Much Love Monday

The cape is starting to look like a dragon, the dress rehearsal is in two days as is chasing game birds to their death.  Today I am loving the (in a love hate kind of way) the below freezing weather that means snow should be on the way. fingers crossed. And of course making things (like dragons).

So here is a picture of a cross stitch I stitched for a friend. A wee while ago.

Thanks to Much Love's Anna for keeping me posting!

Shadow Shot Sunday

I have been distracted by costume making for the village pantomime, scaring birds to their death and a visit from a friend I hadn't seen for too long.

But here is a shadow to keep me going and I'll get back on track once a large velvet cape looks like a dragon.

Isn't it great how the shadow keeps the frost?! Thanks Hey Harriet.

oooo - film!

I bought a film camera off e-bay, it's pretty super, I really like the tartan strap.

 

I took my first roll of film, how exciting until I went to pick it up from the film processing shop and it hadn't worked. I'd had my suspicions it may not have gone through properly and it didn't but that's alright, mistakes are the best way to learn right?

So then I bought some more film (fujifilm colour 200) and went for a walk along public footpaths in the countryside this morning and took some pictures, a whole roll of them and then didn't notice I'd got to the end of the roll and tried to take too many and forced the windy lever and the film broke off the canister and I opened the back to take the film out and saw what had happened and closed it straight away and took the whole mess into the camera shop to get them to get the film out. And the man was nice, then not so nice, he thought my film would be ruined and asked why I was bothering with film anyway and I felt like crying but I went back an hour later to pick it up and the film was a-ok! Except for the last 5 or so shots which is to be expected and I didn't mind at all and I got some fun light exposure marks as an added bonus. So here are some I thought were ok.

I got rather obsessed with the layers in the landscape, foreground, mid ground, background, way background, light and shadow, dry and frost, grass and trees and sky... there are more along this vein which I haven't included.

 I think the camera may be better for close ups rather than landscapes but I really need to read up and remember what I learnt in High School photography and take a notebook and record the settings I use so I know for next time what works (man, I'm such a mature student!).

 Ok, maybe I did include another landscape layer picture...

 I was like a small child jumping in all the iced over puddles. Brand new gumboots, ice, mud, water, what more could I ask for?

 

I don't really like the composition of the shot but I love the colours. I also need to work on focusing!

  

 This was the last shot that survived the film exposing incident. Yay, fun colours!

  

The black at the top of the frames is from the exposing film incident I think. I really quite like the colours here.

 

 Oh and this is from the beginning of the film, this has been exposed because of my over zealous checking the film is actually winding on but I like it!

Fingers crossed I manage to get the next film out like a normal person. Also, I'm not going to go back to Happy Snaps, I wasn't really happy with the quality of the prints. It looked like they were digital not proper prints. Though it could have just been my photo taking skills or lack of...

Much Love Monday

 Ok, so actually it's Tuesday but I didn't finish work till 20 minutes before the end of Monday. So for Much Love Monday I rummaged around my travelling photos to find this picture I took in Japan of a taxi in Kyoto. Which reminded me I do love taxi rides.

I love taxi rides, they make me feel like such a grown up! Sitting in the back seat so the taxi driver can't have his wicked way with me (thanks Mum), making small talk about how their night/ day's going, nervously watching the price clock up. Makes it sound like I don't but really, I do enjoy a good taxi ride.

Even in Japan where I couldn't speak the language I managed to end up in a taxi with an English speaking driver who had always wanted to move to Australia which is close enough to home to be awesome and reassuring in foreign lands.

Shadow Shot Sunday

I've been following Hey Harriet and her super Shadow Shot Sundays for ages so now that I've gotten my A into G it's about time I play along. 

Today is cold, grey and drizzly in West Berkshire (surprise, surprise) so a shadow shot from sunnier days is most appropriate.

The picture was taken during my one month cargo ship journey from Shanghai to Valencia, I think this was about the Red Sea. The shadow is the hand rails around the pool. It was hot and sunny, even the sea water in the swimming pool was hot, too hot to be refreshing.

Forest Structures

I went for a walk in the forest this morning, I'm obsessed with these structures, I guess they're for fire watching or something?

Rosehip and Crabapple Jelly

I made Jelly, Rosehip and Crabapple Jelly. The fruit I picked along the Kennet and Avon Canal on a bicycle ride, the jars I got from work and was given by one of our regulars, the labels I doodled while watching Grand Designs. It just tastes like sweet but I like it and it seems very English, hopefully it gets through NZ and Australian customs.

