Klimt inspiration

Hi there,

My school are making good use of our time at home, keeping us busy (some of us make blog posts lessons for our kids daily which take hours! Teaching my musician curriculum is not as easy as shoving a worksheet up on the net Humph! I'm not wasting my time!A year 1 post has taken me about 3hours to recreate at least.) by setting us CPD tasks- (Continuing Professional Development).  We've got to choose from 3 online courses (some Open University ones that are reaaaaaaaaaaaally long), do a virtual tour of a place to visit, research an artist and I've been told to set a music task for everyone. It's fine but I really don't want to be spending any more time online than I am already. I get headaches from too much screen time.

Anyway, yesterday, after one course, I was trying to register with the OU to no avail so I decided to start with my Art CPD.

You had to select an artist from a list of those that you might study with kids at school and do some research, showing what you know, what you wanted to know and what you found out, perhaps creating an example of your artwork based on them.

I selected Gustav Klimt from the list as I'd seen his The Kiss painting at the Belvere museum in Vienna last year and wanted to know more.

I duly did and wrote up my research and then did my own version of one of his paintings using my watercolour pencils.

This one, Farm Garden was one I really liked and decided I would do my own musical spin on it as I discovered a Lithograph he did called Music. Plus, his mother was a failed musician!

IMage borrowed from
https://www.accents-n-art.com/canvas-prints/4x5-CPM00537.html

I created a violin shape and then used his piece as inspiration (sort of copying!) the groups of flowers and colours he did.

I think I'd like to give this another go but perhaps using a more conventional rectangle shape!

What do you think?

The Surname initial Challenge

I saw this on someone's Instagram Stories. It seemed quite a fun challenge in the Giles Brandreth vein so I thought I'd give it a go.You must complete this challenge without googling, asking anyone else or looking in a book. It relies solely on your brain power! Something/someone called @thevestigeofficial created this.  Don't know what they do but their spelling is shocking, even in their profile. I corrected the mistakes in their original! They also say that this is harder than you think.  Hmmm, wonder if that's true...

You must give an item for each of the categories that begins with the first letter of your surname (and if you share my initial, get your own ideas!) 

Wear:  Plimsoles

Food:  Passata

Drink: Pineapple Juice

Place: Poland

Animal: Panda

Colour: Puce

TV show: Pinky and Perky

Girl's name: Poonam

Boy's name: Peter

Profession: Porter

Body part: Pancreas

Word to describe someone: Pernickety 

Something in your home: Pots

Your last name: Ha ha, not telling you but it begins with P!

I challenge you: Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.

Here's a list for you to copy and paste if you felt like joining in!

• Wear
• Food
• Drink
• Place
• Animal
• Colour
• TV show
• Girl's name
• Boy's name
• Profession
• Body part
• Word to describe someone
• Something in your home
• Your last name
• I challenge you

Kezzie AG Post isolation fantasy choices challenge

Join me in a creative writing or choosing challenge!

I'm going to post some categories which you need to write about for what you will/would do post isolation, post when the horrid Covid is finally vanquished and returns to Mordor.

Write about your choices for the following categories- feel free to be brief or get your descriptive skills out in their full glory!  Do it in one post or in many! Your choice. Some of them may not apply to you or be appropriate but I thought I'd post them anyway!
I'll also do the same. (Please someone do this so I don't look a complete saddo! :-) )
Leave me a comment with your URL and I'll definitely come and read and perhaps I could post my favourites from everyone for the different categories (maybe? Is this a good or bad idea?) If you could link to this post too, in order to give other people a chance to join in, that'd be lovely.

But it would be lovely for us to all give this a go!  I remember telling my friend Thomas in Bali what I would eat or do or wear when I got back from living in Bali! He always loved this game!

Enjoy!

1. Restaurant you would go out to.

2. Friend you would meet up with first.

3. Place you would go.

4.  Shop you would go to.

5.  Food item you would buy/eat

6.  Cake you would eat.

7.  Show you would/will go to see

8.  Concert you will go to watch.

9.  Relative you will hug first

10. Holiday you would go on.

11.  Other activity you would take part in.

12.  Thing you would do at work.

13.  Item you would buy.

Plastic Free July so far.

