Arty Updates

It's been a while since I made any posts on here, but I've had art crits, exams and all sorts of other excuses to work on. xD Just a quicky to upload some drawings I've finished lately:

A Level Art Coursework based on the theme of Sleeping Beauty

More A Level Art Coursework

And as a bonus, here's my children in need costume - Lydia from Beetlejuice! n_n

Quick Halloweeny Update

Just really quick, here are some photos from a Halloween party I went to on Friday:

Everyone's pumpkins

My pumpkin :3

Me (the witch) and the guy who was hosting the party (the mad scientist!)

I got more photos but they're all of everyone else in their costumes xD I only got the one of me. Happy Halloween (almost!)

Teikyo Festival

A giant origami crane!

Every year the Durham Teikyo University of Japan holds a festival in the middle of October. This year's festival was on Saturday the 20th of October, and it was great fun. There are always lots of activities, from practicing ancient Japanese traditions like the tea ceremony, to arts and crafts like origami. Here are some of the photos from the day! :3

So much origami!

This was the tea ceremony. I'm not entirely certain of the ritual, but from watching it I'm pretty sure that the tea has to be filtered several times, then put in a cup, which has to be turned in a certain direction, then given to the person drinking it. Both people bow, and the cup is turned in the same direction as earlier, before being drank from. It took a long time and is very precise.

My Koi Carp :3

This isn't mine, it was on the wall but I thought it was pretty!

And one of my favourite parts of the day:

I got to try on a yukata! They're surprisingly complicated to put on, and it didn't look all the good over my regular clothes. My big stompy doc martens kind of ruined the elegant look, and my dodgy hip in the photo is actually just my phone sticking out of my pocket, I'm not horribly mishapen. xD Either way, it was good to try one on.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend, and this week is going well! :3

Rapunzel

Rapunzel by Fiona Quinn

In approximately one hour I will be watching a ballet performance of Carol Ann Duffy's Rapunzel, as part of Durham's Book Festival. My school got given 20 free tickets by the theatre, and asked sixth formers that were free on Friday's if they'd like to go. I've never been to a ballet before, so I'm quite excited to see what it's like, especially as I'm told the costumes are made by the same costume designer of Game of Thrones. I'm going to bring my camera to try and get some photographs, although I'm not sure I'll be allowed, so I have a sketchbook ready instead. They can't stop me drawing! >:3

I'll update this post with a review later, either after the show in the library or on Monday. In the meantime, I hope everyone has an good Friday. :3

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As promised, here's the update :3

I went into the theatre anticipating a ballet, half expecting it to be boring, as right before I left a friend told me that she had been the night before, and had left at the interval. However, I tried to keep an open mind, and despite it being a school visit we had very good seats in the second row. We sat for a good 20 minutes or so while waiting for everyone else to take their seats, and I admired the scenery set out on the stage, which consisted of large metal frames, winding around each other with some leaves towards the top, to represent a forest. The set was cleverly designed as it moved to create a bed, the forest, the house, and the tower.

The performance was full of metaphors and symbolism, such as pregnant women carrying around a little nest with an egg inside. I'll admit, I found the opening a little tedious, and difficult to understand. It consisted of people dancing across the stage, throwing giant red and white balloons around, and a couple dancing at the top of a tower.

 

Finally it got into the story, starting with Rapunzel's parents sitting in their bedroom looking over at the witch's garden. The costumes for most of the dancers were fairly simple, however there were two tortoises (I think anyway xD) that followed the witch around, and their costumes were AMAZING. I had to do a double take when they first came on stage because I saw the big heads and for a split second, thought they were real animals. Sadly, I wasn't allowed to take photographs, so I'll try my best to find a picture of them.

 

There were no lines throughout the show, only a voiceover reading out the story every so often, and some music. The second half of the show was much better than the first, and I especially liked the way they had Rapunzel's hair. Obviously, she can't dance with such a long wig on, so she danced around a tree in the tower, and long sections of hair were twisted around the branches.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance, but I don't think it should be advertised as a ballet, as it's more contemporary dance. I also think I liked it more for the artistic side than for the dancing, since I don't know much about it.

A picture I found on the internet from the performance

 

 

 

Halloween Ideas for the Absolutely Skint!, II: Spiderweb Poncho

About this time last year I started, what was originally going to be a series of do-it-yourselves, "Halloween Ideas for the Absolutely Skint." This was for those who, like me, are lacking in money, and still want to celebrate the season. This year I intend to continue with the "series", and hopefully come up with some more ideas.

This one requires a liiiittle bit of money, but not much. £1, in fact. Although you may be able to find a cheaper alternative, or could possibly already have one of these laying around. I got the inspiration for this from Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. It's really simple to make, and though it may sound silly at first, it actually looks pretty good.


Step 1. Head down to your local pound store, and buy yourself a halloween tablecloth. Yes that's right, a tablecloth. xD

Step 2. Return home, and lay the tablecloth out on a large table (haha!) or floor. Fold the tablecloth in half, and make a tiny mark where the centre is.

