Chickpeas.

Since the $2 a day grocery challenge I have stuck to eating more veggies and less meat. I like meat, but I don't particularly enjoy cooking it, and I'm happy to eat it when I'm out and not bother with it as much at home in my own food. I mostly cook with mince, actually. Mince is easy and yummy, but not the most gourmet foods, I can let go of it. And the more veggies the better.

I think chickpeas are just fantastic. They are so plain, but so versatile. I've been putting them in stews for a few years, and I recently tried to make hommus when I got JKs old food processor. On the weekend having dinner with some friends I discovered the chickpea in salad. Oh so good! with fetta, baby spinach, and red onion and some other stuff. I could eat it every day! I had no idea there was so much potential in chickpea salad. Analise tins are only 75cents each at Coles this week, and when their shelves aren't empty I'm going to stock up. Dry ones are cheap but never as good, so cheap tins are like gold, or anti-gold, because they are cheap.

SCULPTURE BY THE DESK: Pencils, brush, flux.

SCULPTURE BY THE DESK: Pencils, brush, flux.: "Jessica Green is a graphic designer and currently an illustrator. The two photographs here showcase her sculptural work in a more int..."

Here is another bible cover I made last week. I bought the fabrics in Leura, at the place we book our house for conferences. It is so cute, and makes my $5 NIV look very ladylike. I got a nice retro fabric as well, brown with green shells on it, and it will look lovely once I get an accent fabric, green, for the lining and closure.

Brooke.

Saw my favourite local artist, finally…

I can remember when I first heard Brooke Fraser, I was driving a ute or a hilux or some monster farm car from Tocal ag college into Newcastle to deliver some files to the printer, and I turned up the radio when I got to the Newcastle West railway crossing cos they were playing her Distant Sun cover. I was in love, and then never heard of her again for over a year until Anna at MM had her song Arithmetic. And then I saw the Shadowfeet video on TV and loved it so I bought Albertine and I've been waiting to see her play ever since.

Her 3 albums are quite different. I like them all. Her lyrics are quite subtle so I can always hear something new or understand something different, which makes them last, because once I know the lyrics of a song I get bored of it. And her voice is pretty special, of course. She can sing anything and make it sound heartbreaking. She's a weird a quirky person, which makes it a much more fun show than if it was dominated by her saddish songs.

I was a bit nervous that she wouldn't be good live, and the first 2 songs had me worried because the sound mix was quite unhelpful. The drums and bass were so heavy you couldn't hear her sing. But the 3/4 of the show with thinner arrangements were awesome. Sailboats was the most beautiful, I thought. We were all disappointed she didn't sing Who are we fooling? but it was not a certain chance cos it is a duet with a guy. A good reason to try and see her again ASAP.

More drawing at work.

I came to work on Thursday to start putting drawings on watercolour paper. I print out my layout sketches, which have been touched up where things are the wrong size or in the wrong place. I blue tack a draft page onto the window in Grimmos old office, and trace onto the watercolour paper on top of it. It's a pov sort of light-box, because the blood drains out of my arms! You can't see through the watercolour paper to trace without light, because it is too thick.

So I just finished tracing the last sketches for The Birthday Party today with a little friend watching me. I don't have my camera to show you a pile of drawings but this is an example of what is on each page.

A neat pencil outline. Pretty dull. It is one of the more awkward drawings, because it's busy, and it was a challenge to draw a child squatting (I draw always from my head, but in this case I had to find some photo examples on the web of squatting children to get some clues, but the right age child from the right angle was hard to find so it's still a lot imagined and it only just works).



I don't like drawing stuff. I like drawing people, particularly cute little kids and especially their feet, but I don't like drawing rooms, walls, furniture, toys. Gardens I don't mind as much. I think the trouble with furniture and stuff is perspective and people have to interact with them. It is much easier to have people in white space. Which looks good, anyway, and we are trying to avoid giving away too much in terms of wealth and class. I think in terms of Kmart, not Myer or DJs, and not too aspirational.


