LEEDS COLLEGE OF ART "MADE HERE" DEGREE SHOW

Following the LCA Foundation exhibition I was so excited to see the graduate show. I've dithered over posting these photos because I don't have everyone's names to give credit, they seem to have downloaded out of order so I really have no idea who's is who's on most :( But for those who would like to see an overview of some of the work these courses produce, keep scrolling. Here are the pieces that caught my eye...

Graphic Design

Vanessa Cain & Helen Street

Fashion

Gina Mason

Illustration

Jessie Broad

Hollie Smith

Surface Pattern & Printed Textiles

Rebecca Dun

Theo Riviere

Charlotte Haller

Nina Ghataora

Charlotte Louise Holden

Natasha Murray

Omair Shah

I didn't make it to Fine Art which I regret as from Hayley's photos there was some stunning work, but from what I saw, Surface Pattern & Printed Textiles stole the show. The room was mesmerising, full of colour and life and OHHH. Illustration was also fantastic, so full of pleasing bursts of creativity and everything excited me.

Which is your favourite piece & why? Let me know! I think I'm going to have to go with the little annotated yellow blob character and the dinosaur/ocean/space surface pattern display. Woah.

Polly xo

THE YUMMIEST OF CRUMBLES

I've never really been one for puddings. It was a novelty when I was a kid, usually reserved for friends coming over or after a big Sunday roast. Ultimately I've grown up not needing a pudding and understanding it's an unnecessary luxury - so when I get the pudding urge, it's going to be good one. I made this for me and Jack a couple of weeks ago when it was still cold, so maybe it was a little more suited to then, but I couldn't hold this in my drafts until winter, I'm far too impatient. 

Method:

Wash and chop up the rhubarb into fairly large chunks (about 1-2 inches long) then add to the saucepan with half the sugar. While that's on a medium heat, dice one and a half apples into little chunks, then slice the rest for decoration. Add the chopped apple along with all the blackberries and a dash of cinnamon to the saucepan and heat while stirring. The fruit is ready once the rhubarb has softened but still holds its shape, and the blackberries have formed a sweet sauce. Pour it into a baking tray.

While the fruit is cooking, prepare the crumble. Rub the butter and flour together with your finger tips and then mix in the sugar and another sprinkle of cinnamon, also using your hands. It should be crumbly - not sticking together. Sprinkle a thick layer over the fruit mixture and decorate with the sliced apple. Bake for 30 minutes at 200C, not letting the crumble burn.

Notes:

• I chopped the apple into different sized chunks and added some slices to the fruit mixture because I liked the varied texture it gave!
• You could add porridge oats to the crumble mixture (I think I actually did initially) which is 1) probs better for you and 2) adds a different texture.

I absolutely love the combination of apple, rhubarb and blackberries, it makes an apple crumble x10 better! I hope you likey too.

Polly xo

LEEDS COLLEGE OF ART FOUNDATION SHOW

As the exhibition ended weeks ago I'm very aware this post is horribly overdue, however I was SO impressed by my uni's Foundation exhibition that I had to document it anyway. The actual LCA exhibition is now available to view at Blenium, I think, which I'll definitely be visiting to pep up my ever wavering university morale as I'm sure there will be much dribble worthy work on show to goggle at and aspire to. 

I've tried to include the correct name under every piece, but not everyone has their chosen degree course listed, which I understand might be quite annoying if any of you adore a piece and think you want to get into that discipline.

Charlotte McAteer - Textiles in Practice

This caught my eye the second we caught the room. Embroidered fruit and veg with seeded decoration?? Cool. Why not.

Holly Greenwood - Printed textiles/Surface pattern

Elizabeth Parkinson

This was an insight into how broad creative subjects can be. I think this piece was in the surface pattern/textiles room. Home made makeup, cool.

Jessica Greenwood

How absolutely stunning are these sets? I aspire to own sexy loungewear, let alone make it.

Eleanor Sutton

Sara Preston - Surface Pattern/Printed Textiles

(Sara is my friendling) This project was to manipulate food which at first appeared to be the most fine arty fart of briefs but after a while we had so much fun discussing possible options (including but not limited to: pouring pink custard into the seed hold of avocados, filling the holes of waffles with sprinkles, freezing an egg and watching it melt and organising baked beans). That was supposed to inform a final outcome, and I think her patterns are so pretty.

