Rainy days are perfect for baking banana bread

It's raining and I get the day at home today. I decided on some spring cleaning instead of working.And rainy days, when one decided on spring cleaning, are perfect for baking banana bread.This is the situation at my place: Some days all the bananas are gone and we don't realise till someone goes to make a smoothie, and other days, there are three and a half dead bananas hanging around.My most favourite banana bread recipe comes from my friend Claire, a brilliant pastry chef, and is an olive oil version, (so much healthier than butter). I've linked to Claire's original chocolate chip and pecan banana bread, but I usually twist it a little.I'm not a fan of chocolate chips, tend not to use sugar, and prefer walnuts to pecans, so here's my version:Best banana bread2 cups Flour, (I usually use something good for me like sprouted spelt flour)3/4 cup Brown Sugar, (I tend to use Stevia instead of sugar, and only about 1/4 cup because I find Stevia is sweeter)3/4 tsp Baking Soda1/2 tsp Salt1 cup Toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil2 large Eggs3 mashed very ripe bananas (plus that 1/2 which C left in the fridge)1/3 cup Yogourt, (I don't use a lot of dairy so usually substitute coconut milk yogourt, but if you use cow's milk yogourt, be kind to yourself and get pasture raised organic yogourt)1 tbsp Vanilla Extract.Preheat the oven to 350FSpay some non-stick olive oil based spray into a baking pan, I use my grandmother's bunt pan because why not? It's a shame to have it in the drawer and use loaf pans all the time.In a large bowl mix together the oil and sugar. In my case, that bowl is the bowl of the Kitchen Aid!Stir in the eggs one at a time until they are totally incorporated.Add in the bananas, vanilla, and yogourt.Blend in the flour, salt, baking powder, when it is nearly combined add in the nuts. Stir to combine being careful not to over stir.Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a wooden skewer comes out clean, about 40-45 minutes.Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before eating.Go on, sprinkle it with a little icing sugar. It looks so pretty.Ten minutes of waiting...Time enough to make a cup of tea and load the dishwasher.Cut a warm slice and enjoy. :D

Hello from Sunday night, video edition

Hello from Sunday night guys. I made you a little "watch me paint" video. It's 10 minutes long and so I hope it's not too boring.Last night we had a lovely open fire to warm the house.It's a bit of a challenge to rein in this kitten of ours. Here he's sitting on the coal barrel on top of a couple logs to stop him getting into the coal......and you can see his little cat brain working over-time trying to plot a way to get onto the other side of the fire grate where he knows he's not allowed.But open fires are very welcome here these days.It's not that cold, but it's so manky and humid that everything feels damp.I was at my art desk, painting a little magpie on a piece of Mendelssohn, and the shmarko had a real dilemma because he couldn't decide whether he wanted to kill the paintbrush in my hand or sneak over to my feather collection while I'm too busy to notice.I found this music book at a charity shop a year or so ago, and have loved the old pages, which have conveniently lost much of the binding and so are very easy to take apart.It seems like this was a well loved book. I suppose it used to belong to Doris Parsons, who wrote her name on the front page in this beautiful calligraphy, and then she slit four little lines in the next page to hold this photo of the composer. I've never come across such a personalised book before.I'm so glad that I do what I do, especially when I find a much loved book like this one, and am able to give some most of its pages a second life.I've been watching a few YouTube videos lately and following a couple of vloggers, and I was wondering if maybe I could make a video here or there. I know I have a YouTube channel but have never tried to make art videos. Well then what do we say?That's right, how hard can it be?https://youtu.be/RqKJzyV9-tU*note to self: turn the radio off when narrating the next video! :D

