New Year at 221b
First attempt at Sherlock fanart, and a little seasonal message to all readers! I wanted to do it in Little Forest Folk style,but with the poses I used, that didn't really work out. Oh well. John is a happy and cheerful drunk whilst Sherlock is working on The Case of the Man in the Blue Box.
This didn't turn out brilliantly as I got a bit clumsy with application of colour (why did I even bother painting a wall and floor?!) I did, however, get to use some more masking fluid, which turned out a bit of a bugger to remove when it was too thin, but was also damn handy for making sure John's streamers turned out alright.
One thing I am pleased about with this is Sherlock's hair. Medium: Watercolour on 300gsm hot pressed watercolour paper (ooh heark at me with my fancy art materials) Size: A5
So this is the last post of the year from me; I'm now going to wander off and post this Elsewhere.
2014 is drawing to a close. This blog has been running for
ten months and because of it, I've probably done more this year than I might otherwise
have done! Success!
So here's a look back on what I got up to this year, and some of what I'd like to achieve in 2015
I started to post a new art/writing project, Folk Tales of the Sea People, had a picnic, and went to an annual village fair, which has run for over 700 years. I also signed
up to Bloglovin', so if you use it, you can follow me there!
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
August was
another quiet month, but I got on with a few 'indoors' goals.
I painted a whole bunch of pictures, continued posting Folk
Tales of the Sea People, and toured around Brighton
Museum and Art Gallery
with a friend.
...and continued to post Folk Tales, of course :)
I'd like to share a live clip from the gig I went to, but I didn't record any, and at any rate, live recordings tend to be rubbish unless professional, so here's an official video instead (note: language is Japanese, video probably NSFW and yes, he really can hit all the notes. Flawlessly.)
After a busy month, October
was a Month of Doing...Nothing.
In my defence, I spent the first two weeks participating in
NaNoWriMo, and reached my target (and the end of my novel) in the second week.
I spent the rest of the month catching up on my reading and eating chocolate...but also took time to watch some fantastic TED talks. Here's one from Amanda Palmer, which is simply brilliant:
And now we're in December!
I've been to countless Christmas fairs that I haven't
blogged about!
My focus this month has been on finding those last little
gifts for my family, so Doing Things has fallen by the wayside somewhat. I
have, however, kept up the reading! I also found time to discover exactly how muddy some of the local footpaths are, and how broken my camera is.
As for 2015, here
are 10 goals in particular that I hope to begin, or complete:
It's there, and it's one of the more unusual attractions on
offer in Brighton, so why not!
059. Go to 5 music
events
Alright, so this mostly banks on there being a music event
that I want to attend. However I do manage to find one or two each year, so if
I can add another one to the list, I'll be happy!
067. Sell unwanted
things at a car boot fair
With the money that Doing Things costs, it would be great to
make some back by getting rid of some stuff I don't want! Let the
bargain-hunting madness begin!
079. Go to see a play
There are so many theatres around, some of them only a walk
away, some of them a bus ride away. There are plays being put on all the time,
so in 2015 I want to get around to seeing one!
You'll note that I don't have any of my 'Staying Indoors'
goals on this list. Most of those are listed as things to do when I want to do
something but don't have the cash/motivation/health/weather/transport/time to
Go Out And Do Something.
You may have also noted that 084. Climb the O2 is at the top of this list, whilst the rest of
the list is in numerical order. That's because I really want to do it!
Nacho Party
I painted this at the end of November, but couldn't share it until now as it was a Christmas present for my middle sister and her boyfriend! The subject is their chihuahua, Nacho. I painted it to match the painting I did of their other dog last May...
Chihuahua, May 2013
I think my skill has improved somewhat! I'm also using better quality watercolours--the older picture was painted with a set from a discount book/art store; whilst I like the vibrancy some of the colours give, the overall quality and ease of use isn't so great.
Of course there are a few things I'm not so happy with when it comes to Nacho Party, but overall I'm really pleased with how it turned out (I wouldn't have gifted it otherwise!) Medium: Watercolour on watercolour paper
I was given a new pack of watercolour paper for Christmas, which I'm very pleased with! The last several paintings I've shared here have been done using paper from a cheap A3 watercolour pad, which I've been cutting to A5 size! One thing with watercolour is that the materials are kind of expensive, but you certainly get what you pay for. One day I will learn not to scrimp so much when it comes to art materials!
