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?

Summer Fruit

Fruit is more delicious in sunny countries. Fact. 

This was a plate from one of the beach cafes in Kas,Turkey, where I spent a week with family in July - my parents from Cape Town via Istanbul, my sister and niece from Stockholm, and us direct from Gatwick.

The two nicest beaches in Kas are tiny pebbly coves snug in a peninsula still covered in  olive groves on crumbling terraces just behind the rows of cabanas and deck chairs. I loved the fruit plates, which can be delivered to your deckchair, perhaps with a little glass of tea, Turkish style. Luxury indeed.

Getting there involves a ferry ride across a turquoise bay, so the deal is you have lunch and snacks from the cafe, and spend the the whole day on the loungers, or, if you can bag one early, a cabana strewn with cushions, on the rocks. Perfect for lying in the sun, contemplating the mountains opposite, and wondering whether to have a swim or not.

There wasn't all that much time to hang about though, as my little niece had other ideas. Such as being peddled about in a banana boat and making rabbit faces on the rocks. 

Funny how those busy things turn out to be the best bits of the holiday, and the days doing nothing much poolside kinda fade in memory. Ah well. 

August in London, I am unfaithful to you. Give me August on the Med any day. Forty degrees and counting? I can live with that.

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.

almost too lovely to eat

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.