Wood burning, Chloe inspired art

This afternoon I finished my work and was contemplating playing with some art.Round here, it's not about missing the tools, here in the studio there's almost everything I would like to use, but the key ingredient usually is inspiration.Chloe called me at the end of her class just to say hi and to check in, and I told her I'm a bit stuck. She suggested that I do a little wood burning.OK then, I plugged in the three wood burning tools here in the studio, and quickly discovered one I liked above the other two. I grabbed a piece of wood support (which I painted a little oil glaze over as a start of something...and promptly totally forgot about), sanded the paint down a bit, (probably ended up inhaling 32 different toxins) and drew out a little design.Now, I'm still set on our drawing challenge: deer, and so a sunset forest came to mind.Then it was just a matter of sketching out a little something in pencil and laboriously burning the design into it with the wood burning tool.Whew, not my favourite medium, and I'm sure that again I breathed in 32 different toxins by the time I was finished.But easy to get the hang of. Once you're holding the wood burning tool in your hand, it's easy to figure out how to make face-on straight lines, or lay sideways fat burned marks. Everything sort of homogenises into a lovely image. Try it, you'll get the hang of it really quickly.But look! After a quick, simple glaze with some gloss medium, look how lovely it looks next to my computer and overlooking all the work I have to complete.Wood burning. Not my favourite, but definitely a wonderful art mind break.

Practical class: Glass engraving

Finally! I know!I do take my time, don't I?Well I'll tell you something. My father bought an engraver years and years ago with the idea of engraving his name, contact details etc, on his electronics at about the time he bought a very expensive Bang and Olufson stereo, (you know, in case they were all stolen and miraculously recovered), but he never actually ever used it. When he passed away and mom and I were sorting out the basement work room, she gave the engraver to me. I wasn't sure how to use it, or even how it works, and I did try it once on a silver piece I made, but always wanted to learn how to do some quality engraving art.So when a practical class in glass engraving came up I thought I'd really love to learn.I signed up for the class and walked round the tents at Art in Action, till I came to a table with some beautiful glass work.And met this lovely lady: Freddie QuartleyWe had a little chat, and she showed me a little of her methods and some of her tools. It seems that there are about as many burrs for glass engraving as there might be coloured pencils, or paintbrushes for painting! Whew, I never imagined there was such a range. But there you go with the amazing thing about Art in Action. You get to see, touch, learn, explore, riffle thru sketchbooks...it's an artist's paradise.So I looked at the tools, got some tips, and watched her work on an engraving, and then.......headed off to the best of the best tent to look at some more.Isn't this amazing? It's called "Introvert" by glass artist Nancy Sutcliffe.And so, energised and inspired to the max, I walked over to the practical classes and took my seat in front of a black felt pad an engraving tool, two burrs and a glass (the first glass, a practice glass).The two burrs were a long pointed burr called a rat's tail, and a round ball burr.The several instructors from the Glass Engraver's guild of London, basically said, "right, off you go!"So I tried to visualise a little robin and picked up the pointy rat's tail burr and went to it. So much fun!Oh ARG! No such thing as a straight line in glass engraving...lol...and to top it off, I was absolutely hopeless with the rat's tail burr. As soon as I switched to the ball burr though, I started to get some better results.I turned the glass 1/4 turn, and my next design, a pheasant...er...of sorts...lol, ended up a bit better. Then another quarter turn and an owl, another quarter turn and then butterfly. I tried to practice straight lines, shading, circles, etc as was directed. I began to get the hang of it and it didn't seem so hard in the end once I got my hold of the glass and tool comfortable enough, and once I learned how to use my little finger for purchase on the glass to steady the vibrating tool while I tried to make it engrave the lines and stop it from skipping.You know what? It's really hard to photograph a glass with designs on it! :D But here's the test glass.This turned out a little better, my four little designs with my camera lens cap behind them.You might see that from the first, the robin, and then clockwise, it seems to look a bit better.And then, the lovely guild instructors handed us our final glass. Our masterpiece...now that we were all accomplished glass engravers. :DI chose to do two larger designs.The first was this wild rose. I was getting on so well that one of the instructors let me use a larger, diamond ball burr, and I'll tell you what, that made such a difference. If you go to try this, get yourself a set of diamond burrs. Such a much nicer tip to engrave with. I took maybe 35 minutes over this design and learned how to shade a bit better and also how to not be scared to press a bit harder for deeper marks. Apparently, the glass won't shatter in your hand under the pressure of the engraver.And, with maybe 20 minutes of class left, I engraved this little blackbird standing on a twig.By the time I finished this design, I found the process to be quite easy, very satisfying and actually was sorry that the class was over.I brought the glasses home at the end of the day and R said, "shut up! You did not make these." and then he smiled.I know it's a bit of an investment in tools, but the process is rather lovely and I really loved my resulting glasses. I'm definitely going to give this art form more attention.Oh, by the way, I found this on line from glass engraver Leslie Pyke:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkF6gvwkmv4Love this lady, her sense of humour and her generous spirit of sharing her process, and I can clearly see there's so much for me to learn.

