Still focused on Porgy and Bess because it is, for the time being, Summertime. And we’re having a real Summer too. Sunshine, blue skies, gentle breezes, the smell of lighter fuel drifting across the garden as various neighbours desperately try to light barbecues and cremate some sausages. It doesn’t seem to come naturally to us Brits, this barbecue stuff. To start with, there’s a tendency to make a pyre the size of a small block of flats; then it won’t light properly so everything is dowsed in kerosene or the like; cooking either takes place in a miasma of petroleum vapour, making the addition of smoky chippings totally pointless, since all that can be tasted is refined fossil fuels, OR, we go and have something to eat while we wait for the coals to achieve an appropriate temperature (Generally, people test the temperature of the coals by sticking a metal skewer in. If it melts, it’s ready to cook.) and have no appetite by the time the food is ready.
AND THAT’S NOT ALL…
There is a naive assumption that barbecue is an easy way to cook. And another is that everything has to be barbecued – veg, fish, fruit, neighbours, you name it, we can burn it to a crisp in no time. Conveniently forgotten are the hours of preparation making the burgers from scratch, marinading the belly pork or steak, building the kebabs, creating at least three types of salads (with dips or dressings, of course) and generally making a meal for a family of four from enough food to feed the village.
We don’t do barbecues at our house. I’m quite good at pies, pastries and cakes, casseroles, stews and gentle curries but barbecues R not us.
Anyway, when we go to Spain and/or Greece, we eat out a lot and that’s the time for lamb cooked on a spit over their version of Towering Inferno, souvlaki with Greek salad, and proper rare steak, singed on the outside and red in the middle. You should try the paella cooked over a firepit, on the beach in Nerja or the sardinas on a skewer on the seafront at Torre del Mar or the kleftiko at Valantina’s in Lardos …. Dammit, I’m faint with hunger now.
It’s been so consistently hot and clammy and old fashioned English Summery recently that I’ve retreated indoors and done a fair bit of art work. I’ve done some more journal pages, some finished and some still incomplete. I had another go at this one, which I just hated and it now looks like this… (I’m sorry Michele, your page disappeared entirely under the gesso.)
Still not confident I think, but I’m getting the idea. And the idea that I’m getting is that the extreme mixed media stuff, with collage and gesso and texture and old bus tickets and who knows what else, is not for me, but the many layered drawing/inking/stencilling probably is more my style. I have “discovered ” a video channel on Youtube recently and am now an addict – the site/page/ channel is called Creationsceecee and I would heartily recommend it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqZWhdaGh8 )
These are a couple of completed journal pages which are better but still… However, I did have fun doing these and I realise it is very like Zentangle in that the process is more important than the product a lot of the time. You may not be able to see them but there is some tangling on these.
As a result, I’ve been trying water colours and inks again and getting better results than before. At the top of the page, you can see one of the cards I made following the videos and I’m mildly addicted to this particular method. Here are some more:
All variations on the same theme but I really did have fun with them. There’s a bit, but not a lot of Zentangle involved but that doesn’t mean I have given up, oh dearie me, no.
However, I think that is for another day. I’m getting back into blogging too, although a little erratic. i hope you’ll check back every now and then.
Until next time, world, be good – ish.
