Art Trip!

Ok......well today I went up into London with my friends Jess, Carlene and Jim to see the Shadow Catchers Exhibition at the V&A.....
It was a really nice day today and we actually ended up going to the Tate Modern and stopping in Camden for a coffee too.........

Well here's the programme for Shadow Catchers.....which was an exhibition of camera-less photography and print work......I think that's all it was (that was all I saw :-s)

• Anyway the programme pretty much says this :- 'The essence of photography lies in its seemingly magical ability to fix shadows on light-sensitive surfaces. Normally, this requires a camera. Shadow Catchers, however, presents the work of five international contemporary artists - Floris Neususs, Pierre Cordier, Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller and Adam Fuss - who work without a camera. Instead, they create images on photographic paper by casting shadows and manipulating light, or by chemically treating the surface of the paper.'

So yeah.....it was definitely a strange exhibit to walk through, as it felt like you were walking past memories....which I guess is what a photo is, but it was so uncanny as you could see the shadow of something but there was nothing to make it........

Thanks to our wonderful student discount, the £5 ticket became a £4 ticket........yeah, in all honesty student discount is pointless if you're just going to take a pound off the price (I realise how stingy this sounds as it was only a fiver, but everything else is free entry and as an art student all the materials I have to buy cost me enough and that's without having to pay to get into exhibitions for my work and research)

Well here I am today....sporting a medal design on my right eye.......

Here is my wonderful medal necklace from River Island that inspired the multi-coloured medal.......I was having a rather victorian military look today, what with my long coat and my black victorian top and victorian travel pencil (the chain that you can't see then end of....sorry)

This was to show that the medal was on my eye......not just hanging under it.....I actually bothered to draw over my eye today and fill in where the cloth would be with a bronze eye shadow......everything else to do with the image is eyeliner.......I had a lot of fun with it today as I had a conversation with 5 different people throughout London first asking whether it was a tattoo (no), whether I drew it myself (yes), what it was made of (eyeliner), do I design tattoos (I have done for friends when they asked, but no I don't), have I ever done a tattoo (never in my life)..........so yeah, strange day also because I kept getting people telling me how cool my hair was............apparently people in London are friendlier than those in colchester :-s

Ah this is because I got a comment on my blog from Frieze I think? Where I said I was wearing my red coat that looks like paddington and they commented that it wasn't paddington as paddington has a blue coat......yes admittedly the OLD paddington has traditionally a blue coat, but the paddington I grew up with has a RED coat......hence I am right and you are right, but if I type it's a paddington coat please remember this pic and don't say I'm wrong :-p

This is the amazing piece of glass work that hangs precariously above the information and ticket unit......

This is one of the pieces that I liked in the Shadow Catchers exhibit......unfortunately the chair didn't come out so well........but basically there's this old fashioned wooden shair just sitting there, while the shadow shows the chair and a woman sitting on it......It's a very interesting piece.........other than these, I quite liked the Dye destruction work where you had an image gradually materialize in a sequence of images -

• Dye destruction printing is where you use direct positive colour paper to make a print. The paper was originally introduced in 1963 for printing colour transparencies or negatives. It's coated with at least three layers of emulsion, each of which is sensitised to one of the three primary colours. Each layer also contains a dye related to that colour. During the development stage of the image, any unexposed dyes are bleached out - hence the term 'dye destruction'- and the remaining dyes form a full colour image.

Well we got bored after a few minutes and wondered round the V&A aimlessly until we remembered that there was an exhibition on by Ai Weiwei at the Tate modern.........so we made our way over to there......this is the little piece of art someone placed on a random street lamp, it's nothing special but it reminded me of Jess as we'd given her coffee and well.......she was to put it lightly getting a tad bit hyper :)

Here's the sunflower seed exhibition by Ai Weiwei, they are all tiny pieces of ceramic work made to look and feel like sunflower seeds.......I really like it, although it's more amazing when you get closer to it........

