Leana de Villiers Art: Day 32 To Day 38 Of Lock-down

Day 32 - Monday (27 April 2020)

Well, what can I say, today I really was not a happy chappy as I woke up with a migraine.

These are cervicogenic migraines. To give you a little bit of a background. Since 2009 I have had two neck operations. First one was due to an motorcar accident and my neurosurgeon did a prosthetic disc replacement. Nine months later I had an injury on duty which caused the prosthetic disc to break out of the bone and my neurosurgeon did a fusion. Ever since then it depends on what I do, I would get these migraines.

So the cause of this migraine was sitting in front of the sewing machine making the masks and then most of the next day I spend in the kitchen making biscuits, chocolate brownies and flatbread. I should actually know better by now and to give at least one day break in between.

Anyhow, the entire day was spend lying down on the bed today and I have not been able to shake off the migraine.

Day 33 - Tuesday (28 April 2020)

Woke up today to my second day of the migraine still being present, thankfully not as bad as it was yesterday. The medication I have been taking is not helping much either. These migraines are really debilitating and makes me feel very fed-up and frustrated as there are things I would love to do.

We need bread and I got up this morning and decided to mix up "The best vetkoek recipe ever". Instead of making Vetkoek, I decided to try it out as a bread dough. After the dough had it's first rise, I split the batch in two portions. I put one portion in an oval Pirex oven dish that was sprayed with Spray & Cook and the other portion in a silicon bread oven 'tin' and placed a fresh dishcloth over each of the containers. I heated the oven to 90 degrees Celsius and turned the oven off and then placed the two containers with dough in the oven for their second rise.

I removed them from the oven once the dough doubled in size and then turned the oven on to 200 degrees Celsius. I was not sure for how long I would need to bake the bread as it is a Vetkoek recipe and thus there is no stipulation. So this was going to be trial and error. I checked in my cookbook and the bread recipe there states 200 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes. Once the oven was heated to 200 degrees Celsius I placed both the containers in the oven and set the timer for 45 mintues, however I set the alarm on my cellphone to check the bread after 20 minutes for that just in case factor. After 20 minutes passed I checked on the bread and was pleasantly surprised to see how high it has risen and started browning on top. I left the bread to cook for a further 10 minutes and then pushed a metal sosatie stick into the bread to check if it was cooked. Indeed the bread was cooked and I removed it from the oven. The crust on top was hard and when I 'knocked' on the bread it sounded hollow which is another sign that it is cooked. I placed a clean dishcloth that was folded in half over the top of each loaf after I turned the bread out on the cooling rack as this makes the hard crust soften up from the steam as the bread is cooling down.

As you can see we couldn't wait to see what the Vetkoek dough would taste like as bread.

The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spend on the bed to try and get rid of this migraine.

For supper we had soup and my home baked bread which tasted very moreish indeed.

Day 34 - Wednesday (29 April 2020)

Today I am so grateful that my migraine is gone. Today was just a very quiet and relaxing day as I normally find that after such a migraine attack it leaves me very tired.

Talking about gratefulness...sometimes we tend to think big when it comes to being grateful. A roof over out head, food to eat, family, a job to go back to, but when you really, really sit down and let your mind wonder, you realize that the things to be grateful for is never ending. There are so many things we don't always realize that we can be grateful for. This is where a gratefulness journal comes in handy. It doesn't have to be a big journal, it can be small A6 size and every morning you write down what you are grateful for. It might be really simple or small things, for example when you pop out to the shop and as you park your car and get out you see this small flower blooming... Practicing gratefulness and mindfulness keeps one in the present, the here and now and stops your mind from racing ahead.

When I popped out to the patio early evening, I was greeted by the one plover and I saw a butcher bird in a tree nearby too. I am not sure if you have watched plovers from close up, but they have this little bow they do with their head and neck. So when I am outside and they are there and do their little bow, I also do a little bow with my head while looking at them...it's almost like a greeting between me and the birds. As I am typing here I was thinking that all they need is a little top hat and the wingtip touching the top hat when they do their greeting. Sorry, I just couldn't help that vision ha ha ha. I have said so many times to Adrian, my husband, that if people in the estate had to watch me they might think I am crazy bowing like that ha ha ha. To me it feels like a sacred greeting between myself and the plovers. We also have a pair of wild geese that pops into the communal garden in the mornings and evenings. This evening they came walking to our boundary wall to say 'hello' and naturally looking for something to eat too. Sometimes when I sit on the bench on the patio and the geese are in the communal garden, they will come waddling to the low boundary wall and even sometimes jump onto the wall and talk away. This specific pair has been visiting the communal garden for quite a good couple of years.

Nature has many great lessons, but I think generally life has become such a rush that us humans miss the connection with nature altogether. So when you practice being mindful in your day it makes you more aware too of all the little blessings and lessons from mother nature.

This evening I cut 38 x 50mm x 50mm squares from Daler Rowney Aquafine 300gsm cold pressed watercolour paper. I then proceeded to paint blobs of watercolour on each square. I have a plan with these and once I have put my idea into practice I will post the finale.

