Procrastination

I did allow myself small procrastination 'breaks' between every 5 or 6 drawings though, here is what my mind decided it wanted to make. Again, bad photos and these are the only ones I took photos of. 

Draw all the brooches

Carrying on from my previous post about 'making images' here are some more images from my development work for my self directed project. I have chosen to look at old brooches to make images of so naturally I went straight to my Nana's jewellery collection. I used a selection of media to make these images; fineliner, watercolour, graphite pencils, brown paper and fibre tip pen. I've got a lot more of these to do, but they take me so long to do. Fingers crossed I'll speed up the more I draw of them. Also the photos are horrible quality. I'm hoping to buy a scanner at some point soon. 

I was bored and hungry so here's a burger.

Watercolour and fibre tip pen

Slowly getting there

My hair is very slowly but surely growing and getting to the length I want it to be. The 1st picture is from the start of March and the 2nd one is from last week. Going to hopefully pick up some more dye tomorrow to make it all bright again and then soon I need to book a haircut and get my fringe back. Happy days.

Learning to make images

My tutor at uni (whose work you can find here: http://www.matthewthehorse.co.uk/) for my self directed project has been teaching me about how to not draw, but to 'make images'. Illustration is about line, shape, colour etc. I made these images as part of my SDP to practice working with different materials and styles. I'm going to scan or photograph more of them another day but these are a selection of the images so far. For these images I used a variety of media, including fibre tip pen, fineliner, watercolour, brown paper.

You are lovely.

Alex showed me a thing, then I did it with her Wacom tablet. Like it, gonna do more type.

Hound

This is my very lazy hound. I was just going to run a bath and this is what I find. 

Lovely things

Over the past few weeks I've bought and been bought some lovely things which has been really nice. It's a really nice feeling to buy new things, obviously buying everything all of the time is a bad idea but I'm trying to be a bit more selective with what I buy. Either way, pretty new things! 

From the last post you can see the foundation, eyeliner and foundation brush I bought, as well as the blusher from my Dad. Here's some of the other stuff I've bought and been bought 

Pencil case from Paperchase

Roald Dahl omnibus

Chain print jumper from ASOS

Felix the cat leggings from ASOS

Easter egg from Tim

Chocolate Hello Kitty from Tim's mum and dad

It really does Benefit my face. See what I did there.

When Frankie came up North again for a couple of days before she went to Dubai to see her brother we had a day in Leeds where we spent too much money and ate nice food and I got a new piercing.


Bought make-up, a new pencil case, boring stuff for the flat and a few other things. We had lunch at Wetherspoons and I had a bbq chicken and bacon panini, so so good, I love paninis. 


I needed a new eyeliner and as Debenhams is one of the only places that sells the Benefit eyeliner that I use that's where we headed. Sadly, since the last time I bought one they've stopped making it. Whaaat. They have however made pretty much the same one but a long thin one as opposed to the very chunky one they made before. We ended up deciding to get ourselves 'matched up' to the right foundation etc for our skin at the Benefit counter which resulted in us buying some very expensive make-up. Oops. It is really really nice though. Here is what I got. The photos are not my own:

'Bad Gal' eyeliner

'Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow' foundation

I also bought a brush to put the foundation on with as I don't usually wear liquid foundation. I got this 'Eco tools' one from /boots and it is amazing. It is so soft and great to put make-up on with. Good purchase. 

Eco tools foundation brush

Continuing the surge of new Benefit make-up my Dad bought me the 'Hervana' blusher for Easter that I had tried when being matched up. It is amazing. This one is my photo. 

'Hervana' blush

I really should learn to take better pictures of things just in case I actually remember to do a blog post but the inside is so pretty. It comes with a little mirror inside the lid and and a lovely soft angled brush. There is a swirl of different coloured blushes inside and you get them all on the brush at once and it makes a lovely peachy shade and just it's so good, I love it!

I also used up the last of my 'Bad Gal' mascara which meant it was a good time for me to try out my 'They're real!' mascara that my Dad got me for Christmas. It is a godsend. Wow. Absolutely amazing, makes my eyelashes look huge and lasts all day too. So so good.

So in conclusion, current Benefit products I am using are:
- 'It stick' concealer
- 'Hello Flawless, Oxygen Wow' foundation
- 'Hervana' blusher
- 'Bad Gal' eyeliner
- 'They're real!' mascara

They are honestly all so great to use, I feel like I look completely different since switching foundation and it feels good. I still use Barry M liquid eyeliner as it's what I've always used and a cheaper eyebrow pencil.

I've been considering buying 'The POREfessional' from Benefit as well as although I do have pretty okay skin I feel that I still need to use a primer to make all my skin even. As the lady that did our make-up said 'you wouldn't want to paint on a bumpy canvas' and I feel that using a primer would give my make-up an overall better look. but we'll have to see, it's pretty expensive :(

'The POREfessional'

Conclusion is: the result of me not going out loads and spending money on alcohol all the time is me buying new pretty make-up and really really enjoying it. It really does pay off to spend a little bit more.

