1. Graduating and subsequently meeting Brian May. If getting your degree handed to you by the guitarist from queen isn't a high point, I don't know what is...

2. Getting over that nasty depression business. Granted I still have the occasional off day, but sometime around july was the first time in about two years that I'd felt healthy and optimistic.

3. Living with Kim and Richard. Its just really great when the only complaints you have about the people you live with are really arbitrary and not even really worth mentioning.

4. October Expo. It was pretty damn awesome and I made way more than I was expecting and I met some really awesome arty people and comic book authors. Hopefully May will be just a fun.

5. Working for the Bluecoat. While being an invigilator is not the most inspiring volunteer activity it's really helped me catch up with my reading. I've moved to the Friday afternoon shift which will be less punishing and might even motivate me to socialise more since the pub is on the way home.

6. Getting serious with my own projects. Well I'm not really earning much at the moment but it feels really great to just do my own thing really. 

7. The France trips. Yeah I don't think I'll ever get bored of that place. I also got the 'come visit whenever you want' speech from the grandparents. They don't say to many people. I'd quite like to move back there one day. Tart up the guest house and turn the barn into a studio/workshop. Maybe give some art classes for tourists. Ah pipe-dreams, don't you just love 'em.

8. Teaching myself new things. My life at the moment is mainly composed of a series of projects. The result of which should ideally be something better than anything else I've done but not as good as what I'll do next.

9. Awesome friends. As per usual, the people I've gotten close to this year have all been amazing.

10. New years. Again another highlight really. I know it was only last week but it was just really silly fun. There was twister and pass the parcel again (because our house isn't mature in the slightest.) Ellen and I got water pistols from the giant parcel of doom, which were quickly filled with booze. There was also the rather frightening Midori and WKD concoction we invented that was radioactive green. And there was obligatory embarrassing singing and dancing and I think I might have kissed neen's left breast at one point because there was a hulk hogan moustache on it, also Barry for the same reason....also Lora but there was no moustache. Overall it was an awesome party.

 Ok maybe I'm exaggerating by referencing terrible comic books, but I am getting a tad nervous about pushing my gear this weekend. Everything's printed packaged and organised, I just need to get a supply of change ready from the bank and hope that I don't forget anything important.
I was a little peeved to find out that my hotel charges £5 an hour for their Wi-fi. Is that normal for hotels or are they taking the piss? Looks like I'll just have to make do with the TV, or actually stay out and be sociable XD from the e-mails I got those comic industry professionals are pretty wild XD.

I'm kinda looking forward to the hotel because I've never booked one myself before. Lame -__-

Must fight the urge to go all rock and roll and wreck up the place whilst on a (diet coke fuelled) bender.

Luckily I won't have my lawyer with me so the chances of that are slim. The last hotel I stayed in had rubber floors and was the first time in about 10 years that I turned on France2 and promptly fell in love with Mark-Andre Grondin. Truly the most beautiful man in Quebec.

Anyway after veering wildly off topic I will be selling prints from postcard size up to A3 posters, a lot of stickers including some halloween ones, some phone charms and I'll also be doing sketches on the day. Here's hoping it goes well and will be the first of many art tables to come. >.>


So tomorrow its gallery in the morning, cleaning and packing in the afternoon and then an early night methinks.

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Day 4 - What you ate today

A chicken sandwich, two cherry tomatoes, Fish fingers with peas and a baked potato and a slice of Kim's Victoria sponge.

Was not expecting that o.o

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I think I like this song a little too much. Also the animation sequences are bit like if Banksy teamed up with the creators of Dexter's lab.

This is a vague nod to Bex's recent post about the weird bra thing. I actually stumbled across this on etsy whilst doing my weekly corset lusting/scouting for ideas and thought it looked vaguely similar only much more awesome. Anyway I want to try my hand at making one and will be adding it to my growing list of summer projects.




In other news I spent way too much money today on old tape recorders for the beast that is the fine art course. Oh well I can always resell them when I'm done >.>
I have a charlie on board for doing some recording work for the degree show as well as contacting a few of the newgrounds voice actors (I can't afford professionals sadly).

Meme thing from derengelisrafel . Leave me a comment and I'll respond with five things I'd like to know about you.

Art

That's a very large subject. After all "What is art?" Making art is really the only thing that feels natural to me. I would say that it's my primary form of cummunication, since I don't like talking and putting my ideas into words is always slow and frustrating (I've been working on the same sentence for half an hour) art has always been the chosen way to express what's on my mind. More complex than any language and ultimately more ambiguous. I knows no limits and the joy of completing a creation which makes the best of your imagination and techinical skill is equally as profound as any emotional connection to a loved one.