So that is why you have a lot of bare feet and not much furniture.

Buskpackers. I made up this word.

I saw the coolest buskers ever yesterday when I was wandering around the city after church hunting for my dream teapot. They are buskpacking around the world, I guess, cos they're from the US, and their kit is pretty small. They've been around Sydney for a little while. Guitar, violin (bowed and plucked) and a drum kit made of a bucket, a small drum, a cymbal flat on the ground and some sort of pot that sounded like a snare. At one point the cymbal flipped inside-out in the middle of a song so the guy picked it up, thumped it on his knee to pop it back and kept going. They must be like gap-year age, they were all barefoot and messy-haired and wild in a Peter Pan sort of way, and they was so much fun to see, I could have stood there for an hour just watching them smash away. I heard them do Little Lion Man and something else cool I forget, some originals which are catchy, and I gave them money, cos they definitely deserved to eat.

Watch on youtube, but the drummer is at the wrong angle so you can't really see what he's doing.

Fashion.

A blog I read in my rss inbox thing is Defunct Fashion. I do everyday sewing so it's not really for inspiration, it's more my interest in lady clothes from more romantic eras. And I have a good basic historical fashion framework in my head, I know where drop-waists came in and when skirts went up and when the empire waist was the rage.

One thing I've noticed: good fashion can hold its own for a long time. A pair of handmade boots from the 1800s or a cape from the 30s will still be just as stylish today.

Also, really good fashion is ahead of the trend. It doesn't just last a long time, it is ahead of its own time. Item 1, an evening dress from 1913. Beautiful, glamorous, and just typical of the turn of the century. Would still rock a red carpet or something.

 

Item 2, some kind of winter suit. I looked at it and thought WOW. I reckon an elegant 1920s flapper would wear it, right? Nup. It's from 1912! If you were costumer designer for the Titanic movie, you would not incorporate anything like this. That silhouette is a decade before its time. WOW again.

Whinge of a tea-drinker.

You know what else is bad about being surrounded by coffee snobs? I can't get my hands on any of those useful Moccona instant coffee jars with the glass pop lids. It seems they are endangered. They are really good for keeping tea, sugar, and other small ingredients.

My break recap.

I went to Maitland over Christmas. Went to church twice, had a nap twice, went on family walk twice, baked this mango cheesecake (was short one mango/the base was so yummy). The train was full, but the intercity platforms at central station is olde and the central coast line is gorgeous and I enjoy the sense of romance, as if I'm travelling somewhere exciting. I spent an hour next to a chatty man from Mackay, whose son will be on Aus Got Talent, and who made an awkward comment about "spot the Australian face" (meaning Sydney is so multicultural now, although it was a train OUT of Sydney so it looked pretty white to me). Made the trip pass quickly, but I prefer my space usually, to look out the window and listen to my train playlist. I know having a car would be easier, but I'll be sad when I no longer have these train trips.

Anyway, this is me and my bro at family Christmas lunch, which is the traditional Sargent's pies and McCains wedges.

The last week I spent a bit of every day with Jess K (who was flatmateless, computerless and had a borrowed car).









We had coogee picnics, a trip to bondi westfield, fireworks + movie and sleepover for New Year. Then started the year with a boardgame day in Strathfield, a dip at Clovelly, Georges housewarming and church at Wild Street. Then back to work. Now, away again to CMS Summer School!

Chocolate challenges.

This is the sort of dilemma I sometimes face. There is a bowl of chocolate on the bench at the office. On the one hand, it's Haigh's. On the other hand, it's coffee flavoured (even has a bronzed coffee bean on top). So it's not irresistible, but cos it's there I would normally eat one as I walk past anyway, just to see if it's nice or not despite being coffee-filled. NOW, I have teapot incentive to resist. I'm at $2. I'm on my way!

New Year Good Habits.

Good Habits sound more keepable than Resolutions.