Forever useless

Never ever ever will I learn to update more regularly. However, in all fairness I did have 3 deadlines since the last time I posted but that isn't really an excuse seeing as they were at the end of March. I haven't done a great deal physically since the last time I posted aside from work and recovering from doing said work. Things of note that I have done, that I can remember (some may get their own posts later) are:

- dyed my hair pink (sort of an accident)

- went to the Spring Reetsweet craft fair

- went to Stafford a couple of times, one of them for Tim's birthday 

- had 3 weeks Easter holiday (where I could have updated this) 

- went to Lincoln for nearly a week 

- went to see the Hunger Games with Tim 

- out for a couple of meals for various occasions 

and I really can't remember anything else I've done for the past 2 months or however long it's been, this should be incentive enough to update more often.

Tim's birthday cake

Tim's birthday was one of the most organised and stressful things I've done in a while. I planned everything down to the last detail but that didn't stop things going wrong. I had delays on nearly every present I ordered, one of them only just showed up on the morning I had to leave and that was only because I had to email them asking where it was seeing as I ordered well in time and had had no dispatch emails or anything. Argh! I came home the night before to bake him a mega-chocolatey cake which I then had to get from my house in Wetherby back to the flat in Leeds and then on a bus, 2 trains and a taxi to Tim's flat in Stafford. He also had no idea I was coming about 5 hours earlier than he was expecting me and I had managed to get one of his flatmates to let me into the flat without him knowing to surprise him. I was under the impression that he was at uni but I got there and found him sitting in his room but luckily he was still surprised. Phew! He loved his presents and his cake and then later on we made tuna pasta bake together and it was lovely. 

Tim finished uni for Easter the day after his birthday so his Dad came and picked us up from Stafford on the Saturday night (after a good night out on the Friday night) and we went back to Tim's house.The next day we went to Lancaster (where Tim's brother used to go to uni) for a meal in a really nice pub for a meal with his family which was really really nice. I had the most amazing burger, oh my god. Bugers forever. After that we went back to Tim's grandparents house to have some of my cake that I'd made and ahh nice day :)

I still had a week left of uni so on Monday through till Thursday I was there, I had 2 deadlines on the Thursday and one on the Friday so I was very busy but I got it all handed in. At 5am on the Friday morning. Oh dear. Then I went for a biiiiiig well earned sleep and once I was up and ready I went to Tim's for a Chinese takeaway which was amazing. After that a lot of the next 3 weeks is a blue because I was off uni and therefore was happy and not thinking about anything. I spent some time with Tim before he went back which was nice, went to see my Dad too and then I went to Lincoln for almost a week to see Alex which was really nice, Lincoln is pretty :(

(SEE ABOVE PICTURES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE POST AS BLOGGER IS A POO)

I also accidentally dyed my hair quite bright pink (no pictures do it justice) using Directions dye. Think I might try a different one next but this colour has grown on me over the past couple of weeks as it's faded a bit.

I have also bought/received some really nice things since I last posted and also found more things I would like to buy so I'll do a post on that next. Mmmm pretty things. 

Kidney's story

                   A selection of pages from my book which I have entitled 'Kidney's story'

I wish my brain was actually blue

These are the final illustrations for my book. I have only shown one of the kidneys but within the book there are several that are slowly changing colour and shape as the illness progresses.

Sorry about how badly laid out this post is but Blogger wasn't having any of it and this was the best I could do. Bloomin' thing. Feel free to let me know what you think of these illustrations, I know they are very very basic, but the whole idea of my book was to be almost like a Mr Men book. I experimented a stupid amount too to get to these final images/colour choices.

Challenge accepted!

Starting next month on the 1st March myself and Sacha will be starting this 30 day drawing challenge in one of our many unused notebooks/sketchbooks (I have waaay too many and need to do something productive with them). I'm quite excited to start it because hopefully it will make me feel more creative than I have been lately and hopefully I'll start to see some visual style to my work, I'll keep this updated as I go along with it.

Leeds in a day?

Hi
This is what my face is looking like nowadays. I've been growing my hair for a lonnnnng time now and it seems to be slowly getting there, just can't wait till it's much longer. Proud.

Yesterday I went into Leeds with Frankie whilst she was back from London and we did everything we used to do in one day, the only thing missing was a piercing. We went and bought new tapers for stretching our ears (pretty leopard print aah) and I got a teeny tiny nose ring. Then we went and had shisha which was nice because I haven't been in so long, got grape + mint and mango + mint. It's always nice just to chill out and chat there because it's so relaxed aah. After that we headed to Wagamama for some noodles, haven't been there in so long either so that was amazing. I had Yaki Soba like I always do which is thin noodles with chicken, shrimps, peppers, ginger and loads more in it, so tasty! As always taking the easy way out with children's chopsticks (which are like little tweezers) but what can you do. Next on the 'Leeds in a day' agenda was Carpe Diem, who thank god had lemonade this time so I got the cocktail (x3 oops) that I wanted. It's called raspberry freeze and urgh it's just everything I want in a cocktail, it looks and tastes like slush but it's got Absolut rasperri vodka in it. We will meet again in the near future. After that Frankie went to Lee's and I came back to the flat and watched 'The ringer' with some mini cheddars and went to bed, party animal!

