Cooking and painting in my vintage painting box on this rainy day

And that was summer!...is not what we want to think round here, but overnight the lovely weather has broken and in came a day of torrential downpours.It's actually a good thing because the garden needs it.This was our view almost all day.And, although we tried to work thru it, we couldn't help but feel as tired as Theo looks.(Actually, Theo had the night shift so he had a good reason to crash all day.)Sometime during the night, the wind kicked up and pushed the curtain into my glass of water which spilled into one of the small pallets of paints I have been using on my rough-legged buzzard map. The water sat on the paints for such a long time that the paints are a bit too liquid for me to safely use on the map and so no map painting until they dry out.So while Robert got on with Medusa, I made a large pot of beef, vegetable and lentil soup, a veggie frittata, and endless cups of tea.Here, next to yesterday's homemade granola, is my current favourite tea.It's Pukka chamomile, vanilla, and manuka honey tea and it's absolutely amazing. The night time one is fantastic too, and there's also my usual rooibos Earl Grey by Dragonfly Teas. I love this rooibos tea so much. I wish it was imported to Canada, but for now it isn't and so I stock up and bring it with me.So, after a mornign of cooking I really felt like getting some work done. I did tons of office work yesterday and really felt like painting, and, with some of my watercolours out of commision for the day, I decided on a little oil painting.Robert's sister Catherine gave me this amazing vintage painting box for Christmas, (thank you so much, Catherine, I love it so much), and today was the perfect day to have some fun with it.Opened it looks like this.There are two gessoed wood panels and a palette.The palette slides out revealing a large space for my paints.I usually keep all my oils in a plastic bin, but this space is the perfect place to isolate the colours I'm using for the painting.No more digging thru the bin.And the panels slide out of grooves which keep them nestled in place.I looked around for a subject for my little study and what could be more perfect than one of my vintage ink bottles.So I made my fourth, fifth, sixth cup of tea today......sketched out the bottle and some flowers and squished a few random colours, plus some Liquin onto the palette.Soon I had a background which I loved and the outline of the bottle, and then I painted the flowers but just didn't like the complication of it all.So I rubbed it back and only painted the lavender.I like this simple little oil painting.I thought I might eventually add more of the flowers, but the more I look at it, the less likely that feels.The rain is supposed to break up overnight and hopefully, we'll get back to lovely sunshine.