Monday 25 April 2011

sorry for the terrible arrangements of my blog at the moment, i'm having a bit of a change of scenery. i'm probably not going to post again until after the 11th of may, as that's when the week from hell finishes;
6th may - 6 hour art exam.
9th may - spanish oral exam & a further 4 hours of the art exam.
10th may - resit spanish oral exam & 4 more art exam hours.
11th may - final hour of my art exam.
urgh.
see you when that's over.
xo

Thursday 21 April 2011

kitty daisy & lewis.

hello again! i'm taking a very short break from my oodles of revision to show you some of the pictures i took on sunday of my friend kate, who i'd asked to dress up as a land army girl for my art project. (i'm getting a slight deja vu writing about this, so i think i must have mentioned it in my last post.)
so, without further ado, here they are. i'm actually pretty proud of them (:
i think this is the picture that i am going to draw, i quite like the lighting in it. (also, kate looks pretty good.)

the lighting looks a little different on some of these pictures as i was messing around with the settings a little bit. i really like the sepia-ish effect i got, although i haven't the faintest clue how i managed to achieve it! back to the drawing board for that one.


all of the pictures in this post are unedited, except for the one above. it's always worth doing a bit of photoshop just for something extra to write about in the sketchbook, & i found a filter called "bloom" which gives this interesting, soft focus/saturated look.
*insert technical photographer babble here*

hope you like looking at these! (:
also, regarding the post title, i have been listening to this album on repeat for quite a while, pretty excited for their next one coming out!
goodbye for now!

Sunday 17 April 2011

a grand day out

hey there!
my school broke up for the easter holidays (ie. revision break) on friday, & ever since then i've been taking it easy before the insane-ness of my hardcore revision timetable sets in. today i went to my friend kate's house to take some pictures of her dressed up as a land army girl from the second world war for my art project, which was lovely & i got some pretty great photographs, if i do say so myself!
also, i had a bit of fun getting to know my camera a bit more, and fiddling about with aperture settings and things. i quite like getting a bit more technical knowledge about it.
so, awkwardly changing the subject, here is what i wore today;
cardigan - ebay, tshirt - vv brown concert, short - made by my mother, leggings - matalan, necklace - car boot sale, badge - beatles store liverpool, barette - free with a purchase from the lovely teaspoon.

my eyes look a little glassy here, how odd.
i've been taking a little inspiration from tavi lately with plastic, just-tacky-enough-to-be-cool hair slides. she's so cool, i wish i had been that awesome aged 15, or however old she is.

i am such an awkward poser, i really truly am horrific. i also realise i should have cropped these photos so that you can see the outfit better, but i quite like the wide shot approach.

can't decide if this necklace is tacky or sophisticated. tacky, i suspect, but that won't stop me wearing it.

Saturday 9 April 2011

granny takes a trip

hello again!
first, can i be completely stereotypically british & express amazement at how wonderful the weather has been lately? (in the united kingdom, of course. i cannot speak  for countries across the waters.) this weekend it's supposed to about 20 degrees where i live and although i will be spending most a lot of my time inside working, i'm going to try to make the most of it by taking my revision notes outside. or by having the window open in the living room, whichever suits my hermit-ness better.
anyway, last week i visited hobbycraft (an arts & crafts superstore, for those not in the know) to get some embroidery threads for an art project, & i found some pretty cute wooden craft materials while i was there;
aren't they pretty? these little laser-cut butterflies are supposed to be used for making cards i think, but i've decided to make them into rings, & i have just bought some ring pieces from ebay to get the ball rolling! it's been a long time since i've actually made jewellery, and i really miss it. over the summer i'm definitely going to start buying things wholesale & thinking of a name for my shop.

there's 9 butterflies, so i can make 9 rings. i would like to keep one for myself though, so i shall sell 8, and taking into account the prices of the components i think i'll sell them for about £3-£4 each. this seems pretty fair to me, especially as, as the last vintage fair in newcastle, i saw a stall selling heart rings with exactly the same pattern as the butterflies (so similar in fact that i have no doubt she bought the pieces in hobbycraft) for £6, pretty steep for a mere ring i think.

