Monday 8 September 2014

How long can you make a birthday last?

Amelie celebrates her second birthday this week but it's impossible to limit it to just one day. We had to organise a family party at the weekend for everyone who wouldn't be able to visit on the actual day. Sunday was gloriously sunny and 26 of us enjoyed a great barbecue in the garden. You can't see everyone in this photo but I suspect the rest of the guests were at the far end of the garden working the calories off on the trampoline! I thankfully was excused such exertions as official photographer!


We're having a small lunch party on the day itself followed by a trip to the zoo next day. I can't wait to see how excited she'll be about that!


 In my free time (when I'm not busy baking birthday cakes!) I'm continuing to work in my latest altered book. There's a lovely old illustration of a bunch of grapes in the book and since our own grapes are looking almost ready now it seemed a good idea to make a drawing of them.


Ours are black rather than green but you can't have everything can you?


I'm drawing with Derwent Inktense pencils onto a layer of Liquitex Heavy Gesso. Once the drawing is done I add a wash of clear water to intensify the colour of the pencils making sure to preserve white areas as highlights. I'll be making more of the deep shadows next time I find a few spare minutes. By the way, if you haven't seen what Laura is doing with her Daily Drawing Challenge you really should have a look at her blog. I'm so impressed that she's sticking to her guns so far - no one works as hard as she does so if she can fit a daily drawing session into her busy day anyone should be able to do the same! As her concerned mother I do notice that some of the drawings don't get posted till after my bedtime!


Much as I loved being in my workroom drawing this morning the garden still beckons. Today's priority was picking and dealing with the enormous crop of tomatillos. I'm going to grill them till they're charred then blitz them in the processor with chillis, coriander and lime juice. The resulting paste will be used to cook chicken to a tender deliciousness!


And although the carrots aren't desperately calling for attention and will stand quite happily for some time yet, Amelie seemed to enjoy grabbing a few for dinner today! It's lovely that she already knows about how food grows and doesn't imagine it comes shrink wrapped in a polystyrene tray!

Thanks for reading. I'll be back again soon - Linda x

1 comment:

  1. Happy Birthday Amelie! Interested to know what colour your tomatillos are. I grew some this year after seeing your post last year. Mine are purple and I have been picking them when the outer skin has dried to paper. French ovens have useless grills, infact they are useless, but that is another story. I have been putting mine onto a baking tray in the hottest oven, cut in half for about 10-15 mins. Blitzing them gave a peculiar pinkish liquid so now I just roughly chop them with scissors and add lots of chilli, salt and lime juice. Jolly good with meats and sausages but have not tried cooking anything with them. Thanks for sharing - I love the sauce.

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