At the end of November, I made the first post for a
newly-begun goal:
062. Watch 100 TED/TEDx talks
As I decided to make a post for every five talks that I
watched, here comes post number two!
Shigeru Ban:
Emergency shelters made from paper
A fascinating talk by Shigeru Ban, an architect who has
experimented with building materials like cardboard tubes. His constructions
have come to help people in many disaster-struck areas including Rwanda, Japan
and Haiti--they're
quick to assemble, strong, and resilient. Watch the video to discover the full
extent of what he has designed with the humble cardboard tube, from cubicles to
churches.
This is definitely one to watch.
Steve Ramirez and Xu
Liu: A mouse. A laser beam. A manipulated memory.
It's been a while since I updated with paintings for my
goal, so here is another one, which I painted in August.
Flight to the Stars, August 2014
Flight to the Stars
In what seems to be tradition for my punctuality of posting
my paintings, I finished this one in August!
This is the result of my second attempt at using masking
fluid.
The paper tore in a couple of places when I removed the dry
masking fluid; I'm not sure if that's down to my ham-fistedness or cheap paper.
I was trying to be careful!
I think the line of the moon ended up too sharp and uneven,
whilst the clouds at the bottom don't look cloudy enough.
After removing the masking fluid from the moon, I thought it
looked too stark, so I rubbed over it with my fingers and smudged some of the
lilac paint across the white. To be honest, I think it looks a bit of a mess.
However, I'm pleased with how the nebula turned out, along
with the bird/winged spirit.
Medium: Watercolour on
watercolour paper Size: 14.2x20cm
As noted in most of my other painting posts, this is part of
a goal from The List:
055. Create 52 paintings in 1 year
This is number 33--I'm over halfway! I've painted 37 in
total so far, though there are some that I've yet to post.
I was hoping to share this as part of a set of paintings,
but haven't been inspired to paint along the same theme. I will, however, attempt
to use masking fluid again sometime!
For more of my paintings, check out the tag for goal 55.
Today I decided to go for a walk and get some fresh air. I took my old digicam with me, and braved the muddy footpaths to take some photographs.
Unfortunately it turns out my camera is on its way out, as this shot above shows!
I wasn't sure if it was the lens or the screen, but thought I'd carry on taking pictures anyway as the problem seemed to have a cool effect.
I wasn't quite prepared for this when I loaded the pictures onto the computer...
Looks mad, right?!
Occasionally the camera managed to take a reasonable shot...
You can see the trees on the horizon have warped on the left...yet my next picture turned out fine.
That path was muddier than it looked.
Despite how crazy and trippy most of the other photos turned out, this one I took of some sheep turned out fine.
I'm a bit disappointed that the camera is broken, because it has a lot of functionality for a point and shoot, but I have had it for a few years. At least I got some unusual photos out of it!
082. Go on a day trip
It has to be over 30 minutes away, and can't count for any other travel-related goal (that would be cheating!)
083. Ride in a hot air balloon
So basically I saw a bit of BBC's Glorious Gardens from Above and decided riding in a hot air balloon would be fantastic.
084. Climb the O2
I discovered it was possible, so I want to do it!
085. Go clay pigeon shooting
Marcy suggested 'shoot a gun', which I've kind of done (rifle range when I was a child). But her suggestion reminded me of clay pigeon shooting, which I'd like to try!
086. Milk a cow
Well, why not? Some of my ancestors were farmers, so it might be in my genes?!
087. Memorise a poemThis may or may not be The Lady of Shalott, which I have never succeeded at memorising before. On the other hand, I may pick one of Longfellow's poems. Or Spike Milligan's! ;)
(P.S. Marcy's blog is great and you should read it)
After that, I was perusing blogs via feedly, and ended up adding another goal:
088. Go ice skating I've never done it, but I want to!
At the end of October, I wrote about my participation in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo.
