Autumn | The Daily Norm

Oct 10

Autumn Inspires | Photos (Part 2) – Reflections on a theme

My second post marking something of a photographic introduction to Autumn (I’m sure more will follow) focuses not on the earthy delights of the season which can be found scattered across the ground under the shedding branches of trees, and gathering and growing within the interstices of their damp twisting roots, but on the photographic effects which can be created, when the burnished bronzes and warming golds of the season are reflected in the rippling surface of water.

One of the great attractions of Wandsworth Common, where my partner and I headed for our Autumn stroll last Sunday, is the cluster of ponds, around which little paths and bridges allow the park’s visitors access into this otherwise quite unspoilt natural habitat. So, from the wooden passages, taking the visitor across the waters and around the lakes, you can view what is perhaps nature at its best – all of the colours and shapes of nature captured, but reflected double in this watery mirror at its feet.

The effect is wonderful. In the wide lens views of the whole lake for example, one gets a sense of the enormity of nature as the lake reflects not just the full expanses of trees, but also the sky above. Then, in the closer shots which focus on ripples alone, the effect of movement in the water creates what almost becomes an abstract image, as the reflection of trees is fragmented and, when isolated, forms an entirely new visually enticing image of its own. A few of my ripple shots for example remind me of the art nouveau patterns used in the portraits of Gustav Klimt. I wonder whether the apparently imagined patterns of his works drew similarly from the work of Mother Nature?

Whatever Klimt’s inspiration, these photos have surely inspired me. Not only has the act of photographing Autumn provided me with immense photographic satisfaction, but I can already feel my paint brushes twitching to start painting something similarly inspired by the beauty of nature in this season.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Autumn Inspires | Photos (Part 1) – What lies beneath (daily-norm.com)

Oct 8

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Autumn Inspires | Photos (Part 1) – What lies beneath

Most artists, photographers and general life enthusiasts will find a shared enthusiasm for the enriching visual changes which the season of Autumn brings in its wake. Like the heat from a furnace being blown slowly over the landscapes below, green summer leaves are turned a shade of burnished bronze and cherry red; the once verdant grassy planes become scattered with pepperings, and clusters of fallen leaves, and dropping from trees like a windfall scattering the treasures from a Christmas tree, are apples and acorns, conkers and chestnuts of every conceivable shade of red and brown and orange, and shaped both shiny and smooth, as well as precariously spiky. Of course Autumn isn’t always a pleasure, not least on those gloomy wet and windy days, when the treasures falling from the trees very quickly become a water saturated mush mixed in with a cocktail of mud and rotten leaves, however when the sun shines on Autumn, and those oranges and reds are offset against a cerulean blue sky, the gems of this season truly sparkle.

Last Sunday was one such day, when the sun shone almost strong enough to feel like Summer, and the colours of autumn, though slow to take hold (given that our Spring this year started in around June, we probably can’t expect to see any significant Autumn changes until the end of November at the earliest) started glimmering in the enhanced morning light. Bemoaning all of those times when I have come across little Autumn gems without a camera in my pocket, I rushed out with my partner and my camera in hand to the mid-urban oasis of Wandsworth Common to search for photographic and artistic inspiration within the folds of this freshly unfurling Autumn season.

This post will be one of two in which I share some of the photos taken on that day. Roughly split into themes, my second post will focus more on the images created on the moving surface of Wandsworth Common’s lakes; beautiful abstract compositions reflecting all of the Autumnal colours mirrored in these rippled waters. But today’s post focuses on more solid ground; on the leaves dappled with reds and browns, and on the mushrooms which we scrambled around amongst the undergrowth to find, and which have to be my favourite of all features of the Autumn landscape. They weren’t in fact all that easy to find, and at one point we almost gave up on discovering any. But a little squirrel, scurrying past us with a mushroom in her small furry hands soon alerted us to where the mushrooms were lurking, and the photos which result must surely be dedicated in thanks to that squirrel for showing us the way. Thanks also to that beautiful creature for her own adept posing – my photo of said squirrel nibbling carefully on a mushroom has to be my favourite of the lot.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Oct 2

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Norm’s Autumn Banoffee at Palau March

As the green leaves of summer turn gradually to shades of auburn and brown, it’s time again to reflect on that sunny island of Mallorca, where the higher temperatures of summer live on, and the sun’s midday warmth embraces all locals and visitors alike with its life-enhancing optimism. But even Mallorca and the Mediterranean is not immune from the seasonal momentum of the planetary system, and as evenings draw in before winter descends, and the sunlight hours diminish, the locals and Norms of Mallorca’s capital Palma look to the cosier pursuits in life.

