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Monday 26 November 2012

Wet Weather

The rain has slowed a bit so it might be stopping soon. All the rivers round here have burst their banks and many roads are cut by flood waters. We are fine chez nous and not quite as much water is running down the wall as it did before we had the chimneys fixed. However, there still is ingress so there is still some fixing to be done up on the roof.
I have been painting quite a bit but nothing is finished yet. A lot of it is a bit experimental and not always a success. I have been using a painting knife and trying to be freer.
This is a mixture of brush for the sky and knife for the land.

And this all knife and still unfinished. I'm trying to get more streams of sunlight through and add more texture to the foreground.
Last Friday was a lovely day at a place called ArtiSon. They do an enormous variety of art day courses and I signed up for "Industrial Landscapes" I had great fun playing with watercolour and ink washes, over-painted with industrial icons.
It's difficult to find an existing pithead around here now. They have all been demolished but the tutor had some old photos so I used one to copy this silhouette.
And here's my favourite local industry, the steelworks at Redcar on a watercolour and sepia wash.

Apart from that I've been slaving away at making blancmanges. It was Jubilee Party at the WI and because I was last to fill in the food-to-bring clipboard, I got "blancmange". I entertained myself by making a mixture of the original Pearce and Duff packets, white chocolate panna cotta and a free-from coconut milk dessert with blueberries.
I arranged them in a RED WHITE & BLUE display and off I went. The white chocolate panna cotta was a hit, the red berry blancmange went well too, but the blueberry and coconut milk was not popular. DJ warned me that it was too alien a colour. I had made it dairy-, gluten- and sugar-free but loaded with E122 to give it a fine blue hue.
I ate a couple and the rest went in the bin.

Guess who's hiding in the basket on the fridge!
Cheers Gillian

4 comments:

Jan said...

Whatever is in that basket needs to pull its tail and ear in if it wishes to remain hidden.

love those cupcakes said...

Blimey, Pearce and Duff blancmange, that's a blast from the past. My dad used to sell that in his shop.
Love your picture of Redcar. The industrial landscape has changed so much on Teesside. We were surrounded by industry where I grew up. Everything (including us!) had a coating of black gritty dust.

stitching and opinions said...

like the industrial landscapes very much. [That Blue is quite strident, or is it the photo?]

carol said...

I love the mountains - the painting reminds me of Nicholas Roerich. Did you ever see any of his paintings of Himalayan mountainscapes? They are awesome; nearly as good as being there and without the lack of oxygen!