Now here's a funny fact.......when you study art, you do have to work with ceramics and clays occassionally and the first thing they tell you is that the dust left from such creations is dangerous as if you breath them in they coat your lungs and act as a matt causing breathing to become difficult (a lot of people who work with ceramics know this risk).......so when you tidy up, rather than dust and brush everything away causing all the particles to get into the air you wash everything so that the dust becomes damp and can no longer e breathed in..............well, that's why there's now a safety guard around the entire exhibit and why the security guard has two pieces of equipment on him that beep when the amount of dust in the air becomes too much.......I think it would've been a lot easier if you had a sprinkler on them every few hours, but that's what you get when Health and Safety get involved (¬_¬)

They Look like REAL sunflower seeds!!! XD

SEE!! These are amazing and sooooo realistic!!! <3

This is my favourite picture and it was actually taken by my friend Carlene using my phone!

Ok, well after allllllllllll of that..........we decided a trip to Camden for a coffee and look about was in order........well, I found this in one of the pubs we passed and I had to go in there and take a pic, I'm not sure if you can see but it's a wolf on a starry night howling at the moon!! Points for creativity Camden! <3

And last but not least......one of the funniest pieces of design I have ever seen!!! A random giant chair hanging outside a furniture shop.......yeah, a shop in Camden is too cool to just have a sign, it also has to have a GIANT rocking chair so that people definitely know where they're entering! (because people obviously don't read signs anymore, they need to be shown in obvious manners!)

So yeah, that was today! Getting home was hellish as the tubes were either delayed or not working at all.......I'm not looking forward to making my way to my friends on saturday, but I guess I never the tubes as frankly people are horrible and believe they can stare and comment about you while you can hear/see/stand right next to them........seriously people, just because I look strange doesn't mean I can't understand you!!

Anyway, sorry for the random rant.......hope you like the blog xxxx

Vowels

Alright.......well today I was planning on sorting out the flowers........but I did venture into town before hand to grab lunch as I don't know why but although today was lovely I felt kind of groggy for part of it.........still being in town and sorting the flowers was fun..........

So here we have it......A, E and I on my right........with different fonts to make them look more interesting as designs.....then on my left I have O and U.......which are both different as well but I'm afraid the style looks quite similar.........

They're both basic outlines that I started with black eyeliner, then filling with a different colour.......except for the 'e' obviously as it was meant to be a different letter in itself so I though it just being in black would work.....

and here is O and U.......again simple outlines done using black eyeliner......the 'O' is filled with silver glitter eyeliner from Eyeko, which is the best brand when it comes to silver eyeliner.......I like to re-stock my collection with eyeko glitter eyeliner whenever I go to Expo as that was where I first found Eyeko before it started being sold in my local shop........

and here I am in full........this explains why I have the vowels on my face ^_^  I'm in my Topshop jumper, with my handbag that my nan bought me, my black skinnies and my slip ons that I bought from Primark with my mum when we were in Ipswich........

It's funny as I've only just noticed that the advertisement behind me from Debenhams with all it's different colours and letters is actually helping this picture with everything I have on.......heh, strange things huh?

and here are the smaller flowers......heathers and christmas trees etc.....I just had to pull all the dead flowers out and sort out all the petals that had fallen all over these.....they're rather pretty on their own huh?

I've put the pots back in now as they had to be cleaned out and re-filled with water....

these are some of the new flowers that are going to fill in all the gaps...

yeah......more flowers......although all the ones in the pile on the top right are going to be thrown away as they're all dead and stank of something horrid......

All finished!! With all the flowers and smaller plants, it really looks like a patch of garden! :)

Bit of a better view x

I love the mix of flowers and how they all go together......really helps to make it look loved, which is extremely important to me <3

And here are the pumpkins four that I showed you yesterday!!

