Oh, look! #13

I have been...

going on rainy trips to the seaside // warming up with sunshiney cocktails

visiting Camden // finally hanging some pictures

(instagram: timballoo)

- not looking forward to the Olympics. Or rather, not looking forward to trying to do anything useful whilst they're on. This image sums up my feelings about the whole shebang quite nicely.

- amused by this cat lady drawing.

Week Word: Goodbye

Emily chose this week's word, Goodbye, so go and visit her to see who else is playing this week.

All my immediate associations with this word were pretty downbeat and negative... it's quite hard to think of a positive spin to put on a goodbye. Even if you're leaving something bad behind or moving on to something better, there's still the acknowledgement of the bad thing in the goodbye to it.

So instead I thought about things we say goodbye to. Or rather, don't...

These are my favourite ballet pumps. I bought them many years ago (2005/6?) at Waterloo on the way to a funeral I'd only just heard about (there's another, not so positive, goodbye for you) as I'd gone to work that day in funeral-inappropriate shoes. I'd never have bought them otherwise, as I don't really like gold, even old, silvery gold like this.

But it turns out they go with everything! So I have worn them to death. Quite literally, I realised the other day. The soles are almost worn through and there are patches that aren't even slightly gold any more. I'm going to have to say goodbye to them pretty soon, but I reckon I can get a couple more wears out of them first...

New Pen Excitement

I decided to celebrate selling the flat with the purchase of a new pen. Why yes, I am the last of the big spenders.


I like drawing with a dip pen with a lovely wooden handle, but they're not the most practical unless you're sitting at the desk where you always sit and have some tissues to hand. And aren't wearing white. And don't mind having ink all over your fingers for days.


(This could be more because I'm messy than the fault of the pen, but I suspect people invented biros for a reason...)


But I haven't managed to find a fine-liner I get on well with. Much like Goldilocks working through the pens of some bears, they tend to be too scratchy, too hard, or too faint.


I've been keenly keeping an eye out for any mentions of the pens people use on my daily forays through the internet, and finally found one that sounded good. So ordered it.


It's a Rotring Artpen with an extra fine nib. I ordered mine from here and it arrived super-fast. It only comes with cartridges and the ink isn't waterproof, so I've also ordered a converter and have some Noodlers Bulletproof Black on its way. I'm hopeful that it won't gunk it up (Danny Gregory uses it, and I think he's probably trustworthy...)

I've only had time for a few quick sketches with it, but so far it's perfect and exactly what I wanted.

Beetroot Brownies

I'm sure I've posted about my favourite chocolate brownie recipe before, but I can't find it. Anyway, it's this one from Apple and Spice which I think I found via Allie's blog.


It's a favourite because it's super-easy, and uses cocoa instead of chocolate which means I almost always have the ingredients in the house. Chocolate doesn't tend to last that long.


I'm telling you about this today because I discovered an amazing thing at the weekend. You know there are recipes out there for chocolate beetroot cakes? Well there are, and they are good. And I had some beetroot in the veg box this week that seemed to want to be a cake.


But I had no chocolate (see above) so decided to try the brownie recipe with beetroot replacing the butter. I was not confident it would work; I rather suspected I would end up with a tray of what could best be described as sweet borscht.


So, full of no faith in my own abilities, I tried it anyway. And it worked! The end product was cake!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might spot that it's rather more cakey than brownie-y. You'd be right. Because of the borscht-fear I added a little more flour than the original recipe suggested (100g instead of 80g) and half a teaspoon of baking powder. It's still brownie rather than sponge, but not so fudgey. I'm now quite confident it'd work without added my added raising extras though, so I'll try that next time and report back.

I'm not going to go so far as to proclaim these healthy brownies, as there's still a fair whack of sugar in there. But there's no fat and you get an added extra of vegetable which can only be a good thing.


Anyone who wants to try this at home, I recommend you boil your beetroot until they're soft and blend into a puree. Then add the sugar and cocoa to the blender to get to the consistency suggested in the recipe before adding the eggs.

Sunday Sketchblog #21

I think this is Emma Stone, the actress. I fancied drawing a detailed study of a face, so just scrolled through Pinterest until one jumped out at me...

Go and see what's in Emma's (the gardening artist, not the actress) sketchbook this week.

Week Word: Empty

I chose this week's word, empty, after emptying my little flat to sell it at the weekend.


It was actually lovely to see it empty after being full of all my clutter for so long! It hadn't looked like that since we bought it and it seemed much bigger and lighter. The feeling of it being a blank canvas for someone new to create a life in was also quietly satisfying.


My 'moving out' song has always been Sun in an Empty Room by The Weakerthans, so that's what I've called my drawing.

Go and see Emma and Emily to see what empty things they've got for us. And I'm going to tag Emily to pick next week.


ETA: And I think there might be a late contribution from Katy as well!

Still, dark skies...

This is something I made months ago, but forgot to post. Useful on a quiet week!

I wanted an unusual gift for a friend, so I came up with the idea of creating an image and then getting the lovely and talented Emma to make it into a notebook.

She did such a beautiful (and speedy!) job. You can see some of Emma's other custom made notebooks here.