I signed up to Plastic Free July.  Where you make a bid to reduce your plastic usage consciously in July. You can just try to make one small change or you can make an extra effort to avoid it all together. As I am already doing the first type- it was an ALL, if I can, effort!
1.  Shopping on first Monday:  Ginger, Lime, Avocado, potatoes, Sour dough bread, tins of soup, chickpeas, brie in some sort of paper...

2. Summer fair at school.  Made sure I recycled all the items that were left in my area.   Washed up 10 plastic cups and saved them for the school gardener to recycle for herbs for the children to take home.  Also disposed of cans.

3.  Took home our restaurant leftovers in my own plastic box for two meals on the first Friday and Sunday.  Both of them proved invaluable.  We used the Babaganoush for a picnic on Sunday when we needed some food but didn't want to buy things in plastic. We managed to avoid all purchase of plastic for the picnic except for a block of cheese. Everything else was naked or in paper or glass. It WAS annoying how expensive the non-plastic clad items were in comparison! That's why I like to go to the international grocers near school or in the big town back home.  Things are reasonably priced- not extortionate.

4.  Two performances of musical at school, I made sure to be the person who put bins out by the refreshment table in the interval.  I then swiped the bin bags out of these and washed out all the cans and bottles in there and took them home on the train!  I know this isn't plastic free but making an effort for other people to save their plasti from the bin is a good action.

5.  When I got chips on the way home from my late rehearsal (it's been one of those weeks), the young assistant went to pick up a polystyrene tray to put them in (WHY???? I used to work in a chip shop- not necessary!) and I stopped her and asked her to just put them on the paper.  I also took no bag and only one layer of paper which I then ripped up to put in the compost so this was pleasing.

6.  Sunday shop, headed on the train to next town to go to the greengrocers (there is no greengrocer or supermarket in my home town that doesn't have plastic grr).  Managed to bring all my own bags to put the stuff in and only bought loose items:  Pak Choi, 4 red bell peppers, 12 satsumas, 5 nectarines, 6 Pink Lady Apples, 3 limes and 3 lemons, massive punnet of cherry tomatoes (my own punnet), 3 avocados £9:05 for all the veg .  I also bought 2 Vegan sausage rolls from Greggs (in my own box) £2 and a jar of Organic jackfruit (plus metal lid), olive pate (in a glass jar with a metal lid), jar of local honey (with metal lid), 3 paper bags of sweeties, fudge, chocolate buttons from Ye Olde Sweetshop.

Where I have failed:
I've eaten a few bags of crisps and choccie snacks bought by other people  which come in plastic (CBC, Teachers whose birthdays it was, bags of crisps left on table at work for long evenings).
However, I have somehow reduced my crisp intake basically because I want to avoid plastic. I don't want to buy them because of the plastic so this is progress. If I get desperate, I will order some crisps from Two Farmers.

Update:  CBC was cooking a Butternut squash for a party he is going to tomorrow so I nabbed the discarded seeds which I washed and baked with melted butter,salt and Paprika as a tasty, salty snack.

However, CBC ended up buying veg and items in plastic for a faculty bring and share party he is going to and for drinks and food he is doing for colleagues at ours on Wednesday.  Annoyingly, if I had known what he wanted, I could have got him the majority of veg plastic free from the Green Grocers on Sunday.  Did manage to get a few things outside of plastic:  potatoes, Pepper, Spring onions, Aubergines...

I came home late from a rehearsal and CBC had failed to cook anything.  He said we should get some Chinese so I told him he had to come with plastic containers and a carrier bag to put them in.  He arrrived to fetch me from the station and somehow had lost the containers or forgotten to pick them up. So we had 2 plastic containers!!!!!! Which is very annoying.

Links:

Tell the Beer Giants to get rid of those stupid plastic rings!

Susie shared this- that Morrisons are introducing completely plastic free fruit and veg sections! Hurrah!

Head over to Bev at Confuzzledom who is also trying to do Plastic Free July!


Have you pledged for Plastic Free July?  It is not too late- you could start now!

x

Secret January Blog Challenge

Hi there,

Hope you are well.
You may have noticed that I was rather prolific in my January posting...or perhaps not?
Well, I set myself a secret challenge to try and blog every day in January.  I didn't want to make it a big deal or mention it just in case time failed me or I ran out of time but I am pleased to say I managed it!  In 2018, I was disappointed that my blog outut was the least amount I've blogged since 2010 which is quite shocking!!!!
Just for the record in 2018 I posted 172 blogposts compared to

2017: 231, 2016: 285, 2015: 318, 2014:278, 2013: 204,  2012:260, 2011: 174, 2010:26

 I was trying not to stress about it too much last year and I just let it go if I hadn't managed to post for a while and I wanted to start off the year with a good effort to set the tone for the year.

