter days when you happily doze by the cabin woodstove wearing nothing but Hilary Knight’s cozy flannel shirt. You hear the shoothing rythm of firewood being chopped outside and wait for her to come to come back in, face red from the cold, to cram herself into your chair and unwittingly light up your whole spine with her icy hands on your warm neck. The shirt smells like her and no one has even been mathematically eliminated yet, let alone blown 4-1 leads in the final minutes of game seven, been swept (or reverse swept), or knocked out by the same division rival for the second year in a row. You’re safe.

Great news for you about the Ethiopic Canon

they should put more words in the bible

Evangéliaire (Gospels), f. 21v, St. Gallen, Switzerland c. 875-900 via Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain

@upennmanuscripts (the greatest blog in all the land <3) was talking about manuscript-influenced fanart and it made me nostalgic for when I made this

A present I made for my dear friend @ave-puella.  You may recognize it as a short Temeraire fic she posted a little while back.  It’s done entirely by hand, and was my first time attempting borders and illumination.  I’m still figuring out gold leaf, but it was super fun to work with (there’s also some gold work on the border of the third page).  For those of you unfamiliar with the Temeraire universe, there are dragons, hence the second page border.

It was a heck of a lot of work, but was entirely worth it for her face and incredulous ‘what did you do?!’