Chocolate. Every day I don't have chocolate, I'll put $1 into a kitty to spend on something quality (like a zero japan robins egg teapot). I think my self-control is better when I have a positive (ie financial) motivator, rather than just "no chocolate", which spoils my fun. I got the idea from a news radio story about young mums in the UK who get shopping vouchers for quitting smoking or getting their babies immunized. It's called a "nudge": a bonus to nudge you to do what you already know you should do.

Daily bible reading. I've got a 7 column plan to tick off. I think I might cut the strips into bookmarks. Jumping around from day to day is a bit annoying, but the benefit is you are balancing all the different sorts of bible out over the year. So you don't read all the psalms in a lump, you have psalms every Wednesday all year.

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

~ CSLewisDaily: I rss the twitter, it's awesome.

I feel some new obsessions coming on...

My eyes are watering. A tear is literally running down my cheek. I'm on the verge of an obsession with BUDGETING SOFTWARE. Although my expenses are not very complicated or out of control so I probably can't justify spending money on any. Catch 22.

And I have seen THE MOST PERFECT TEAPOT IN THE WORLD at Plenty in Bondi Jct with JK. It is a one cup pot, matte eggshell blue, made by zero japan, had an infuser and a flip lid, and costs $40. That's twice as much as I would pay for a teapot, but… oh my. And if I could get a matching cup! Waiting for it to restock at Peters.

And I'm thinking about drawing some kind of FLIP BOOK of my clothes, so I have easy access to bookmarked outfits. What I actually need is software like in Clueless, cos I really just want to enter Weather and Mood and Fatness and get something clean to wear. It's probably too complicated for the people who invented google. OR, set up a work uniform for myself in just 2 colours.

And my favourite TEA is Nerada green tea with lemon myrtle. It's Australian and fair trade, sweet and delicious.

Scootering!

I scoot to work about once a week, for variety. Other days I read and walk, or ipod and walk. However my fancy leads me.

This morning I slowed down for a little old lady to give her lots of room and not feel like she was being hooned off the footpath by a grown woman on a scooter. I didn't expect her to give me a bit grin and say "there she goes!"

More bible covers!

Yay! finished 2 more bible covers on Saturday. Was pretty quick the second one I made was made from scratch and took about an hour. The first one had problems because I happened to check it agains't a bible and it didn't go around it, so I had to cut it in half and add some contrasting fabric in the spine, which looks cool.

Putting the button and flap on before sewing the bits together is vital. Also, note the fiddly ironing I've done on the red bits.

Now I have the design set, and ironed out all the problems I used to have with construction of the button flap and magnetic clip, it's pretty easy. The hardest part is all the fiddly ironing of the edges over the facing. The sewing is then very quick.

One closed, one open showing my bodged up spine insert.

Bread baking tips

Smitten Kitchen has some good tips on bread making, as well as some challenging recipes. I see confirmation that bread on baking paper on pizza stone works. I see that I could spray the bowl with oil before I put it in there to rise, and it will tip out easier, which I never thought of yet.

My main obstacle to baking bread often is not that it's hard, its that you need a constant warm temperature and time to hang around near the kitchen so that you can knead it once or twice. So normally I do it on the weekend. I watch DVDs while it rises and bakes, and I also slow-bake something like a cassarole in the oven before I bake bread, to warm up the kitchen so that my bread can rise. Then the oven is pre-heated and ready to bake. And then I can eat my fresh bread with fresh baked veggies or whatever. Yummmmm.

2 attempts at multigrain bread.

Attempt one was ridiculous. I used the no-knead recipe from before but replaced a little bit of flour with a little bit of LSA (Linseed, sunflower, almond). I let it rise on foil before putting it on the pizza stone on the foil, it stuck to the foil. Maybe I needed to flour the foil. Maybe my original idea of baking paper would work better, if I buy some baking paper. Also it didn't rise, it just cooked like a fluffy pancake. So I peeled it off, leaving the bottom crust behind, and it made some nice slices of bread which I made into a burger. Yummy. But a failure. The other half of the batch, not on the foil, worked OK.