Practical class: Realistic botanical illustration in watercolour

I think that I can just about draw myself anything, (this statement is open to debate...lol), so when I decided to take this practical class on realistic botanical illustration, I hoped it wouldn't be a waste of my time, (I'm such a cynic!) What I meant is that possibly I could have taken a different practical class which would have been a bigger benefit because there was only so much time in the day.But Roger Reynolds is such a master botanical illustrator that I absolutely fell in love with his work and wanted to see if I could pick up a trick or two.And I'm so glad I made this decision because I found this class very rewarding.The object of the game was to draw and then paint one of these exquisite marigolds. (I managed to snag all of them to take home after the course because I couldn't bear to see them thrown out)About ten students gathered around Roger as he examined the flower and pointed out his method of seeing it.He compared the actual flower to the painting he did earlier that day, and we each had a chance to examine the two.He then talked about the way he handles watercolours and the sorts of tricks he's evolved in his methods, and that's what I'll tell you.Here is Roger's flower:Here is my station and my little limited palette. That yellow liquid in the little glass is yellow ink, and using that's a lovely trick you'll see in a minute.But first, Roger uses the same technique I use when drawing realism and especially fiddly little botanicals. I call it "as the cell divides", but I think that's a Veronicaism. What I mean, what we both mean, is start in the centre and draw the approximation of the central area, then the next petal, then the one beside it, the one beside that...etc. That way, (as the cell divides), you have the best chance of reproducing the flower as life like as possible. It's much harder to draw the outside and then try to fit everything within the confines of your outside borders. Do you get that? Sometimes my explaining things isn't as clear to people as it is to me. :DSo here we go. If you scroll a couple photos above at Roger's marigold, I was intrigued with how he preserved, or even painted in, those vivid yellow borders, and here's the best trick in the world! And incidentally, the greatest result I got from taking this course: IT'S THE YELLOW INK :DSeriously cool!Seriously cool because the ink sits on the paper, just like watercolour, makes a lovely warm base for the orange tones to sit on top of, (what I mean is that it shows thru a little, toning and warming and acting like a unifying force making the whole flower one cohesive bloom) Ack! Wish I could explain it better. Wait, I'll ask Robbie.He's put it in better English for us: The yellow acts like a third dimension for the oranges and reds to go on top of giving it depth. YES! Thank you. :DSo there you go, and all you do is use a fine brush, keep your eye on the petals you are drawing so you can describe the lighter and darker tones.I found that the watercolour lifted off the ink beautifully without disturbing the ink; which was a nice thing for me since I'm not so sure of myself with strange brushes and did blob on the paint a little too wet and too much in some places.The other wonderful bit of instruction was to not try to paint the central ares, but rather, paint the shadows around the central area. Brilliant advice.And here's is my marigold.It's not "finished" to the degree I would like, but then, instruction plus demonstrations to finished product time was only 1.5 hours. And actual painting time only maybe 45 minutes. I could have used more time. But overall I'm happy with my marigold and think it might deserve a little frame.See if you can adapt some of this info. It seemed to me to be a much less complicated method of drawing and now I want to rush out and buy a few coloured inks! Happy painting. :D

