Collograph printmaking, part one

The first one was printed using intaglio inks and running it through the press, the other three were relief printed with block printing ink. More to come soon!

Scenes from a weekend

So, whilst most grown ups I know had plenty of very important things to do this weekend, I spent my Saturday evening making my first batch of French macaroons (or is it macarons?) and practicing flicky eyeliner. The macaroons were a bit lumpy but they tasted good. I still cannot perfect the art of the eyeliner flick. I have an art degree. I paint pictures in a notoriously difficult medium that requires patience and a very steady hand. WHY CAN'T I DO FLICKY EYELINER FOR GOD'S SAKE??!!

After an hour or so of pondering, I came up with this answer: I usually paint on a fairly expensive watercolour paper. My eyelid is not a smooth sheet of paper. It is rough terrain. This may take some time.

Fowey, Cornwall, part one

An indulgent Saturday

I went to this place yesterday, one my favourite places ever. I spent the afternoon happily traipsing around looking at vintage cake stands, green glass, Edwardian table linen and antique jewellery. I cooed over French grain sacks and one particularly fetching oak table. In Cafe Violette next door I had something called Chocolate Lover's Delight.

In the evening I caught up with friends in Oxford, where we went to this place and I had a Messy Jessie and a peanut butter milkshake. On the Cowley road we drank in pubs sticky with snakebite and smelling of stale goth. I am always more comfortable in these darkened hovels, in trainers. I am over 6ft 2 in heels. People make so much desperate effort in small towns.

I wondered down Walton Street in Jericho admiring the little terraced houses with their tiny doors. There is a bookshop there called The Albion Beatnik Bookshop. It was still open at 11.30pm. There was a man in a wizard outfit stood in the window. On a low wall someone had left not an empty can of Stella but an empty bottle of vintage cognac. In the Jude the Obscure, on the toilet door, I found a solitary piece of violently scrawled graffiti, stating simply I love him.

The Forest Floor

If you took out the past its best food from my fridge, all that would be left is parsley and soya milk. This is one of the things I feel most guilty about; the throwing away of food that I didn't get around to eating before it went bad. I'm not sure if it's as bad as giving in to the nagging voice that says "you better eat those brownies/that homemade bread/that stew, as you don't want to waste it". At least with the former you stay the right side of healthily curvaceous. And there is always Lea and Perrins. That never goes out of date. There could be a nuclear holocaust and Lea and Perrins would be the only thing to survive. Lea and Perrins and cockroaches.

These are new paintings completed this week. The top image is the slightly smaller sketch for the one underneath. The technique is called negative painting by most people. You paint around the shapes rather than painting the shapes themselves, and then build up layers. There is always a stage when you think "this is all going wrong" and the it suddenly comes together. I use it quite a lot in my work.

Look! I'm a domestic goddess!

This is chocolate and pistachio fudge, courtesy of Nigella Express. I have made it for the guys at work, it's sat next to me in a spangly bag by my desk. It would have taken all the will in the world to give it away where it not for the fact that this is the second batch, the first batch having been consumed stealthily by furtive fridge light over a period of four days last week. I now can't look at the stuff without feeling a little bit queasy.

Tonight is the last night in my flat before I decamp to my mum and dad's for four days. Tomorrow evening I  plan to be in my pyjamas, vodka and tonic in hand, watching Narnia. Merry Christmas you lovely people.

A little recap

These are some of the paintings I did in November. I did quite a few other things as well. I took on a lot of extra teaching which seemed like a good idea a few months ago, when the job situation was looking particularly bleak. I also broke both my phone and my Ipod. There was a depressing evening in late November where I found myself slumped on the sofa feeling stressed and tearful and couldn't even listen to music to sooth myself. I also couldn't phone my mum.

It's all good now though. Work is winding down, we had our Christmas meal today and I'm blogging after ten vodka and tonics. By the end of the week I'll be feeling a bit bored.