Whooohooo! I finally managed to have a ‘real’ drawing of one of my cats. I call this one ‘real’ because previous ones were just doodles. I used color pencil on this one.
As I expected, it was not easy. I caught her sleeping on the couch so I quickly collected a few color pencils. I drew her while she was ’sleeping’ in this position, but grrrghh!!! she moved! As usual. I tried to persuade her to go back facing the same way twice, but she didn’t want to. I lifted her up, turned her around again, but she still went back facing the other way. So I gave up. I had the basics down anyway, I only needed to work on the pattern of her fur. Now that she faced another way, I couldn’t possibly draw that side anymore. So I decided to just use the pattern on her other side. (Cheating here, but hey, I was still drawing what I saw, only not the correct side, right?). And just before I finished she decided to move again! Gggrrhhg!!! She sat and started to lick her coat. Then she decided to lied down facing the other side again (the same side when I started drawing her). Uggh!
Well, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Her fur is very difficult to draw, not only the pattern, but also the colors. I’ll probably pick an easier victim next time. May be Wasabi (solid black with a few white hairs on her neck) or Pirozjki (solid blue and white).
While I was drawing Gurami, she had one of her eyes open. She was watching me, while I was looking at and sketching her. May be she knew this and to irritate me, she just decided to move …?!
Well, I thought of submitting this drawing for the Everyday Matters Challenge #25, but it turned out that it is not exactly what the assignment says. I should have read the assignment more carefully. I drew this because I thought any object made of ‘glass’ would do. But I realized just now that it is supposed to be a ‘drinking’ glass. So I will need to search another ‘model’. This might take time. I am not sure.
Let’s talk about about food and drink then.
Ice cold beer is of course ‘delicious’ on hot summer days. And we think that it is also the best drink to go with most Asian food. It is the slightly bitter taste sometimes with just a tad of sweetness that makes beer sort of a ‘neutral’ partner to the heftily spiced asian food. Wine, on the other hand, does not always go well with ethnic food. I have read some articles about how to chose wine to go with Asian food. So it is possible to do that, and lots of Dutch do that too. However, I personally think that it is quite a tricky business, if you are not really a wine ‘expert’ (which we aren’t). The dutch drink wine to go with asian food, because it is sort of become a habit, which is learned from the French…’wine with (any) dinner’.
Chinese and Japanese food are both more neutral than South/S. East Asian food and pair better with wines. If you pick the wrong wine to go with your chinese cooking, it will probably be still ‘ok’. However, the safest choice of drink to go with any asian food, in my opinion, will be 1. water (of course!), 2. cold beer.
I find that beer and food from the same country of origin sort of complement one another. Chinese food and TsingTao, Japanese with Asahi/Sapporo, etc. But this kind of beers can sometimes be very expensive. Generally (standard) Heineken, Amstel, Dommelsch, Grolsch, Palm, Bavaria, and Hoegaarden go well with any Asian food, especially with BBQ, e.g. Sate Ayam Ponorogo (see previous post).
… or Chicken Satay or Kipsate…the best one there is.
Everyday Matters Challenge #12
A couple of weeks ago, when the weather was really great, we ate chicken satay almost everyday for dinner. It is quite easy to make and once you get the meat on the sticks, you can keep them in the fridge for a few days. With or without marinade. Right after we got home from work, we only had to start the grill (gas bbq), took some of the satay sticks out of the fridge (kept the rest there for the next day), grilled it, and voila! They were ready within 5-10 minutes. So easy and relaxing for weekdays cooking. However, I did have to assemble the meat and the sticks in the weekend. It can be time consuming! Here is the recipe if you’d like to try:
Ingredients
- Chicken breast/filet. Cut up into small cubes or long thin slices. (For cubes: the key words here are small and/or thin. This will make it cook faster and tastier than big cubes. Put a maximum of 5 small cubes on 1 bamboo stick. For slices: 1 slice per stick. Slices could be less time consuming than cubes when it comes to the assembling the satay).
