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!

A

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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!

A

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PANTS!

Hypno Penguin

The weather here in London is still disgustingly hot, the sort of hot that makes me want to stay inside all day.  However, weather like this does make an evening in London ridiculously pleasant. Yesterday one of my best friends was in town with her boyfriend. We strolled around Camden whilst complaining about the weather and catching up and ended the day with beers by the lock. It was lovely and it's got me really excited about living in Belfast.

So there's been a lot of strolling and window shopping in central, and the last two photo's are from said trips. The very last one was from this awesome little cafe just of Long Acre run by two Sweedish guys, it's adorable and the pastries in there look so damned delicious. I'm a little on the broke side though, so I got a raspberry fizzy drink instead and tried to draw some pants.

 Which leads me to my first and only question: Why do I find it so hard to draw pants?? They seem like such an easy thing to draw in theory but I can't quite get the hang of it. I'm going to keep at it though, as I am starting to like the way I draw granny pants.

A

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p.s I wanted to give Hypno Penguin a bit more recognition. I think he's great and YOU ARE UNDER HIS COMMAND! 

What do I like?

First off, I'm on Bloglovin YAY!

One of my favourite Etsy shops is one called Wit and Whistle, I love the style and originality of it all, It's the sort of shop where I think "Dammit! I wish I thought of that!" But I didn't and I've thought of my own idea's that I'm really happy with, but you know, that said I have been a little bored of drawing all the same stuff recently and wanna think of some new ideas. I have come up with a few like 'Malcolm the Moustached Manatee',   'Hypno Penguin' and the 'Gentleman is nice to' illustrations and I'd like to think of more.

A Gentleman illustration that needs to be improved upon

I was creeping through the Wit and Whistle blog and noticed that Amanda (the lady behind it all) had been drawing plants around her house, now, I live in a shitty flat (in a wonderful location) with three boys and we're all students so lovely plants, or indeed anything lovely at all is not what you'd find here. I figured she must like plants at least so I decided to think about what I like, it's simple but a good place to start.  I think that's what's important when trying to be creative in any sort of sense, nothing will be original if the object you're drawing or the occasion you're writing about isn't personal to you in some sort of way. Originality is something that's really important to me, as much as I sometime's wish I had come up with another artists idea i'd never want to do anything dodgy and nick them or anything. I wouldn't even want to get TOO inspired by them (if that makes sense) as I want my illustrations to be completely my own, artists like Amanda inspire me to keep creating my own original style, so that maybe as time moves on and as I hopefully improve someone else will look at one of my illustrations and think 'I wish I thought of that!'

Holy Moley Congratulations card from Wit and Whistle
(I wish I thought of that!)

So... What do I like then?

Animals

This is an obvious one - specifically manatees, walruses, puppies, turtles, penguins bears and many more.

Giant pairs of pants

And I mean it. Top shop have been selling really awesome pants lately, like moomin ones and spacey type ones too that I just can't help but buy. I once accidentally bought a pair a few sizes too big and they were so. Damned. Comfortable.

Chocolate

A very stereotypically girlish choice, but i'm addicted. I was thinking I could incorporate this into an Easter card or illustration.

Tina Fey

WHY AM I NOT TINA FEY?

Baking

Cakes specifically, and cheesecakes... oh dear cravings hath begun!

Sunflowers

I'm not really a plant or flowery person but I do enjoy a sunflower, I think because they're big like my face. I tried drawing some last night but I wasn't particularly impressed with myself. But I will persevere.

Tree's

There are some really cool ones in Greenwich Park, which is just around the corner from me. I should really make the most of this whilst I'm still in London.


That's all I can think of at the moment and now I'm feeling inspired and hungry for cake. It's weird, this is the first time I've gone into a blog post feeling grumpy and felt much better afterwards specifically because of what I wrote.... so yeah, yay blogs!

I'm going to put a pretty dress on, go into central London and draw some pants.

A

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Holy beautiful weather!

This was a little woodlandy part by the station

Poor old tree

Glorious weather in London! There's been a lot of reading in the park and some trips too. On Monday we decided to go on a little mission to find the totem pole at Virginia Water. Finding the totem pole was actually very easy but getting to lake was a little more difficult. We didn't realise how far it was from Virginia Water train station and we ended up having walk down this road filled with massive houses and the odd mansion - we couldn't help gawking at them like the filthy peasants we are. If any Englishy (or you know... anyone at all) types are reading GO TO VIRGINIA WATER. DO IT NOW. It's a beautiful place to be on a beautiful day, I wish I had more photo's of the lake but at least I have this one of a dog trying to fight a swan.

Dog vs Swan

I try to avoid pictures of meals but the colours were pretty also YUM

Totem Pole

The happiest tiger I ever saw - content even.

I also popped to the British Museum with a friend, which I think is might be my favourite museum in London. I think because it's so expansive when you first walk in and the fact that I can go in there and say "let's go to Africa!" We ended up looking at the Greek, Egyptian and Japanese sections. I'd never been to the Japanese section before and it was super interesting, I mean look at that tiger! Isn't he great?!? They had loads of other really interesting art work on scrolls too.

Speaking of art work I really need to get some more illustrations up on Etsy, the plan is to do that tomorrow, hopefully all this beautiful weather wont get in the way again!

A

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Illustrations for sale! (and a trip to the shard)

P is for Penguin

Spaced out bear in pants

Gentleman is nice to turtle

Gentleman is nice to penguin

After a year of focusing on my studies I finally have some illustrations up in my shop! I'll be adding some more through out the weekend. 

On Wednesday, me and Will went to the Shard, you're only meant to stay up there fore half an hour but we managed to stay up there for and hour and a half. We were like those people in the shop who won't leave even though it's obviously closed. It's so cool up there and will was having way to much fun with the digital telescope type thing that gave you facts about the land marks of London.

Other than that not much exciting has been going on. I've been applying for jobs back at home, drawing, watching the tennis (right now actually... MURRAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!) and accidentally making soapy cakes for a   friends birthday.

Here's some photo's from the shard, my lense isn't the best  for this type of photography. Also I don't know anything about photography but you know pictures are pictures!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A

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Manatees and more!

Photo duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump!

Had a very busy last week there, including a lovely trip to Wimbledon and a semi disappointing trip to Amsterdam (not that bad though, Amsterdam is too pretty a city to not enjoy). Annoyingly, I managed to loose my camera in the giant box of clothes in my boyfriends room so I don't have any pictures of those events but I do have some pictures some new illustration ideas - I think my favourite one is the turtle and the gentleman. The idea came in an incredibly uncomfortable tent in Amsterdam, I couldn't stop thinking about a gentlemanly figure  holding an umbrella over a Rhino in the rain but when I came back I decided I turtle would be easier to draw in the mean time. I obviously also enjoy the Manatee because Manatees are AWESOME. The beard is inspired by Dick Strawbridge, I want to draw a tiny tea set on top of him but I'm finding it quite difficult. There's a couple of more bear pictures and some from when I went to a roof top Cinema in London to see Waynes World which was awesome! (I had to try so hard not to write EXCELLENT)

The plan is to get some illustrations up on Etsy ASAP... and go up the Shard tomorrow. AAH.

A
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