Attempt two, I used a white bread recipe from my commonsense cookbook. It needed 4 cups of plain flour, but I only had 3 and a bit, so I did 1/4 of LSA and a little bit of SR. It was a very normal recipe: mix, knead, rise, knead a little, rise, bake. It made a massive loaf (this pic is just the last quarter of it), I baked it on a flat tray so it was wide not high. Very nice! Could use more LSA and have it a bit more fancy/healthy. I added bread improver to the flour. It stayed quite fresh for a few days, and when you toast it up on the sandwich press and butter it, it is *mwuh*.

Full page sketches.

Then I draw full size sketches. I finished them yesterday! We are a little bit ahead of schedule.

Then I scan them in and put them in the layout to make sure the words fit in the space in the picture, and everything looks OK. This is the InDesign layout of the book with the draft sketch placed in.

I often use photoshop to fix a picture. I can cut things out and move them around on screen so that if someone's arm is too long I don't have to go back to drawing and rubbing out.

Christmas songs.

Now it is December, and I am permitting festal cheer. The cathedral morning church which I go to semi-regularly does carols all December, which I think is wonderful. Shops do them for 2 months, why should churches limit their enjoyment to one day only? I always found that I try and do 8 carols on that one day to make the most of them. And cos I never play them at all I'm really clunky and they are untransposed for normal people to sing to and they have so many chords. Tune in the right hand, octave in the left hand will get you through, pianists. So anyway, lots of carol enjoyment at the cathedral, with choir, organ and trumpet. I love the trumpet especially.

I found this song today. What I really like is the time signature change, 4/4 to 6/8, but I'm also a sucker for Coldplay's piano riffs. I can't completely own it because it's still northern-hemisphere-based and talks about snow, but it's melencholy and anthemic, and like I said, time change!! So I'm auditioning it on youtube for the soundtrack of my Christmas holiday. Why does itunes charge 50 cents more for some songs?

Layout magic.

Now we are about to catch up to real time drawing!

When we did the first two books we worked out the production process as we went along, so it was pretty hard. We just didn't know what we were doing, how to actually make a childrens book. Fitting words and pictures together is tricky, let alone that the format changed and pages were added after I had already sketched all the pages for one story. Anyway, now we know what the format is and now we have a system for producing them to minimise having to redraw or rewrite when something has already been worked on.

First the story is written and edited, then we have a meeting—author, illustrator and publishing director—to talk about changes. For example, I found with the first books that a lot of dialogue in a big chunk is hard to illustrate interestingly. Things might need to be written with a more careful mind to the illustrated pages.

Stephanie and I then break the text up into pages. We note down where an illustration could be a full spread, where a page-turn is needed for suspense, etc etc, and spread it out over 21 pages.

Then I draw thumbnails while Stephanie helps say what the illustrations will be. This is a good part, because we think very much the same! When I draw something she usually says "That's what I was imagining it to look like!" so it's very easy. Here are some thumbnails. I try and take into account the space needed for the text. You can see the top right one, that's a spread: two page illo. The bottom right is a full page on the left and a spot illo on the right—some objects isolated.

So these thumbnails become the plan for the bigger sketches. They also bring up problems (eg. too much to fit on a page) before I do any real work.

Update.

I haven't sewn anything in a while, but I plan to make a few more bible covers and a petticoat before Christmas. The petticoat is on hold because I bought not enough fabric. It goes around me, but has no gathering, so too tight to walk I think. I need to buy another half metre of voile. Sigh.

I'm limiting my grocery budget to $60 per month. Not including social eating. So my shopping and cooking habits have changed, streamlined into cheap vegetarian things, lentil based, padded out with the remaining eggs and meat from before the budget. It suits me well. I am going to bake some more bread tomorrow, attempting a sort of multigrain this time.

I've been watching Ashes to Ashes. It is pretty good, but Life on Mars is better. It's just a little annoying how she dresses with off-the-shoulder fluro tops all the time. It's distracting.

My main aim this weekend is to bring order to chaos in my bedroom. Get to the bottom of every horizontal surface.