I had planned to upload this much closer to when it actually happened but sometimes time gets away from you. The set of photos and a weird little vlog still exist so I thought I'd upload them even if it is Thursday all over again already. (Almost not Thursday anymore, my internet is so slow for uploading videos!)
Thursday
Apparently Doc's Socks are amazing because I've had no trouble with my new DM's at all and then I went out briefly in regular socks while the Doc's Socks were in the wash and instantly got a blister. Self portrait of a person worried about the EU referendum.
Friday
Turned out I was right to be worried. People are making me sad right now. Saturday
Bernard's beautiful mouth is a good distraction from a country gone to shit. I didn't actually read that comic until the next day because it started raining after I took the photo so I went back inside and worked.
Also for Saturday, a vlog of sorts.
Sunday
Our first strawberry. I thought we wouldn't get any his year, don't they stop producing after a couple of years or something? Plus we're getting barely any sun. A nice surprise. Snickers is impossible to get a clear photo of but I wanted to include him. The garden was pretending to be in the middle of a nice summer. And Bernard's mouth again because I can't get enough of it.
The other day I was feeling a bit lost work wise so I did the sensible thing and rather than getting in a tizzy and doing nothing at all I sat at my desk and drew even though I didn't know what I needed to be drawing. Looking back at 'nothing' drawing is often where I get my ideas for final pieces so as hard as it is some days it's always worth doing the work even if it doesn't seem like you're doing any work. And anyway, drawing is always work because it all counts as experience points for work you do later.
If you're looking for some people/fashion reference to draw from I highly recommend @tokyofashion on instagram. I love drawing from their feed. Even when my drawings don't turn out great they're interesting enough to have got me drawing in the first place and that's what really matters.
I also filmed while I drew these pages. I was going to put it in one video but I decided to split them. I don't have a problem with long videos in general but watching this one felt long. Seeing as there was a natural point to split it into two, with it being two separate spreads, I did that.
The other day I was having a look through my flickr and I realised while I have definitely always felt like I've been taking photos, at the same time I'd also somehow basically stopped taking photos and that is a sad thing. Even photos I at the time thought weren't that great (but ended up posting because of 365 projects and the like) I now am really glad they're there. So when I headed out to the Post Office I made the effort to take some photos.
And before I left I had to take a photo of my fresh green. Just dyed hair makes me so happy, I feel much more myself. I've recently started using dry shampoo (late to the party I know) so hopefully washing my hair less will help keep it this way longer too.
I love pigeons so much. Look how beautiful they are ^_^
Tickets for the castle museum. They clean it off every now and then but I love how the bins and gates and stuff around the castle get covered in these. I guess it's kids on school trips. This is a gate at the top of some steps and the handrail all the way down is covered too.
Some commitment went into this photo, I was surrounded by dog crap. Come on guys, pick it up, we all know better than that. I loved all the daisies though so I very carefully tip-toed my way through.
On the way home I bought some fresh bread and inspiration hit lol. Seriously though, bread. People that give up gluten without an actual intolerance confuse me. Bread is so good. So. Good.
*Writing words is not my thing, reviews are not my thing. However, I love books so much and always want to share what I've been reading so I'm just going to go ahead and do it regardless. Also, I don't much care about spoilers so who knows if I say too much or not but I also rarely read anything new. Read at your own risk.*
I finally read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I say finally but I hadn't actually wanted to read it until recently. When the first film came out there were copies of the first chapter being given away at the cinema and I thought it was awful. I also didn't enjoy the film. So reading the book was way down on my list of wants. For some reason though I had a recent hankering to try it out and I actually enjoyed it. By the end there was far too much of the whole love triangle thing for me. It would be amazing to have a story for teenagers about a teenage girl who can win an awful survivalist competition and be about the disgusting government and all that jazz and not include romance like otherwise girls won't be interested. The idea of it being used as their plot device in the games to make people care about them didn't bother me so much but I felt like the end was properly 'well the capitol hate me and are probably going to do something about that but what's more important is to focus on this issue of the two boys I didn't fancy but realised they fancy me so now I think I fancy them oh my gosh what do i do'. Is everyone not bored of the 'super pretty girl everyone wants to go out with doesn't realise anyone likes her' thing? I know I am. Plus I really hated her thought that was something about how she didn't ever want to get married because she didn't want to raise children. Girls, listen. You can get married and not have children. It's totally possible. Anyway, I'm rambling on negatively which I don't actually want to do (it's quite disconcerting that it's easier to talk about what you don't like than what you do). I read it really quickly in a can't put it down, just one more chapter kind of way. I like that she was capable of killing people but didn't relish in it and concentrated on surviving instead. I also really liked how gross some of the descriptions were. I'm definitely going to read the next one, and hope for not so much of the love triangle but I have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed.
Next I read Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan and wow what a hot mess. I picked this up because it caught my eye while finding The Hunger Games and I remember wanting to see the film. I still want to watch the film because I feel like if I was watching Kat Dennings and Michael Cera be those people it'd be fun but reading it was just way too much. No one actually talks like that all of the time and if they do I don't want to listen to them. I also didn't really like how Norah was handled "oh I think I'm frigid, no wait I'm desperate to do a blow job I'm not frigid after all happy dance" I dunno, it didn't sit well with me but maybe I'm a prude. I'm pretty sure I'm not though. The characters just weren't believable while being read, it's like they were just saying things they'd heard in films and I don't think real people can do that constantly but it's probably not fair for me to judge the writing style seeing as I'm not the target audience. Maybe I'm just old. I did like the fact that it only covered one night though, that was cool.
