New paintings and regular art updates.
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
I promise myself
To get rid of clutter
But it piles up
More comes through the door
And more and more
Not neat and tidy
Not filed in folders
But piled in boxes
On cupboards
On a chair
On the sofa
In bags.
Oh heavens
Will I ever declutter?
Westport lake tree, off the beaten track, down a side path.
Somebody has taken a sign off this tree, they have left two “eyes” in place. My friend saw it first and it made me laugh. Is it an ent? Is it Treebeard… I can imagine a mouth and nose! It was good to escape even though it was drizzling and grey. Good to enjoy time outside.
What’s your favorite thing to cook?
I like cooking curries from scratch. I’m no expert though so I just make it up as I go along. I like vegetable curry so I’ll use butternut squash as a basic ingredient.
You have to take off the skin and deseed the squash. Then chop it into cubes. Meanwhile I put some oil in a pan and gently fry my spices. Mild curry powder, some crushed garlic, a bit of chilli (dried or powdered) and a bit of cinnamon or garam masala to give the curry a richer flavour. Sometimes I add this later so the taste is more noticeable.
Then I sautée (add a small amount of water to the oil) some chopped onion in the curry mix together with the squash. This takes a while to soften so I cook it on a low heat with a lid on.
As it softens I add other vegetables, like pak choi, mushrooms, beans, a bit of broccoli or some cabbage. I might add some potato chopped up. I keep an eye on the water content so it doesn’t dry out. I will also add tinned tomatos or tomato paste. As I say I just add in what is available at the time.
Before it’s fully cooked I usually do a small amount of boiled rice (brown or white) and serve the curry and rice with plain yoghurt.
I hope this makes sense, it’s not a recipe as such.
I always season with salt at the end, I don’t cook with it, as it gets absorbed into the food, and you can’t taste it as much but it can raise your blood pressure.
Seen on the side of a canal barge today at Etruria, Stoke on Trent. Not your usual castles and roses, but very nice image. I’ve actually seen a heron on that stretch of the Trent and Mersey canal. I like the waterlilies that have been included, they are not usually found in city canals though and the water is generally not that clean as there is usually some pollution. But I would say canals, are better maintained than in the past.
I see the yellow spiral as an eye, the greens emphasise the shape. This could be a garden from above. A dragons head?
There is a ground sculpture called Northumberlandia in the Northeast of England in the county of Northumberland. It’s laid out as a figure of a woman in a celtic form and built up in hills which you could do with this image, the orange and yellows could be paths. This is an Artrage app sketch.
Write about your first computer.
My experience of computers was non existent when I was at college in the ’80’s. I went to an exhibition in a gallery and I remember being faced with a screen that said type ‘hello world!’ Or something similar and you would get a nice surprise.. So I typed:
Hello world
Nothing happened
I typed:
Hello world
Hello world
Hello world…
Over and over, the instructions soon disappeared off the top of the screen. I was frustrated, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get back to the start. I didn’t know how to scroll back up the screen.
I gave up. Nowhere in the instructions did it say ‘press the enter key’!
It took me a few years before I bothered with a computer again.
My landline stopped working a few months ago, no matter what I did I couldn’t delete the saved messages and calls. It just said another handset was in use (I don’t have one?).
I had been to the local store to see if they had a similar device, but there was too much choice and I didn’t know what would work as none seemed to have the features I wanted.
Then this morning an alarm went off across the road. This usually signifies a power failure. But my landline phone beeped… I investigated. It said it was synchronising, when it stopped I checked and I could delete everything, calls and answerphone logs. It no longer says Full. I tried ringing it. For the first time in months it rang. Now all I need to do is make sure the memory doesn’t get full. And now I just need to reset the clocks on my stove and alarm clock!
Just a doodled horse using Artrage and photodirector. I do like digital drawing, it’s fun to try and create something new and unique. I’m not sure about the colours, but I guess most horses are brown or black. Anyway it’s fun to sketch.
Working on this but the twigs are too thick and dark. I might try and thin them down or paint over them and make them lighter. I need a thinner brush, just a few bristles. Hmm…. And daylight, it’s hard painting under artificial light.
Started this acrylic on canvas today. It’s from a photo of Westport Lake I took at the weekend, it’s about 9 inches by 6. Or maybe a bit bigger? I want to do more to the trees and undergrowth. I’ve got some metallic bronze to give a watery reflective effect. I like the empty bench, it feels lonely and reflective.
Mallaband-Brown