- Bamboo sticks for satay, amount as needed
Grill dip saus
- 2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon peanut/corn/sunflower oil
Roll or dip each satay stick in this dip sauce right before grilling. This sauce can also be used as a marinade. When use as a marinade, multiply the amount as needed.
Sauce/condiment
- fresh small chillies as many as how hot you want it to be, cut up in pieces
- shallots, in slices
- a few tablespoons of sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
- 1 teaspoon peanut/corn/sunflower oil
Mix all ingredients together in a small plate. If the condiment is still a bit thick, add a few drops of water to thin it out a bit.
Serve the satay with cooked (jasmine) rice. Add a few drops of the condiment onto the rice, mix it a bit, dip your satay also in the condiment….and Yummmmm!!!! Start eating!!! The shallots and chilli slices are also meant to be eaten, but of course, only if you dare  . Shallots are probably OK for most people.
Note: The recipe is based on real Indonesian kitchen, authentic Indonesian cuisine. Even we can’t find a restaurant in the Netherlands that serves satay as good as this one. At least not in our opinion.
Everyday Matters Challenge #24
As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, the tree actually belongs to my downstairs neighbor. It does not have enough space to grow horizontally, as in a vineyard. So it decides to grow vertically and raids our balcony. One of the tips has actually reached another balcony, on the other side of our living room. It’s been growing really hard and I believe some parts of it has already reached its maximum length (about 20 m or so from the tree). Those parts are just growing new leaves and branches, but not fruit. The grapes are still unripe and very young. Hans, our neighbor, does not mind if we harvest the grapes hanging on our balcony, when they are ready. Very nice of him. So, Nor enthusiastically takes care of the plant daily. He acts like he really knows about grapes and the tree. Trimming and grooming it. I just hope that he does not overgroom it. Sometimes he’ll says, ‘Wow, it feels like we live in Provence’… Yeah, right! I told him that I needed some grapes for this challenge. So I would need to cut some off the tree. He turned and looked a bit surprised, ‘Are you serious??!!’ Of course not!  . So my model is still free, very much alive and hanging from the tree, as you can see. He has about a month or so, before his time is up and then…
Yep…. Here we go again! Another passenger in the train. But this time since I had to stand all the way to Utrecht Centraal, I could draw my model from another angle. The advantage of this angle is that my model was looking another way. So we were not face to face. I could sketch him like mad, keep looking at him, continue scribbling, and he was oblivious to everything. The Mac helped of course. He was so busy working with his Power Book. On top of that he was wearing headphone and sunglasses. He was totally absorbed in what he was doing. The minus point is that standing in the train is always quite tiring.
Finally! I drew my foot last night for Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge (#23). Something terrible happened though…
I did this sketch while I was half laying in bed. I used dip pen and Bruynzeel waterproof ink. I put the ink bottle on my night stand and kept dipping in the pen whenever it ran out of ink. But you can guess already what happened. I was so focused on the drawing and getting more ink, that I was oblivious that the ink dripped on my bed sheet. Right after I finished, I turned around and put back the cap of the ink bottle, then I saw it….Sh#@! I thought. Big blob of black ink on my bed and of course it went through the bed sheet. And another one on the floor…and another one on the nightstand. Grrghhhh!!!! I should have been more careful! I just hope now that it will go away when I put some Bio-Tech on it and then wash it. Never had a waterproof ink drop anywhere. So one plus point: at least a new experience….
Note: Proportion-wise, the foot is just a tad shorter than the real version.
A study of a leaf and a piece of dried grass from the park nearby my office.
Duivendrecht is a somewhat weird train/metro station. It is built around the late 80’s or very early 90’s. It is modern, but nowadays it feels a bit dated. The design team was/is really proud of it (of course!), and I do know these guys. Why do they think so? Because it was the first station in NL that had two levels of tracks. The tracks cross each other but on different level. Both levels are above ground. On the top level, the ‘island’ platform are sandwich between the train tracks and the metro lines (in the middle). The station is the major transfer point for people going to Schiphol Airport or the center of Amsterdam. Blah blah…etc..etc…I personally think that it is time to remodel the whole think and the NS/goverment should put more money on maintenance.
