DerekMah.tumblr

Calgary–based illustrator and communications strategist making stuff that makes people happy. Food, music, and art in yyc.

[neil-gaiman]

Another bit from an ancient blog: WORLD'S BEST PORRIDGE RECIPE

One of the drawbacks of the World’s Best Porridge Recipe for those purposes is that it’s slightly chewy, which is part of the charm.  Having experimented with porridge recipes for years now, this one sort of came together in a bunch of “what if I tried…"s that actually worked.  You need two kinds of oats for it to work. Normal rolled oats (not instant oats), and also steel-cut oats (I use McCanns but I’m sure any brand would do).  (Okay. It’s not Healthy, though. Or Sensible. I feel like I ought to mention that. It’s the sort of porridge I’d break out to impress guests with, rather than eat every morning.)  Begin with a saucepan. Take a generous couple of tablespoonfuls of butter, and melt them in the saucepan over a low light.  Add about a tablespoonful of McCann’s Steel Cut Oats. Let it start to cook in the butter. Add about three-quarters of a cupful of normal rolled oats, and a little less than half a teaspoon of coarse seasalt. Let it all cook in the butter, on a low heat, stirring it around a bit with a wooden spoon. Don’t let it burn. Pretty soon, everything will start to smell like oatmeal cookies, and the oats will be browning well, and will have absorbed all the butter, and people will be saying "That smells nice, are you cooking something?” (If it goes black and people ask if they should open the windows, you let it burn. Start again.)  At this point add a couple of cups of boiling water. Bring it back to the boil and “spirtle” (stir vigorously). Let it cook for about ten minutes over a medium to low heat, stirring whenever you remember. Somewhere in there I normally add a little more water, and as it thickens at the end, I stir more.  After about ten minutes, it’ll be done. Put it into a bowl. Drizzle real maple syrup on. Pour thick cream over that. Put spoon in. Eat.  (I suppose the maple syrup can be replaced with sugar or honey or no sweetener at all. The steel cut oats add some texture to the whole. The frying the oats gently in butter is there to make you feel guilty and seems to make the whole thing work.)

[neil-gaiman]

From http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2003/09/post-with-porridge-recipe.asp

[derekmah]

Inktober 2018 - That’s a wrap!

DOUBLE – Two by two. Kuretake 13 brush pen with Kuretake black, Platinum Preppy Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper on acid-free sketch pad.

JOLT – Moment of illumination. Sakura Gelly Roll white, Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon ink on Clairefontaine Kraft.

SLICE – Slice it as you will. Lives are like loaves of bread, sort of the same, but each ultimately unique. Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho, Sakura Gelly Roll white, Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Kuretake 13 with Kuretake black ink on Clairefontaine Kraft.

And that’s a wrap for Inktober 2018!

[derekmah]

Inktober 2018 - Week 4

EXPENSIVE – Priceless. Kuretake #13 with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, and Sakura Gelly Roll White on Clairefontaine Kraft.

MUDDY – Skeleton blowing bubbles in the swamp. Kuretake #13 with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho, and Sakura Gelly Roll White on Clairefontaine Kraft

CHOP – Didn’t feel a thing. Kuretake #13 with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, and Platinum Preppy Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper on Canson bristol

PRICKLY – Feels so good to scratch. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper, Pilot Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho, and Sakura Gelly Roll white on Bee Bogus Recycled

STRETCH – Yoga bear in warrior II. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon on Bee Bogus Recycled

THUNDER – I am the storm. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon on Clairefontaine Kraft

GIFT – Primordial. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper, Pilot Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho, and Sakura Gelly Roll white on recycled bogus

[derekmah]

Inktober 2018 - Week 3

WEAK – The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Kuretake 13 brush pen with Kuretake ink and Sakura Gelly Roll White on Clairefontaine Kraft

ANGULAR – Thai basil. Lamy Safari with Diamine Meadow ink on Bee Bogus Recycled

SWOLLEN – May his passage cleanse the world. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon ink on Canson bristol

BOTTLE – Iroshizuku disguise. Ink bottle drawn with three inks, none of which is an Iroshizuku. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper, and Sakura Gelly Roll white on Bee Bogus Recycled