Step 3. From the centre, cut a hole large enough for your head to fit through. It's easiest to cut a smaller hole and gradually make it bigger as necessary, than cut something too big  in the first place and ruin the project.
Then, add any extras you like. Cut the edges into a pattern, or leave them square if you prefer. I sewed tiny spider sequins onto mine. :3

Step 4. Wear it!

(Sorry for the rubbish lighting in the picture, it was late when I took it. I'll get a better one later.)

Happy haunting! :3

Vain post!

This is gonna be really vain, but oh well! xD On Saturday I had a slow morning, and no plans for the rest of the day, meaning I had plenty of time to faff around with my hair and makeup. I was tired of wearing the same style of makeup every day, so I experimented a little, and I was really pleased with the result.

I'm no makeup artist, but it was the first time I've drawn flicks on my face with eyeliner, and I'm so happy with how they came out.

I also went for a walk in the forest on Saturday, and collected up some pine cones, which I plan to paint and varnish to make Christmas tree decorations (it's early, so what?! xD)

Have a good day everyone!

Photoshoots and Batpumpkins

Last week I was asked by a friend from college to help her make up a modelling portfolio. She wanted to take  some fashion-y photos, and some pictures around the theme “autumn”, and asked if we could find a spot with lots of brightly coloured leaves to jump around in. Her choice of clothing was a big grey jumper, black leggings, brown fur boots and a jacket. The photographs are fairly average, as I’m not the best photographer, but it was a fun afternoon spent jumping around the park, and throwing leaves everywhere. :3

I’m still editing a lot of them, but I have a few “finished” images, of which I’ll post below. I might add some more later, but these are the best ones so far.

I made a mask for my little bat too. n_n

I'm aiming to do lots of creative, halloween related things this month, so I should be updating more often (although only on weekdays, still no internet at home :c)
Have a good weekend everyone!

Autumn Fun

It's been a long time since my last post, and there are many reasons for that. One, is that I currently don't have any internet at home. The others being that a lot of horrible things happened over the summer, and I've needed a break.

However, because of all these things I have been trying to occupy my mind with arty projects. This is just a quick update to show some of the things I have been working on recently.

First of all, last weekend I went for a walk in the nearby forest.. Autumn is my favourite season, I just love how colourful it is. So, I collected up a bunch of leaves, took them home and did some printing from them. Once I printed the leaves I added glitter, and made this mask. I'm really proud of it, and hopefully I'll find some kind of occasion to which I can wear it.

Secondly, this is a drawing I finished a few days ago. I am really excited for Halloween, and of late, have some sort of strange obsession with drawing witches.

Anyhoo, I'll update properly later! Happy Autumn!

I'M ALIVE!

I'm not dead! But I have had art exams and tests galore the past few weeks, so now it's the Easter holidays I can finally get some free time, and hopefully blog a little more.

I've spent pretty much most of the last week listening to Kerrang! while I worked on this beast:

This A1 self portrait was for my A level art exam, and took a hell-of-alotta time! The theme I picked from the exam paper was "Regalia,", so here is me in my regalia xD This was submitted as part of the prep work, along with a few not quite so good paintings, my etchings/printmaking and some charcoal studies of my Docs, (sketchbook included, obviously.) For the actual 5 hour exam, I did a smaller pencil portrait of myself, in my "regalia" again, in the same pose as Hans Holbein's painting of Anne of Cleves.

Since my exam finished I've been relaxing and enjoying ACTUAL FREE TIME! I've been making many things too, which I will blog about individually when each one is finished.

I hope everyone is having a nice Easter holiday's so far! If you're not on holiday, then I hope you're having a good time at work/school. :3

Friday Fun!

This week has had a lot of ups and downs, and it's been quite a stressful one. A level art is taking over my life right now! But there are a few things I would like to post about.

1. If you're a fan of LeahMouse's youtube videos, you'll know that she just recently had a giveaway contest to celebrate her 2000 subscribers. I entered the contest last week with this entry:

 And HOLY CRAP, it actually won. O_O I was amazed! I seriously never expected it to even come close to winning, so thank you very much LeahMouse. <3

2. I don't know how long it's been out, so this might be old news for some, but I just discovered that The Devil's Carnival have finally released a proper trailer, and I'm even more excited to see it now. I hope it's released in a closeby cinema! x3

3. This week I also got Skyrim 8D  I've been playing it inbetween doing art coursework and such, so it's going slowly and I'm not very far into the story yet, but I absolutely love it so far. The scenery is gorgeous, and the character faces are very much improved (I couldn't play the last Oblivion game, those faces were scary xD) And above all, dragon fights are awesome! >:3

So there's just a couple o' things that have been going on lately. I might edit/elaborate on this post later, but for now I need to sleep.

Goodnight everyone! Have a lovely weekend :3

Creative Weekend

This weekend hasn't been the best, but since I've been at home I've done a lot of creative stuff. Mostly for my A level art, but I also made 2 new necklaces.

