A bowl of ripe plums

It has been a fair while, friends.  Particularly if we aren't waving over to each other on Instagram already. 

Still.

Here's a watercolour peace offering for a hot summer's day in Hackney. Started left handed with willow twigs, finished right handed as best as could be given the wily qualities of watercolour , of shifting light and shifting goalposts.

Chinese food illustrations

I haven't posted in a while - sometimes it's good to start with whatever I've got, rather than driving myself nuts wondering what would be the perfect post. 

So. Here's a sneak peak of some new food illustrations I've been working on. 

The notes are from a visit to the V+A museum, that wonderful place where I am always instantly in love with some or other beautiful thing. Or things. The fine ceramics and painted scrolls of the Chinese galleries this time, and a perfect starting point for my food theme.

The Hackney Marshes are so so beautiful at this time of the year, all the wet leaves and now bare branches and the reassuring smell of vegetation gently decomposing, turning to soil, nothing wasted at all. 

Airtime in nature, away from screen and sketchbook, space to unravel new ideas and get perspective on old ones.

Where do you go to unravel your ideas?

The happiest making sardines ever

B and I have been saying we need a day under the tree at the Towpath Cafe for weeks. It's a place to lie on a rug and watch the canal side traffic skittle by while putting our worlds to rights.  

Today was the day. 

For lunch, alas not the whole day, but the sun isn't always out here in London so there shouldn't be too much messing around, since next thing we know summer has gone and slipped through our cupped hands.

The food is always totally properly good here, no joking about. We both had the sardines to prevent food envy. Just as well, since there could well have been tears.

Totally perfect fishies. Mint in the tomato salad. Pickly cucumbers, all crunchy and vinegary. Inspired.

afternoon tea delights

I'm not really that much into sweet things, but working on this has given me sugar lust.

I'd go for the jam tart maybe, if the pastry is nice and buttery and the jam home made, or else the madelaine, just fresh out of the oven. 

In the end though, the custard tart with an espresso wins. When we were in Cape Town for our wedding, a Portuguese friend of my dad's brought a whole box fresh from the bakery while the marquee was going up, and we had coffee and the tarts out on the shady verandah to take a break from being stressed erics. 

Love how food and memories intertwine.

Which is your favourite for tea?

early summer

almost too lovely to eat

summer still life - basil

now sadly in decline, the trusty basil plant grown from seed earlier in the year and painted a few months ago.

illustration friday - breakfast

this one's for my dad, whose breakfasts are legendary and consist of several courses, even on a weekday. his menu is usually a variation of a smoothie followed by my mom's homemade muesli with fruit and then coffee and toast and a selection of jams and, on the weekend, omelettes. 

watercolour and collage.