Working from home in three phases

Phase 1 - Glee: SO nice! No colleagues. No questions. Such focus! In my kingdom I control the thermostat and the biscuits.

Phase 2 - Distraction: Who are all these day-time people outside? Noise! Is that what my house sounds like in the day? Tea!

Phase 3 - ALONE: No human contact. Am now Gollum. Colleagues don't even know I'm gone. Wait by door till Andrzej gets home.

New office

Dream abodes

I'm currently in the process of buying a house. It's got me going a little bit crazy. I am, as I'm sure most first time buyers do, spending a lot of time dreaming about what I can make of my future house.

My two favourite places for abode-based day-dreaming are:

Cabin Porn - A stream of idyllic cabins and remote homes that somewhat satisfy a craving for rustic, back-to-nature living.

Via Cabin Porn

Bohemian Homes - A Tumblr of beautiful spaces, objects, rooms and homes, from hammocks to herbs and from plants to palaces.

Via Bohemian Homes

Painted feathers

Feathers cut from an old piece of leather and painted with acrylics, destined for a garland in my living room.

Misc pesto

While making up (inventing sounds fat too grand) this roast beetroot, sweet potato and goats cheese tart, I also made up some misc pesto.

As the name implies, it's made up of left over bits of miscellaneous green things, mainly coriander stalks and the tail ends of some spring onions.

Sounds dubious right?

However, if you blend coriander stalks and spring onion tops with parmesan and olive oil you get a surprisingly tasty, and violently green, sauce.

I served mine as a dressing for some al dente purple sprouting broccoli. Proof that not wasting food is delicious. 

Roast beetroot, sweet potato and goats cheese tart

There's been a bit of food improv going on this evening and after some culinary disasters earlier in the week I'm pleased to announce it all worked out alright.

Wholemeal pastry filled with a roast sweet potato and thyme puree then topped with roast beetroot and plenty of goats cheese.

Shortcrust pastry for this kind of tart (or quiche) is easy. All you need to remember really is half as much fat as flour.

For this tart I used 200g of wholemeal flour and 100g of butter, plus as many tablespoons of cold water that it takes to form a dough ball. 

However, you can vary the type of flour (wholemeal or plain) and the fat (all butter or mixing in some lard) as you wish and it should still work out ok.

London Life: Burgess Park, Southwark

#nofilter

London Life: The View from The Shard

Earlier this year I was very lucky to get to visit The View at The Shard.

It is predictably stunning.

Even though we couldn't see all that far due to the cloud cover, the snow added an extra level of highlights.

I can highly recommend it, but maybe buy an on the day ticket for a clear day to see London at it's best.

Time for cosy

It's not often I do nothing, but this afternoon I shall drink drink tea, read and watch the snow.

And listen to Nirvana, because that's fine. Nirvana and tea are a fine combination. 

Where life drawing teaches me the value of simplicity

 

 These three are quick, 5-10 minute drawings. A short drawing time forces you to simplify and reduce what you see into essentials.

The essence of something rather than the exact.

 

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And I very rarely get a 10 minute drawing anywhere near finished.

Its frustrating.

But a short drawing time does avoid over working a drawing. For example:

 

The model is 'well defined' (as the tutor says), but he doesn't look any where near as much like Schwarzenegger's body double as I've made out.

Maybe simple is best.

If you're day isn't surreal enough, try some Gentle Mystics

When does drawing naked people stop being awkward?

I'm on such a drawing high right now.
I think it's the endorphins released post-stress, because I do find life drawing really stressful.

I don't know if it's the presence of a tutor, the short pose times (about 15 minutes, which is short for me), that everyone else can see your work or that people are just really hard to draw... what ever the reason, I find it unbelievably stressful.

I very nearly screamed behind my easel several times.

But then the pose is over.
All you can do is step back and see what you've got.
And that's when the high kicks in.

I did these last night at the Candid Arts Trust drop is session, and it still feels pretty good the next morning.

Of course, sometimes when you step back you aren't greeted with perfection.
For instance, in real life our model's thighs meet his bum, but not in my drawing:

Oops.

Previously unseen summer highlights

 

Clockwise from top left:

1 - Table greetings at Claire's Birthday Garden Party

2 - Lakeside fire at Wilderness

3 - Mr. Styles at Leake Street, London

4 - Peony

5 - The banquet tent at Wilderness

You know what you can't beat? Your favourite boy in a blanket.

It's one of the finest things in the world.

City Gardening: 1st Harvest, Shetand Black

 

My tiny garden as produced it's first crop (well, apart from all the mint - the battle is ongoing)!

I dug up one of my containers of first early potatoes and received a small, but perfectly formed, harvest.

I'm particularly proud of the Shetland Black potatoes (the purple ones). They taste great (but I would think that, I'm so biased) but I wish they kept their colour a bit better when cooked - they turn quite gray. Boo.

Wild swimming and Yotam Ottolenghi at Wilderness

Last weekend we decamped to Wilderness, an amazing festival in Oxfordshire celebrating beautiful scenery, good food and outlandish performances.

We stuffed our faces with amazing food at Yotam Ottolengi's banquet.

We wandered in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside.

We swam in the lake and drank in the sunshine.

We soaked in wood-burning hot tubs and watched the sun go down.

We saw shooting stars and then attended a talk on Curiosity by Oxford Astro-Physics Department the next day.

 As you can imagine, going back to work on Tuesday was a bit of a shock to the system.