each piece is unique (which i love!), as they are all obviously cut from different parts of the pattern. i think when i sell them, i will give people the option of choosing between blue, purple & pink, as those are the colours of the flowers on each piece. there are twice as many pink ones as the other colours though, so i hope people like those!

i also managed to pick up some heart and flower wooden pieces, which have a lovely stencil design on them. unfortunately, the majority of them are pretty faded so i'll have to be wary of this when it comes to selling.
i have decided to put these together as earrings as they are quite a bit smaller than the butterflies, but if i have an odd number (which i do) i will make a few of them into rings.

there we are, you can all look forward to my next jewellery venture soon! i'm actually quite excited, as while i've made jewellery for family & friends, i've never actually sold a piece. i'll obviously let you know the details at a later date when i have more of an idea for what i'll be doing.
good wishes to all.

Saturday 2 April 2011

band on the run

hello again, it's me. not as long an absence as i thought, although i'll explain that a bit further down. firstly, thank you very, very much to those who commented on my last post, it means a great deal. in fact, i don't think there's enough hyperbole in the world to describe how nice those words were to read.
anyway, given that i've been feeling a bit low recently i had a small online shop on dorothy perkins the other day, & bought this dress;
(i couldn't be bothered with the mundanity of the self timer, so vanity mirror shots will have to do i'm afraid)
it feels pretty summery, as it's made of jersey & there is no complicated zip business. also, the sweet daisy print reminds me of childhood summer days lying on the grass getting very, very into making the world's longest daisy chain.

the peter pan-ish collar totally sold it for me, even though it is sewn on rather than being movable, but the embroidery is far too cute for me to care about that. there's also a band of lace on the bottom of the skirt, which i've just realised i neglected to photograph. oops.

here is the print in more detail. daisies or spiky fried eggs, you decide.

today i was doing a bit of messing around with the settings on my camera, in attempt to feel like less of an undeserving photography novice & these are the results. i don't know, i kind of liked the way the light looked & stuff. and the totally blurred out background. so, yeah. skip over these if you wish.

oh yeah, & i also bought a pair of tapered/cropped trousers in the dorothy perkins sale but they're a little big so i'm getting them altered. they are lovely though, and (as you may have noticed) i literally never wear trousers apart from for school so i felt i needed a new pair. plus, i received a couple of really pretty belts for my birthday but haven't really had anything to wear them with.
*
anyway, besides all of that clothes nonsense, after a nice bit of time away from posting, i've had a bit of a re-evaluation period. i think i will miss posting here, so i'm going to try to do a post every two weeks or so, which i think is fair. writing is quite a nice bit of escapism for me. also, i've decided to concentrate more on text posts, maybe in the form of lists as i've seen those on llymlrs & i heart vintage x and i really like that style. also, i overuse the word "also".
so, to begin with my first "list of current things from my life". i might work on a snappier title.
1. as people who follow me on twitter might be aware, i have become quite obsessed with a paul mccartney & wings greatest hits cd i picked up in a local oxfam. hence the band on the run title. jet is without a doubt my favourite song of the moment (and not solely for the suffragette reference). it has also led me to think of a feature i'd like to include here on t'blog, so look out for more possible writings about music in the future.
(did anyone see the warbler's version of silly love songs? i actually loved it, & that's rare.)
2. i have been looking at feminism for my art project, & my mum's friend lent me a few copies of spare rib, a feminist magazine of which she has literally every issue. i'm finding it really interesting, in fact just seeing how different attitudes to women were in the 70s is pretty staggering.
3. does anyone watch pointless? it's kind of become an addiction of mine. basically, it's a bbc 2 gameshow where people have to guess the most obscure answer to a question. kind of like a reverse family fortunes. anyway, i got a pointless answer in the final round the other day (which is pretty damn difficult); booker prize winners born outside of the uk - kazuo ishiguro. who by the way is an incredible writer, i'm reading his novel  the remains of the day at the moment, which is bloody brilliant.
*
okay, that's me done. see you soon blogfellows.