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In Praise of Rubbish TV

I was a TV-show binger before binging was cool. I distinctly remember recording as many (out of order) episodes of House as I possibly could to spend my 12th birthday devouring. That was 2006 and my love for TV has not dissipated. I do, unfortunately, watch a lot less of it though.

I’ve had to cut down my viewing schedule, but the shows that have made the cut aren’t necessarily the best and brightest of small screen entertainment. The shows I can’t give up are the easiest, trashiest, and most familiar. I’m talking detective shows where I know who the bad guy is going to be in the first 5 minutes. Superhero series where they recap the past 5 seasons in the opening credits. Comedies whose laughter tracks tell me exactly when I’m meant to be having a good time. Period dramas where I can get carried away by completely unrealistic romanticism.

And, yes, I have watched and enjoyed the Kardashians.

I like to think I have good taste generally, that I can seek out quality. But I love trashy TV like I love pop music and anything with a picture of a puppy on it. I love it because it makes me feel happy, because it makes me stop thinking.

As much as I’ve called the TV I love trashy, I don’t think it’s bad. It’s very good at doing what it does (until it gets into the 14th season and the writers have clearly run out of storylines, NCIS my old friend I’m looking at you). They’re perfectly crafted pieces of pop tv. The characters are just interesting enough that you invest, but not too complicated. The story lines are easily digested, and quite often guessable, whilst still being pretty engaging. They have moments of darkness to give some contrast to their generally light humour.

The average shot length on these shows is something like 5 seconds. The literally tell you what to look at. You don’t even need to make that decision for yourself. You just have to sit back, relax and lose yourself.

They’re vanilla ice-cream but my gosh is vanilla ice cream damn tasty.

I mean what more could you want when you’re tired and frazzled than something that promises to replace your worries with those of a man who claims to be the fastest man in the world try and stop another guy who runs a bit faster and has a silly name like Zoom? How bad can life be if there’s not a man who can run fast enough to go back in time after you? How can you think about how busy you are when you’re watching them battle it out?

I’m someone who works hard, and stresses out even harder on top of generally just being pretty anxious. Very few things calm me down as much as 45minutes of escapism courtesy of the latest episode of one of my shows.

It’s not just the shows themselves it’s the rituals I’ve built around them now. The rotation they’re on that always leaves me with something to look forward to. The process of getting cosy in my pyjamas with a cup of tea before settling down at the end of the day. The way they always used to bring me and my mum together on school nights rather than me just being holed up doing homework.

I know some people will complain that I’m part of an over stimulated generation who can’t relax without being entertained. That I would be better off with a book, or meditating, or at least watch something “better”. Perhaps they’re right. But I do all of those things, and rubbish TV still has a huge part in my day because there’s something that only it can do.  It’s an audio visual comfort blanket and I’m not quite ready to give it up.

So, thank you to House for getting through the angst of being a teenager. Thank you to Instant Star (yes I said it) of introducing me to fandoms and a community that supported me without even knowing it. Thank you to the Gilmore Girls for my GCSEs. Thank you to Criminal Minds for my IB Results. Thank you to Suits and New Girl for that awkward period before I started Uni. Thank you to The Good Wife and Scandal for getting me through some of the tough patches of the first years of uni. Thank you to Pretty Little Liars and the Kardashians for curing summer holiday loneliness. Thank you to Arrow and Flash, I sometimes mock you but you’ve helped hold me together these last two years. Thank you to the NCISs, CSIs, Hawaii Five 0, and all of the procedural dramas for being there for me for way too long.

Thank you to all of the shows I haven’t listed here.

The next time someone asks me what I’ve been watching I won’t be embarrassed to tell them the truth. Trashy TV is a big part of my life and I genuinely think it has helped me more than it was designed to.

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A little while ago I wrote about the fact that I hadn’t properly used a sketchbook in quite a few years. The idea of it just made me too anxious. After an education where every page was marked and every rough work highly calculated, the idea of just having a sketchbook seemed much too daunting, especially being surrounded by images of gorgeous artist sketchbooks on social media.