Currently I'm reading The First Bad Man A Novel By Miranda July which is very much a change from the YA books. I'm only a couple chapters in but I'm really enjoying it. I like how it's written and the story is seriously creeping me out which is always interesting. I'm also reading Batgirl Volume 1 Batgirl of Burnside which I'm enjoying very much and totally won't rant about how annoying it is for Volume 1 to start with issue 35 no matter how much you want to let people know it's a good place to start reading if you haven't read the rest of it but it's also not actually the start of a new arc or something. I won't. The art is gorgeous, the diversity of characters so far is gorgeous and I'm enjoying the story. It's making me want to go back and read more Batgirl comics. I heard there was some upset about a part of the story line originally but I believe they edited it before the trade was released so I guess I won't have to deal with that.
Please tell me what you are reading or what I should read and add me on goodreads if you use that because I love it for finding new books to add to my ever growing list ^_^
Also, go visit your library if you don't already (and if you do then go an extra time, treat yourself), it's where I got all these books from. Libraries are magical, amazing and important and need your support. If you can't get to your local library look them up online, I know mine also do ebooks and stuff so maybe they can still help you out.
Hello, there! I think a bit of a catch up post is in order. I've had two crochet pattern commissions with almost the same deadline to get done over the past few weeks so obviously I was concentrating on getting those done and as I can't really share commission work while I'm working on it I kind of took the chance to drop off the internet a little. I do like to have breaks from social media every now and then because it can all get a bit much and you've got to look after your mental health and I find noticing when I need a break from places like twitter to be really useful. And I don't mean people being negative on twitter, I follow a lot of people talking about really important things that there needs to be more awareness of and sometimes the fact that these things need to be spoken about and how ignorant and selfish and uncaring people can be basically gets to me far too much and so because I am lucky enough to have the option, I sometimes take a break from it. I can't stop thinking about things but I can make my environment a little more relaxed.
Anyway, I finished the commissions this morning, I'll be posting them tomorrow but they're ready to go so I thought I'd come see my ol' blog pal and get back in the swing of things with an update.
As well as the commissions, I did manage to get a new pattern up on my print to order shops. It's a streamers and confetti pattern and I think it would add just the right amount of party to any situation. It's one of those fiendish things that looks simple but actually took a really long time to do, I pretty much get angsty if I don't finish an illustration in a day because my work is so simple but I really need to get over that because the additions I made to this that made it take so long were so so worth it. I'm going to have to get myself a pair of leggings (redbubble often has discounts and offers so I'm hoping one will turn up to help me out soon!)
Not sure if I've mentioned it on here yet but I'm learning Japanese. Very slowly. But I'm doing it! I started off with this article for learning the hiragana and am now working my way through the katakana. If it's something you've got an interest in I highly recommend just doing it, I thought there was no chance I'd be able to see the difference between Japanese characters without going to an actual paid for course but I very quickly did start being able to recognise the characters. I'm only at the very beginning but so far, it's going well ^_^
I'm currently trying to ignore a very itchy patch on my leg. One of the first tattoos Will ever did on me was a dinosaur on my leg. It was really early in his apprenticeship so obviously it needed touching up which we did at the weekend and is now at that wonderful 'oh my gosh I want to scratch it right off' stage. I took my camera with me to the studio:
I have been uploading vlogs fairly regularly so I'd love it if you went and checked them out. I'd also kind of love it if you didn't because I'm self concious and embarrassed of them but that's not the way to think.
I started writing about the books I've been reading but it got a bit long so that post will be coming along on it's own in the next couple of days so I'll end with an important item (or set of items) I saw in the city the other day. The new Dr Martens range of tmnt boots, they are just so awesome!
I'm now going to sit here with my hair re-greening itself, listening to the rain that just suddenly turned up and catch up on all the blogs I've not been reading. If you've posted anything amazing online this month (blog or not) then share it with me, I need to see all the things!
A few clips from doodling in my sketchbook trying out my new Winsor and Newton brushmarker and working on some of the bits that are now in my Society6/Redbubble/Art Rookie shops.
I filmed these a while ago and thought it was time to stick them together and upload them. I'll be doing more of these, I love videos of people drawing and I liked being able to look back at this one too.
If you make or watch any drawing videos then let me know, I could watch people draw all day. So maybe I should actually avoid finding these videos lol. I find it quite relaxing to watch and also really interesting to see how people work.
I did it! This is the first month I've managed to actually do every day rather than most days ^_^
May was a fine month. I'm not sure how it happened but I turned a small corner mentally and am feeling a lot more positive and stuff. It probably isn't noticeable to other people but how I feel going about my day has definitely improved so that's good.
I've been filming a lot lately and have started uploading little vlogs to my youtube. I'm not ever saying it's daily because I'm not interested in setting goals I know I'll fail but it seems fairly regular this week anyway. I have one from yesterday to upload and am going outside today so will probably film that. If you enjoy seeing short videos of people basically having the same day over and over then check it out. (I think they're maybe not as boring as I think they are. I love other peoples vlogs even when nothing happens so why would mine be any different?)
I'm hoping to do a lot of different video based things, I really enjoy it and want to try it all. If you know of (legally) free or very cheap video editing software that is more advanced than Movie Maker then let me know. I'm getting by with it but would definitely like more options, it's a bit too basic tbh.