Practical class: Egg Tempera painting

Ah, the richness of raw pigments.Are you like me, an alchemist at heart? I'm not talking about turning lead into gold...well, not exactly...although one could argue that that's exactly what we can do here. Do you see all these beautiful golden yellow pigments? They are all lead based.Yes!Flake white is basic carbonite of lead and is made by exposing lead to ascetic acid. This is historically one of the most important pigments of art, used as the ground for many paints. Yellows are made by heating lead white. Duller yellows, such as Naples yellow is lead mixed with antimony oxides, and reds are often made by heating lead white to a high heat.Great news for art, not so great for artists. Lead is in every way poisonous and must be respectfully handled.Gold is the only substance which remains itself...gold. It is hammered into ultra thin sheets and applied with gum Arabic.Other important pigments are:Mercury: Vermilion, cinnabar, and other brownish pigments (something tells me alchemists didn't live long)Silver: greys and, obviously, silverCopper: a natural blue, incorporated with malachite, makes azure blues, verdigris, greens, and even blacks when oxidised.Iron: Perhaps the most versatile, it makes every shade from flesh tones to natural earths like: yellow ochre, red ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, terra verte, Indian red, Venetian red and Mars black.As a matter of fact, the ancient alchemists assigned planets to the elements in this way:Gold = SaturnMercury = MercurySilver = MoonCopper = VenusIron = MarsTin = JupiterLead = Saturnexplaining some pigment names, like Mars Black and Mercury RedOh fascinating, but we're slightly off topic.Come, let's try our hand at egg tempera painting under the expert coaching of Lily Corbett, master painter from The Prince's School of Traditional Arts (yes The Prince of Wales.)So egg tempera might be a little bit of an investment in raw pigments. I'm not sure how much raw pigments cost, but one only needs a limited amount of them because they blend and mix beautifully to make a rainbow of colours. Just for reference, here is a stockist in the UK.The other thing one needs is a fresh egg yolk and water, plus a drop or two of lavender oil and vinegar.To get the egg yolk, separate it from the white (incidentally, can you see a lot of meringues in your painting future?), and then carefully run the yolk in its sack between the palms of your hand trying to mop up as much of the white as you can, because any egg white will cause the resulting mix to dry too quickly and drag rather than smooth over the paper/canvas. Then, hold the yolk by its membrane over a small bowl and pinch or prick a hole at the bottom allowing the contents to drain into the bowl. Discard the membrane. Now, mix in about a tablespoon of water to the egg yolk, a drop of lavender oil and a couple drops of vinegar. The vinegar is essential, but the lavender oil can be left out. It just gives the egg base a bit of a silky smoothness.Now you can sprinkle some powdered pigment onto your palette and pour some egg mixture on another part of your palette and blend one into the other.The other option, and the one we had, is to sprinkle some powdered pigments into small cups on a watercolour palette and add the egg mixture. The longer this mixture stays undisturbed in the cups, the more the powders will settle to the bottom, and you will have to stir with your paint brush each time you want to use that pigment.The way we began this journey was with a square of plain paper, a square of transparent velum, a cloth covered in a red ochre powder pigment and a square of gessoed paper as a painting board. This is the way egg tempera has traditionally been started.Now we draw something on the plain paper. In the end, I went with a fanciful thistle/carnation flower.Now we layer. Four layers like so: transparent velum at the top, plain paper with design underneath, followed by red ochre square, red ochre facing the gessoed side of our painting board. (PS. washed off the willow weaving (previous post) about three times with harsh soap and still have tannins under my nails!)Next just trace the design onto the transparent velum, thereby pressing it onto the gessoed paper in red ochre.Then, remove the velum, plain paper and the red ochre piece, take some of your mixed pigment and paint the design by following your red ochre lines. I used a blue here.Traditionally, the next step is to paint in the entire design with a neutral iron based pigment. I went with the green one which Lily supplied us with. This makes a good base for the other pigments to adhere to, and, the pigments are built up in layers, each layer making the painting more and more vibrant.Layer the paints in a cohesive manner because each layer must be dried before another layer is applied, otherwise the wet layer will lift the one underneath. I went clockwise.Now here's the trick...and it might just be a bit of a big one! Egg tempera doesn't behave like any other medium. The pigments, once dried, do not reconstitute like watercolours with water, and this includes the mixes on your palette. They do not stay wet to be worked with very long like oils, and here's the dilemma: You have to work fast enough not to have the paint dry on your palette, but slow enough to make sure each layer of paint on your painting is dry enough to go over with a second layer.I KNOW!But I bet that by the 100th painting, we'll have got the hang of it. :DThe next deal breaker might be that the colours must be mixed in small amounts, and therefore, as you can see, I couldn't get a consistent purple by mixing the red and blue pigments. But again, that's probably just lack of experience.So I kept working on my little painting. Painted purple layers over purple layers, yellow and orange layers, green on green on yellow on green, highlighted, lowlighted, mixed in a little blue, a little red, outlined, filled in and generally mucked about with this for an hour, and in the end I'm quite impressed with myself and with this medium.It's extremely forgiving. It's extremely vibrant. It's extremely ancient and traditional and lovely and satisfying, and overall, I think I'll repeat the process. I can't promise 100 more paintings, but we'll see. :D

