New-to-me Mandarina Duck: a £1.00 bargain from a Traidcraft shop, which was easy to clean up. It is a great bag, with lots of compartments and room for sketchbook, etc.
Some lovely summery-coloured, soft loose trousers to keep me warm when I do my yoga practice over the autumn and winter months to come : )
The "jacket of many colours" as shown previously in a photo of me wearing it! It is a wonderful jacket - stylish, warm and goes with lots of my existing clothes.
I've decided to paint the counterpart to "new spring wardrobe" as my blog project for September! 'Starting with my gorgeous new blue suede shoes, which I love to look at, but have not yet taken to wearing as that will mean putting away my beloved Mephisto sandals for the year, and admitting that summer really has departed for 2008.
As mentioned in the Illustration Friday "clutter" post, I am having a blitz on improving storage in my flat, and was helped on Sunday by finding this chest of drawers in the street! The first photo shows pretty much how it looked when I spotted it. The second one is the result of some elbow grease and polish. I could make a new drawer front for the top drawer, but I quite like the symmetry of the open shelf at top and bottom. My plan is to use these drawers to store the knitting, and needlepoint kit.
A "lucky penny" is the one you find in the street! I've found money in the street so frequently that one year I logged it all: in 2006 I found a total of £8.61. When I find a coin, I often think of the phrase "London's streets are paved with gold".
Smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel = comfort food on the go for me!
This week's Illustration Friday topic of "clutter" rang bells for me. It's quite tricky to visually differentiate between untidy mess, and the feeling of oppression from being surrounded by stuff and materials, etc for projects being worked on! In fact, I am having an autumn cleaning and re-arranging of storage blitz.
At festivals, I mostly drink water and fruit juice so that I don't become de-hydrated and headachey, but it is nice to have a hot drink from time to time. Freshly ground black coffee is my favourite of what is on offer. One of the first things I do at a festie is scout out the stall which makes the best coffee! The cakes look delicious too, for later on.
"The king is in his counting house,
I've never been able to decide between peaches and raspberries for my ultimate favourite fruit! I love to eat both, so this would be my ideal summer dessert: beautiful, sun-ripened peach from the south of France with juicy, sweet deep red raspberries from Kent : )
This is singer Aayjemaal painted from a sketch I made of her at Womad 2004. Aayjemaal and her band were performing traditional music from Turkmenistan. It is the opportunity to see performers like Aayjemaal which makes Womad such a special music festival. : )
Another "money" image: my Dad is treasurer for a local organisation. One of Dad's colleagues regularly presents him with an old (clean) sock full of loose change as a donation to the charitable fund!
One of the nice things about music festivals is the children: this little girl was dancing in front of the band, then bowing at the end of each song!
Lemon sorbet is my favourite ice cream: I had some last week when out with my cartoonist friend, Chichi
Portaloos are an essential and unavoidable part of the music festival experience! Usually not pleasant, but thanks to Tracey's Hygiene Crew, toilets at Womad Charlton Park this year were kept very clean and user-friendly : )
A mobile phone has proved to be a very helpful addition to regular music festival kit: strictly not for making/receiving phone calls (you can't hear each other anyway), but having the means to text to make arrangements about where to meet is very helpful eg main stage, between disable viewing ramp and the mixing desk : )
I always carry sketchbook and pen with me, and there are times at music festivals when I want to sketch what is going on. Generally this will be in time between bands, although in the case here, the man on the right was watching Paprika Balkanicus.
There is a wide variety of food to choose from! 
Who to see perform next? There is such a wealth of good music to choose from - inevitably also some time clashes! In this fantasy programme, I'd find it very hard to choose between seeing Neneh Cherry and Ernest Ranglin - in fact, if the stages are close enough together, I'd be tempted to watch half of each set. By the way, the action currently on stage is roadies moving equipment around, preparing for the next artists.
Watching the first band! My friends and I generally like to sit/stand very close to the mixing desk because the sound is best from there. This means we are never at the front. Over the weekend, I went to two music festivals: this image is an amalgamation of things I saw at both. One of the festivals was http://www.london.gov.uk/rise/.
The next activity is to study the programme, and work out which performers we definitely want to see - hoping for no performance time clashes! Plus which artistes we might like to see at times no "must sees" are on stage.
After pitching the tent, the next step is to exchange ticket for wrist band. As you can see, I am hoping this year's Womad weekend wrist band will be bright pink!
Putting up the tents is the first task when we arrive at the festival site. It's always great to see the camping field gradually filling with a sea of multi-coloured tents! My friends and I endeavour to get there early enough to find space to pitch our tents next to each other.
Some of the other essentials for camping at a music festival: tent (it's amazing how compact they are these days!); air bed + foot pump; bag containing change of clothes, sleeping bag, etc; The Mermaid; and, finally, wellies. Hopefully I won't actually need to wear these at Womad this year, but if I do they are at least pretty.
I've been looking forward to doing this painting of my favourite music festival bag, known to my friends as "The Mermaid". It's practical because it is plastic, so waterproof; a good size for containing essentials to have with me at all times - sunglasses, sunscreen, sketchbook and paints, water, money, etc - plus it is largely transparent, so easier to find stuff in! A delightful holiday feature of it is that the flower on the cover flap contains real sand, which shifts around reminiscent of being on a beach. Oh yes, and I am a huge fan of "The Little Mermaid" anyway : )
July's blog project is music festivals, which I love to go to in the summer. This illustration was made for a cd cover, so is not new, but it does convey summer well! I'm going to be painting lots of images associated with festivals over the month of July. 
A money clip - very practical, but I think not used by many men in the UK, which is why I have painted a stylish silver money clip full of US dollars!
Xmas cake, especially made by my sister! (I'm the family xmas pudding maker, so we do a swap.) One year my dinky xmas cake was glamourised with purple icing and a silver star. Especially nice eaten from a fine bone china plate. 
I repainted the dragonclef avatar I use for forums and my logo last week: the subtle difference being that the original one was painted using coloured inks because at the time I had not discovered W&N's "opera rose" water colour, and wanted to have intense pink! 
I'm still working on the next money illustration (and another favourite food ; )), so here is a favourite food I prepared earlier! This one is fish and chips, which is a regular meal at Dad's: I always insist on having peas, too, then he suggests gherkins and pickled onions.
I've been away for a few days, and noticed the use of this silver sauce boat as a temporary home for money being set aside for a particular purpose!
Here is a favourite dish for when friends come over: vegetarian lasagne, which I make without cheese sauce. Usually, I layer up mushrooms, tomato sauce, and lentils with the lasagne sheets, then sprinkle lots of oil and paprika on the final layer to make a crispy topping. All served with a large green salad.
I had a migraine today, so no painting.
A very useful feature of the plastic with the magnetic strips: the ability to purchase goods internationally very easily. Given that the currency exchange rates vary on a day to day basis, too, it also adds interest (!) to receiving statements - finding out exactly how many £s the shopping in US $s translated into..
Perfect picnic food for me: french bread, a chunk of port salut cheese, and a ripe peach! Oh yes, and preferably all wrapped up in a gorgeous French napkin.
Somehow or other in the 20th century special pieces of plastic came to be treated as money. Unlike coins or paper money, the plastic cards are tricksy - you need to have a machine to read the magnetic strip on the back to how much money you have (or don't have).
One of my duties in my family is to make crumble: this particular one is blackberry and apple, made with fruits lovingly picked my my various nieces and nephews, then presented to me with a request for crumble to be made!
Money day 2 - basic pound coins and sign to remind me that money is a symbol.
Marmite on toast - yummy, especially when the toast is the wonderful sunflower seed bread made by Celtic Bakery!
