Wednesday 4 May 2011

Time's Up! Pastel Under Pressure

I decided today that I was going to see what would happen if I attempted to draw a picture in 15 minutes.  Would I create a masterpiece or a disaster of pastellic proportions? 

All I knew is that I had to come up with a way of ensuring that I stuck to my self imposed time limit.  Unfortunately a couple of issues emerged:
  1. I don't own a stop watch, and
  2. It was time to cook dinner.  
Hmmm..... Thinking.....

A-Ha - Solution!

I don't own a stop watch, however I do like to multi-task. (Why do one thing at a time when you can do two?)  As such, I decided that I would draw a gerbera simultaneously whilst cooking oven baked Fish & Chips for my children's dinner. 

This way, you see, I could utilise the oven's in-built timer as both my cooking and my creating time keeper.  (And because I knew that ignoring the oven's beeps at fifteen minutes to cheat and keep on drawing would have an automatic "Kate burnt the dinner" punishment imposed.)

Whilst the oven was heating, I gathered my supplies - black paper, pastels and brushes.

Once heated, I then put the fish in the oven, set the timer for 9 minutes, ran to the kitchen table and set about creating.   (In case you are wondering, fish takes longer to cook than chips.)  Here's my first quickie picture:


Quickie Gerbera #1 - 9 minutes - Fish

I then put the chips in the oven and set the alarm for another 6 minutes for the chips:

Quickie Gerbera #2 - 6 minutes - Chips

Sorry everyone - the oven timer started to beep that 15 minutes was up before I could draw the floral equivalent of salad and tartare sauce.

(Yes, in case you are wondering, I did have to then cook the chips for an extra 12 minutes following the completion of my challenge to ensure they were golden brown and edible.  A mere 6 minutes in the oven would have resulted in a dinner comprising of Fish and 'Soggy, Semi-defrosted Mounds of Starch'.)

I surprised myself by enjoying this little challenge.  I think it was because it forced me to think "big picture" and not get all caught up in the detail, which I sometimes tend to do. 

I think I might just try it again in the future - any other suitable dinner suggestions?

2 comments:

  1. I have just found your blog via SS and wanted to say that your blog looks good and you have some lovely art there, doing well.
    Oh and that is quite an idea with the drawing the gerbera whilst cooking the kids tea. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Jan! I'm glad you found me and that you like my art.

    I'm finding that I'm having to come up with inventive ways to be creative whilst caring for the kids. I'm thinking I may try a "load of washing challenge" in the next week or so. ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you very much for reading and taking the time to comment. I get so excited and love reading what you have to say!