I found the recipe here.

Oxford aka Duffel Coat - upon - Bicycle

I went on a day trip to Oxford, it was lovely, everything everyone had said it would be with even more duffel coats and bicycles than I had expected. Luckily I was wearing my duffle coat. Next time I'll remember my bicycle.

I REALLY enjoyed the Modern Art Oxford in particular the Simon and Tom Bloor exhibition Hit and Miss. I didn't click it was an exhibition (it starts in the entrance way) until I got into the reception/ shop area. Then I went down to watch the 'film programme selected by the artists' and it was showing Mon Oncle

a film we used as the starting point for a project in my first year at design school I love the movie and it put me in a great mood for the rest of my duffel coat and bicycle seeing.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the duffel coats and bicycles, next time I will remember! I did get this lovely shot of the very old and historic (what in England isn't) Christ Church College getting fixed up. Typical!

After pottering around for the rest of my afternoon I decided it would be nice to buy a magazine for the train ride home. I haven't had much luck (no luck) on the magazine front since I've been in England, all I ever find are trashy gossip magazines, house magazines, country living magazines, music magazines, sports magazines or computer magazines. WHERE ARE THE DESIGN AND AWESOME, PRETTY STUFF MAGAZINES HIDING! Frankie, Oyster, Nylon, or anything nice. There must be lovely English magazines, somewhere. Anyway Oxford had more on offer than West Berkshire and I settled on issue 11 of Artbox which I was a tad apprehensive about but thoroughly enjoyed. 

Oh look, here's Artbox and I enjoying the English Countryside on our train ride home. Despite a few typos. I loved the magazine, the selection of art and design was great, varied and interesting. Interviews were interesting and a good length for my complete lack of attention span.

You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Um yeah, you can't but I do. How else can a girl choose a book at the library when she's once again forgotten the list of 'books I should read because they're supposed to be good/ classics/ will make me seem smarter'.

But this makes me a bit sad for my humble brown journal, the cover is far from exciting. But then for the most part neither is the content. I only showed the pages I wanted to so nobody gets to see the boring and embarrassing lists.

So here is the cover again and then my brilliant first year design school break down of it all.

Key Visual Elements

The Cover And I

• It was a gift so I didn't want to waste it and 'saved' it for a special occasion i.e leaving the home country and travelling.
• As it's from China I always assumed the grey text on the front was Chinese text, actually looking at it I think it may just be a stylised motif.
• I consciously made an effort not to write/ doodle on the front cover but, I had important numbers that I needed to remember and find easily so wrote them down on the cover.
• I often worry that the cover has been sullied by my ugly, scrawled numbers but I refuse to let myself adorn the cover in any other way.
• There is a bit of an irony in that I've chosen to show the nice pages of my book but the front cover better represents the majority of the pages inside, that is scrawled notes and numbers, personal references which have been made with little or no aesthetic considerations.

Which Leads Me On To 'Things For Further Consideration'

Engrish vs. bad Asian text tattoos on non-Asian people... 

Notebook covers I really like

 Umm, hello, these are pretty much what I would draw on the cover if I allowed myself to draw anything. Found via.

 

Beautiful drawings and the colours work with what I've got, might have to learn to draw people. Found via.

 

What sweet row houses, pretty colours and kind of makes a frame for an awesome title. Found via.

Oh, pretty colours, nice shapes that make a pretty pattern, sweet and simple. Found via.

And last but not least, great colour, illustrative style AND right on theme. Found via.

Much Love Monday

I'm loving having Monday's off work, sleeping in, procrastinating and of course the ever-changing view from my bedroom window.

 

That tree was covered in green leaves less than a month ago, I still heart it though.

Oh, and of course, I love reading Much Love on Much Love Mondays!!!

The Notebook

Here's my notebook (well, what I decided to show of it). My lovely little (not really little) brother got it for me in China, I started using it when I started getting ready to leave the Home Country and it's been with me all along the way, including in China it's Mother Country (more commonly referred to as the Mother Land). I use it for everything, lists, addresses, phone numbers, directions, storing random pieces of paper, drawing, making notes..

I've decided to use each page (that I chose to document) as a starting point for a post. But first I'm going to plonk them all in, in front to back order which is not necessarily chronological order.

 

Oh yeah and the photos are somewhat average due to my somewhat average digital camera on 1600asa, fading sunlight and my intense dislike of flashes. Also note the helpful page holder-downers my wallet, a pack of Totoro playing cards and my seeing eye glasses.