Hannah Ennis - Fashion Design Technology

This is probably my favourite piece from the whole exhibition, omg. It's a blossom tree?? Roll neck?? Hand knitted??  Please say this is for sale.

Shannon Hamilton - Textile Design 

This is some serious geo creativity. Every single acrylic collage was gorgeous and we all had a hard time trying to pick a favourite.

(no name, wah)

I've seen photos of this piece on multiple people's social media, and for good reason! It was one of the best presented pieces of work, in my opinion. Little additions like the crates and cacti in colourful pots put the work into context, lifestyling it, which should have quenched some of the "yeah it looks nice but whats the point" mutterings from parents as it would look amaaaaazing as a feature wall.

Stuart Stokeld - Geography 

I thought it was a bit funny that this guy is doing Geography instead of continuing Graphic Design onto degree level but I sympathise that hours of paper cutting leaves a lot of time for questioning life decisions. (Kidding aside, I freaking loved these intricate pieces)

Nadia Deuskar - Creative Advertising

Katie Goodrum - Illustration

I don't have many words other than LOOK HOW NICE. I think these hangings were screen printed (or at least the white on blacks are) because I saw her printing the bottom right design and was very impressed at the time too. Screen Printing onto fabric can be so temperamental with details not transferring and blobs appearing, but all of hers seemed to come out perfectly (wow).

Matthias Nutschel - Vis Com

I'm not kidding, I want these pizza wall hangings and laser cut chopping board, pronto.

(No name, sorry!)

This was so bloody funny. Laser cut wooden masks of Kanye's many faces.

Megan Heath - Graphic Design

Fine art was really weird. I wish I'd photographed the soap dispenser that had brown gunge coming out of it - looking very much like the worst morning after a takeaway curry, but smelling pleasently of chocolate.

Esther Pearce - Textiles

Caitlin Price-Ward - Fashion Illustration

Because donut.

So that's the amazingness of the Foundation show. I feel like I would 100% have not dropped out if I went to LCA Vernon Street. It's a gorgeous building with brilliant facilities and a high standard of work, so do check it out if you're looking for the right course! Stay tuned for my post on the degree exhibition later this week! I can't wait to see what they've got on show.

Polly xo

A DIFFERENT KIND OF TOMATO & BASIL PASTA

It was definitely a pasta kinda day, however I've grown so bored of tomato sauces that I craved something else, but nothing too stodgy and creamy like carbonara. I had recently done a nice midweek food shop so had a range of ingredients in the fridge for some planned dinners for Jack and I, so although my lunch wasn't planned it turned out V nice and varied. 

This was a meal from my veggie week which I'm happy to say went really well, I took it to 10 days before I went home from uni for a short break and was greeted by the mother of all family BBQs, however I'm definitely enjoying more meat-free options these days - something I certainly couldn't have predicted last year. I think a reason people don't go for veggie options is that they seem less filling, but that's really down to experimentation in the kitchen - something I'm probably going to spend my summer doing, seeing as everyone else has gone home :')

Method:

Turn your oven to 200 degrees celsius and boil the kettle. Chop the cherry tomatoes in half and place on a foil lined tray with a little drizzle of olive oil, garlic granules and pepper. These should take about 10-12 minutes, so will be ready by the time your pasta and veg has boiled. Pour the boiling water over the pasta and after 5 minutes add the chopped broccoli, then with 2 minutes to go, add the spinach.

Drain your pasta & veg and place back in the saucepan with some olive oil. Take the tomatoes out and mix them in, along with crumbled goats cheese (or grated cheddar/mozzarella) and season with salt/pepper and basil leaves.

Notes:

• Don't skip the basil leaves, they taste amazing when you catch a leaf in your mouthful! In the photo you can only see the garnish, however I chucked more leaves into the pasta before draining so they're all mixed in.
• When stirring all the ingredients together, try to break up some of the tomatoes to spread more flavour through the "sauce"
• There is no such thing as too much cheese

And that's it, a really quick and tasty pasta dish that's a nice change from that backup jar of Loyd Grossman sauce. Let me know if you'd make this! I know it isn't really a recipe, more a meal idea, but who doesn't want more food options in their life, eh.

