So Lucky

I"m so lucky to be able to spent two weeks for a holiday in Florida, Bonita Springs, with my family. All these vibrant and sunny colors. I'm sure in time all the things I've experienced here will be an inspiration for my drawings!

All Food Things in Life

Isn't it true that all good things in life are free, as they say? Or cost just a little money? Today, well yesterday as I am typing this on a sleepless night, I made a Malaysian noodlesoup I suddenly felt like making as I read this recipe on Pinterest. It looked so appealing, I just had to make it. And, if one has to keep on drawing, one has to feed herself properly ;-).

Recipe:

 Veggie laksa

serves 3

Laksa is a wonderful coconut milk based noodle soup that hails from Malaysia. These days you can get commercial laska or other Thai curry pastes that take all the hard work out of it.

I’ve used Singapore noodles in this recipe which are a fine version of fresh hokkien noodles but I have eaten laksa with rice noodles and even a combination of the two so feel free to substitute.

I’ve cheated a little on the 5 ingredient rule by including ‘mixed chopped vegetables’ as a single ingredient. I actually used a carrot, a zucchini and a red pepper, all cut into little batons. Chicken laksa is also really popular. Prawn or shrimps are lovely cooked in the spicy fragrant coconut broth.

3/4lb (350g) fresh Singapore noodles
2oz (60g) Laksa paste or other Thai curry paste
1 large can (1 1/2 cups) coconut cream
2 cups mixed chopped vegetables (see note above)
handful fresh basil leaves

Place noodles in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for 1 minute then massage to loosen into individual strands. Drain.

Meanwhile heat 2 tablespoons of peanut or other vegetable oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add curry paste and stir fry for 30 seconds. Quickly add coconut cream and 2 cups boiling water. Bring to the boil and add vegetables. Simmer for 2 minutes or until vegetables are cooked to your liking.

To serve, divide noodles between 3 bowls. Pour over soup and vegetables and top with basil leaves.

I used french beans and yellow and red pepper as vegetables in my soup and a green curry paste. Next time I will add some extra chopped red pepper to make it a bit more spicy and maybe carrot instead of the french beans.

Playfulness

This is my entry for Andrea Hiltbrunners blogchallenge (http://dreamheartsmartart.blogspot.ch/2012/12/blogchallenge-playfulness.html) The theme for today was 'Playfulness'. My little penguin feels like having fun today, and just wants to play around :-).

Sunday Drawing

I'm in my pencil and coloured pencil phase. :-)

Drawing and determination

Faces always seem to keep inspiring me. I still feel that I am in my practicing and experimenting phase with my drawing. I've always loved drawing since I a was a little girl. You could always find me drawing or reading ;-). It's only since the beginning of this year that I really got the drawing-craziness, I have to do it all the time, where in the years I grew up and was grown up, it was just something I did ocassionally. Somehow, I always had the idea that people who could draw, just did it, put a few lines on paper, and voila, there was a perfect drawing. Now I know it takes a lot of practise and determination to get better at it. Except maybe for the real great artists like Rembrandt, maybe he could really capture something in just one try. But still, he practised, by drawing too.

I look at other peoples work that inspires me a lot and I try to draw similar things myself. I always keep Leonardo Da Vinci quote in mind:

"If one knows how to copy, one knows how to do it."

I only begin to get the feeling right now, that experimenting and practising is becoming to pay off. When I draw I start to be able to "nail it"  in a drawing directly, where before I liked the drawings I made, but it was still a coincidence when a dawing was right and there where always things I saw, that I could become better at, and I thought about: well, this or that you could do better in a next drawing. Now, I start to get lucky more often and get it right in one time. Still, I want to develop my own style, that's my next wish! :-) and become much better in all kind of techniques, because there's still so much to learn. I'm also following very inspiring drawing and concept lessons at a studio in the town I live in.

When I was working on this drawing, I was amazed that I really did it in this one, and the drawing just happened, without much 'sweat' and erasing, it's just there and I like it!

The first picture is a photo, the second one a scan. My scanner isn't quite big enough for a drawing on A3 size,  I discovered and my photographing and photoshop skills could be much better. This is what I don't like, I want to quickly be able to post a drawing on my blog, but it takes time and adjustments to get it about right, but still, the presentation could be better. I have to find a way to fix this problem because I don't like to spend a lot of time figuring all these things out, adusting etc etc. I just want to draw, not photograph, photoshop, scan etc etc! :-)

Deer

Drawing a Deer. A Deer, for me symbolic for innocence, pureness and vulnerability. And writer Emily Dickinsons said the smartest and most beautiful, true things.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I've been around, blogging. I haven't been drawing for a while, but last week I started this drawing as an assignment for my drawing lessons. We had to find work and images that inspired us and create something, using the chosen images as an inspiration.

The drawing is still work in progress, I'm planning to add some details. I"ll take it to my drawing lessons and ask my teacher for advice.

The photo of the drawing of the girl seems a little bit skew (don't know if this is the right English word to use in this context?) but that's because the paper crinkled a bit because of the water and ink. The drawing itself is less skew in reality ;-).

Visual Storytelling

I am following drawing lessons once a week. I'm following these lessons at Studio Kolectiv: http://cargocollective.com/studiokolectiv. The past few weeks I've been working on what has to become a three-piece. We had to think of a way to tell a visual story in three pieces. Old, sepia coloured photographs and stories taking place a few centuries ago, always speak to me. The kind of victorian stories, Charles Dickens style...I feel attracted to this kind of darker, melancholic period in history. Old, dampy, foggy streets in London.....

For this assignment for my drawing lessons, I came up with a story (really happened) I found on the internet about an orphan girl and her brother who were left by their mother at an orphanage after their father died. All this taking place around about the year 1800.

In these first two drawings I tried to visualize the loneliness surrounding this story about two children left by their mother. I did some research on the internet, looking for an image of an old chair and looked for old childrens-pictures to use as a reference.

The third piece of this what is now still is a two-piece ;-), I'm still thinking about. This will follow hopefully. It's done in ink and faber-castell fineliners.

" Light Up " : Instant Happiness

Just Stand Tall

A drawing I made yesterday. I felt like drawing a tree. I often like to add some symbolic words to a drawing. 'Just stand tall' in this case. Stay strong, and keep standing straight up, no matter what happens. Just like an old tree does, for decades. And in case you were wondering what that colourful paper on the bottom right side is....writing my name in ink went wrong so I covered the mess up with a colourful piece of paper....creative right? ;-).

Red Wine Label in action

Here's my wine label in action on the red wine container in Portugal! I blogged about this before, you can read more about it here:

http://estherlankhaar.blogspot.nl/2012/10/red-and-white-wine.html

Still Playing Around

I'm still playing around with my blog's layout! This is how it looks now. :-). Decided to use my Coco Chanel drawing as a picture for my header. But things can change again......You can read about this drawing here: 

http://estherlankhaar.blogspot.nl/2012/06/result-of-last-few-drawing-lessons-for.html

Winter Time Fun

I've been having some fun with a photo-app on my Iphone. Look at the the result, with my own 'Winter Time' illustration. I like it! The app I did this with is called DecoSama.

Be Who You Are

A New Header

I've been working on and experimenting with my blog's header. I had to find out how I could get the image to fit the width of the blog, taking pictures of it and scanning it. Just to figure out which one will give the best result. I find it kind of hard to get the colours right, both by photographing and scanning. The way it looks now it reflects the 'handmade'. I hope this is charming.....:-).