Well, in case the big graphic above didn't give it away, I won! (The prize? Deep satisfaction in having written 50,000 words in 30 days, and finishing a story).
Am pleased to see that my lovely blogging friends Lilia (Paracosm of Lilies) and Terry (Write. Create. Connect.) also slayed the NaNoWriMo dragon and reached the 50k target. Three cheers, pals!
I wrote in my previous entry about NaNoWriMo that I was undecided on which idea to write. Well, I went for the more challenging supernatural storyline, and am pretty pleased about how it turned out!
To participate again was one of the goals on The List, so I can happily cross another one off:
032. Take up the NaNoWriMo challenge again
Hurrah!
Today I began reading through and editing my novel, so who knows where it will lead me...
Now the weather has turned colder, and I'm less inclined to go tramping around the countryside, I've turned my thoughts to some of the 'indoors' goals on The List.
Recently, I started on a new one:
062. Watch 100 TED/TEDx Talks
In the past, I've watched various TED and TEDx talks, courtesy of YouTube, and find them interesting, informative and inspiring.
As 100 is a lot of videos, I'll blog about them every five or so videos that I watch, and embed the videos where I can. So here goes!
Amanda Palmer: The art of asking
In this video, performer Amanda Palmer talks about her days as a street performer, the success of her crowd-funding attempt (which had around 25,000 backers!) and the belief that rather than making people pay for music, they should be asked.
Amanda Palmer is a very animated speaker and her talk left me with the impression that if, like Amanda, you have the balls (and trust in people) to ask for what you want, you'll eventually get it.
November is nearly over, and I'm continuing with my goal of
reading 3 books per month for a year (#050 on The List).
As this month was National Novel Writing Month, I thought it
might be difficult to read three full-length novels as well as trying to write
a 50k novel, so I picked some shorter books to read for November. As before,
I've rated the books I read out of 5.
It's been a month since I posted any more paintings, yet what I'm posting today are paintings I finished in July!
I posted them on deviantART, but never got around to sharing them here.
As before, this is towards a goal:
055. Create 52 paintings in 1 year
(The year runs from March-Feb, because March is when I started!)
Today's theme is fanart, Little Forest Folk-style
Gee Up, July 2014
Gee Up: Another fanart of Full/Tomo Furukawa, vocalist of Guniw Tools, and Shilfee and Tulipcorobockles (to name but a couple of bands). I've painted him before (he's one of my favourite people to paint in this style!) This time, here he is smoking his bubble-pipe and riding his trusty rhinoceros beetle. In painting this, I discovered that painting beetles is rather relaxing!
Am really pleased with how this one turned out. Medium: Watercolour on watercolour paper Size:22x14.5cm
It's been a couple of months since I last blogged about any chocolate, but I'm still working towards my goal of trying 50 new chocolates (goal #64 on The List).
Here's the latest three, which involve sea salt, chilli and marzipan!
Tomorrow is Halloween and that means one thing (asides the dressing up and copious amounts of candy). National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us!
I've participated four years running, so of course, joining in again made it onto The List:
032. Take up the NaNoWriMo challenge again
For the uninitiated, the idea of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel of 50,000 words (or more) during the month of November. It sounds like a lot, but is actually around 1667 words per day.
The official NaNoWriMo website has a great FAQ which explains the ins and outs of participating, and of course, winning!
I have added one of their handy word count widgets to this blog, which you'll find on the right hand side :)
Back Cover for Folk Tales of the Sea People, July 2014
Contents
Not all tales have a happy ending. Indeed, not all tales are even
conventional. These are Folk Tales of the Sea People, who sang their stories
long before we learned to spin our own
Preface and Introduction
In which a modern-day professor comments on the fact science has proved
that mermaids to not exist, and Cadogan Browne introduces his
compilation with insistence that they do.
Halywn, or A Pinch of Salt
A tale of Selkie-folk in a saltless sea, set upon by a terrible creature--and what they do to defeat him.
A Havsrå's Fortune
The story of a lonely Havsrå, gifted with the ability to see into the future, but cursed that no Human man shall ever remember her face.
Fresh Water and Salt Water
The story of a salt water-dwelling Siren, who fell in love with a fresh water-dwelling Nereid.