Day 35 - Thursday (30 April 2020)

Good morning to the last day of April. Today is studio day for me as I would really like to finish painting nr 5 of the series. Since I started working on this series various titles for each painting crossed my mind, yet I have not settled on any titles until today when it all came together once the Series Title came to mind. I really find it interesting how a lot of the times a painting will start forming in your mind long before it becomes a reality on canvas or paper. Sometimes a title comes to mind first, but in most cases the title reveals itself through the painting process.

Alicia made the most delicious pea soup and to go with that homemade french garlic bread from scratch. "The Best Homemade French Bread" recipe is by Jamielyn Nye and can be found here on her blog.

This is a small plate and each one of us had a mini french bread like this to go with our delicious pea soup.

This evening I finished painting n5. I actually only intended to paint the first painting, however as I thought about the concept of the first painting a series started to develop in my mind.

Why did I choose earth to be pushed into the murky muddy water of a pond? The virus causes pneumonia and the result is that the air sacs of the lungs are filled with fluid or puss, which indirectly causes the patient to suffocate. Painting nr 3 "Trust" represents the pneumonia stage. Why did I choose the Lotus flower? As most people know the Lotus flower grows in muddy waters. It rises out of murky waters to bloom into a beautiful pink and white flower. The Lotus flower signifies strength, as it grows from dark muddy water into the light. It also represents inner strength and determination to come out of difficulties. We need to tap into our inner strength and determination and in conjunction with our hope, trust and faith we will also rise above this into a new world.

The paintings are painted in mainly watercolour with some mixed media. The Langton Aquarelle 300gsm cold pressed paper was used and each painting is 245mm x 178mm.

The series is called "Survival"

"The Virus"

"The Onslaught"

"Trust"

"Hope"

"Faith"

Day 36 - Friday (1 May 2020)

Today the art shop where I work opened for the first time since lock-down and I will be back at work on Monday. Prior to lock-down I used to work in the afternoon from 13h00 to 17h00, but I will hear on Monday how my shift might change. Adrian and I popped out, as I had to go and pick something up at the art shop. Wearing our masks we waited our turn to enter the art shop as only a certain amount of people are let in at a time. I made a quick round through the art shop to say 'hello' to my colleagues that were on duty. Leaving the art shop we stopped at the chemist for some medication and the grocery store for some necessities. The rest of day I spend on reflecting on my above painting series and we also had some discussions with regards to our business, the way forward and life in general.

Day 37 - Saturday (2 May 2020)

Just a generally quiet day and made some Bolognese sause to go into my layered macaroni and white sauce topped with a little bit of cheese. Almost like a lasagne, but just using macaroni shapes instead of lasagne sheets.

When times are tough you learn how to really stretch food so that it will go much further. One important ingredient is a 100g packet of Knorrox Soya Mutton flavoured mix which is cheap and can double to triple the 250g mince amount.

I chopped an onion and saute'd it to which I then added the 250g mince. While that was cooking I cleaned 4 big carrots which I then grated finely. The grated carrots amount to about the same, if not more, quantity as the 250g mince. Once the mince was cooked I added 2 tins of tomato and onion mix (which was on a discounted price), 2 x beef stock cube, the grated carrots and a packet of tomato paste. I cooked up 500g macaroni noodles while I waited for the mince mix to cook through. Once the mince was done I added the 100g packet of Knorrox Mutton flavoured soya mince with added a descent amount of water as the soya mince absorbs up quite a bit of the liquid. I let this simmer, stirring constantly until everything was cooked through. So with all of my additions to the 250g packet of mince it stretched it to a big pot of mince mix.

I prepared oven dishes and then layered the white sauce, macaroni and Bolognese sauce ending with white sauce and a little bit of grated cheese. As mentioned above this provides three main meals for 4 adults.

Perhaps the above will give you some ideas on how to stretch your food in this really difficult time.

This afternoon I spent some time in the studio drawing some doodles on the 50mm x 50mm squares I painted the other day.

I arranged them so that lines are together, circles etc. I then punched a hole in the top left and tied a piece of waxed cord to keep them together. This will act as some quick reference ideas for when I want to doodle on watercolour paint blobs.

Day 38 - Sunday (3 May 2020)

Good morning Sunday. Sadly I did not have a very good night at all and tossed and turned, got up a few times, tried to go back to sleep again, but alas sleep was very evasive. I eventually managed to doze off in the morning hours, however the sleep did not last very long as Da Vinci was in his element and kept waking me up.

Lying on his scratch post under his kitty blanket.

Today I decided to stay away from social media as much a possible and rather focus my attention in my studio.

I have uploaded my "Survival" painting series to my website and you will find various products available for sale with my artworks on including face masks.

"Survival" Face mask

"Peacock" Face mask

This evening I played around a little by doodling on some watercolour blobs on A4. To paint the blobs I used watercolours in combination with my home made pearlescent watercolours.