My friend Mariusz cut out some adorable little wooden bats, and asked me to decorate them. I painted them with black acrylic on both sides, and then added glitter on top. I used red glitter for one, and white/green iridescant glitter for the other. When the glue had dried I painted a few coats of craft varnish over the top to hold the glitter in place and give it a nice glossy shine.

Here are the results:

I'm also thinking of entering LeahMouse's youtube giveaway contest (That glass goblet is so pretty!) but I don't have any interesting ideas at the moment. In the meantime, have a nice week everyone!

The Valentine Birthday Celebration

I didn't post yesterday as I was so tired when I got home I just ate, watched a movie and slept. xD

Yesterday, as I mentioned in post beforehand, I spent the day with Nizz to celebrate what is now known as The Valentine Birthday Celebration. When we both got there at eleven, it was a lovely morning. It was really sunny and fairly warm for once, so we sat in the park and enjoyed the weather and each other's company. I gave him the card, rose and chocolate, and he got me a lovely new dress for my birthday.

At about 2pm there was a mini blizzard. It suddenly started snowing REALLY heavily, and it was so windy the snow was flying past almost horizontally. Of course we immediately packed away our stuff, folded up the blanket we were sitting on, and headed towards town. By the time we'd done all of this, the snow stopped and the sun came back out. -__- Typical!

But nevertheless we went shopping for a little while. We first went to all the shops we normally go to, usually just for the sake of being silly. These include The Works, Poundland, and one of the several toy shops in town. There's always lots of really bizarre things in these shops to fiddle with, and we always have a good laugh. After messing around for a while, we headed to HMV, and on the way, found one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. We walked past a little flower shop that was selling off all it's Valentine's day roses and whatnot, and they had blue roses. BLUE! I'd never seen blue roses before now, and didn't even know they existed. I genuinely thought they were just a mythical flower. I know they can't be naturally grown anyway.

Being a gentleman, Nizz bought me one of the roses, and I'm planning on drawing/painting it at some point. Blue roses are so pretty! I'm also thinking of pressing it before it dies so I can keep it.

Once we got to HMV I finally bought the Nightwish 2 disk album I'd been after for aaaages (It is a fantastic album by the way), and Nizz got himself the game Deadly Premonition and Scott Pilgrim on DVD.
After this we went to Chiquitos for a nice meal together before going home. Overall, I had a wonderful day! n__n I hope everyone else had as lovely a weekend. To finish, enjoy this song from Nightwish's new album:

Valentine's Fun

Just a quick post, as I have to sleep soon. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with Nizz to celebrate both our birthdays, and Valentine's day, sort of. xD I finished making his Valentine's/Birthday card earlier:

Featuring Wusky the wolf /husky (we're not entirely sure xD) and Swoop the bat. And yes, he's wearing a Trivium shirt. You can have a look at his blog here: http://ninjahcraft.blogspot.com/ , but he doesn't update it too often. If you're into gaming it's worth looking at, since he was telling me about doing a weekly/monthly game review.

To finish this fairly boring post off, please enjoy this lovely semi-valentine related song by one of my all time favourite bands.

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's day, and has a wonderful weekend! :3

Sketchbook Doodle Dump and some updates

This week I was on a geography trip in the Lake District. We went to Blencathra on Monday to study rivers and glacial features, which sounds really really boring, but it was fun to see all the scenery. Monday was also my birthday, but it wasn't really too exciting since we were just wading through rivers with a tape measure, and most of my friends had forgotton.
On Tuesday we got the minibus to Grasmere before we hiked across one of the hills to see a corrie. The drive there fascinated me, our country really has some amazing landscapes. I sat and stared out of the window the whole time. When we got there we were up to our knees in snow and there were icicles everywhere; it was a long and very cold hike. The corrie was completely frozen over too. When we reached the top we stopped for lunch, and I did a quick sketch of the gorgeous scenery (which I'll upload when I add a bit to it!) and I took a few photographs on my phone, since my real camera is kaput.
By Wednesday everyone was exhausted and ready to come home, so we went to Keswick to have a brief look at the town's flood management systems before getting the bus back to school. Overall, the trip has really made me think about moving to the lake district one day, or at least visiting more often to see the hills. It really is a beautiful place.


I made a firm decision that now I'm 17, I'm really gonna concentrate on doing something productive with my time and make more memories for myself. I was looking back at the past few years and although there have been many fun times, there's been a lot of wasted half terms in front of the PC. I really want to work hard on my art this year too, and be the best I can be. So, to start, here's a huge dump of sketchbook doodles:

The Duchess of Tea and her castle

A goblin

Lord Lupus the Insane

Lord Lupus the Insane and Mistress Arachnis

Snowpeople

A village in winter

A tower

A mermaid sketch I did in the hairdresser's

A dragon I'm currently working on

Also, to finish off, last week we had a Chinese Silk painter in Creative Cafe at school, with it being Chinese New Year and whatnot, and I was asked to draw a dragon for her to symbolise the year of the dragon. I finished the dragon in time, but I ended up being off school ill that day, so I scanned it in instead.

Hope everyone is having a lovely week! :3