That's sixteen stories in all, more than the ten I set out to write!
With regards to the image at the top of this post, it counts towards my goal of creating 52 paintings in a year. It's a simple image, painted with the idea of creating a 'back cover' for this story collection. Unfortunately I managed to bend the paper before I had a chance to scan it, argh!
As I've always liked reading, I set the following goal on The List:
050. Read 3 books per month for 1 year
You'd think this would be an easy task, but in truth I set
it because I became pretty lax with reading, meanwhile the 'books to read' pile
was growing bigger and bigger...
Anyway! I started on this goal back in July, and realised
it's about time I start blogging about it.
I'm rating each book out of 5 for how much I enjoyed it
overall.
Here comes the final story from Folk Tales of the Sea People.
With this, I conclude one of the goals on The List:
046. Write 10 original stories of 1000+ words
There is an illustration for this story, but this time it's at the end.
So without further ado, I bring you the tale of a siren and a nereid...
Fresh Water and Salt Water
There once was a handsome young man, a Siren like you and I,
who was many tides past the age to become married. He had lustrous red hair and
shining scales to match, and his fins were dark blue like the twilight sea. His
name was Moana.
Everywhere Moana went, women stared and blushed at his
handsome appearance, and sometimes some of the men did, too. Many young women
lusted for Moana’s attention and the men, envious of Moana’s popularity, looked
on in envy. Moana received many proposals of marriage from men and women across
the kingdom. He found it most tiring to receive so much attention and turned
down each and every request that came his way.
His parents fretted at his reluctance to marry, for in those
days marriage was for profit and appearance, and it was deemed improper for a
man of Moana’s age to remain alone. Every day they would beg him to choose a
bride from the many willing suitors.
They did not know that Moana mourned for a secret love,
Melanchor of the Swan People.
The above is an A5(ish) picture I made for my friend Sparrow (webmistress and translator of 鬼愛～Demon Passion～ - go there for JP-ENG translations of ghost stories!)
It features some of her original characters.
I used watercolours and took the opportunity to use some more masking fluid, albeit only a little! After painting, I went over the lines with a fineliner, so I guess it's more of an illustration, but I'm counting this towards my goal of 52 in a year (goal #55 on The List).
Folk Tales of the Sea People is nearing an end--this is the second to last story! A tale of hope and transformation.
The Fish Who Grew Legs, July 2014
The Fish Who Grew Legs
There was once a large fish. His name was Shui, and he had
scales of blue with black stripes, and bright yellow fins. He lived in a sea
not far from here, amongst others of his kind and close to a village of Nereids.
Shui envied the Nereids, for they were slender and fast, and
had not tails but beautiful legs, which allowed them to walk upon the land,
should they wish it.
When Shui watched the Nereids, he thought that he should be
one of them. He, too, wanted to play in the water and visit the land. He wished
he had legs to wiggle instead of his tail, and thought that surely he should
have been born with them. But when Shui told his friends that he wanted to be a
Nereid, they laughed at him.
“You cannot be a Nereid,” they said. “For you have no legs,
and your face is that of a fish, and your body is that of a fish, and you are
fish through and through.”
“My heart is one of a Nereid!” insisted Shui. “Though my
body is that of a fish, I cannot change my heart.”
His friends laughed so hard that Shui swam away, sad.
It so happened that a Nereid boy found him. Though Shui was
a big fish – bigger than the boy – the Nereid was not afraid, for he knew fish
to be gentle.
“Why are you sad?” asked the Nereid.
“Because I have the body of a fish and the heart of a
Nereid, and everybody laughs at me,” said Shui.
The Nereid patted Shui’s head. “They’re very mean,” he said.
“You can be a Nereid if you want to be.”
“How can I go to the land without legs?” asked Shui.
Every year, Bentley
Country Park
is host to Bentley Woodfair. My parents have attended several years running,
but this year Mum was away whilst it was on, so Dad and I went instead!
Spread across two fields, the wood fair is 'a celebration of
woodlands, forestry, timber, trees, woodcrafts and more...'