Today I went into Leeds again (keep saying Leeds when really I could just say town because I do live here but it's a city but urgh nevermind, you know where I mean) to meet Sacha with the intention of getting piercings but we've put them on hold for a bit longer. We had a good look round Paperchase (we bloody love Paperchase!) and a few other shops, had some food from Boots whilst we waited for Sacha's photos to be developed and I finally bought this t-shirt that I've had my eye on in New Looks for ages so that was nice, it's blue and speckly and baggy and I can't wait to wear it, hurrah! Now I'm trying to do what work can be done without a scanner, printer Photoshop or Indesign for my deadline tomorrow. Fun fun fun. Think I'll be going into uni for the 7.30am opening or failing that 8am. Painful but it needs to be done. Hope I finish in time.

also here is a photo of me since I've taken the plunge and switched from a spike to a ring in my nose piercing:

Once upon a time

Our new brief for uni is to produce an illustrated book based on an existing news story. (180mmx180mm) We then take the news story and turn it into more of a story book, including choosing the protagonist and fabricating their feelings and emotions etc. The facts of the story still need to be the original ones, but we are allowed to 'embellish' them. This is an independent project, followed by making a collaborative film in a group also based on a developed news story. We are still on the book part and the deadline for the digital work is in 3 days, well it's less than 3 days now and as it stands I'm not quite there yet. I do know what I'm doing, I've just still got some drawings and work on InDesign to do, which is my task for the remainder of today and tomorrow. It's taken me a long time to even get into this brief and my heart's still not completely in it, but I think a lot of that is down to me doubting my work, especially my ability to draw, which is necessary for this brief as photography is not an option because of my chosen story. The story I chose to use could have been recreated in either a very morbid and grotesque horror style, or alternatively a much softer, more subtle approach where the reader has more to think about. I chose the latter.

My chosen news story is the story of Amy Francis, a 77 year old woman who died from a fatal heart attack from blood loss after an experienced surgeon unintentionally removed the wrong organ during a theatre complication. Mrs Francis was having routine keyhole surgery to remove her cancerous right kidney when her liver was unintentionally removed, causing her blood loss, resulting in death. It is a tragic story and not one to be taken lightly at all which ledme to really think about how I wanted to tell this story. I didn't wanted a grim blood covered horror story told from the doctor's or Mrs Francis' point of view, I wanted to take the audience by surprise. That's when I decided to write the story from the kidney's point if view, Kidney as the protagonist (I did also toy with the liver as the protagonist, or alternatively both the liver and the kidney both as protagonists). Visually I want the book to be in a way like a grown ups Mr Men, in the way it is very simple in both story length, typeface and imagery. Like the Mr Men books I am having text on the left hand pages with all images (fingers crossed) on the right hand ones. The concept of my story is that the body of Mrs Francis is the organs' house and that they are all brothers and sisters within that house, Kidney and Liver are closest (both relationship and anatomically). The book follows Kidney as she becomes more and more ill with what Brain tells her is called 'Cancer', her decision to let herself be taken away and the awful realisation on the day she is to leave that Liver is gone and the house has been turned upside down, Heart has been attacked and all the lights in the house are slowly shutting off to represent the death of Mrs Francis. Each page only has about 3 lines of text. I am using Arial as Mr Men books use Sans Serif fonts.

I chose to create very simple images to go with the simple story. Using fineliners and copic markers I have been working on the 'characters' of Kidney, Liver, Brain, Stomach and Heart. The photo quality isn't great as they are from my phone but I will scan my drawings in at some point and post screen shots of the finished pages when I'm done. The idea is the Kidney gets paler and paler as the story goes on, which isn't as easy as it looks with these markers, it's endless swatches and tests but it's worth it for the end results, the colours are really rich and solid. They also look a hell of a lot better in real life as opposed to these photos.

The 2 images of the heart are not the line image I will be using for the final book, they were purely practice. The fineliner elements of the image needs to be much simpler to keep with the continuity of the other organs. I will also be using different colours; I have a bright red and quite a darker one which I have also been using for the kidney. So next tasks are: create a more simple heart and work on the colourings, repeat but with stomach and also with liver. Hopefully the InDseign side won't take me too long, I wish I wasn't such a bloody perfectionist or so doubtful of my work all the time, I might get more done and quicker that way.

Enough rambling about poorly organs now, I'll keep this updated (fingers crossed) as the project progresses over the next couple of days. Also need to think of a name and cover idea.