Heh, I ended up cleaning them all out, cutting a chimney for all of them......but I only carved three of them.....can you guess which ones are mine? :-p

Well I did the big one on the left (he's called Bob) and my little brother did the one on the right (james has named him 'Jack the Pumpkin King'.......yeah, my little bro is awesome)

Again the left one is my little brothers, the right one is mine (called James)

and once again we see the one on the left (James) that I carved and the one on the right which I also carved (called Charlie)

Hope you all liked the blog x 

Rain =_=

Well today it wouldn't stop raining..........which I wouldn't have had a problem with, if I was allowed to just sit in a coffee shop for the day.......but was I?? No - life decided I needed to do something.........still it was fun, as I spent the day walking round all the wedding shops being a pain to all the female fitters as two of my friends are now engaged and planning their weddings........luckily for one of them I am just a guest, but for the other I'm a flipping maid of honour........who will be walking down the aisle with two male bridesmaids in kilts..........seriously don't ask ^_^;;

Anyway, lets get this blog going shall we?
Well, thanks to the bride trecks where I was expected to give my opinion while still being nice about the dresses I ended up not taking a single picture......
So here I am after a rainy day........

This is a dress/top thing that I own that has BIG POOFY sleeves.......I thought the colours went with my hair :)

Here's the make up, rainbow eyeshadow, image done to match the shapes on my top/dress thingy and my lulu guiness necklace that's a batman logo that my mum bought me as a present AGES ago :)

I think you can kind of see how I blended the colours......the picture quality is bad, as I actually got a really good rainbow effect :( anyway I'm pleased with the design as it reminds me of a twiggy one that I saw ages ago.......

ah, this one's a bit better I think........blending eye shadow is really easy.....you just do one colour, then pick your next and make it slightly go over the first one so there's a gradual evolvement of the colour.....I used pink, orange, yellow, green, turquoise........was going to put a darker shade in for the violet effect, but I thought it looked fine like that.......

MWAHAHAHAHA!! Halloween is approaching as I bought the tiny pumpkin on the end (right) a few weeks ago for something special.......but my mum is a deisgn freak (I think that's where I get it from =_=;; ) and said that unless I could find 3 more so that it balanced out I couldn't use it for a special jack o'lantern thing.........so today when I saw a mish mash of small pumpkins I was ecstatic.......except for the fact that when I got home.....I realised that only 2 of them were the same size (middle two).......but luckily my mum didn't mention size difference!!! So I'm now allowed to put 4 Jack o'lanterns out rather than one!!! I'm SOOOOOO HAPPY!!! XD

Rainbow Hair!

Alright pretend today is actually the 25th of October........seeing as I had a nightmare yesterday with my hair :)

Ok, so now that we've sorted out the date for this post........I decided to get my fringe dyed, as if I put bleach in my hair it kills it.....but my fringe grows abnormally fast!! and I love dying different colours into my hair so I thought I'd best muck up my fringe if I'm going to do anything.......well I took some inspiration from meeting the girls from 6% Doki Doki awhile ago, who had these amazing colours in their hair.........that made me think, I know! I'll get a rainbow fringe!!

Well here I was in the morning all ready for my trip to the hair dressers in my Desigual skirt........I was really pleased how this looked actually as the skirt is high waisted so I had no idea how it would look on me, but yeah it turned out really suiting me :)

And here's the design for today......I really should have taken a pic of the embroidery on the skirt as I basically made this from picking bits I liked from the skirt......

GLITTER!!! oh and leaves..........<3

Here I am getting my fringe bleached.......yeah I'm not a forehead person =_=;; I'm sitting in Alter-Ego which is my favourite Hairdressers in Colchester as they're willing to do anything but also do it so that your hair won't get any serious damage......they're really lovely as they talk everything through with you and even tell you how to make your hair healthy again if it's been wrecked by something! :)

 Oh yeah, I had a bit of a surprise as I've been dying my hair red since year 7........so when they tried to Bleach my fringe it took quite a few tries as the red had permanently stained my hair and therefore the first bleaching it had made my fringe NEON ORANGE.........cool look, but not helpful when you want a rainbow in there.........the bleaching meant I spent the whole day in the hairdressers.......