But...without announcing it, I wouldn't feel a failure if I didn't manage it.  I decided to go with the premise that I HAD to publish the post for each day, even if it was a bit rubbish because it would get me going.  Some days, I was thinking, "AAAAAHGRH, what do I post!" but somehow, it flowed on quite a few days.

I've copied the links to the month's posts below in reverse order so you can have a look, should you wish to, if you missed anything.

• 5 brooches and friends #70
• Some less common instruments
• TARDIS Tuesday- Rocking a Red dress- Oswin Oswald...
• #The January Challenge Day 25- Draw with your draw...
• An interesting Veggie Breakfast/Brunch
• Everything's coming up Roses.
• 11 more World book day ideas for 2019
• Don't be afraid to do the right thing, even if it ...
• 10 things to be thankful for
• TARDIS Tuesday - Clara from Flatline
• Word Play- alternative words
• Fruit Sculpture (#The January Challenge)
• Photo an hour 19th January
• The 14 days of Christmas- a holiday view
• What do I do with it?
• Style Imitating Art- Van Gogh's Still Life with Ir...
• TARDIS Tuesday- grieving Clara
• Something beginning with S part 2...
• Something beginning with 'S'
• A small moment of inspiration for one person, a gr...
• World Book Day ideas.
• Commuting with long legs
• The bizarre foibles of a Google search
• TARDIS Tuesday- Yaz Khan and Arachnids in the UK f...
• The big book review 2018
• What is this feeling of doom?
• A festive, smart outfit
• My favourite 11 Board and card games
• Tardy TARDIS Tuesday on Thursday - Clara in Deep B...
• Tasty Seeds!
• Fun goals and tasks for 2019

So, looking at them, I am pleased that I did create some variety in these posts:

* 5 TARDIS Tuesday outfit posts.

* 5 miscellaneous outfit posts + 1 jewellery post

* 2 Food posts. 

* 1 Book review post

* 2 costume idea posts.

* 1 Goals post.

* 1 photo an hour.

* 1 'favourites' post.

* 3 creative January challenge posts.

* 1 information post to do with instruments

* 1 self-indulgent 'woe is me' post.

* Holiday summary

* 1 happy moment post and 1 Thankful post

* 4 miscellaneous discussion posts.

...even if some of the posts were a little brief. It's been fun to focus on making sure I blog this month- especially as it's January and January is rubbish!

There were 7577 page views in January (as of Midnight on 1st February!)

What do I do with it?   had the most page views (and the longest comments!) 

Fun goals and tasks for 2019 had the most comments.

Some less common instruments had the least number of comments

Word play- alternative words had the least amount of page views and yesterday's post, "5 brooches and friends #70 but given it's been up for less than a day, that's understandable so I am not counting that!!

My 11 favourite board and card games was my favourite post to write- I love games so much!

My least favourite post was TARDIS Tuesday- Grieving Clara- which was a bit rubbish.

Sooo.... qvvvvvestions to you, honoured guest:

1.  Did you notice I was blogging more regularly?

2. Did you wonder about it?

3.  Did you think it was a challenge?

4.  Did you notice much variety?

5.  Did you have any particular favourite post?

 and finally:
6.  Are there any blog posts you think I should write or things you'd like me to write about?  Can't guarantee I'll do them (if too personal) but I'm willing to give things a try!

Thanks for all of you who commented and shared this month- it was lovely to have you here!

xxx

• 
  

Fruit Sculpture (#The January Challenge)

I alluded to the @64Millionartists' January Challenge yesterday in my Photo An hour post yesterday, posting my new meaning for 'Wedding' (pronounced Wee-duh-ding!) 

I thought I'd share a bit about 64 Million Artists from their website:

About Us:

At 64 Million Artists we believe everyone is creative, and when we use our creativity we can make positive change in our lives and the world around us. We aim to be a catalyst for the creativity of everyone in the UK.

Since we were founded in 2014 by Jo Hunter and David Micklem, we’ve worked with schools, universities, whole cities, workplaces, cultural institutions and health and government bodies to experiment with ways of reconnecting people with their innate creativity. We run programmes for individuals and communities, design and deliver bespoke solutions for clients and also work on national partnering initiatives to use creativity for positive change.