Practical class: Willow basket weaving 101

Hello everybody, I'm just back from a few days in Somerset and ready to begin our practical classes. I will give you all the information I have so you can try a few new art forms, and I will link you to teachers and all the helpful sites I have.The first practical class will be willow basket weaving. :DHave you ever wanted to weave a basket? I have, and tried, (with various degrees of success), but here we have information so our technique can only improve into an absolute art form.Come on, let's have a go.First: some willow talk.It seems that there are many different species of willow that we can chose from. Here in the UK you can order bundles of willow ready for weaving from Musgrove Willows, but I'm really interested in using the willow that is coppiced in a local park in Vancouver. The willow is freshly cut and left on the ground for people to pick up, and so that what I plan to do.If you have fresh willow, you must stand it up against a wall and let it dry for a month. Then, whether you've harvested your own, or bought a bundle, you must soak it before you can weave with it. Obviously, a long, galvanised tank is the best way to soak the willow branches, but if you're not that lucky, a plastic kiddie pool, or making a "tank" with four bits of wood and a plastic pond liner will do. This soaking can take up to four weeks. Check to see if the willow is pliable enough by twisting it into a tight wreath. It should be pliable and not snap, and it should definitely not have a slimy and peeling bark. That's too soaked and spoiled for weaving.Once the willow is soaked, you must use it. Apparently you can re-soak it a second time as long as it thoroughly dries out first. After soaking, willow needs a little time to "mellow" before use, so over night wrapped up in a damp blanket is ideal.Willow leaches out tannins staining skin and clothing and possibly killing fish, so no soaking in the koi pond. Keep the willow moist for the day or two you are using it by keeping it covered with the damp blanket and misting it with water.Rachel Poole, our wonderful instructor, made the bottom wreaths for the class, but explained that it is just two long, twisted willow branches, so with a bit of trial it might be as easy as the rest of this weave.As a matter of fact, weaving should be very easy, and if you are struggling, you are doing something very wrong.According to Rachel, there are only four steps in weaving, and they are:shovejumpflicksqueezeSo let's tryTake the bottom circle, and take four straight and sturdy lengths. Keep the thick end of one, and clip it to be about four inches longer than the widest part of the circle.Now do the same thing with the other three, and place the clipped ends under the table for later use.So now, you have something like this below:You have a central bottom circle and four pieces (lets call them sticks) about two inches longer on each side than the circumference of the circle.Notice that the dark, fat ends of the sticks are all pointing in the same direction. Separate them into two and two, and place them across the circle separating the circle into thirds. Now flip one stick of each pair to have fat end, skinny end, and fat end skinny end.You can see the beginnings here in Rachel's demonstration.Here we go with the first step. SHOVEPick up a long, straight, nice looking length of willow, (you can be choosy), and shove the thick end under the edge of the circle somewhere in the middle of one side, (as you see Rachel doing), leaving a nice, generous inch end.Second step. JUMPNow jump the length over the first pair of sticks.This first length requires a little support with your hand, but the second and third and so on lengths will hold themselves in.Third step. FLICKNow flick the length under the second pair of sticks, again supporting it with your hand.Omitting the fourth step here, we will go one to the second row.Grab a second length of willow. (be choosy)Now start on the opposite side to the first length andSHOVE the fat end under the edge of the ring,JUMP the first pair of sticks,FLICK the length under the second pair of sticksSQUEEZE the two lengths together.See? How easy is that?Now for a third length.For my first basket, I chose to alternate the fat ends along the bottom, but Rachel explained that interesting patterns can happen if you end up putting two fat ends beside each other, so the choice is yours.But here's my beginning basket with three lengths:And here with 17. Four steps. Just like magic :DBefore you know it, you've shoved, jumped, flicked and squeezed your way right across the whole bottom and now you have a small space left on either side.Here's how to fill it. Pick up two of the left-over clipped ends from making the four sticks. Take one and shove it under the circle, jump, flick, squeeze, and, at the end, bend it over the second pair of sticks you've just flicked, jump, flick (or in this case more like thread), and try to repeat it until the small space is closed with woven willow.I hope you can see this clearly on my basket. I tried to use a slightly different colour to show you.There you are, the whole bottom is finished.Now you can use secateurs and clip the scraggly, black bottom ends and prepare to bend your basket handle.To bend willow successfully, you have to take your time. Put your hand flat on the basket bottom and gently "wave" the bundle of willow lengths up and back and up and back. This may take a few minutes. If you hurry this process you might kink some fo the lengths and that would be a shame.In just a few minutes of coaxing the willow to bend up, you can drop the first bundle and spend time bending the second.Pretty soon the willow will get the idea and both sides will meet in the middle.Now tie one to the other with a simple knot. They should stay knotted. You decide how tightly you want to pull the knot. Might be you want a long handle, might be you want to pull the knot tightly for a smaller handle.I wanted to do one last step:I chose the longest piece on one side and wrapped it around my handle and tucked it in on itself to make a sturdy, decorative feature.Then I did the same thing on the other side.And there you go! Now the basket has to dry for about two weeks, but what fun! Now I want to experiment with more weaving. :DBut I really couldn't wait for two weeks of drying, could you?