SCORCHED – Perfect match. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper, and Sakura Gelly Roll white on Bee Bogus Recycled

BREAKABLE – Received a sweet Kuretake brush pen from a dude named Damian. There was no mention of a contract. True story. Kuretake #13 with Platinum Carbon, and Platinum Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper on Clairfontaine Kraft

DRAIN – Yum. Tasty. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Sign with Diamine Ancient Copper, and Sakura Gelly Roll White on Bee Bogus Recycled

[derekmah]

Inktober 2018 - Week 2

STAR – On vacation. Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho ink, Jinhao 599 with Platinum Carbon ink, and Signo Broad White on Bee Bogus Recycled

PRECIOUS – Star light, star bright... what would you wish for? Rotring Quattro and Signo Broad White on Bee Bogus Recycled

FLOWING – Drawn out recovery. Jinhao 599 with Platinum Carbon ink on Bee Bogus Recycled

CRUEL – Don’t crack up, bend your brain, see both sides, throw off your mental chains. Jinhao 599 with Platinum Carbon, Platinum Preppy Marker with Platinum Citrus Black.

WHALE – Blue Whale and Pointy Thing. Colour-shifted the originally brown drawing. Jinhao 599 with Platinum Carbon, Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho.

GUARDED – Magic skull knot journal. Recipes, mostly. This ink has an interesting reaction to washes. The earth tones rehydrate and spread readily while the blue component stains. Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho ink, Uni-ball Signo Broad White

CLOCK – Gourd o’clock. Ancient druids could tell time by looking at a gourd. If they felt like eating it, it was lunchtime. Platinum Preppy with Platinum Carbon ink, Pentel Brush Pen with Iroshizuku Ina Ho ink, and Sakura Gelly Roll White on Clairefontaine Kraft

[derekmah]

Inktober 2018 - Week 1

POISONOUS – Not a commentary on anything. A random person. From a small town in Canada you have never heard of. Rotring Quattro pen from @reidson17th on the recommendation of legendary pen slinger @karicervi_carvey. The first and best fancy pen I have ever purchased. Twenty years on, it is still my favourite for just about everything.

TRANQUIL – It is whatever you see. A tree, probably. Pentel brush pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Ina Ho on Canson.

ROASTED – @calgaryheritageroastingco coffee beans in a @bodum grinder. Rotring Quattro and Pentel brush pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Ina Ho on Canson. 

SPELL – Started sketching with fountain pens last year and it has been magical. Jinhao 599 F with Platinum Carbon ink on Canson.

CHICKEN – Never cross a road chicken. Jinhao 599 F with Platinum Carbon ink on Canson.

DROOLING – A little salmon to get the juices going. Rotring Quattro, Pentel Slicci, and Pentel brush pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Ina Ho on Canson.

EXHAUSTED – “She don’t sweat, she sours and melts like ice cream in the sun.” – Maria McKee, Panic Beach Lamy Safari and Diamine Meadow ink on Bee Bogus Recycled.

[derekmah]

Rosemary Oat Bread with Cracked Black Pepper

♎️✨

Current favourite bread to make. Been experimenting with different flours and grains, but sometimes simple is best. Super moist, a little dense, with herbal tones, and a nice smoke and tingle finish from the pepper.

2 parts oats, 3 parts white flour, 2 or 3 parts water, oil, yeast, salt, pepper, and rosemary.

The first time I tried this, I mortared the oats into flour. It turns out this is unnecessary. The oats pretty much dissolve during kneading. The oats add a bit of texture and retain a lot of moisture, making this a nice soup bread. Be sure at least half your dry mix is wheat flour, as oat flour does not rise. I add a bit more yeast, too. As you can see between the second and third photos, it will still rise pretty nicely. This happened in about twenty minutes.

Hope you try this bread! It is quick and easy and tastes great on a crisp autumn day!

[derekmah]

Baby Daken

Just a fun FB thing. 

[derekmah]

Simple Bread Recipe

Easy starting point for you to establish your own classic.