We run free, UK-wide programmes like #thejanuarychallenge to kickstart the creativity and wellbeing of everybody. Over 7,500 participants took part in 2018. We also give away free resources on dothinkshare.com to inspire anyone who wants to run their own creative activities, share their work and be part of a supportive community.

I am dreadfully behind with the challenges but I figured I could catch up with them later in the year or when I can.  But the first challenge I actually completed was Day 11's which was to create a sculpture out of fruit

View this post on Instagram

#TheJanuaryChallenge Day 11,Fruity Friday! Make art out of fruit - print it, squash it, stack it, draw faces on it... the fruit bowl has long been inspiration behind art, today, we take it out of the bowl and get creative! Full challenge: http://dothinkshare.com/?p=22160 #64MillionArtists

A post shared by 64 Million Artists (@64millionartists) on Jan 10, 2019 at 11:00pm PST

It all started with a shrivelled Red Chilli I found in the back of the fridge.  I decided it looked like a beak.
You can see the other materials below...

Having seen the red chilli as a beak, I needed a body. I had put two Satsumas out to take with me to eat on our way out so I peeled those and placed them on top of each other like a Snowman.  

Next, I broke apart the two central segments of the top satsuma and slid the chilli stem in.

My Bird was blind so I sourced 2 peppercorns from the spicerack and precariously balanced them on top.  He (for he is definitely a 'he') looked a trifle rudimentary so I decided to fashion some wings for him out of the Satsuma peel and cut two rough triangles which I leaned against his sides.

I photographed him and was going to leave it there but it seemed cruel not to give him feet or claws so I spied CBC's grapes on the work top and snipped off some of the grape er- bark (what does one call it) and inserted them under the satsuma to resemble claws.

He looks a little like an interesting variety of Kiwi-bird!   I shall name him Kieran!

After his Photo shoot, I deconstructed him and ate my Satsumas.

What would you make out of fruit or vegetables for your sculpture?

xxx

A week of vegetables: Do I eat 10 a day?

Anca set herself a challenge based on the recent news that we should be eating 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day (see Metro here).   I was very intrigued by this and thought I would like to try and keep a log on what I was eating and see how many portions I was averaging daily.

I had a look at this NHS article on what constitutes a portion, only now (see here) and thought it would be interesting to see what I managed in the average week.  It ended up being a week and 2 days but hey ho.

Photos don't always correspond to the day as I inevitably photographed very little food, esp food at lunchtime because I don't want to be photographing my food in the staffroom as it would inevitably lead to, "Why?"...

Sunday:

Breakfast: None!
Snack: 1 apple: 1 portion.
Lunch: Scrambled eggs accompanied by mixed leaf lettuce: hopefully 1 portion!
Snack: banana, 3 cream-cheese stuffed pepperdew peppers. 1.25 portions, snack cucumber.
Dinner:  Salmon and watercress fishcakes with roasted sweet potatoes, courgetti with tomato puree, tenderstem broccoli, leeks  4 portions
3 slices of mango:  1 portion

Total:  possibly 8.5 portions.

Monday:

Breakfast: 15 grapes, 20 blueberries, 4 slices of mango: 3 portions
Lunch: Chickpea homous with mixed salad leaves and bread: 2 portions
Snack: 4 strawberries.  (2 very, very large strawberries.)- 3/4 portion
Dinner; Beef, chicken and veg Enchilladas- one of which was mixed veg plus refried beans (but don't count as I already had chickpeas) 1 portion
Glass of apple and rhubarb juice  1 portion
 Total:  7.75 portions.


Tuesday:
Breakfast: 15 grapes, 20 blueberries,  1 Satsuma:  2.5 portions 
Breaktime- 1 banana: 1 portion
Lunchtime- Homous with bread and salad leaves:  - 1.5 portion
Dinner- vegetable soup- 2 portions?

Total: 7 portions.

Wednesday:
Breakfast: 15 grapes, 20 blueberries: 2 portions
Snack: Chocolate cake in abundance: 0 portions.
Lunch: Left over Mexican vegetable rice and refried beans plus salad leaves- 2 portions
Snack: Cream-cheese-stuffed pepperdew peppers x 4: 1/2 portion?
4 strawberries: 1/2 portion
Dinner:  left over chips with tomato sauce, gherkins and Spring roll, chocolate in abundance: 0 portions.

