Levada do Moinho, Madeira

Levada do Moinho  Moinho means mill and is pronounced moin-hoo.

Madeira has a network of  water channels called levadas. They carry water from the mountains to where it is needed. They make good walking trails as they have paths running beside them. Some of them are fairly easy like this one but some others are for experienced walkers and best done in a guided group.

We parked by the church at Lombardo which is perched above Ponta do Sol on the coast. The path starts behing the church. We walked for about an hour then came back the same way.

  I enjoyed this walk as there are open views of sea, valley and mountains. The video below covers a 180 degree vista.

Precious water sparkles and flows to where it is needed.

We saw bananas, sugar cane and guavas growing along the path and sweet potatoes on the plots below.

                                           

Steep steps go down to  thin plots of land cutivated for fruit and vegetables and irrigated by water from the levada above.

 

This ginger plant was growing by the side of the path as well as nasturtiums and sorrel.

I learnt about this walk from Caroline from the Youtube channel Adventure Knox Thankyou Caroline. I was there in January, the weather was beautiful but not too hot for walking.

Society Women Artists 162 nd Annual Exhibition 6 th – 10 th June 2023 Mall Galleries London

 

 

My painting Spring Tide, acrylic on board has been selected for The Society of Women Artists' exhibition June 6-10th at the Mall Galleries London.  

 

 

Finding a Way, acrylic on paper size A5 

This little painting will be in a collection of paintings, mounted in a concertina book and all by members of the Society of Women Artists.

 The book will be rafled at the exhibition at the Mall Galleries June 6th-10th for the Young people's art initiative.

Both paintings are inspired by the sea, boats and harbours.

Sale of Paintings in aid of the Diamond Centre for Disabled Riders

  

I am donating some paintings for a fundraiser for The Diamond School for Disabled Riders which is local to me.They are mostly mounted and unframed watercolours unless stated otherwise.  If you would like to take a look at the paintings please go to

www.tessaspanton.co.uk/fund-raiser

This is the Just Giving page

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/TessaArtworkSale  

 

UPDATE over £1000 was raised  April 23

 

 To find out more about this very special place for disabled riders visit http://www.diamondcentre.org.uk/

 

 

Threshold acrylic on paper Tessa Spanton (c) 2022

This is one of a series of 5 paintings that I recently completed. I was interested in exploring the impact in a painting of small areas of yellow.

The Society of Women Artists invited members to send an original painting to mount into a concertina book, this is my contribution. The book will be for a fund raising prize draw to raise money for the ’SWA YOUNG PEOPLE’S ART INITIATIVE’ at the exhibition at the Mall Galleries in September.

  Tickets are just £5 each. See @swainfo on Instagram for more details and a link to their website.

 The Draw will take place at the Mall Galleries 12.00 noon on Sunday 11/09.

The exhibition  is from 6th-11th Sept at the mall Galleries London UK

 For further details please visit www.society-women-artists.org.uk

 

Traudl's Apple Cake

 

 

This recipe came from my good friend Traudl who lived near us for many years. She originally came from Bavaria. I always enjoyed a slice of this at her house usually with cream or ice cream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also do several of my own variations of this recipe. 

Sprinkle cinnamon and flaked almonds on before cooking. 

Swap the plain flour with self raising flour and just press into the tin so skip rolling it out. The base turns out more cakey. 

I don't always peel the apples.

Add either vanilla or almond essence to the base.

Frozen Bramley slices or Granny Smith slices work well too

Plum with almond cake  

This is a variation of the apple cake. I used SR flour instead of plain, almond essence instead of vanilla and cooking plums instead of apple. I added 2 tsp milk to the batter mixture.

I cooked it at gas 6 for 40 minutes. as ovens vary check it after 30 min.

Silk Painting for Beginners

 

 

 

In 2018 I wrote a step by step demo for Leisure Painter magazine on painting tulips on silk.

Silkcraft put together a kit that is still available here see image above.

 

I also teach silk painting via zoom if you are interested please contact me at www.tessaspanton.co.uk

 

Usually I mount silk to a frame before painting. It is also possible to iron the silk onto freezer paper before painting which is handy if you want to make cards as you can stick the whole thing into a blank trifold aperture card.

 

If you don't have freezer paper you could stretch the silk over a microwavable take out container, plastic tray from a ready meal, back of a small picture frame or even a cardboard box. Fix with small pieces of masking tape at the edges.

Below is one of my photos that I provided for the article. It is  available for you to use for this project.

 

Iron the silk onto the freezer paper. Draw the tulip with a soft pencil or fade away pen.

if you are not confident with drawing print out the photo. The silk is thin enough to use like tracing paper. trace the outline first the iron onto teh freezer paper.

  GUTTA TECHNIQUE 

Paints or dyes spead on wet or dry silk. Gutta or outliner makes a waterproof line that stops the paint spreading beyond the area you want to paint.

 Practise drawing gutta lines on a piece of paper first. To avoid a blob at the beginning of the line, hold a small piece of paper on the place where you want to start, begin there and move smoothly onto the other piece of paper. If you get a blob further down the line you can gently lift off some of the gutta using a small, slightly damp paintbrush. I prefer some irregularities or variations in the gutta lines as I feel it gives the work more character.

If the line is very fine, it may let the colour through when you come to paint the silk. If it is too thick it will take longer to dry.

Leave till thoroughly dry.

 

 

 

EXPERIMENTS WITH COLOUR

 Have fun with colours and get a feel for painting on silk, you could turn these samples into greetings cards.

  U     Use a wet paintbrush dampen the silk. Don’t make it too wet, just touch the brush to the silk and watch it absorb the water. Then put colours onto the damp silk and watch them flow and blend. 

O  OR Try brush marks of red and yellow on dry silk. Put one colour next to the other, run one colour over another. Leave to dry then overpaint with more brushstrokes.

O

 

Below the red was diluted with water to make a pink, The background was made damp before painting with diluted blue.