How to make a found poetry journal from an old book

Last week I had a brilliant Twitter chat with some members of my writing gang Wordsmith Studio. We've been good social media friends since we came together three years ago.There was a thought that I might show how I make journals out of old books, this one specifically for found poetry.I love making these little journals, they're as easy as pie and as cheap as chips to make. (great, now I'm hungry)I first got the idea from a beautiful book called The Humument, an upcycled Victorian novel, by artist Tom Phillips. Although he's altered over 370 pages, my journals are a bit more manageable, and the pages are sturdier and able to hold paint.So here we go:Go to the goodwill, local flea, thrift, secondhand book seller, raid your grandmother's book shelves, find yourself an old book.Decide the feeling of the book you want. Some books I look thru to make sure I like the content, some books I don't preview because I want each page to be a random experience. This book I previewed.Begin grouping the pages in groups of five or six. It all depends on what you want. If I want a poetry journal, I don't really want my page to be the end of the book's chapter or an illustration, so I'll group six instead of five pages. Also, if you're using a book with very sturdy pages, you might like to consider groupings of three or four pages.I always leave the frotispiece and the dedication/publisher info pages alone and begin with the first few pages of the book.Now lay the book on a side where the pages lie flattest, usually on its back spine, and glue the first five pages together with a glue stick.Each time you glue one page to the next, close the book and give it a little press to avoid buckling. That way, when you pick up your new "page" made from the five pages, it will be smooth and wrinkle free. It's a bit of a tedious task, but goes by quickly.Now the fun begins.Now that you have divided your book into thicker, sturdier pages, open it up to one of your pages and read the content. What I usually do is get a feeling of the poem I want. Maybe one word jumps out at you, maybe just a couple words, maybe a whole sentence. Circle the words/sentence with a soft pencil. Now go back and read your circled words. Do you need to pick up some words to tie your poem together? Circle those too. Decide on your sentences, on your line breaks.Now it's time to commit. Get a pen, (I used permanent ink pens because I already know I want to use paint on the book and so don't want the margins to bleed)......and outline your poem.What works brilliantly for me is the Humument way of linking words together by snaking my lines thru the page margins, between word spaces, and around the gutters. Some words I want to stand alone and so are not linked.Pretty soon you have a visible poem emerging from your pages.And next you have a world of choices.For me, I like to draw on the page behind my poem to have my poem stand out. In this book I decided to draw a meadow and paint it in with water colours. Here I used acrylic paint. Here I used collage. In past books I've used ink or even black paint to obliterate the unwanted writing on the page. You decide what you like. By far the easiest is using felt pens as I've done here. This is also the most transportable system and might work as well for you as it does for me.Once you've drawn your design, gently, GENTLY erase the pencil lines. These books can be pretty fragile, so always use a gentle art eraser and never one of those horrible, pink, school supplies ones.There you go! All that's left is to colour in your design, possibly touch up the lines around your poem......and your page is finished.This poem on this page reads:Wild whimhot airuntil some hour when the moonlight among the pines has drawn up the Earthwoods by moonlightmost beautifulnear, for ever singingIf the night be fine, there is a wild wind, that never rose above a whisperso purewith the moon a deep breath,singingthe wind the singerto whom singing was a little thing in the world.Now lay your new book out somewhere where you can walk by it and read it, admire your work, and smile. :DThere you go guys. Any and all questions are very welcome. :D

