Mish Mash

First of all I FINALLY GOT INTERNET SORTED IN THIS PLACE! Thank you tethering! So hopefully i'll be back to blogging more consistently. I'm just back from a lovely week in London, I'm surprised to say that I actually really miss that place and I was really quite sad to leave. I stayed with Will in his lovely new house and we pretty much spent most of our time eating in very middle class pubs in Dulwich (I had the best pumpkin pie ever). I also graduated! Woo! The actual event itself was a tad underwhelming, there was a lot of queueing and looooooonnng speeches (which mentioned nothing about the humanities) but it was held in the beautiful chapel and painted hall and I felt like a G in my cap and gown. I also got the chance to catch up with some friends it was all just generally lovely...

I was quite sad to be back until I got back to boarding and some of the girls seemed genuinely quite happy to see me (this was most likely them trying to get on my good side so they could stay up later) and some even gave me a wee round of applause when I told them I graduated, it was all very adorable. It was exactly what I needed. The kids are all right! 

I was just looking at the last picture and was thinking about the halloween party we had in boarding, all the girls had to dress up and most of the girls put a lot of effort into their costumes it was so cool to see them get creative! One of the girls stuffed her onsie and put a mask on it to make it look like it had been dragging her off somewhere , a couple of other girls dressed up as minions (they didn't buy the outfits they made it all themselves and even dyed their cloths!) and My personal favourite was the head boarder's - she cut two holes in her top (she was wearing another top underneath!) and called her self Regina George. A mean girl reference! That was obviously my favourite out of the bunch.

So that's the shortish story of what i've been up too. I have a week of till I start my new job so this week I shall relax and draw, I'm looking forward too it! 

Here's a random assortment of pictures:

Lazy animals (more of these to come)

I've forgotten the name of this cat... is it bad that I find any animal with a cone around their neck hilarious?

The band playing at Liverpool Street Station, I love stuff like this, I'm pretty sure it was for poppy day.

Twat in a hat

Halloween lanterns that some of the girls made

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

A

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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!

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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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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The end is nigh!

It's been a hectic few weeks! I finished all my exams and now uni is over for good and I have very mixed feelings about it all. It's exciting as this means I can  finally start saving for some travelling and i'll also be going back to work for my old boarding school where my official title will be "Boarders Mistress"!!  I can't help but find that a little hilarious but i'm looking forward to getting some work experience in something other than retail. That said i'm gonna miss London and the people i've met here... London's the sort of place where you can just randomly have a wonderful day out, out of know where and going to live in a boarding school in Belfast will be a big change.

But you know, life changes, things move on blah blah blah blaaaaaaaaaaaah and i plan to have an awesome last few weeks here. After a busy few days of being ill and having a friend over before he frolics off to Kenya to save some orphans I finally got a around to some drawing. I'm doing a swap with a friend of a friend who is drawing a McEnroe inspired Capybara (CapEnroe!) and Bear in pants is what i'm drawing for her in return. I also started to play around with some illustration ideas, I think my little drawings would be nice for kids so I thought I'd bring the Alphabet in on some of them... I think i'll keep it up but they could use some improving.

A
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