My simple sketch shows what is on one side of the station as seen from platform 8 on the upper level. I believe it is the side of downtown Duivendrecht. My effort on the tree failed horribly. Now I hate it because I think it attracks too much attention. But it’s just a sketch, I had fun doing it. I will draw what’s on the other sides of the station sometimes. I believe I did one which shows the Amsterdam Arena stadium, but I might just give that one another try as well.
The view on the opposite side of the church is really quite mind boggling….a huge flyover (for the train again) built right on top of a golf course. Just imagine your own golf course with humongous concrete pillars that makes the players look like dwarfs. It’s enough to ruin anybody’s attemp on relaxation, I say. Not too mention the train and the dB level of the sound it produces when ‘flying’ top speed above the players’ head. It’s amazing that I still see people play there. It makes me wonder what attracts them to this particular golf course.
While I was waiting for the hybrid metro #51 to arrive, I saw this Porta Potti standing across the street from the metro station. They are doing some maintenance on the rail, but by looking at the amount of new steel tracks, they are probably going to replace the current tracks. So this Boels Porta Potti is placed there exclusively for these workers.
I am not sure when they are going to finish with the work. I do hope that it’s really soon, because the station is now only accessible from one side. This means that I have to walk around it all the time to get to the station or to my office. It’s not that far but an inconvenience.
Yesterday during lunch, I went to Kruidvat to get some bandaid/plaster. I bought 2 boxes of Betadine bandaid that contains anti-septic. We are almost running out of them at home. I think this supply will get us through ’till the end of the remodeling and the summer.
Nor has quite a few scratches and cuts as result of the construction work he does at home. Me, I have quite a few scratches on my arm as well….caused by Joseph-Guy a.k.a. Joey, our silver Maine Coon. Joey just hates being groomed. When he is sleepy, it’s ok with him. So I usually start when he is asleep…slowly combing softly…And then tsjaakk! He grabs one of my arm, which is holding the brush with his front paws and sometimes he tries to kick my arm, etc…etc… Well, the result of these ‘cat fights’ is that I have scratches on my arms almost every week. But he really needs to be groomed, especially in the summer. He sheds and he has matted coat if we don’t groom him nearly everyday. But hey…I love my cats, I just have to withstand this till the end of the summer with Betadine bandaid and Detol liquid antiseptic.
I am trying to draw more people. I can tell you that it is very difficult. It is difficult enough to master the contour, but for me, I think it is more difficult to draw people without them noticing. I already have a few pages of aborted sketches. Mostly because the person keeps moving, which makes him/her very tough to draw. When they stay put long enough, I can tell that they can feel my eyes on them. A few stared back at me, which made me very uncomfortable. Usually when they catch me staring, I just don’t look up from my sketch book anymore or look else where and try to draw from my memory. So that’s why there are a couple of people sketches, which were drawn when I sat behind them.
Yesterday, it happened again. My model, a guy, who sat facing me but a few rows further, noticed that I was sketching him. He stared back at me and scrutinized me in return. I stopped right away, and found another model or part of her. There was a toddler sitting on her mom’s lap one row ahead but across the aisle. I believe she was sleeping. Her feet wearing cute little white shoes were sticking out over the arm of the seat and in clear view. So it was easy to draw. So I just drew her little feet.
An old tube of HEMP lotion from The Body Shop. I have this for a few years now, and still can’t empty it. However the tube has many dents already, which kinda interesting to draw it. But I think my drawing is not that successful. I probably should have used pencils instead of pens.
I just have too many beauty stuffs at home. Lots of bottles or tubes or jars of lotion or body milk or cream can be found in my bedroom. When the remodeling is finished, I can then rearrange my collection of stuffs and count how many of bottles of lotion I have. That would be about another 3 months or so… I hope.
Een trein van de Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS).
Everyday Matters Challenge #4 Mugs & Cups
My package arrived this morning! YAY!!
