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Wednesday 29 January 2014

Photo An Hour ~ Mon 27 Jan 2014

Photo An Hour

8am - Morning view of the world. This tree is normally full of big fat pigeons and tiny little birds that you can hear but can't see.

Photo An Hour

9am - Breakfast at the computer. Super healthy amount of jam.

Photo An Hour

10am - Scanning in sketchbook pages. This photo is about as pleasing as scanning in pages is.

Photo An Hour

11am - Packing an order of 12 goose cards.

Photo An Hour

Noon - Drawing up some tags while sausages cook. (I technically took this photo at 14 seconds past one but shhh, I did take a photo while it was still 12 but this one was better)

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1pm - Ventured out into the world to post the geese off to Texas and to do a bit of food shopping.

Photo An Hour

2pm - On my way home. I love these trees. There's a row of them in front of the football stadium but this year this is the only one that has all it's baubles.

Photo An Hour

3pm - Just as I get near my house there's a tiny but of blue sky.

Photo An Hour

4pm - I spent a little bit of time entering all the competitions on my pile of receipts after updating my accounts and this made me sad. It's like the survey has no self esteem. "Are you sure your visit to the Post Office went smoothly? That doesn't sound right, you must have ticked the wrong box. Surely something went wrong?" Makes me think of Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Photo An Hour

5pm - We settled down for the night to eat pie and chips and watch films. This is our pile of dvd's we haven't watched. We have seen some of the films already but haven't watched our copies of them yet. We ended up having a double bill of Panda! Go Panda! and Valhalla Rising. They so don't go together that it kind of worked. I feel the residual jolliness of Panda! Go Panda! helped me cope with Valhalla Rising. It was good but hard work, quite slow going. Unlike Panda! Go Panda! which was amazing.

Monday 27 January 2014

Sketchbook ~ Farts

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I'm starting to manage drawings out of my head rather than always needing some sort of reference to look at. In fact all of these were just doodled except for the second guy, in the fancy outfit, I drew him from instagram.
They may not be the best drawings ever but I have a lot of trouble just drawing something without any sort of plan or some sort of reference so at least I'm getting somewhere. Not that using reference is bad but it's got to be a good thing to be able to draw decent pictures without any.
I need to get my watercolours out more often, my sketchbooks are very black and white. Another thing I have trouble with is going back to something, I think I have a short attention span for things. I'm a bit 'done that drawing now. next!' and then never return. There must be something good about that, some sort of spontaneity or something that is good for drawings but also if I don't get it right first time then it stays not right forever and what may have been a good idea for an illustration gets lost. Or, my initial point, if I draw something when I don't have my watercolours to hand then it never gets coloured.
Also, I'd like to learn my watercolours a lot more. I love using them but I don't feel like I quite know what I'm doing. I got myself a fancy new set from Cass with some christmas money so I'm pretty excited about using them.
Practise makes perfect and all that.

Sunday 26 January 2014

Shrink Plastic Fail

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In October I had all the good intentions of figuring out my perfect method for varnishing shrink plastic and then sharing it with the world here but my limited range of experiments didn't find a pen/varnish combination that didn't end up with ink bleed. But here are a few shots that I like anyway.
One day I'll buy all the varnishes and all the pens and try every combination until one works or if you have a winning combination of pen and varnish on shrink plastic then do share. It'd be much appreciated.

Saturday 25 January 2014

Colour. Sky. Chin. Cactus.

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A few more pics from a variety of days past in the house.
A selection of big colourful Will drawings hanging on the wall.

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Plane at sunset from my studio window.

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These two photos were taken on the same day. Oh weather, you silly thing.

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This happens to my chin quite a lot, I think it's actually from leaning my chin on my hand too much. It's kinda like a pinch mark I get on my shoulder from certain bags. Pinch chin.

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Desk shot.

What My Phone Saw ~ Urban Fox to Jelly Cat

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Crochet dude and a fox. That fox was so close when I first noticed it, I moved away to take the photo so I didn't scare it off.

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Bacton woods.

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That Jesus scares me. I made no churn mince pie ice cream for christmas, it may be my finest moment. So tasty.

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Jelly cat!! I liberated the mould from my parents while we were there at christmas. Me being super cool in the toilet in John Lewis.

Some of these are super old (september) some from last week. I have a folder with some photos that I was going to share but never did so I'm trying to work my way through those. Having a bit of a computer tidy.

Friday 24 January 2014

Free Castle Visit Number One

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For Christmas we were given a joint Norfolk Museums pass by my mum and dad. The other day we needed a bit of a break from deadlines and such so we took advantage of a free coffee offer on priority moments and while we were out had a very quick (there was still work waiting at home) first free visit into the castle. It took a bit of willpower to leave so quickly but we'll be back for you castle!

The passes are such a good present, it's going to be awesome popping into the castle whenever we like and I'm really looking forward to the first full day we spend in there. Plus the other 9 museums it gives us access to that we haven't been to before. I'm so excited, museums are one of my favourite things.

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I want this fish tile so bad, it's amazing.

Sunday 12 January 2014

Granny Square Scarf for Simply Crochet

Simply Crochet Magazine

Oh wow that's a nice scarf in the corner of that Simply Crochet magazine cover.

Simply Crochet Magazine

Oh look it's made by me!

Ha, yes I'm a fool but also in a magazine so whatevs.

I had the pleasure of designing a slightly modified granny square and making the scarf for issue 14 of the magazine (which turns out is their birthday issue, happy birthday Simply Crochet!).
I can't believe something I made is in on a model in a magazine, I also can't believe I wrote out a pattern that someone else could understand seeing as I'm pretty sure all my regular pattern notes are an indiscernible jumble that only help jog my memory rather than work as a pattern.
But I did it and I'm even working on a couple of new things for them at the moment.
Exciting times :)

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Whipsnade in the Rain 2013

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We went to stay with mum and dad for a few days in the new year and spent one of them at the zoo. At first we felt a bit like these guys but once you'd made your peace with the rain it was awesome. It seems the worse the weather the more you see of the animals.

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I also had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't really a day for photos. Outside it was often too wet to risk my camera and inside was so much warmer the camera fogged up but for my actual eyes it was brilliant. I'm planning to make a zine out of it :)

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When we first got to the elephant house they weren't there. Seeing as my parents are seasoned zoo goers they know that they get taken out for walks on the Downs on the other side of the zoo. Mum had a pretty good idea of where they'd be so we drove round again to find them and ended up getting the best view ever. They were just starting to walk back to the elephant house so we pulled up on the edge of the road and watched them go past and they were so close, no fence or anything, it was really quite something. And they were holding tails!! So cute. All except the brand new baby who was just pottering alongside them. Even cuter! This pic is when they got back to their house, they all have to line up before they get fed. (That small one isn't even the baby, he's tiny tiny and is only a complete blur in all my photos)

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Then mum stopped next to the Discovery Centre so Will and me could go in. She's not so much a fan of snakes so she gave it a miss. We got to see an axolotl in real life! I'd not seen one before, it was so strange, I loved it.

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I had to include these slightly blurry photos of the pygmy marmoset because I just can't believe how small it was. We were looking at some turtles (I think) and suddenly it popped up out of nowhere on the edge of the water and sat next to the window eating. I realise you have no scale in the pics but the food pieces are seriously small and a fun fact: the adults grow up to 11 - 15 cm. Miniature.