Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Nothing on my actual workdesk, but I still have some evidence of creativity to share.

Fun with my new Tombow Dual Brush markers

I’ve been doing some colouring and practising some lettering with my new markers. They really are lovely, and I’m pleased that so many people online seem to recommend them as one of the best water-based brush markers on the market.

Since I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week on the recliner, I thought it would be nice to do some colouring. I brought some of my design books down from the studio and fell in love again with my Kaffe Fasset’s Pattern Library book which I bought 15 years ago… my goodness, was it really that long? (I usually write inside when I bought a book.) I have several of his books but this isn’t as large as some of his others, and is just page after page of absolutely glorious designs – I love how the photographs are arranged on a black background which really makes the colours vibrant and glowing. There are charted designs in the second half of the book.

I divided a square of paper into a tiny mini-crazy patchwork with a permanent black marker, and filled the sections with of some of the patterns and coloured them with my Tombows in nice bright colours.

I spent some time scribbling out some colours to make a colour chart with the numbers and names of each one for reference. As always with markers, you cannot rely on the cap colour to be an accurate representation of the actual colour of the marker. I wasn’t desperately methodical with my list but grouped them more or less into colour families. I’ve subsequently discovered that there is a definite system with their numbering, and once I fill in the gaps with a few more markers whose absence I am already feeling, I shall do a better chart.

With each one, I blended it out towards the right with a water brush, so that I could see what the diluted colour would look like. I didn’t use very good paper for any of this work; the surface wasn’t designed to get wet and it did pill up a bit.

After this, I made a few little colour swatches on the reverse of that sheet. Every now and then, when I’m having a feeding frenzy on Pinterest (I have to watch that particular addiction!!) I save different colour palettes that appeal to me, for future reference. Unfortunately the Tombow markers that I have got do not give me all the gorgeous subtle shades that I love, but I’ve been thinking of doing some work on different coloured papers (maybe a soft light grey if I can get it) which might mute some of the colours and save me having to buy every single marker available! You will see on some of the palettes that I’ve tried overlaying colour with grey markers, with varying degrees of success.

I decided to colour some more of my Florabunda prints using a few of these palettes. Ages ago I ran off lots of copies of several drawings I’d made from my Florabunda zentangle book, so that I could colour them and make them into cards.

I’ve got a few blanks left so I coloured a couple of the designs with my Tombows. I like the look with a limited colour palette. Who says leaves have to be green, anyway!

The second one was always my favourite, because I love the faded dying seed heads. I thought a nice rich autumnal palette would work well for this one. I love how you can blend the colours together. For these, I used the blender pen that came with the grey set; apparently this colourless marker contains a mixture of water and gelatin. Anyway, it works beautifully, even if it does roughen the surface of the paper a bit – I tried to be very gentle. I used one of the warm grey markers to add a little drop shadow to each of these designs.

I was delighted to find an artist on Youtube who is doing absolutely stunning work with these pens. She has designed a number of adult colouring books and shows the method she uses to colour them with Tombows. She’s also done a lot of work with coloured pencils. Towards the end of this particular video, she is working on my favourite of her pictures that I’ve seen so far, of a pair of koi carp.

She creates a background using the same “smooshing” method that many of us use with our Distress Ink pads on a craft sheet, and then colours the details of the design on top. This makes a gorgeous subtle blend between foreground and background, and she enhances the latter as she goes along, as she sees fit, to make a really harmonious design. This is definitely something I want to try! In another video, she explores the use of gesso as a ground, and I think there are a lot of possibilities with this, not just in protecting the surface of the paper from all that water, but maybe for adding subtle colour and texture as well.

In addition to the colouring, I have also been practising my brush calligraphy. I found some very useful cheat sheets to download free from the Internet, which help you build some muscle memory as you practise the basic strokes.

A few are already done at the beginning, showing the direction of the strokes, and in a pale colour so you can work over them, and then complete the line on your own. I have printed out quite a few copies of these so I’ve got lots to play around with.

Two days’ worth of practice: the paler pink colour was the first day, and the darker colour the next day. There’s a slight improvement, I think, but for the life of me I can’t get those ovals right!!! A distinct lack of consistency. The young lady doing the tutorials on YouTube said that the basic stroke that causes most people problems is the oval.

I’ve also downloaded the alphabet sheets – upper and lower case, larger and smaller sizes, and some blank practice sheets with lines ruled on them. Very useful.

I’m afraid I haven’t been very consistent in practising every day – there have been other things to do as well.

Last week I was watching a programme on TV and they showed a stunning Edwardian fireplace in a reclamation yard. I had to take a photo of the TV screen because I want to do a drawing of this:

Even after extensive photo editing, it was impossible to get the colours right. I love these tiled fireplace surrounds – I had a gorgeous little Victorian one in the cottage where I lived when I first left home.

Food

As I promised last week, here are the wraps that I made.

Recipe of the week

Mediterranean Roast Veg and Mashed Lentil Wraps

This YouTube video was a collection of recipes for lunch boxes, most of which appeared on her website, but not this one unfortunately, so I couldn’t just download it into my recipe app but had to write it down as she was doing it on the video.

