After the Rain

Screencap

I paused The Thick of It while I left the room for a moment, and when I came back, I realised the paused image reminded me of a painting!

Artemisia Gentileschi, 'Autoritratto in veste di Pittura' (1638/9)

All right, this is a reference for a very specialised sort of geek.

Stained Glass Biscuits

These didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped, but they were only a first attempt. They're a basic biscuit recipe, and you cut out holes inside each biscuit. Into the holes, you sprinkle crumbled up boiled sweets, and they melt to look like glass. They're not very tasty, but they do make pretty tree decorations.

My mum (who's better at this sort of thing than me, hers are much more attractive) puts a hefty helping of salt in the recipe to make the biscuits last better. A batch had just come out of the oven when her neighbour came over, and the neighbour said, 'Mind if I try one?' and popped it in her mouth before my mum could say, 'They're not for eating!'

My main problem was finding the right sized cookie cutters -- hours and hours of futile searching round the shops -- and then I couldn't find any boiled sweets that weren't diamond-hard. I bought Fox's glacier fruits and could barely even break them with a hammer. But there comes a point with this sort of thing at which you've invested so much effort in getting together all the equipment and ingredients that you can't possibly give up, otherwise your whole day will've been entirely wasted. So, stained glass biscuits: achieved (sort of).

Drawing: Iguanodon

I was having a slow afternoon at work, so I doodled this dinosaur at my desk and posted a photo of it on Twitter. It proved to be quite popular: lots of people re-tweeted it and I got about 35 new followers in an hour. I was really surprised! So here's the original photo and a higher resolution version.

Life Drawing Class Efforts

I wish, wish I'd taken photos of the chalk ones before spraying them with fixative. I felt a brief moment of panic when I began to spray and the drawings started to vanish. 'Don't worry,' I told myself, 'they'll come back when the spray dries. They're supposed to.' They didn't really: a lot of the subtleties of the shading were lost.

Two Franks

Cushions seen in a shop window in Wigmore Street.

I can't get over the Anne Frank one. Why, WHY would you want that in your house?
For the irony value? So that every time you sit down, you can say, 'That young girl died tragically, and I'm alive and watching X-Factor! I win, Frank! LOL!'

Is it meant to be a talking point? But then every time you had friends over, they'd see it, and yes you'd start talking, but it would be the same conversation every time -- which would be dull -- and every time, that conversation would begin, 'What on earth is that?' and you'd end up having to justify it. 'Oh, it's... postmodern... I...', trailing off as your friends stared at you in horrified disbelief. That's no way to start a dinner party.

I almost wanted to buy it just so I could destroy it. But how could you? You couldn't burn it, could you? That seems frantically inappropriate. And I have nowhere to bury a cushion cover, and anyway, that's insane.

Poor Anne. Her memory deserves better than ironic home furnishings.

Nutmeg Biscuits

They're a cross between Viennese whirls and custard creams, sprinkled with grated nutmeg. They're very small because a little one goes a long way.

New Nibs

New Caran d'Ache Pencils

1950s Teacup and Saucers

I bought this 1950s teacup set yesterday in Islington Antique Market. I love the little gold sprays, they look like fireworks.