There is something magical about transforming basic ingredients into something so tactile and yummy. Everybody has their favourite way to knead the dough into an optimum texture, and favourite ingredients to spice up their loaves. With so much room for experimentation, I find myself tweaking every time, just to see what will happen.

Ingredients:

500g flour 2 tsp salt 1 tsp fast-acting yeast 1 tsp sugar 3 tbsp olive oil 300 ml water

Combine ingredients, knead, let rise, bake for 25 minutes at 200°C (400°F).

That’s it. Really!

Detailed Instructions:

Activate the yeast in a couple teaspoons of warm (not hot!) water and a teaspoon of sugar. Give the yeast several minutes to get nice and bubbly.

Toss the flour and salt in a bowl that is twice as large as you think you need. Add the oil, water, and bubbling yeast. Cut, fold, blend, and otherwise moosh it all together. I like to use a plastic scraper for this, but you might prefer bare hands or a strong mixer set on slow.

Most dough is a little sticky at this stage. Liberally dust your dough with more flour until it does not stick to your hands . Knead until you are exhausted.

This step is as much art as science, but I assure you it’s almost impossible to screw up. Your bread might end up a bit heavy, or a bit moist, but it will still be delicious.

Ball up your dough, oil it lightly, and leave it in a covered bowl to rise.

Your dough will expand to roughly twice its original size in as little as an hour, or as long as overnight in the refrigerator. This depends on many factors such as humidity, temperature, and the colour of your cat. I usually rise loaves for about an hour, but have popped smaller buns in the oven after only thirty minutes. My cats were black and white.

Shape your dough how you like. Roll in to little buns, press into a loaf pan, or simply ball and drop onto a cookie sheet. Dress it with a dusting of flour, baste it with oil, or sprinkle some rock salt and spices on there if you want to be fancy. Let it rise a little bit more before you bake, time permitting. It will rise more while it bakes, too. Be careful to leave room for your bread to expand upwards without coming into contact with the upper element in your oven.

Set your oven to 200°C or 400°F or thereabouts. Everybody has their favourite temperature. I have baked as low as 150°C in my convection toaster oven. Bake for 20-30 mins depending on oven temperature and size of your loaves.

Pull your bread out of the oven, pop it out of the pan right away, and put it on a rack or balance it across some smaller pans to let air flow top and bottom while it cools. This will not dry out your bread. It has plenty of moisture inside.

Pro Tips:

When you first take the bread out of the oven and are tempted to dive in right away, please remember that the temperature inside the loaf is the same as the temperature inside your oven. Be patient!

If you are really organized and efficient, you can cut and shape your bread immediately after kneading and let it rise in the baking pans.

Smaller loaves can be baked in a toaster oven on warmer days when you want to avoid a full size oven heating your kitchen. 

Some Ingredients to Try:

olives, spice blends such as rosemary and thyme, garlic, bacon, grains, nuts, mixes of oil and water, soup stock, even the left over water from boiling potatoes. It is pretty cool how far you can go.

I hope you have fun with this!

[derekmah]

Barnabas Bigfoot

Cover for the first of Marty Chan’s series about a teenaged sasquatch cursed with tiny feet.

[derekmah]

Tera the Mummy

Painting progression for school presentations. One of several from Arthur Slade’s Monsterology. Based on the legend of an actual six-fingered princess.

[derekmah]

Zack Zombie

Painting progression for school presentations. One of several from Arthur Slade’s Monsterology. Arthur wanted kind of an Angus Young feel, so we went with the school uniform.

[derekmah]

Barrel o’ Ocean Chimps

Parody ad for back of fictional comic. Movie prop.

[derekmah]

Fallen Angel

Design for gaming figurine.

[derekmah]

Forbidden Phoenix

Cover and interior illustrations for Marty Chan’s published script of his stage play. Cover in acrylic, illustrations in Adobe Illustrator.

[derekmah]

Storyteller

Back in my convention circuit days, this was one of the more well received pieces. Acrylic on unprimed linen, ca 1995.

There is a pointillism version kicking around somewhere that was commissioned for the cover of a convention guide.

[derekmah]

Hoop&Harm

Cover of fictional comic book for movie prop.