Well, it's been a week since I last posted anything from Folk Tales of the Sea People, so it's about time I posted some more, isn't it!
I would have posted sooner, but the past week or so has been busy, and when I've returned home from the various events I've blogged about lately, I've been feeling pretty tired. Gallons of tea is what has been keeping me going lately!
Anyway, without further ado, here is the next story...
Six Silly Sisters, July 2014
Six Silly Sisters
There were once three Siren sisters. Their names were
Muirgel, Muirgen and Muiren. Muirgel was the oldest sister, Muirgen was the
middle sister, and Muiren was the youngest. The three sisters went everywhere
together, and what they liked most was to swim to an inlet where they would
meet interesting Land Walkers. Their parents warned them not to go there, for
it was a dangerous place, but the sisters paid them no regard.
One day, when they were swimming up the inlet, they met
three young Land Walker women who looked almost identical. The young women had
taken off their shoes and socks and were paddling in the water.
“Oh look, Muirgen!” said Muiren. “Those three Land Walkers
look the same!”
“Let’s go and talk to them,” said Muirgel. She called out
from the water, and waved to the young women. “Ahoy!”
As part of Hurst Festival, the Holy Trinity
Church hosted a couple of
art exhibitions.
The main attraction for me was the John Vernon Lord
exhibition. His book, The Giant Jam
Sandwich was a childhood favourite, and a couple of years ago I saw another
exhibition of his work whilst on a trip to London (the exhibition in question was of his
illustrations for Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass).
Works in the exhibition included his illustrations for the
likes of Aesop's Fables, The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear and Miserable Aunt Bertha. I really like his
work because every line is so accurate, and some illustrations contain such a
wonderfully high level of detail. My favourite piece at this exhibition was Sammy (the dog) spots Gretchen (the cat)
from Miserable Aunt Bertha, purely
because of the colour, the scene of utter chaos, and again all the details!
(And maybe, just maybe, because there's a jam sandwich in that picture. I see
what you did there, mister!)
The other exhibition in the church was 'Art at the Dene'. It
was a collection of artworks by residents of The Dene Hospital, an
establishment which uses the arts to help those with mental illness/personality
disorders. The works displayed were varied in style and I thought the
exhibition an excellent example of how art can be used for expression.
I didn't take any pictures within the church as I didn't
feel comfortable doing so, despite the warm welcome I received at the
exhibition! But I did buy a couple of postcards depicting John Vernon Lord's
work :)
On Saturday I went to a 'Willow Workshop', which was running
as part of Hurst Festival. I booked a ticket for this as I'd not worked with
willow before, and was curious about it!
As it turned out, the workshop was for creating a lantern
from willow and wet strength tissue paper. This wasn't quite what I expected as
the festival website had shown a picture of willow weaving on the event page. It seemed a number of others who
attended had expected the same thing, so we were certainly surprised when it
turned out we were making lanterns!
But since I was there and had paid my money, I decided to
roll with it and ended up having fun!
Here is the next instalment of Folk Tales of the Sea People. This time, a tale of Mermaids, Humans and Draugs. With regards the illustration, it seems I need more practise with drawing ghostly things upon the water! But the story is much better--I hope you enjoy it.
A Raft on the Lagoon, July 2014
A Raft on the Lagoon
Long ago, not far from here, there was a lagoon, which has
long since merged with the sea. Close to that sea there lived a Human sailor,
who often sailed upon it with his little raft, which he had built himself. The
sailor’s name was Irving,
and his heart lay with a lovely Mermaid named Nerissa.
As Irving’s house was so
close to the water, Nerissa was happy with the idea of marrying Irving, and when he
proposed it so, her parents gave their blessing. Happily, they planned their
wedding day, unaware that Irving
had a rival for Nerissa’s affections in the shape of his best man, Conway.
Conway
was also a sailor, and he was a very jealous man. He decided that he could not
allow Irving and Nerissa to marry, for he wanted Nerissa for himself.
So a week before the wedding, when Nerissa had taken a trip
away to prepare, Conway sabotaged Irving’s raft.
As I mentioned last weekend, I would be attending several events from the Hurst Festival programme over the two week duration of the festival.
