Vintage treasure and stuff

I've just finished my first week back at uni and am knackered! 

We've got a brief to be drawing people that we don't know, so I've been to the hairdresser, the local library, bus station and greasy spoon to try and catch interesting types. The results are ranging from bad to awful so far... fingers crossed I'll improve!

We're also now doing a Photoshop module which seems quite fun, again we have to do character studies of strangers which we can then digitally manipulate so I anticipate lots of sitting in coffee shops with a sketchpad over the next month or so. I guess it could be worse!

I'm also in the process of designing a poster for a freakshow attraction for a typography project, and also need to research graphic novels for a seminar talk I have to give in 7 weeks! Erk. Anyway all's well and good, and I'm still loving the course :)

Hope you have a lovely relaxing weekend. 

Shop Updated

After far too long I've finally added some things to my shop. It was looking a little sparse...

So, new on the list are some mini collages and a couple of pencil cases which have been SO fun to make! I went with the whole "back to school" theme as I am finally back to uni next Monday! Overall I'm pretty pleased with the last two days' work, fingers crossed for some nice sales now!

Tomorrow I've got to pop into uni and collect my grade for the printing module we did before Christmas - which in my case was the lino printing I did, and bound into a book. Fingers crossed for that too! Eee! It's been years since anything I did got marked, it's quite a weird feeling!

Fore!

Ok, well I know people don't traditionally yell "Fore" when playing squash, but maybe they should. These guys look like they take themselves pretty seriously which is why I've surrounded them with pretty colours. Y'know, to make them chill a bit. 

It occurred to me, don't sports make us do the oddest things? After finding the book these chaps are from entitled "Squash Rackets (Completely Revised)" and wading through the tactical diagrams and shot angles I realised that maybe it's the fact that I do little to no exercise which makes this all seem so alien! Maybe there's a New Years resolution to be found amongst all this. 
Me...and sports. 
Hmm.

Goodness me.

I'm going mad. Mad with rage. I've spent the whole of this week waiting for a replacement window for my broken-into car to arrive from a breakers yard and yesterday found out that the courier (Citylink, yes I'm naming and shaming) have lost it. It's just vanished between them collecting it and it getting to their depot. Just marvellous isn't it? All the while my car is sat out on the street with a poorly constructed perpex bodge-job to keep the snow out. If someone nicks my car the insurance won't cover it as it's not secure. The breakers yard won't send me a replacement or refund my money. Seriously, is it so hard for people just to do their freakin' jobs properly????? Grrr.

OK, rant over.

More

Couldn't help put these up too, I think they're amazing!

Mucking about

This week is turning out to be quite fun. It started badly with my car being broken into at the weekend but now that's on its way to being sorted out (expensively I might add) I can concentrate on experimenting with new ideas and materials. 

Blotting paper is currently on my list on best things ever! How fun are these chromatography tests? You draw a half-inch circle of colour in felt tip onto a circle of blotting paper, cut a little 'leg' that will drop down and act like a straw in the water that you've got the circle resting over - I used a wine glass - and about 2 hours later you have a big circle with the different 'ingredients' of the ink split up. I've got a black dot on the go at the moment and its producing a bright cerise pink, very strange!

Other proper work is going OK but I keep getting distracted by these things! Must knuckle down today... 

Old china

All this sitting about being on holiday is getting me a little bored so I'm going to get my teeth into my "homework" this coming week. We're continuing the Cockney Rhyming theme but I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent which will allow me to draw pottery (I know, any excuse..). 

You see the genius lies in the expression "Me old china" meaning of course "My old china plate" = "Mate". So today we went to Emmaus, which I love, and I took lots of pictures of pottery to work from and give me ideas for china patterns. I will post how I get on with this, my plan is to make screen-prints and maybe emboss bits of them to add texture but we shall see...In the meantime I've just rediscovered watercolour and am LOVING using it! Oh yeah and I've been drawing old men in pubs too... it's been an interesting week.

By the sea

Happy New Year!

We spent a magical afternoon on the beach today at a really weird place on the Suffolk coast. There's lots of coastal erosion happening there so you get oak trees suddenly finding themselves right on the sea front, roots exposed. It reminded me of the opening to Polanski's Macbeth with the witches on the heath, it was misty and cold today so lighting a small fire was exactly what the doctor ordered. And we had marshmallows! What a lovely start to the year. Hope you had fun welcoming in 2009!