I felt so far away from being able to produce a sketchbook I was happy with that I just didn’t try.

But I knew I was missing out on something. I had enough notes and thumbnail sketches on random bits of paper that I knew I could probably do with somewhere to keep my ideas. I also had a real desire to start making, physically making, more with my hands again.

Skip forward a few months, I’m now on my second sketchbook and using mine every day. It has truly become an invaluable resource for me, and a space to play in.

So how did I get here? And how can you overcome sketchbook anxiety?

DON’T BUY A NICE SKETCHBOOK

The sketchbook I started in was a funny shape, was a bit battered, and cost me about £3 because it wasn’t the prettiest on the shelf. Normally something like that might have bothered me – I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to crack the spines on their books. But, in this case, it was perfect. Having an already beaten up sketchbook meant that I didn’t feel precious about it. There was no investment to ruin. I’ve just started a side sketchbook for a single project I’m working on made up of scrap paper I have just stapled together. Start with something you don’t mind getting messy in, it gives you so much more freedom.

RUIN THE FIRST PAGE

On that same note, mess up your first page. Or, don’t even start on the first page. There’s this weird anxiety over getting the first page right in any new book, that I think comes from being little and trying to write your name as neatly as possible on the front cover of exercise books. When you just get past the first page you set up the book as a place for experimentation. Paint your first page all one colour. Do a little scribble in the middle. Write the date or say hello. Just do something silly that doesn’t have to be neat.

TRY A DIFFERENT MEDIUM

Another way to free up your anxiety over having to produce something great is using a new medium. In my sketchbook, I decided just work with watercolours, something I hadn’t done since I was in school. I also painted freeform abstract pieces. This completely took the pressure off anything I created being ‘good’ and instead made it about the process of learning and painting, and just got me into the habit of creating. Using a new medium is also just a great creative practice for changing up how you think about and approach a work.

MAKE IT ABOUT PROCESS

As I mentioned above, I focused on the actual process of painting. How it felt to put colour on the page, and I was led by my hands. I wasn’t too worried about the outcome, instead I just focused on doing, on painting. The outcomes I produced did get better, but purely because I became more confident in what my hands could do and just trusted the process. Your sketchbook is thinking space more than anything else.

DO SOMETHING EVERY DAY

Another important element of making my sketchbook about process was committing to make something every day. It didn’t matter what I made as long as it was something. Once I got into the habit of setting aside 20 mins to make something (this did take a little while) I found myself looking forward to using my sketchbook, and once it was half way filled actually feeling good about it. Then it became about having some thinking time, or a chance to work through a problem away from the computer. Doing a tiny bit every day adds up, and it’s so much harder to abandon a sketchbook once you’re ¾ through.

DON’T SHOW ANYONE

There’s a lot of pressure to share everything you do on social media, but sometimes having something that’s just for yourself can make it even better. By not sharing my sketchbooks (until now) I felt far less pressure to produce work that would align with the rest of my finished outcomes and I got to have something that was just mine.

WORK OUT WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED IT FOR

Everyone’s sketchbook is different, because everyone’s process is different. It’s all well and good seeing pictures of sketchbooks you love and taking inspiration from them, but make sure you’re using yours in a way that works for you. For example, I adore Mark Conlan’s sketchbook images, but working up full colour drawings doesn’t really fit into how I work. Instead I much prefer thumbnail sketches, note taking, and painting my abstracts. But I love how he focuses on a single image per page, so sometimes I just do that but with my own pieces in my own style as the focus.

REMEMBER IT’S A RECORD

Whether you hate what you’re drawing right now or you love it, it is a record of what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, right now. There is something so satisfying about flicking back through the pages of my books and seeing how my work has changed. If you don’t like it right now, don’t worry, turn over the page and start something new – don’t erase it.

