Green Tea Panna Cotta

Adapted from a BBC Food recipe

The other day, I decided that I wanted to make something with green tea in, so I scoured the internets and found a recipe for panna cotta. I had some Vege Gel (vegetarian gelatine) left over from making jelly for a vegetarian friend, so I thought I would have a go at adapting the recipe to make it veggie-safe.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
- Half a sachet of Vege Gel (one sheet of leaf gelatine)
- 50ml milk
- 200ml double cream
- 2 heaped tablespoons sugar
- 1 green tea teabag (I used green tea with peach infusion)
- Generous sprinkling of cinnamon

Directions:
1. Grease two ramekins with sunflower oil.
2. Add milk, cream, sugar, teabag, cinnamon and Vege Gel to a saucepan and mix.
3. Heat the mixture at a low temperature and graduaally bring it to a boil, then remove it from the heat.
4. Pour into ramekins and leave to cool.
5. Chill for at least four hours in the fridge.

Various Drawings

Don't worry, I haven't given up on the 30-day challenge yet...just struggling to find a photo to work from. In the meantime, have some other drawings:

This is a zebra. I have some calligraphy pens that I use very rarely; turns out they are good for zebra stripes.

I was discussing opticians with some friends and someone came up with Optic Ian. Two things to note from the these photos: 1) I really must work on getting limbs in proportion 2) My figures would probably look better with shadows under their feet, rather than floating in mid-air.

Here is a rolly man. He is rolling off this page and telling you to come too, because it contains disaster dragons and a lame llama.

I met up with a friend in Boston Tea Party just now and I took my sketchbook along. After the aforementioned fail page of creatures, I decided to draw something I could actually see, so this is a little teapot that had Darjeeling tea in. Drawn only in 5B pencil, because changing pencils is too much effort, or something.

Finally, a creative-technical-type friend of mine discovered an interesting website that allows you to earn skill patches for real-life skills. While some of the challenges seem restrictive, I am tempted to try out a couple so I have a starting point to work from, but I really should finish the 30-day challenge first.

30-Day Art Challenge - Day #2: Draw a figure from a reference

Challenge details

After about an hour crowdsourcing ideas for who to draw (no thanks to you, BUNCS - Spongebob Squarepants is NOT a person), I settled on Gendry from Game of Thrones, but I couldn't find a suitable photo. I ended up with this but he was doing something funny with his eyes and I was sick of looking for pictures so I decided to draw Arya Stark instead.

The figure itself wasn't too difficult, aside from the heavy jacket, but it was a real challenge making the face look like Arya. First it looked like some kind of teenage version of her, so I scrapped that and redrew it. I still don't think it's quite right, but it'll have to do. I think it was just difficult to draw a face so small, since I am used to drawing portraits of people that only include the face. In addition, I usually draw men so transitioning to drawing a girl was a bit odd. Anyway, here she is:



Looking at it now, the shoulder is also a bit wonky, but her clothing pretty much covers her figure up so much that it is hard to distinguish what is going on.

Let's Get Down to Business

Business...busy-ness. Get it?

Ahem. I'll see myself out.

Back in London now to look after the small person while mum does jury service. I will resume the drawing challenge tomorrow. Yesterday was a bit hectic with packing and seeing people and today was mostly spent on trains reading Game of Thrones.

I've signed up for a couple of Coursera courses that start on Monday and the Monday after, so we'll see how those go.

Finally, I've booked my tickets to go to Belgium to see a friend who did an Erasmus year at Bristol when I was in first year, yay!

30-Day Art Challenge - Day #1: Self-portrait

Challenge details
First day, and I did this at silly am because who needs to go to bed early when you haven't got anything to get up for? I drew this from a photograph. Max is a giant cat that belongs to my cousins. I went for this mainly because I like kitties, so an actual cat in my self-portrait is perfect :D I got a bit bored after drawing the face and went scribbly, which has led to an inconsistency in detail - not the intended effect.

I'm not entirely sure how to approach this challenge. I mainly draw with pencil or a fine felt-tip pen, but the styles I use for each method of working are quite different. If I want to improve, I feel that I should use the same medium for all the challenges, but but but I want to draw with a pen as well! I could do both, but I'm far too lazy for that, so I think I'll stick with pencil for now and perhaps find a different challenge to do with pen at a later date.

Drawing

I need more inspiration, so I've decided to do a 30-day art challenge.

Typing

Due to the cable on my gaming mouse dying, I am currently using an ambidextrous mouse that isn't nearly as comfortable. Combined with the bizarre way in which I type, I am now putting an awful lot of strain on my right index finger. While touch typing involves using all of your fingers to cover the entire keyboard, I use my right index finger to cover just over half the keyboard, leaving my left hand to add in letters that are just too far for my right hand to reach. I also type at around 80wpm, going up to 100wpm at full speed. Given that my poor finger is doing most of the work, my joints are not too happy with me at the moment.

To take some of the load off, I decided to learn to touch type properly. This is currently not working too well, as I am now typing at around 15wpm. It is also incredibly frustrating to be forced to type at a much slower speed than I am used to, so I keep finding myself reverting to my old method, but switching in my middle finger. This isn't ideal either, as I will just end up putting too much strain on a different joint. It seems that I have muscle memory in my whole right hand, enabling me to type with any one of my fingers in addition to using my left hand. I've been typing like this for over 10 years now, so this is a pretty difficult habit to break.

I am going to keep on practising touch typing and hopefully I can get up to at least half of my original typing speed by the end of next week...and then in May I will be sent a replacement for my mouse so I will have significantly reduced the stress on my finger. I am fairly sure it's the combination of using this old mouse and my unusual typing style that has led to the joint pain, so eliminating at least one of the factors will hopefully be enough. I don't really want to do myself any permanent damage, especially as I play guitar and piano, so if I can get my touch typing speed up (to speed...heh) I'll be a lot happier.

