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‘If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.’ Abraham Lincoln.

Stories from my Sketchbook  . . . 

coffee-and-tea-clip-artThe most popular drink in the world, bar none, is water.  The second most popular drink in the world, depending on which set of on-line statistics you believe, is either tea or coffee. (I don’t quite understand how red wine is not in the running, but there you go . . . )

Anyway, during the day at least, I am (unapologetically) a tea drinker, and green tea at that.  I drink vats of the stuff.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t like coffee, I do—my special treat when I go to the movies is a large flat white coffee (and a bag of maltesers)—but, to me, coffee is coffee is coffee.  I am, in no way shape or form, a coffee aficionado.  It doesn’t make much difference to me what kind of roast or blend my coffee is.  As long as my coffee is hot, it’s fine.  (I can hear coffee-lovers heads exploding all over the place after that comment . . . )

However, it appears that even my special once-in-a-while coffee treat could now be in jeopardy—apparently there is a coffee crisis looming.  In September 2016 the Australia’s Climate Institute released a report which predicts that by 2050 global warming will have made at least half of the land currently used for coffee production unable to produce quality beans.  And by 2080 hot temperatures could make wild coffee plants completely extinct.

As I am only an occasional imbiber (along with the fact that I will be 91 years old in 2050 and 121 when wild coffee plants eventually become extinct) such a coffee crisis is unlikely to affect me much personally, but I thought I should probably make mention of it . . . just a kind of ‘heads up’ to some of my coffee-addicted friends and colleagues to let them know that their beloved brew is in peril, and they might need to do a little forward thinking—a little pre-planning (start hoarding now folks) if they want to ensure they continue to receive their daily hit of their favourite beverage . . .

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I’ve just had a thought.
If I took my own pretty coffee mug into the cinema with me, no-one would really know what was in it would they?
It could be coffee . .  or tea . . .  or red wine . . . 

 
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Posted by on October 18, 2016 in Uncategorized

 

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‘I always like toast in a crisis.’ James Goss.

Stories from my Sketchbook . . .

toast2This week one of my art homework exercises from SketchBookSkool was to draw toast.  Seriously. Toast.  But not just any old quick sketch of toast.  This was an exercise in slowing down.   (The class I am doing at the moment is called ‘Seeing’.)   We were to really look at that toast. Take our time.  Draw ‘every fissure . . . every nook and cranny . . . every peak and valley’.   Mmmmm . . . .

It turned out to be an interesting, and difficult, exercise.  The first problem I encountered was that I discovered it was extraordinarily hard to focus on drawing toast when all I really wanted to do was eat it.  I don’t think I had noticed before just how mouthwateringly good raisin toast smells.  I wasn’t even hungry when I started the drawing, but by the time I was finished (and the toast was cold and hard and horrid) I was ravenous.  Sigh.

Toast-B&WAnd then, as I progressed, I found that as I drew more and more ‘nooks and crannies, valleys and peaks’ the drawing started to look less and less like toast and more and more like random scribbles on a page (see right).  The teacher’s example of their black and white drawing was entirely recognisable as toast—mine less so.   (Although I admit, It looked a little more like toast when I added colour, and a lot more like toast after I added the lettering . . . )

Nevertheless, in spite of the result, I think I am going to try this approach again.  I really enjoyed the focus that it demanded—to really looking ‘inside’ what I was drawing.  I liked getting lost in the process.

Although perhaps next time I will try drawing something other than food.  I found looking up from the drawing and having my gaze drawn relentlessly to the three tiny little black noses stretched up and sniffing along the edge of the table really screwed with my concentration . . .

RaisinToast

 P.S.  The ‘toast in a crisis’ quote struck me as quite apt as the  SBS server crashed over the weekend and they have been madly scrambling doing upgrades and fixes trying to get it up and running again.

 
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Posted by on August 9, 2016 in Uncategorized

 

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