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It’s been a while since I last put a recipe up on here, which feels like a real shame because I looooove food and I love sharing any tasty new discoveries. Since the warm weather has rendered many of my favourite comfort foods seasonally inappropriate (nothing will stop me eating chilli but I thought you guys might not want a chilli recipe in July) I’ve been looking to up my salad game.

Every summer I love the idea of eating salads every day, then, when it actually comes to it, I get bored after about a week because I don’t make anything that interesting or all that satisfying. So, this year, I recognised where I went wrong and went on a hunt for salads that would make me feel like I’d had a proper meal rather than just munching on some leaves. I’m sharing three of my favourites here with you today. Two of them are new, and one is an adaptation of a family favourite, but they’re all really tasty and I don’t end up feeling hungry half an hour after eating them.

Each one of these makes 2 portions because I like to make leftovers. Also, none of these recipes are precise, I’m more Nigel Slater than Heston Blumenthal so I normally just go with how I’m feeling.

THE ONE MY MOTHER CALLS BREAD SALAD

MAIN SALAD

  • 1 small ciabatta
  • 1 mozzarella ball, torn into chunks
  • 1 red onion, sliced into half moons
  • 125g mixed leaves
  • 1 courgette
  • Another veggie, I usually go with some cherry tomatoes (roasted with the courgette) or asparagus (steamed) if I’m feeling fancy

DRESSING

  • 5 TBSP cup – red wine vinegar.
  • 4 TBSP honey.
  • 4 TBSP olive oil.
  • 2 TBSP lemon juice.
  • 1 TSP Dijon mustard (optional, sometimes I don’t have any)
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Sprinkle of mixed herbs

DIRECTIONS

  1. Dice the courgette into 1cm cubes and roast for 20mins at 200C
  2. Tear the bread into 2cm chunks or there about, bake until golden and crisp, 10-15mins at 200C
  3. Make the dressing
  4. Combine – this one is best if you leave it for a couple of minutes so that the bread soaks up the dressing (works well hot and cold)

 

THE WARM ONE

MAIN SALAD

  • 2 sweet potatoes
  • 100g halloumi sliced (if you don’t eat cheese I like this with aubergine instead of the halloumi as well)
  • 125g baby kale leaves
  • 30g crushed walnuts (I also sometimes use sunflower seeds if I’m lazy)
  • Sprinkle of chilli flakes
  • Clove of garlic

DRESSING

  • 12 TBSP olive oil
  • 4 TBSP balsamic vinegar
  • Salt & pepper
  • Sprinkle of mixed herbs

DIRECTIONS

  1. Dice the sweet potato into 1cm cubes and roast with the chilli and garlic for 25mins (or until slightly brown) at 200C. If you’re replacing the halloumi, do the same with the aubergine but it needs about 5-10 mins less
  2. Fry the halloumi for 2-3mins on each side (or until golden) at a medium-high heat
  3. Make the dressing
  4. Combine, sprinkling the walnuts on top (this one’s best hot, but is still okay cold the next day)

 

THE ONE WITH PEACHES

(FYI Peaches are one of my favourite things about summer and I am currently eating 2-3 a day)

MAIN SALAD

  • 2 portions skirt steak, trimmed of fat and sliced (if you don’t eat meat I also like this with sliced Portobello mushrooms, I use 2-3 per portion)
  • 2 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar
  • 1 clove garlic mined or finely chopped
  • 1 TSP sugar
  • 1-2 peaches finely sliced
  • 125g rocket
  • 60g or so of crumbled up feta or goat’s cheese

DRESSING

  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 4 TBSP Olive Oil
  • Salt & pepper

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a bag, marinate the steak in the balsamic, garlic and sugar for 20mins. If you’re doing this with mushrooms I just fry all of these off together.
  2. Fry the steak
  3. Make the dressing while the meat rests
  4. Combine everything (works well hot and cold)

 

What are your favourite salads? What are you eating now the weather’s that bit warmer?