The wraps look a bit sad because they were made the day before and spent the day in the fridge! As I mentioned last week, I forgot to photograph them immediately after I’d made them. I made enough for two days. They were extremely delicious and nutritious. A few weeks ago I showed a vegan gift box I received with my grocery order, and one of the things was a pack of good whole-grain wraps. I have been buying these since, and they freeze well. I squirted a bit of home-made ginger vinaigrette over the basic salad to accompany the wraps.

The Truth About Weight Loss

This week I have been following the online live summit “The Truth About Weight Loss” hosted by Chef AJ, where each day all this week, she is interviewing experts in the field of nutrition with special emphasis on the whole-food plant-based diet. Many of the speakers are now familiar to me, but there are some new ones too.

Meal Planning

I have also signed up for a free trial of the “Forks Meal Planner” which is part of the work of the team who produced the brilliant film “Forks Over Knives” which is pretty much foundational to the whole-food plant-based lifestyle – this film is on Netflix and there’s a DVD available too. On Sunday night, when I usually do my online grocery order, I tend to plan ahead what I want to cook so that I can make sure I’ve got all the ingredients, and this particular planner is very good because it helps you make enough for two days and has a special arrangement for saving time by cooking certain elements in advance (e.g. cooking the beans or grains) so that you an easily throw the meal together on the day with the minimum of fuss. The paid version also has a grocery list facility and some other features. I am not yet sure whether or not to subscribe, but I’m going to give it a try for the coming week. They’ve got loads of great recipes on the site which are available whether or not you use their planner.

I am surprised just how many people use a meal planner on a weekly basis. Ultimately it saves you money because you only buy what you need, and it also enables you to keep stock of what’s in the pantry, and it can help you keep on track with a good balance of different food groups.

Having followed the whole-food plant-based lifestyle for several months now, I find that I am settling into quite a good routine with it, and keeping an ongoing shopping list for my regular weekly order (Tesco), things for my hubby to pick up from Sainsbury’s that Tesco doesn’t stock, and also my more occasional bulk orders from Buy Wholefoods Online. My recipe app (Paprika) has this shopping list facility.

Yesterday I did my first beginning-of-week meal prep, according to the Forks Meal Planner, in readiness to cook meals for the week. All these things can be stored for several days in the fridge.

A word about the green dressing in the bottom row. I made this in my high speed blender, and because it contains cashews, it was pretty thick. I’ve got a long-handled spatula thing that I bought from Vitamix (very popular high speed blender in the US) because Froothie (my make) doesn’t have this accessory. It is absolutely brilliant for getting thick stuff out of the deep blender jug, even getting under the blades, so you hardly waste anything. There was a bit left in there, however, and rather than just washing it out, I decided not to waste it. When I got the dressing out, it smelt so utterly delicious that I added a little boiling water to the jug and blitzed it, and poured it into a glass and drank it! It really was delicious. I shall make a note on the recipe to that effect! Actually, this is the way you clean the blender – adding a little water and washing up liquid and blitzing it, and then rinsing it out. However, I didn’t think the washing up liquid would be a very tasty addition to that particular little experiment.

All the dishes in this week’s meal plan are new to me, and depending on how they turn out, they may appear in a future “Recipe of the week” on here.

Of course, on day 1 of this new meal planner and Shoshi being super organised, my hubby messed it up… After everything was planned, he announced at the last minute that he’d be out for lunch yesterday, so my kale salad had to be put on hold. We had the peanut noodles with veggies in the evening and it was delicious.

Health Update

Hospital appointments

I haven’t yet heard anything back from Exeter regarding my operation but I wouldn’t expect that for a while. However, I have got a one-to-one appointment with the physiotherapist specialising in women’s bladder problems on 20th February, when I hope I shall get some answers and maybe a way forward with my problems.

ME

I’ve had a few rough days this week when I’ve had to lounge around on the recliner not doing much. I am so glad to have my freezer so that when I do feel like cooking, I can make enough to freeze for days when I don’t! My diurnal rhythms are waaaay out at the moment – I’m wide awake in the small hours (4 a.m. – could stay up all night!!) and useless at getting going in the mornings when the rest of the world is up and about. This is not desperately convenient when it comes to planning meals… Fortunately my hubby is very understanding! Every now and then I try and force my body and mind back into a more conventional sleeping rhythm but they usually creep back to their own way of doing things.

Kitties

Last, but not least! They haven’t been very active this week, partly because the weather has been so awful. They’ve had a few runs in the garden but aren’t too keen on the cold and wet, and have spent most of the days cuddled up asleep.

My hubby put a jumper down, and of course they had to go on it. Back to back, slumbering away.

On the settee a couple of days ago. Guess who’s on top, as usual!

Ruby has been extremely affectionate with me over the past few days. This is lovely, because she has extended periods of extreme teenagery independence and won’t give me the time of day! We’ve had some lovely cuddles with lots of purring and gazing into my eyes. Lily will spend hours sleeping on my legs but prefers her cuddles to be with my hubby.