We're Snowed in...

This weekend I am meant to be in Cambridge, collecting the clothes and stuff that I need over Christmas that I couldn't take home on the train.. BUT I am stuck at home because of the snow. However, all is not bad. I have spent the day with Alex celebrating our one year anniversary making a chocolate log and watching TV, that definitely beats driving in the snow!

mmm... I am now going to indulge myself in chocolatey wonderfulness (I can't see this cake lasting very long!)

Print & Process

I am pleased to announce that tomorrow I will be handing in my print module at uni and I am daring to say that I am finished, however, I am slightly worried that I have missed something out. But fingers crossed I haven't!

We had to produce a series of prints from a line in the song, 'Desolation Row' by Bob Dylan (My Chemical Romance have also done an excellent cover of this song).

I chose the line, "Memories in a trunk."

Now this is obviously referring to a case of some sort, however, my mind thought of an Elephant's trunk and my ideas spiraled from there...

I decided to make a series of lino prints telling the story of the life of an Elephant (very simplified).

As part of the assessment objective, we have to make the prints we produce into a bound book format. I have always wanted to be able to make my own books, so this has got to have been one of the most exciting parts of the project for me!!

Below are some of my favourite prints from "Memories in a Trunk":

 Here are some photographs of the "Memories in a Trunk" book I produced:

(The book has been covered using Calico fabric)

And here are some photographs of the practice book I produced, which I am fairly pleased with:

(This book has been covered with fabric designed by Amy Butler) 

Lastly, I want to show you a couple of prints I produced as part of my experimentation with different print processes:

This is a lino print I produced from a drawing of a Ballet shoe:

And this is a screen print I produced of a drawing of acrylic tubes:

:)

Yesterday, I was happily hoovering my room with Henry the hoover, that had strangely been sitting in the living room for several days and not in his cupboard. (I just assumed my flat mates were being lazy and didn't put him away after they had finished using him).

When I went to put him back in his cupboard, there was another Henry already in there!!!!

I thought something magical had happened, but my flat mate kindly pointed out that someone from down the hall had lent us theirs because ours wasn't sucking up very well. :(

I have put the two Henry's back in the hoover cupboard as I fear they may get lonely without each other! I wonder how long it will take the other flat notice we haven't yet given back their Henry?

On the theme of couples, I would like to share with you our very much in love penguin couple :)

They are just too sweet! :)

Lastly, I would like to leave you with something that baffled me this morning.

I opened the second door on my advent calendar to find this chocolate shape?!

What is it? Am I looking at it the wrong way round??

To me, it looks like a monster with very large teeth.. not very Christmassy at all!

Flying dog circus

For my most recent project at uni we had to produce a circus poster. We could make up our own act and make it as silly/ funny/ freakish as we liked.

I like the old-style circus posters that I researched and I also liked the ones that included animals.

My inspiration came from my little dog, Misty (below), whom I'm sure would love to be able to fly. :)

 

Here she is getting into the spirit of Christmas, however, I'm sure she would fit in well at the circus with a collar like that! :P

Well, I am currently buried under a mountain of work.. so off I go.

I cannot wait for Christmas so I can have a bit of a breather!!!

Black Cat Cafe Exhibition

On Friday 19th November my class had a exhibition of some of the work we had done in the Mill Road project in a cafe on Mill Road called The Black Cat Cafe.

The private viewing was very busy with everyone crammed in the tiny cafe but it was great fun. It was also nice to see people turning up that weren't in our class, along with the owners of the businesses our class had drawn in over the 6 weeks at the beginning of the semester.

It was a lovely experience to have our work on display for the public to see so early on in the course, I hope that we get more opportunities like this!

The exhibition is still on, so if you find yourself in Cambridge, be sure to pop into the cafe and have a look at all the lovely work on display. :)

Here is the flyer for the exhibition, beautifully designed by Mr. Jason Mervyn Hibbs.

New Music

I love finding new music to listen to... and yesterday I found two new artists, which was an absolute bonus :)

The first is an artist called Howie Day, his music is beautiful and his voice is simply wonderful.

This song is one of my faves :)

The second artist is a guy called Tyler Hilton. Coincidentally, he sounds very similar to Howie Day, but his music is equally as wonderful.
I'm not sure whether to believe this video or not, but if it's true then I am amazed!!

Lastly, this song by him is truly inspirational and I hope to find myself taking this message on board.

Finding some calm in the storm..

Well since starting uni my life has been very very busy and I feel bad that I haven't been able to update on here.. so here I am now.. I have found a little window of time to tell you about my life over the past 7 weeks.

I have had many ups and downs and I have taken a very long time to settle in. I feel as though I am still settling in now, but I have come to terms with the idea that I am someone who doesn't cope well with change and it takes me a long time to adjust. I know I will get there though as it's just such a lovely place here, I just need to keep trying.

Well I have been at uni long enough to have already completed two projects, one project was to just draw around Cambridge, the second was to go to our allocated shop and draw there.
I was given a kebab shop (of all places) called Bosphorus. I have to admit, this really isn't the sort of place you would normally find me in and as tempting as it was to swap, I decided it was best to stick it out to the end.

The end results are as follows:

 

This is the very first drawing I did of the shop, as you can see I've had to fiddle around with the scanned image on Photoshop so you can actually see the pencil marks!

Some of the salt, pepper and sugar dispensers.

 Different versions of the Turkish flag that was hanging in the window

The left-overs of my lunch (Houmous Kebab)

A small drawing of the front of the shop

Here is the above drawing photocopied into A4 acetate and then painted on the back with acrylics.

The interior of the restaurant

A colour palette of the front of the shop, I have transferred these colours into a painting of the shop, however, I haven't quite finished the painting yet, so I will post that up when it's done!

A brief that we were given within this project was to produce a puppet of the shopkeeper from the drawings you have made.
This is my puppet of the owner of the Kebab shop, sewn together by hand and then painted with acrylic.

Here are some of the Cambridge drawings, I didn't get into this as well as I did with the shop project, however, I plan to do more drawings throughout the rest of the year.

The banana that I carried around Cambridge with me..

I quite like the layout of this page apart from where I went wrong on the clock face.

I am quite pleased with what I have done for a first project, but I know I still have a long way to go, but I am here to learn, so I'm not expecting to be perfect already.

Today I had to do a presentation on William Blake and his effect on the modern day, I was absolutely petrified about doing the presentation, but I did it. Another small thing that I have achieved now :)

I have forgotten to mention that over the whole time that I have been at uni I have not been well at all, I have had a virus that I just can't seem to shake, which really seems to be getting in the way of everything at the moment :(

I'm thinking of going to the doctors to see what they think about it and I can hopefully sort myself out so I can be on top form. But I can't let the way I am feeling stop me making the most of the course, however, that's what I am doing at the moment and I really need to stop this. Now!

You can hide `neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now?