Tomte

I don’t really know what it is but lately I have been having the urge for drawing tomte nissar (brownie, hobs, gnome), maybe it is the snow that is falling outside or that I have been eating Christmas porridge in the mornings.

When I was little I believed in gnomes without a doubt (now maybe not so much…) I grew up in the countryside in Sweden in a wooden house that made a lot of noises, specially when the wind was stirring up outside, and it was kind of nice to believe that there was a bunch of grumpy gnomes walking around instead of some other noisy fairy tale monster.

If you, like I do, like gnomes I would recommend an illustrator called John Bauer, he made great illustrations of gnomes and trolls and their magical world.

Cookies

Stir sugar, butter and syrup in a saucepan, stirring constantly until the butter is melted. Place all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and then add the warm mixture.

Stirring until all the ingredients are well blended. Roll out the dough as thin as possible. Cut out a gingerbread shape, place the cookies on foil-lined cookies sheets and bake until golden brown, about 5-7 min.

Be warned if your patience level is not very high this cookies might not be the best think to do, I m quite a calm person most of the time but this dough did definitely get some screaming at it, the problem is that the dough is sticky, so use a lot of flour when you roll it out. Another thing that can be good to point out is that these cookies are quite addictive, so it is very easy to eat a few to many. Which means that you will spend some time in the toilet.

If you are really into baking cookies I would recommend to have look at this lovely blogs:

http://www.lottieanddoof.com/2009/12/12-days-of-cookies-4-lottie-doof-101-cookbooks/

http://www.nordljus.co.uk/en/menu-for-hope-iii-amai-story

Folke and his Sisyphean week…

Meet Folke. Surely his moods through the week feel familiar to you all. At least I know they are familiar to me, and that’s funny since being a freelance illustrator my week is not as structured as it used to be when I was a schoolgirl. I mean that often I get to work on the weekend and rest (sigh) some other day, but for some reason, it seems that the “standard” weekly rhythm is embedded at a very basic level in our biological clock, because I tend to feel lighter as Saturday approaches…


So anyway, to all who read this I wish a very nice weekend, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, well you get drift…