For today, I had a ticket for 'The Big Village Sing', so off I went into Hurst (along with Mum, who decided at the last minute that she wanted to go too--cue printing off a ticket at around 1am!)
Yesterday I met up with Lilia (my lovely and creative friend from Paracosm of Lilies) in London, and we went to a gig!
The gig in question was Japanese band Sukekiyo, who came to London's O2 Academy Islington on their 'Ameagari no Yuushi' tour.
Unusually for Japanese bands, photography was allowed, so I snapped a
few pictures on my phone (most of which turned out incredibly blurry), though only during the first few songs.
Here comes another story from my collection, Folk Tales of the Sea People.
I'm not overly happy with the painting I did for this one, but I'm still posting it as it still counts towards my goal of 52 paintings in a year! I think this picture is the result of what happens when I don't think enough about what I'm doing... Anyway, enjoy the story. It has a few surprises.
The Wily Old Glashtyn, July 2014
The Wily Old Glashtyn
Once upon a time, in a kingdom where Merfolk reigned, there
lived a mermaid named Damla. She was young and pretty, and caught the eye of
many young mermen, though she held out against their advances for she dreamt of
being carried away by a handsome young prince.
Damla prided herself on her pale pink hair, for it was such
an unusual colour, and her eyes which were bright blue and looked so splendid.
Damla’s scales were like sapphires and her tail supple and curvaceous. Though
she did not court vanity over her appearance, Damla knew it was her looks that
drew so many men to her. They were rich and clever, handsome and charming, but
still she denied their advances, and would not allow a single man to court her.
She held out on her hope of a handsome prince, and was caught daydreaming many
a time when she was supposed to help with her lady’s laundry.
So, I've been eating more chocolate. Hurrah! Once again this counts towards goal #64: to try 50 new chocolates. This includes chocolate bars, and individual chocolates. This post covers chocolate 17-19...I wonder what will be next?
La
Bruja Turrón de Chocolate
'Crispy
Chocolate Turron'
When
I bought this chocolate bar (another treasure picked up at the 99p store!) I
didn't quite know what to expect, only that it would be crispy, as the gold and
green packaging told me so ;)
Google
informs me that 'turron' is nougat, but this doesn't look or taste like any
nougat I've had before--possibly because of the little pieces of crispy rice.
This bar also contains hazelnut paste and almonds; the hazelnut flavour is
especially prominent.
There was once, long ago, a Dragon, who lived in the sea.
His name was Takumi, and though he had great golden scales and long whiskers
that were quite admirable, the other folk that lived in that stretch of water
disliked him, for the fire within Takumi’s belly made the water quite hot.
Whenever he went by, all kinds would swim away, be they shark, Merman, dolphin
or Nereid. Takumi was shunned by society, and it made him quite grumpy. He
decided that, should anyone cross his path, he would eat them. Takumi thought
they deserved it, for rejecting him so unkindly without knowing anything of
him.
As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the events in Hurst Festival Village Open Day was the "Treasured Transport Parade". The name is pretty self-explanatory: a parade of special, treasured vehicles!
Cars from various eras participated, with the parade beginning at Washbrooks Farm and ending at South Avenue Rec.
Today was the first day of Hurst Festival, an annual event held every September in the Sussex village of Hurstpierpoint.
Now in its tenth year, the first event of the festival was the Village Open Day, which promised lots of events, attractions and performances in various public spaces around the village.
So, clutching my event guide and the leaflet handed to me when I reached the village, I went to explore and see what was on offer!
Here comes another story from Folk Tales of the Sea People.
Three Brothers and a Draug, July 2014
Three Brothers and a Draug
There were once three brothers. Their names were Marinus,
Pontius and Pelagius, and apart from their names they were identical down to
the very last detail. Each had short red hair, each had pale green flesh and
glossy, emerald-coloured scales. When they spoke and when they sang, you could
not have told the difference. Whether they danced on two legs or swam by tail,
they remained perfect copies of each other.
They lived together in a house with three of everything, and
had much fun being identical brothers, for it was rare and they were much
admired for it. Their identical nature also allowed them to play many tricks,
and it is for these tricks that this story is told.