SIMPLE & FRUITY BANANA BREAD

Banana bread is one of those easy fall back options when you're craving something sweet and filling but don't have any chocolate. All you need to do is keep a stock of flour, sugar, baking powder & a tin at the back of your cupboard and neglect your bananas.

In case you've never heard of or tried banana bread before, it's definitely in the cake family. I could research into why it's named bread but really who has the time, life needs a dash of mystery and all that. It's also my favourite cake (bar carrot cake) and doesn't need to be refrigerated (mainly because it's always gone within two days). It's best eaten warm, so please don't torture yourself by waiting for it to cool fully before you dig in, and try microwaving subsequent slices for a few seconds because mmmmm.

Method:

Start by heating your oven to 160/180 degrees celsius and buttering your baking tray, unless you have a case like I did (I'd recommend them! There's not much worse than not being able to excavate a cake from a tin).

Chop up two of your (medium/small) bananas and crush with a fork. TIP: if the banana isn't totally ripe, pop it in the microwave for 30-ish seconds to soften! I use a fork because I like there being little chunks throughout, but don't leave too many as you'll add more later. Leave half a banana for extra chunk making.

Mix the softened butter together with the sugar until it's "fluffy" and there are no cheeky lumps of butter left, then mix in the eggs. You can whisk them up before, but to save on washing up I just do it in the bowl. Sieve in half of your flour and stir until fully blended, then add the rest of the flour, baking powder and mushed up bananas, a sprinkle of cinnamon and mix fully.

Chop some of your blackberries into halves and half of the banana into small chunks then stir them lightly into the cake mixture. Personally I don't like the blackberries to colour the mixture, they should be a surprise when you cut the loaf! Then spoon the mixture into the tin and decorate the top with slices of banana. (I've also marbled almond butter into the mixture at this point before which was divine but I didn't have any to hand this time - just a suggestion!)

Pop into the oven and bake for 20 minutes before checking. I find that the top goes brown pretty quickly, so to prevent it from burning I cover it with foil midway through. The loaf is done once a skewer comes out clean, and this usually takes 50 minutes for me, but keep checking as I guess all ovens vary!


And that's it! Sorry there isn't an "after" photo, it doesn't look that impressive until cut and this one was for Jack's leaving do at work so had to stay pure. I hope you liked this post! I'm planning on doing loads of recipe posts this summer so hopefully I'll get better at the format etc :')

SUN DRIED TOMATO PESTO RECIPE

So this week I've been a little obsessed with that jar of pesto I made from scratch and have since added to nearly every meal. In a bid to turn my messy diet around I've been looking for new foods to try and ways to home-make as much as possible. This is a really easy, quick recipe that makes an interesting addition to lots of meals and snacks. I don't know how long it keeps as I used mine up in just 4 days, oops! :')

You will need:

• A jar of sun dried tomatoes (I used M&S)
• A large handful of fresh basil (I used a full packet from Sainsbury's. You probably can't have too much basil)
• One clove of garlic (to start with, I used three which was overkill, even for me)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 of a lemon
• Pepper
• (Pine nuts) (I didn't use them because I didn't have any, but a handful would be good, I'm sure)

Place the sun dried tomatoes into a food processor (I used my trusty Nutribullet) with a little oil from its jar then add the chopped garlic (crushing would be best as it would reduce the chance of eating a spicy chunk) and hand shredded basil, stalks n' all. Drizzle over some olive oil, but not too much at this stage. It needs a liquid to hold it together but you don't want to overdo it. Then blend it up for a minute or so, until it looks as through it's done (one colour).

Now you can give it a taste test. At this stage I added a squeeze of lemon juice, a few grinds of pepper and more olive oil. These are the three things that you can add a little of, blend, taste test and add more of as many times as necessary once the core ingredients are all in. Once you think its done, pop it in a jar. I added more olive oil once it was in and gave it a little stir. It should have a thicker consistency than your average pesto, but the oil makes it more easily spreadable/mixable!

Food ideas for your new pesto:

• Mixed with pasta, spinach, broccoli and cheese
• Spread on crackers with cheese/avocado
• Mixed with lentils and cheese (trust me)
• Added to passata to make a lush homemade pizza base
• The above but on slices of bread or tortilla wraps - super quick pizzas!
• Spread in sandwiches for an extra tang.

Let me know if you try this recipe out and how you get on!

Polly xo