I have done some research on some art supplies stores, both online and local ‘real’ stores. Unfortunately, there is not one store in Holland that offers all products in my shopping list. So through the Everyday Matters group, I got some names and links to online stores outside the Netherlands. I finally decided to order the products at Jerry’s Artarama. It seems like they are the cheapest one. I read their customer service page and information about shipping carefully. Put all selected products in the shopping cart, registered payment method, filled in address, and chose ‘the Netherlands’ as country. It all went OK, I even got an e-mail confirmation 2 minutes after I ordered. Next day, I checked out my order status online and freaked out because suddenly ‘United States’ was listed as the country of the shipping address instead of ‘the Netherlands’. I just got to call them to make sure that they would ship it to the right country. After telling a customer representative my order number, she dropped the news. My order has been canceled. CANCELED????? ( what is she talking about? I got a confirmation. Under order status on the website right in front of me, while calling, says that payment method is accepted. So how can it be CANCELED????) I didn’t cancel it. ‘No mam, we just no longer ship to the Netherlands’ Since WHEN? The website does not specifically mention anything about shipping to the Netherlands (Ok, I was half yelling and felt irritated, frustrated, etc. etc but I am not going to repeat the whole conversation here)….Finally she said that the supervisor would send me an e-mail confirming that I am not going to receive my order ad that my credit card will not be billed. Feeling very annoyed, I filled in a feedback form on their website and just wrote down my rants. Today, I got 2 e-mail replies from Jerry from two different representatives. One mentioned that the reason they do not ship to Holland anymore is because the high credit card theft that has came from here. (I am not aware of this at all. No news here regarding credit card theft. So I personally think this is just made up). The second mentioned that they do ship to NL but only if the payment is via money order or cashier check. (This make a bit more sense to me, although the reason behind it is a bit dubious. But it is not my concern). Well, if that is the condition, then they should have mentioned that on their website and also to which other countries this condition applies!
After this annoying experience, I decided to order at Dick Blick. I made sure that I called them first to confirm that they do ship to NL. And yay, they do. Now I am waiting for them to contact me about the shipping cost and to get my approval, then the products are on their way. Hopefully they do that soon and that the process will go smoothly.
They (NS, the dutch railway) should really work on their schedule better! When they say maintenance on the rail begins on July 1…then it should start on July 1 not late afternoon on June 30! I was stranded in Duivendrecht until 9.30 pm because of them!!!!
Hulpmiddelen bij het verven…daar hebben we een hele stapel van…
We just came back from watching War of the Worlds.
It’s been an emotionally draining week for me at the office. And in trying to get rid off some left over thoughts and get ready for the weekend, we went to the movie. Besides, I had a coupon from Albert Heijn too that was valid a ticket for whichever film we choose to see. So we decided to go and see War of the Worlds.
I have never actually read the book, nor have I heard the radio show,etc. So I had no expectation or knowledge whatsoever of the movie. So how did I find the movie?
It is quite impressive: the earthquakes when the machines jump out the earth, the facade of the church which is moved to the side, people turn to dust in a blink of an eye, …
It is quite disgusting: the machines suck up human blood, spray it on earth surface as some sort of fertilizer, that part of the machine that suck up the next victim from the cage right under it (to me, it looks like an anus with Tom Cruise hanging from it…YUCK!), ….
It is quite confusing. Some parts just do not make sense to me. OK, as usual I am overanalyzing things. I kept saying to myself and Nor, when we were in our car, that it was just a movie. A fantasy movie. But I just could not help myself…So if people disperse and turn to dust when they got hit by the laser beam, why are their clothes remained intact floating in the air? When I saw lots of jeans flying right after their owners turned to dust, I thought that it would be a great ad for a jeans brand e.g. Levis. Next, if the Mars-men are so intelligent and managed to plant machines under our feet million years ago, why couldn’t they figure out back then that some bacteria could wipe them out? Strange, some research might have helped…Oh well, it’s just a movie…so I’ll stop analyzing.
Note: I drew the sketch above using my powerbook, photoshop, no wacom, no mouse. It’s sort of a ‘finger painting’.
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