SEXY NEW BLOG DESIGN!

A completely unrelated picture of my dogs bum.

I'm sure few will notice but the lovely Kotryna at Kotryna Bass Designs (check out her blog here!) designed me an awsome new blogger template. I've been wanting to do this for ages and so when I found myself with a little extra cash (hello birthday money) the first place I went to was Kotryna's etsy shop. She did an amazing job don't you think??

My template isn't the only part of my blog that's getting a face lift. I'm gonna start doing a couple of regular features to keep me inspired now that I'm back at home.

At the start every month I'll be sharing some chat's I've had with some amazing illustrators and artists in a feature called "I Wish I Thought of That". It's people who make me think " dammit! I wish I thought of that" that make me want to create my own original style of drawing so it will be fun to see what inspires them too!

Then every week I'll be setting myself some drawing challenges and documenting them here on my blog. I thought it would be a good way to get myself out of my comfort zone and improve my illustration skills.

Only two so far but I think that will be enough for now because to be quite honest there's nothing else that I'd like to do. I mean there are options out there like outfit posts (that I love to read by the way) and all that jazz... but I want to do stuff that's important to me and I definitely don't want to be a regurgitation of other blogs out there.  So that's it for now, there will be some other posts in between about day to day stuff and maybe I'll think of other features later on. I'm excited to see how it all goes!

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Drawing Challenge: Flowers

I'm not particularly into flowers, sure some of them are pretty and smell nice but a part from that I tend to not think that much of them. Ocasionally though, I find myself thinking that they'd make a nice background or could just brighten a picture up. The think is I am pretty terrible at drawing them. I can do very basic little ones  but any time I've tried to do anything more complicated, I've give up easily in frustration.

So I decided this should be my first challenge! It started out very basically with me mainly just playing with coulour, as you can see in the picture above. I then took some inspiration from the flowers pictured below that are outside my mum's front door and coupled that with this photo of mayo from mellowmayo that I found in Company magazine (check her blog out here  - try not to drool over her outfits too much!). I loved the pink and grey matched together so I thought I'd try that with my flowers.

I then went to visit my Grandma and Grandpa and took advantage of the flowers in their garden. I got a lovely picture of a rose, I loved the colour of it so I thought I'd try and keep as true to the picture as possiple but with my own spin. As you can see, drawing doesn't come as naturally to me as it would to other people but I want to use that to my advantage so I can figure out my own style.

So there you go, I've got a lot to improve on, but it's a start! I ended up trying to incorporate some floraly goodness into one of my animal drawings:

I'll be posting some more floral inspired illustrations soon!

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Leaving London

View of central London via Peckham

After four years, I left London  for good last Tuesday (in the living sort of sense, i will obviously be going back to visit!) and I must say I'm feeling an array of mixed feelings. In a lot of ways i'm excited about the future as in September I will be living and working at my old boarding department. This is a great opportunity for many reasons: 1. I get free rent, bills and food, 2. I will not be working full time there so I will have time to work another job and save up money for travelling, 3. I will finally have some work experience in something other than retail and 4. This means I will be living in Belfast where most of my friends live so seeing them will be much easier.

On the other hand I met some cool people in London who I will miss dearly, leaving my boyfriend was especially hard (I was an absolute MESS at the airport). I didn't always live in the nicest places but I was never too far from some beautiful parts of the city and I have some lovely memories with an awesome backdrop because of that place. In my last year there, I lived right in the middle of Greenwich where I was around the corner from a giant boat, amazing architecture and a beautiful park...all right by the Thames! I was very lucky to live there and coming back to a little village in Northern Ireland will take a bit of getting used too!

I've always had a love/hate relationship with London. I've met the odd horrible person, felt overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place and been through some seriously stressful living and financial situations. I also felt myself really missing my friends from home quite a lot.

That said, I've had some really interesting experiences. Such as working for an events company where I got to work at the natural history museum, the science museum and the craziest wedding I will ever experience (they pumped "woodland smell" into the venue) ... I even accidently hit david blunkett on the head with a plate! I've had lovely days wondering around the city and once broke into Greenwich park to watch the fireworks go off all around London on bonfire night. And lastly... I don't mean to get too cheesy here but London was the place where I fell in love for the first time... and the second time! I couldn't imagine a better city to fall in love in. (Vomit)

Now that I look back on it all, I realise that the negative experiences I had are ones that I would have experienced in any other city and the positive experiences I've had couldn't have happened in any other city. However, I'm ready to move on and the best way for me to do this is to move back home where I can save money so I can finally do some proper travelling. This has been something I've been itching to do for years and as sad as I am to leave I'm excited to get the ball rolling...

Till next time,

This flower shop was right outside my door when I lived in Greenwich

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Starfish Cannibalism

CHOCOLAAAAAAAAAAATE

Starfish Cannibalism I

Starfish Cannibalism II

Starfish Cannibalism III

Pretty colours!

Will shows some hostility to a tiny bottle of milk.

This weekend I got absolutely spoiled! It was all rather wonderful, on Saturday I lost terribly at bowling with a group of friends and one point threw my bowling ball into another lane!

On Sunday, my actual birthday, Will not only got me some lovely, thoughtful presents but also took me to the zoo, to dinner and also made me the most chocolatiest birthday cake I've ever had. Seriously! He melted two mars into the batter along with tonnes of coco powder, then added chocolate butter cream (of course) and decorated it with mini twirls, chocolate chips and half of another mars bar. I am one lucky lady, that much is true.

I need to talk about the pictures of the starfish above. It was crazy!  The big starfish was eating the little one, the poor guy. It was all very dramatic (and slow) but basically, the big starfish had caught the little one when we got there. Then, the little one broke free and then THE RACE BEGAN! Unfortunately he wasn't quick enough and the big starfish caught up with him again. I don't know how starfish cannibalism works exactly but I imagine being engulfed by a starfish is not fun.

This week will be my last week in London and it's going to be a busy one what with all the house cleaning and friend visiting. So my little shop will be closed for a little while until I get back to Northern Ireland.

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

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PANTS II

I think I'm finally getting the hang of drawing pants...granny pants that is!

Just spent a lovely day in London (with a breeze! A breeze I tell you!) with will at the Natural History Museum. Now, The Natural History Museum is awesome, there's no denying it but I feel the need to warn people about something in this current sticky weather. The Natural History Museum does NOT  HAVE AIR CONDITIONING! OR AT LEAST IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE IT DOES.

There were two reasons why we decided to go there, No. 1 was that we had watched Jurassic Park the night before (how awful is it that last night was the first time I had ever seen it??) and we thought we should continue the theme. No. 2 was we thought that there would be air con that we could benefit from... So you know... Maybe try somewhere else if you're a sweaty Londoner looking for a cool down.

That said going to the museum is never a complete waste of time, especially when you get to watch a video about Manatee's being adorable.

In other news, this weekend will be my birthday weekend! I'm going to go bowling with some friends on Saturday and to the Zoo with Will on Sunday (my actual birthday). Should be a fun weekend!

Hope you enjoy yours!

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