A seed of Mischief ... a handmade sketchbook

Yesterday I said to Chloe that I wanted to get a new sketchbook to take with me to visit Nick and Joyce Bantock this weekend.I told C that it has to be a Goldilocks sketchbook...you know...not too hot, not too cold, just right. But I couldn't find anything Goldilockish enough. Mole sketchbooks are beautiful, but common. Other sketch books had bad covers, or too thick paper, or not smooth enough paper...basically either too hot or too cold and not just right.Now it's no secret that I have a huge crush on Nick and Joyce and admire their work, and, as I was running thru Nick's books in my mind, I had a thought, "Wait a minute, what do you bring when visiting the Artful Dodger, the Trickster, when walking into the Forgetting Room?"A handmade sketchbook. :DAnyway, how hard can it be?So, in the art store, I bought a couple 5.5" x 8" black cover essential sketchbooks, (which just happen to have lovely smooth Goldilocks paper), and at Booklovers, my favourite used book store, I found the perfect Goldilocks old book.I took the black covers off the essential sketchbooks and started taking the pages out of the old book.I separated the two sketchbooks into six bundles of 8-10 pages. (Apparently the bundles are called signatures! Now you're in the know...lol)At first I thought I would keep two or three original pages at the beginning and end of the book, you know, to pay homage to the book and author, but the subject was so tragic, that soon all the pages, except for the endpapers came out.Then I used a makeshift bookbinding stitch and heavy cotton thread to bind the six bundles signatures together.At this point I looked for a way to attach the paper back inside the covers. The only advice I found included using an awl to pierce the spine and sewing the paper back in. That was a nonstarter with me. I really didn't fancy piercing that beautiful spine, so I decided to just glue it in. Now the advice was to use a bookbinding glue...which I don't have...so I improvised with a cement type of glue. I also included a length of black ribbon as a book marker.Anyway, what's the worst thing that can happen? The paper will start to come out and I'll go and invest in a good bookbinding glue...lol.Then I clipped my book together, stood it on its spine and weighted it down with some iron weights, and left it on my silversmithing bench in the garage overnight.This morning I ran to the garage to see how it worked. Oh my gosh! IT WORKED!!! :DLook at the spine of my beautiful new sketchbook. Isn't the title just perfect?Look at the beautiful pages inside.The stitched together bundles signatures seems to be holding firm inside the covers.But I still wanted to pay homage to the original book, so I composed myself a little love letter from the old pages.This was a bit harder to do that I thought because the book is about a tragic heroine, the French Revolution, guillotines, death, hopelessness, but after searching thru almost all of the 200+ pages, I got somewhere.So here we go.From the inside cover:"What kind of nonsense is this?"Oh, it's a long story."Seed of Mischiefthe bookpainted byme13"So I made an original Lovely! bookwith paper a dream and love"It has occurred to me that it would be a good thing"That doesn't do any harm,"true,"Why?""I have a good eye for beauty, art a giftSo Why not? Why wouldn't it work?Why didn't I think of that earlier?""I know." "I don't think so either,""Is there anything else to it."Take my word for it, Creation is the jewel of livingAnd"Because you have the bravest eyes"good child, good child,""How about you?Come on, I'll write it for you."How does that sound to you?"Now let me read it,"what is living about?""Perhaps I can find that out. Do you want me to try?"Now the story I heard is on the pages of the book."

A bespoke pencil case

Here's some terrific fun!Recently, I booked us a week away in Mexico, and, having C's children's art class self portraits and Frida Kahlo on our minds, we thought we'd make a couple pencils cases to take with us. After all, how hard can it be?So we got a little bit of raw canvas, cut four identical rectangles, and got to work.We drew our designs in pencil, traced over with a sharpie, and filled in with acrylics.It took a couple of days, but by this afternoon, when the sewing machine was transferred from the craft room into the studio, it looks like a bomb went off in here! :DI'm not a very good seamstress, and so had to look at a couple of videos about fitting a zipper, but, in the end, it wasn't too difficult.Bless the person who invented sergers!A few final snips and...Ta-da! A bespoke pencil case!I love it. Now to finish C's. :D