In other news, I've been quiet since I was away visiting family in NYC and Kansas. It was good fun and really great to meet some cousins closer to my age. Since I've returned to Bristol I have played many board games and I am getting through my list of tasks to do.

Today I Learned: Walking Edition

Today I went for a walk. Not just any walk though, a "brisk walk"! Under doctor's orders, I will be doing more exercise, so after dismissing the idea of sneezing into the UBU swimming pool for an hour, I took my doctor's suggestion of going for a walk.

Now, I regularly walk around Bristol, but I was told it had to be 30 minutes of "brisk" walking to bring my heart rate up. I wondered to myself, since I already walk much faster than the average person, does that not count? I suppose not, as it doesn't make me break out into a sweat, which is what Dr G said should happen. So...I plotted a vague route, taking in the popular joggers' spot of Durdham Downs, checked the temperature outside and set off.

It was awful. Truly, truly awful. The one thing I didn't account for was wind chill. Looking at a couple of websites, three layers were recommended for walking, but I'd only gone for two, which definitely didn't help. Walking across the flat downs with gusts of wind attacking me was pretty bad, so I detoured down some residential roads. In addition to the other ailments that plague me, I have asthma triggered by cold (among other things), so that just amped up the pain factor. Luckily, I had the good sense to take my inhaler, so it wasn't too bad.

Aside from being uncomfortable, it was rather dull. I took to jogging for a few minutes to break the monotony. As pleasant as the streets in the Syned Park area are, walking down them just isn't that interesting.


So, what did I learn?
1. Check the wind chill factor before going outdoors.
2. Three layers!
3. Residential roads are less painful than the Downs.
4. As soon as I shake off this everlasting cold, it's time to start swimming again.

Watercolours

Right, I've been suffering from some sort of dreaful lurgy on-and-off over the last month, hence the delay in updating. I am currently tucked up in bed reading the entire internet and feeling rubbishy, unfortunately.

A few weeks ago, I started a painting class at Bristol Folk House to fill up my time. The main focus is botanical watercolours, so we started off drawing flowers and went on to painting flowers and leaves. I've mainly used acrylics before, so this is fairly different, plus the delicate nature of watercolours is somewhat at odds with my scribble-madly-all-over-the-place style. That said, it's good fun and I am enjoying being in a classroom, makes a nice change from the impersonal lectures I've had for the last few years.

This is the first painting I did, of a closed-up rose. I took my rose home in the hope it would open up a bit so I could practise...it sort of did, but the centre remained steadfastly closed, which was a shame.

The second painting is of the same rose, after the outer petals fell away a bit. Posted it to mum for mothers' day; she was pleased with it!

Not final year!

Hello Internet! It's definitely time for an update...I've left my course for various reasons, which means I will be graduating in July with a BSc in Computer Science (oh my, I actually have a degree now). I haven't written anything for a while, but I'm currently working on the latest edition of Rebellious Jukebox for Intuition, so that will be out in a couple of weeks.

So, what am I actually doing with my life? At the moment I'm volunteering at an Oxfam bookshop in Bristol and I'll be starting a watercolour painting class next week. I also need to get some driving lessons, which I'm sure will be terrifying on the ridiculous hills of Bristol. I'm treating this as a gap year of sorts, with the intention of starting a different masters course in September or going into the scary world of work and becoming a real person.

I've done a little bit of drawing to break in my new sketchbook but it hasn't made it onto my computer yet, so that will appear online eventually. In the meantime, have a digital drawing of a quetzal. I have a small backlog of photographs from Christmas to sort through as well. My 40D is currently still in London due to me being far too small to carry things on trains so I haven't taken many photos since my A700 is slowly dying. I'm plodding through a roll of film but the awful weather recently has made me shy away from using up colour exposures on drab photos taken out of my window.

Right, now I'm going to wallow in my dressing gown and play Pokemon Pinball (yes, I got my old Gameboy Colour out of storage) as I have a terrible cold so I can't bear the though of going outdoors today.

Final year!

O hai all, I've been mega-busy over summer working at Nokia in Bristol, as a member of their web team and I've just started the final year of my undergrad MEng in Computer Science.

I have been writing sporadically; my latest article for Intuition is the singles roundup for October, Rebellious Jukebox. If you go to UoB, I've reviewed the newest Rolo Tomassi album in the latest issue of Epigram, so check that out. I'll put the words up on here soon. I also edited the Science section of the first Epigram of the year, although I've unfortunately had to step down from my position as deupty Science & Tech editor due to course commitments. So much reading! I am now way more knowledgeable about copyright and patent law than I used to be. Now I'm not on the UBU Photosoc committee, I hope to have more time to make photos, so stay tuned for updates.

(Oh, I also updated my personal website in a < 24h rush job, which I'm quite pleased with. Yay for learning skills over summer.)

"Recent" words

Realised I haven't been updating this with actual words, so here are a few links to some writing I've done:

Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood of Colour
City and Colour - Little Hell
Saves the Day - Daybreak

I've been co-hosting a weekly technology news show since October; you can catch up with the podcast if you are so inclined.

In terms of gigs, February is looking pretty good. Tomorrow, I'm seeing Brand New, which should be amazing and wonderful. Then next week I've got Errors and Pulled Apart By Horses lined up...and it's not just music as I'm seeing Chris Addison on Friday!

Oh yes, photos have been happening as well, so I'll post some longer entries soon with some pictures, or you can check out my Flickr in the meantime.