After three Bleaches here I am with my mega-long fringe..........I know it's not platinum which would have made my colours come out amazing, but if they'd bleached it anymore my fringe would have been destroyed.....so I was rather pleased that they'd even got all the red out, so I wasn't going to complain!

just had all the dye washed out and saw the colours for the first time!! It's really fun as if you push my fringe to the right (my right) with all the colours it looks like I have a parrots wing for a fringe!! XD

And here I am back from the hairdressers at 8pm........I was really tired and cold.......but it was sooooo worth it!! XD

Slightly better pick.....I love my fringe, especially as I came home and my dad said I looked like Delirium from my favourite comic ever 'The Sandman' So yeah, pretty wonderful day really!! :)

Bowie Brain

Hi everyone!! <3

Well today is Bowie based as I found to albums in the house that I didnt even realise I had of him! XD I know I sound like a twit....but I'm a big LP collecter when it comes to bands and soloists that I like, especially David Bowie - so today really was quite entertaining as I ended up listening to all his songs on my ipod which I haven't done in AGES!!

So yeah, I have based my face art today of David Bowies album cover of Aladin Sane (did I spell that right? :s) So I was planning on a Lightning bolt look :)

Yes, once I hit town I had to enter HMV for my photos.......here's me in my David Bowie T-shirt, which you can't see because it was raining and cold for most of the day so I had my big grey military coat glued onto me.....

Getting closer to the face now......as you can see I didn't do a complete lightning bolt......but I will be revisiting this look at somepoint, as the shape of a lightning bolt really works when placed around the eye for some strange reason.......

Now you can see how bad my eyeliner is :-p I really need better blue and pink......but biggest rule of what I do - make do with what's to hand (but don't believe that because I straight away went and bought some new ones for when I next do this!) But yeah, the black was actually easier for me than the filling in with the colours :-s How strange.......the pink on the top of my eye is normal eyeshadow.....I've used eyeliner on my eye instead of eyeshadow before, but a word of warning as it is really easy and if it's glittery it can look amazing - but you have to give it at least 30mins to dry before being allowed to open your eye!!

Here's the other side......yeah, so it's a cute little lightning bolt, but it works and it helped people to ignore the fact that my eye shadow didn't match.......actually I think everyone ignored this and just stared at the other side of my face all of today =_=;;

And here's me proud as a peacock! <3 A woman in Starbucks actually helped my ego out as well, she looked really smartly dressed and like many of the people who say under their breath how odd I look so I really did try to be polite around her and somehow make the waiting for coffee go faster.....but amazingly she actually grabbed me and said that I looked really cool and that it suited me.....That's probably the first time I've ever been lost for words!! XD

This was another epic part of the day.....the racks for CD's that I was standing infront of, I hadn't realised until I went to grab a Brandon Flowers CD that the album I'd copied for my face was actually balancing on a load of others!! Extremely cool and kind of uncanny.......

And finally here are the albums that I found in my collection......Let's Dance and Ashes to Ashes.....

On Lets Dance is:- Cat People, China Girl, Ricochet, Without you, Modern Love, Shake it, Criminal World and Let's Dance...... My dad actually gave me this album when I was little, because he used to sing David Bowie songs to my mum.......yeah they love him and hence I have all his music!! Although I got into him when I was little through my dad singing 'Kooks' whenever I'd been bullied and from watching him play the Goblin King in Jim Henson's the Labrynth......Definitely my favourite movie of ALL time!! XD So yeah, I've always liked him but as I got older I got into his songs, so now I can definitely say I'm a proper fan as I think his songs are amazing!

And here's the other LP that I was even more happy about as I LOVE his song Ashes to Ashes......here's what's on this one - Ashes to Ahses and Mover on...................

Well that's todays post.....if you're not a bowie fan then apologies......if you are then ultimate awesome! Thanks for reading! x