And can there be anything cosier in the emerging autumn than a late afternoon tea, with a slice of Cappuccino Grand Café’s classic banoffee pie, consumed while sitting on the comfy sofas of the Palau March café under the colonnades ofthis elegant city palace? This little Norm certainly does not think so, and indulging in the very height of afternoon delight, he sips upon his coffee and digs into his oozing caramel-filled banana and cream tart with a gusto which is more than justified when exposed to such an exquisite dessert. His little heart beating to the sumptuous sounds of Cappuccino’s jazzy sound track, and his eyes otherwise entertained by the unbeatable views of Palma’s historic centre beyond the colonnades, this Norm is all set up for an autumn afternoon of insurmountable delight, and is frankly the envy of all of us who can not be there with him.

Norm at Cappuccino Palau March (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

My little Norm painting is acrylic on canvas and currently hangs, so I gather, in the stunning Ibiza Botafoch café of the Grupo Cappuccino. Now that’s got to be a double whammy for this little Norm.

Check out more Norm paintings in the new Norm galleries of my (almost) completed new website.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Mallorca Map Commission Part 1 – Mallorca and Ibiza (daily-norm.com)
Mallorca Map Commission Part 2 – Palma (daily-norm.com)
Norm cocktail in the Port of Andratx (daily-norm.com)

Nov 28

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Saffron Risotto with a gathering of autumn flavours, edible gold leaf and an espresso reduction

I always thought I had risotto down until I watched an episode of Australia’s Masterchef on TV the other day (yes, we have the Aussie show in the UK and it’s so much better than the British version – Apprentice challenges meets cooking stress – classic). A couple of weeks back, the budding final 10 contestants had flown half way around the world to the lavish panoply of gastronomic delights that is Italia. Across the week, the illusive risotto, previously termed “the masterchef death dish” (because so many contestants failed in their attempts to cook it), was cooked twice – and appropriately so, being as they were in the home of the famed rice-based dish. For the first, a saffron-yellow, creamy and simple risotto was topped by a single sheaf of edible gold leaf and frankly looked amazing (needless to say, most of the contestants failed in their attempts to recreate the dish). The second risotto was made in a master-class at the end of the week. Again, the recipe was for a simple risotto, which, instead of adding onions at the beginning, added them right at the end as a type of purée. I was inspired.

So last weekend, I decided that my tried and tested risotto method should be set aside for a new radical approach which was to be something of a combination of the two methods I saw on TV with a little of my own twist on top.

Up first was the stock. I used 900ml of ordinary chicken stock and added to this the dried old husks from a hunk of parmesan cheese which had been hanging around in my fridge. This lends a wonderfully rich parmesan undercurrent to the risotto without going overkill at the end. I also added some chunks of ham and a good pinch of saffron strands straight from my spanish travels. I allowed this stock to simmer gently while getting on with the other components.

My red onion purée

Up next, I chopped an onion (it should be a white one – I only had red, which tends to redden the saffron yellow colour of the risotto when stirred in at the end, but it’s not a big deal). I sweated my onion, covered, over a low heat in plenty of butter (a good 50g worth) and seasoning. I left the onion to sweat for a good 20 minutes, before adding it to a food processor, along with another knob of butter and making a creamy puree. This I then placed in the fridge to firm up a bit for use later.

Next, while the onions were sweating, I turned to my espresso reduction – This creates a wonderful deep, almost bitter-sweet contrast to the richness of the risotto’s parmesan flavour, and looks amazing when painted onto the plate. For the reduction, I made two double espressos in my coffee machine, and adding a single sachet of sugar (about a dessert spoon) and the coffee to a pan, I started simmering the coffee fairly rapidly, stirring often, until it started to reduce. Be careful this doesn’t burn or the espresso will become too bitter. Once thickened and syrupy, I set aside (keeping warm).

Before moving onto the risotto, I chopped around half a butternut squash, seasoned, drizzled with oil and placed in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius.

OK, onto the risotto. So in a pan went 200g of arborio rice, which I toasted lightly in a few knobs of melted butter for a minute or so. Then, straight to the rice (no wine added in this recipe) I went with my first ladle-full of stock, stirring appropriately. On masterchef, George, the presenter, suggested that one should “aggravate” rather than stir the risotto – personally, in my pans, it’s stir or stick, so I ignored his approach, but feel free to shake the rice around a lot rather than stir if you have a really effective non-stick pan. Taking the dish one ladle-full at a time, the rice started to become thicker and yellower and overall more delicious.