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People have been drawing portraits pretty much for as long as people have been drawing. They were the only way to capture someone’s likeness whether that be in a painting, a sculpture, a drawing, or a print. But portraits have always been about more than just documenting what someone looks like, they’ve been about capturing something more of that person whether that’s their wealth, their status, their taste, their work, the nobility, the political agenda, their virtue, or their intelligence.

Portraits began as something only available to royalty, and then the wealthy, before making their way through the middle classes and the working classes. These days portraits are for everyone. Whether that’s a 5ft oil masterpiece or a snapchat selfie.

I love portraits. I’m always drawn to the faces in galleries to try and work out what they’re thinking, to catch the light in their eyes. That’s why I’m now offering portrait commissions! I do a weekly portrait on my Instagram, but I just want to draw more faces and offer more people the chance to have their likeness captured. My portraits sit somewhere in the middle of the oil painting-selfie spectrum and are, I hope, perfect for their digital context. Simple and easily recognisable but still able to capture something of their subject and ripe to be personalised.

Today I thought I’d share with you three of my favourite portraits of all time, and a little bit of why I love them, as well as some info on how you can get your own.

THE NOBLEMAN WITH HIS HAND ON HIS CHEST, EL GRECO

I first saw this portrait in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, and it has stayed with me (in my heart and in postcard form) for the 5 years since. I’m not sure quite what it is that I find so captivating about this image but it stopped me in my tracks in the Prado and it has the same effect still. I’m normally just drawn to faces in portraits, as I think most people are, but I think I could spend as much time staring at his hand as I do any other aspect of the portrait. It’s such a quiet and muted painting, but there’s a kindness in his eyes and a gentleness in the hand that betrays a softness you wouldn’t expect from a Nobleman and the other regal portraits of the time. Perhaps that’s why I love it. Also, if you haven’t seen El Greco’s Portrait of Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara I would highly recommend it for the glasses alone.

JOSEPH ROULIN, VINCENT VAN GOGH

I never really understood why people loved Van Gogh so much until I saw this painting in person in MOMA in New York. There’s just so much tenderness in this painting it can’t help but to move you. It’s truly  “the modern portrait,” a picture that renders character not by the imitation of the sitter’s appearance but through the independent, vivid life of colour, that he wrote to his brother Theo about. You can really see their Roulin and Van Gogh’s friendship in the composition and the softness of the eyes. I’ve since seen a number of the other portraits Van Gogh painted of Roulin, but this one remains my favourite, because I love the character of the darker green wallpaper and the way its depth is sits almost at the same level as the portrait, as if Roulin has become a part of the furniture.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II, ARNOLD MACHIN

Machin’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is the most reproduced artwork of all time, being printed on stamps over 220 billion times. Despite being in circulation since 1967 and being printed so many times it hasn’t aged at all. Perhaps that’s why the Queen has said it would take a “real work of quality” in order to replace it. I love the balance of grace and beauty with a real determination and authority. I love how you can see the relief in the plaster sculpture so well, even when printed. I also love that it took Machin about a year to create the portrait, with his first attempt being decried as “unrecognisable”. It wasn’t until he started working from the photographs taken by John Hedgecoe, as backups in case Machin didn’t produce anything, that he made the image we all know so well. As someone who’s just starting in portraiture, and often uses reference photos rather than live sitters, I find that really heartening.

 

If you’re a business looking for a set of matching profile images of your team, a blogger in need of a new profile image, an editor who requires a portrait to go with an interview or feature, or someone who just wants a portrait of themselves/their mum/their partner/their best friend/their crush/Ryan Gosling, I’ve got you covered.

Portrait prices start at £20, but if you’ve looking for a group or a rolling commission we can definitely chat! Plus if you include the magic code words “Joseph Roulin” when you email me, you’ll get a special friends and readers discount of 25% meaning you can have your very own portrait for a real bargain price of £15.

So, if you want your face up there with the Queen’s, just drop me a line.

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You’re busy. I’m busy. Our to-do lists are long and the hours in the day are short. So, what’s the solution? A time machine? Unfortunately, not. Stop taking on so many projects? Probably, but there’s no way we’re going to do that. Automation? Now you’re talking.