Total:  4.5 portions- disaster!

Thursday:

Breakfast:  15 grapes, 20 blueberries: 2 portions.
apple
Lunch: Homous, bread and salad leaves - 1.5 portions.
Snack: 4 strawberries, 1 glass of apple juice, donut, cake slice: 1.5 portions
Dinner: Takeaway Beef with mixed vegetables and rice (carrots, bamboo shoots, peppers, onions, mangetout, peas), shrimp rice:  2.5 portions 

Total:  7.5 portions

Friday:

Breakfast: 10 raspberries, 15 blueberries, banana: 3 portions.
Lunch:  homous, rocket, bread: 1.5 portions
Snack: 3 strawberries, Cream-cheese-stuffed pepperdew peppers x 4: 1 portion in total
Dinner: Prawns in filo pastry, Prawn thai green curry with vegetables - 2.5 portions
Drink: 1 glass of apple juice


Total:  9 portions.

Saturday:

Breakfast:  bacon roll, 1 banana: 1 portion.
Lunch: Bread plus 1 enormous bowl of lentil, sweet potato, sundried tomato soup- 2-3 portions
Snack: chocolate bar x 2
Dinner:  1 cheese and cucumber sandwich, pork scratchings: not really any.

Total:  3-4 portions.

Sunday:
Breakfast: Scrambled egg on toast : 0 portions.
Lunch: 20 blueberries, 10 grapes, 10 raspberries- 3 portions,
Crackers with cheese and gherkins, 3 pepperdew peppers: 1/2 portion.
Snack:  Chocolate x lots
Dinner: Chicken kiev with roast potatoes, 1/2 roasted courgette, 1 leek, 3 tomatoes, broccoli: 4 portions

Total: 7.5 portions.

Monday:

Breakfast: 10 raspberries, 20 blueberries, plus multigrain hoops plus milk: 2 portions.
Lunch: instant noodles with a portion of rocket stirred in: 1 portion.
Snack: large handful of chilli peanuts, 2 plums: 1 portion.
Dinner: Pepper flatbread, vegetable stew: carrots, tomatoes, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, onions, courgette:
1/2 an avocado:  probably 4 portions total.

Total:  8 portions.

Tuesday: 
Breakfast: 2 plums, 10 grapes, 2 crackers: 2 portions.
Snack: chocolate muffin: 0 portions.
Lunch:  Beans on toast with cheese: 1 portion.
Snack: cup of chilli peanuts, 1 small pear: 0.5 portions, 2 pepperdew peppers: 0.12 portions.
Dinner:  Vegetable stew with Cavalo Nero Cabbage added:  Carrots, chickpeas (don't count), sweet potatoes, onions, courgettes, tomatoes: 5 portions

Total:  8.62 portions.


So, in conclusion, I didn't manage 10 a day once. My rough average would be about 7 I would guess  (did the calculation- in fact, 7.2 portions per day).  I could do more and I am aware that I have probably missed out several snacks and things but I did monitor my veg intake mainly.  I think it would be easy to add in the extra 3 portions by adding an apple, a pear and something like some tomatoes to my lunch or as a snack on the way home and have a glass of juice as I only did this on a few days.   I try to remember to keep a glass in the fridge at school to have at lunchtime to avoid the constant tea marathon throughout the day (not mentioned in the diary but very, very regularly...).

There were days where I was busy and didn't manage to get enough portions, mainly due to organisation but I decided last week that I would ensure I always had a breakfast by taking fruit to eat on the train and it largely worked. This is a habit I wish to continue.

Would you try the 10 a day challenge?  How many would you say you eat?

xx

Learning my ABC

I remembered a challenge that Tracy at Depth of Field and Madaboutbags was doing ages ago where she tried to take photos of letters of the alphabet in every day objects and thought I'd like to give this a go.  I've tried not to look back at Tracy's so I can think of ideas for myself.  If you'd like to join me in trying to find the alphabet in photos in everyday objects, then let me know by leaving a comment and giving me a link when you do so!
Here are my first attempts... Tracy takes AMAZING photos by the way, and I don't, so I apologise if you are expecting photographic genius!

L...


O...



B...

(tenuous but I can always find a replacement).
A...


X...

(my teacosy smiled up at me saying, "Look, I am an x!"