As the risotto neared its completion, I fried up a good handful of sliced mushrooms (you can use any variety, the prettier the better) in some butter and oil, along with some chopped sage, a crushed garlic clove, seasoning and some chopped parma ham (pancetta would also work well). These create some amazing autumn flavours and a textural variation to the risotto. Before the autumn ingredients were done, and once the stock was used up, I left my risotto to rest for 4-5 mins with the lid on (the risotto, once cooked, should be creamy and yet loose, with the rice tender, but still with some bite).

So, pulling everything together, I first painted my plates with the espresso reduction. I then stirred my onion puree into the risotto – so creamy and amazing it made me salivate instantly. I then spooned the risotto onto my plates, and carefully piled some of the butternut squash and mushroom mix onto it. I then crowned my dish with a few fragments of edible gold leaf in homage to the incredible creation I saw made on TV.

And there you have it. The new radical approach to cooking risotto worked. No wine, no parmesan at the end, but with an onion puree and a very original coffee puree on the side. So different from my previous method, but so, so good.

Nov 6

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Autumn Harvest II – Surrey and Yorkshire

A couple of weeks ago I extolled the virtues of crispy cold auburn-gold autumn, and the voluptuous harvest of fine photographic fodder it provides. From elegant mushrooms and rosy red leaves, to strange wirey bare branches and deep orange sunsets. Since writing that post, autumn has born more photographic fruit.

The first opportunity for Autumnal appreciation presented itself, surprisingly, in the form of a work-related residential course in Surrey. Staying in the deep Surrey countryside, in a country house hotel at first shrouded in a thick mysterious fog, it felt like we were characters in a Victorian melodrama, confined by the fog to the immediate surrounds of a great grand house, unable to see what lay beyond. This made for some particularly decadent photographic shots, not least of the old cast iron railings and topiarian garden emerging from amidst the mist.

On the third day however, that thick smog cleared, and what revealed itself were magnificent far-reaching lush verdant grounds, tinged golden by a gently autumn sun, and revealing amongst their treasures REAL red toadstools! I thought these were just the things of fairytales – I was so excited to stumble upon these glorious red treasures in reality – it felt like stumbling upon a pile of rubies in the rough.

The second opportunity for autumnal admiration was a trip up North to cold crisp Yorkshire, the land of rolling dales, dry stone walls, pleasant farmland and old crooked towns, in other words the idyllic scenes of old England which appear to exist no where except annually upon a Christmas card. These surroundings were the location of the wedding of my very dear friend Celia, author of the Lady Aga blog no less, not to mention award winning cake baker extraordinaire. As soon as I breathed in the fresh crisp air of Yorkshire, I was in love. Those rolling hills looked never better than on a cool Autumn day, when the long shadows formed stripes across the countryside, and the crisp auburn trees dressed York’s imposing gothic Minster in a colourful autumn wardrobe.

Enough of all my ramblings, here are the photos, glimpses on a changeable english climate, from fog to sunshine, in warmth and in cold, all quintessentially autumn.

Autumn Harvest (daily-norm.com)

Oct 20

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Autumn Harvest

Admittedly, England makes it difficult to like autumn. It’s dark in the mornings, damp and cold. The skies are filled with so many grey clouds that it feels like night time all day long, and the rain pours with such a relentless familiarity that one starts to distinguish between the different types of rain – sometimes large droplets, sometimes thin and fizzy, hanging like a sustained low-lying cloud around the pavements, making mincemeat of your carefully quaffed outfit and once perfectly sleek hair. With its best friend, the Autumnal wind, the rain laughs in your face, making horseplay of your attempts to hold up an umbrella, with which you are ever fighting to prevent it turning inside out or flying off down the road. Ah yes, the English autumn has, like the summer and spring before it, been a bit of a damp squid so far. But on the rare day that the sun shines, when the translucent brown leaves shimmer like gold, when the soggy auburns turn into a burnished bronze, the autumn can look truly stunning.

In fact, as these photographs will show, autumn is a ripe source of inspiration for me and my little pocket camera – an autumn harvest if you will. When the surrounding green swathes are ripe with fungi, with leaves of varying colours, when the shedding trees start to reveal the glory of their winding, twisty branches, and the shadows are long, dark and potent.

Without further ado I leave you with a gallery of my photographs, from those taken in the London parks, to the multicoloured pumpkins, squash and nuts and conkers imported into my home.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Oct 10

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Collecting conkers for a classy seasonal display

Collecting conkers, fallen from the golden boughs of large horse-chestnut trees, bursting as they are around this time with green spiky cases with their shiny auburn seeds, has always held something of a legendary status for me. When I was younger, it seemed that anyone who was anyone went conker collecting, and the more, the plumper, the shiner you could collect, the better. Of course tradition dictates that conkers are collected, threaded on a string, and then used in a good old game of conker and string, knocking the conkers together until one breaks, the winner being he or she who’s conker remains intact the longest.