I know I’m well behind the curve but I’ve just discovered quite how much you can automate, and I am loving having a whole host of little robot (not really robot) helpers to make my workload lighter. Here are my favourite automation hacks:

CONTRACTS & INVOICES

I’ve spoken about Bonsai before, but it’s what got me started on this automation kick for real so I had to mention it. Not only does it mean pulling together professional contracts is pretty much fool proof it also automates your invoices. Can I get a hallelujah? When you set up your contract you can select to have the invoice sent at the end of your contract time period, as well as staggered reminders if the invoice isn’t paid. Because it takes care of the boring financial bit of freelancing it means you can spend more time on creating. It also, for me at least, takes some of the awkwardness out of sending an invoice.

EMAILS

I have not one, but two email automation hacks to share with you, oh yes. The first one I mentioned in my top apps for designers and I’m bringing it up again because it’s great. Gorgias is a bit like predictive text function for Gmail. You set up short keys for your most used phrases, which means that you don’t have to type out the same 7 phrases you always use or write out your terms every single time you need to send an email. The tool itself is clean and unobtrusive, and all of the little time saves it gives you really add up. My second email automation hack involved MailChimp, which I am using more and more these days. I probably don’t use it in the way that you’re meant to, mainly because I don’t have a huge mailing list. But it is a great tool for making template emails and as someone who sends out very similar emails to clien, s it’s such a useful function. I have a few templates set up which I then edit with any specific content and then send out, either to individuals or groups. The only issue is it doesn’t allow people to reply all, because it’s a marketing tool, which is a bit of a pain. If anyone has any better recommendations for this kind of tool please let me know!

SPELLING

I always want to type faster than my fingers/ability to form sentences can handle, which leads to more than the occasional typo. If, like me, you struggle with stringing coherent phrases together, you should check out Grammarly. It’s like have a little proof-reading cherub on your shoulder no matter where you’re typing in the form of a Chrome extension. Grammarly does grammar as well as spelling, as its name may suggest which for me is what really sets it apart. While it doesn’t eradicate the need to actually proof your work properly, it does mean that my tweets are semi-readable and has saved me from some rather embarrassing Freudian slips.

FILE TYPE CONVERSION

Sick of getting sent images which aren’t in the right format for you to use, or need to convert a whole bunch of designs to fit a printer specification? Yeah, me too. That’s why I set up a series of photoshop droplets to automatically convert files into the most common types I need, and let me tell you there is nothing more satisfying than dropping a hundred files into a droplet and watching them all come out the other size CMYK 300dpi while you sip your tea.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I think everyone and their dog (what?! No one knows you’re a dog when you’re on the internet) knows that they should be scheduling their social media. It saves you so much time, means you don’t have to be on Twitter all day (you still can be if you want though) and it makes it easier to optimise your send times. At the minute, I use Hootsuite because it’s easy and free, but I’m open to being swayed – any recommendations guys? I’m also ready for the day when I don’t have to have why phone on me when I want to upload something to Instagram.

BRIEFINGS

When you’re onboarding a new client you often need to send them a summary of how you work of a little bit of homework so that you can produce work they actually need. Taking the time to write these documents up as nice looking pdfs and saving them somewhere handy means you can just send them out with onboarding emails rather than always writing out the same content over and over again. Okay, so this one wasn’t actually an automation hack but it does save a lot of time and effort, you can pretend you’re a robot when you write them if you want.

FOLLOW UPS

I will admit I have yet to actually do this yet, but I’m really excited to, so I’m sharing anyhow. As I said I’ve been using MailChimp more and more but I haven’t used automated emails before, and it’s such a useful tool for client retention. It’s so important to keep in contact with past clients but it can be hard, and I for one definitely forget and then leave it too long. But with MailChimp you can set up emails to happen at set times after someone has worked with you which I can see being an absolute life saver.

What are you automating? Help me save time friends!