Off on our conker search (that’s us in the shadows!)

Our conker haul!

The conker game never really appealed to me, but the thrill of finding these shiny round autumn gems certainly satisfied my magpie nature. There was always a great joy to be had in hunting them down, looking amongst piles of crispy brown fallen leaves, all around the wide tree trunks, and coming across a large, plump shiny chestnut-red conker, freshly fallen from the inside of its silky white enclosure, the pure and soft antithesis of the outer thorny shell.

Even now, I love the smell of freshly fallen leaves, slowly starting to decompose in the fresh damp air and the crisp sunny mornings, the scent recalling to my mind those long autumn walks and the joy of collection and discovery, of acorns and conkers, of spiky seeds and ruby red leaves. Living so close to Clapham Common, I have a host of large trees on my doorstep. Unlike the autumns of my Sussex childhood, when my father would use his umbrella to try and pull more conkers down from the trees, such was their scarcity, now, in a single walk, I can bring in a haul of freshly fallen conkers, before the high gloss marbled brown shells have gone dull, or been pecked at my birds or squirrels.

A shiny conker bursting from its shell

It was one such haul which I collected for myself the other day, as has become a new more adult tradition of my later years here in London. Depending on what I find, I tend to display my collection in fruit bowls so that their lustrous glory can be reflected upon during these darkening autumn days. And this year, so impressed was I with my find, that I even filled a vase full of them too. You should try it – while they don’t last forever, they’re guaranteed to last longer than your average vase of flowers, and better still, they’re free! Try getting a few barely opened complete pods – these will take a few days to open and when they do, the fresh shine of the conker within will look especially good in your display.

Displayed in our fruit bowl

Mixing other autumn seeds into the mix

My vase display

I leave you with some shots of the acorns and conkers I painted as part of my Richmond Park painting last year. Happy conker hunting!

Conkers as featured in my painting of Richmond Park last year

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

British conkers getting smaller as infection hits horse chestnut trees (telegraph.co.uk)
Bonkers for conkers – and welly wanging (theglobeandmail.com)

Sep 16

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Sunday Supplement: Clapham Common

Autumn is coming. It’s inescapable. When we are lucky enough to enjoy the sun, we notice that its heat is no longer so all embracing, and that a chilly breeze is never far behind. All around, the lush green of verdant England is turning slowly paler, then yellow, and then auburn, as the trees slowly relent to the weather forces around them, tired after a summer’s efforts to grow and sustain thousands of new leaves, now letting them drop to the floor as the tree retreats into its winter slumber.

Autumn is a time of death and decay, but also a time of great beauty, as summer fades away, and the canvas of colours all around changes perceptively from blues and greens, to deep oranges, umbers and reds. I love autumn, and no more so in the large parks for which London is so famed. Just around the corner on Clapham Common, the trees scatter such a bounty of leaves all about them that often a carpet of golden curls is all that can be seen for miles around. This is all the more enhanced when the long rays of the autumn sun cast long shadows upon them, allowing the shades of orange and red to dance around the park like wild fire.

It was on one such sunny afternoon that I was inspired to paint this scene – a vivid painting capturing light and shadow across fallen leaves in Clapham Common. Now I come to think of it, it’s a bit Hockney in its bold colours, although this wasn’t the intention. Rather I set about demonstrating how vivid and eye-catching are the hues of autumn, and how beautiful this time of fading summer can be.

Have a good Sunday.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Sunday Supplement – Cityscape I: London (normsonline.wordpress.com)

Dec 4

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Sunday Supplement: Road Traffic Control

In the continued spirit of the Sunday Supplement’s exploration of some of my more detailed non-Norm work, this Sunday I am presenting a painting which I literally finished two days ago, having been working on it on and off since the first week of October: Road Traffic Control (Autumn in Richmond Park). The work was inspired by an early autumn day in Richmond Park – it was in fact the day of the mini heat wave in the UK with temperatures of 29 degrees on 1 October. This made for the rare sensation of feeling summer on the skin, but with the eyes seeing autumn hues bathed in glorious sunlight. It made for wonderful visual results in Richmond Park, which is in itself a unique and vast bucolic landscape in amongst the urban jungle that is London surrounding it. As soon as I got home, I started work on this canvas.