Corsets

Corsetry is my latest hobby. I've been into period costume for a very long time, but rarely got beyond the ogling stage. Now I've started sewing sporadically and will be diong a lot more of it once the whole degree thing gets finished. I enjoy corsetry because its a bit like sculpture and requires a lot of drafting and different processes so its an interesting project. I prefer drawing insparation from historical corsets as opposed to contemporary fetish fashions since a huge variety of styles and time periods to choose from. My main area is Victoriana but that has moved into early 20th century styles as well as a growing interest in Renaissance stuff (damn you Tudors!). Corsetry is quite a loaded topic in feminism, once being the symbol of a (literally) restrictive edwardian patriarchy. However in the modern age there is an odd sense of empowerment in the ability to control the shape of your own body.

Foods

For someone with the apetite of a sparrow I have surprising foody tendencies. I love cooking and it makes me sad that I can't a lot of the time thanks to the state of the kitchen. I can see many a dinner party in the future and many a farmers market (much to my embarassment). So I don't really have any favourite foods in particular, more like a yearly cycle of unusual cravings. And of course everyone likes their own family's cooking.


Career

Obviously I'd like to work as a freelance artist. I've changed my mind about applying to the masters course, since I figured I should at least put my name in for consideration. Possibly a few residencies in the next few years, hopefully abroad. Its all fairly risky but worth a try. Failing that I plan to find work in a gallery or museum somewhere.

Travelling

There's load of places I want to visit/live/work. The main ones would probably be Berlin, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Copenhagen as well as various places in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and China, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and a bunch of other places, the list is always growing.

Randomly saw a documentary on canabis farming. 50 grand for growing 20 plants. Geez, I'm in the wrong line of work. But then knowing me I'd definitely get arrested. And my dad would complain that I was using his green fingered teachings for evil instead of saving the planet. I'll stick to tomatoes.

I'd like to dedicate this to a lovely couple we all know and love.

I got sent an application form for an internship at Disney interactive studios. I am so applying XD

And they actually pay their student interns, which would be most excellent.

I imagine it'll be very hard to get a spot but there's no harm in trying.

Art
7 Renshop drawings - this can wait until next week
7 Underdark drawings - event and stuff for Lora
1 commission - I've never drawn a burly army sargeant type before, its rather interesting.
Another copic drawing cause I wanna

Craft
Corded corset for maetria. I'm going to have a go at doing a gust busset bust gusset. (note to self - get some gold thread.)


Uni
Do a final check of the dissertation and print it off
Now that I have an awesome tripod I can start making movies/stop motion animations.

Well my grandmother returned from South Africa right when the blizzards started. Oh joy, but considering she left during the first lot of snow we were kind of expecting something like that to happen. Anyway dad was supposed to the spend the night at her flat then pick her up from the airport early the next morning.
He couldn't even get into brighton but instead of a normal person who would suggest that my cousin (who was coming back with her on the plane and who lives really close to heathrow) to let her stay at his house until the weather/transport clears up, he decides to go straight to the airport. He arrived a good 12 hours early and slept at a hotel near terminal only to find that that flight was delayed by 24 hours. When it finally did land my grandmother collapsed and had to be taken to the emergency room. Luckily she had only fainted from exhaustion from having an extra day added on to an already long flight. They both have to spend another night in london.

Oh the drama.

I spent most of the weekend working on the green underbust from the set of designs I did a few months ago.
lilythepink7.deviantart.com/art/Corset-Designs-141751560

Apologies for the terrible photo quality.


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Hopefully I'll be able to make more soon. Also I want to practise drafting corsets in different sizes. So if you would like to be my next victim volunteer or if you know anyone who would, then let me know. There's a shiny corset in it for you. I might need to ask for some help with material costs but other than that there's no charge.

 This Year I plan to:

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In July I committed genocide... Sorry about that, captainlora (-5000 points). In August I ate my brussel sprouts (1 points). In November tellezara and I robbed a bank (-50 points). Last Wednesday I caught a purse-snatcher who stole fallen_truth's purse (30 points). In January I turned isobellings in for farting in church (3 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-5016 points). For Christmas I deserve a spanking! Sincerely, shosetsumiyagi

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

( lol I'm a specky four eyes, Collapse )

Through the darkness of future past The magican longs to see

One chance out between two worlds:

Fire walk with me

I have a semester review coming up. The good news is it isn't until friday so I have a bit more time to actually do some work and stuff. The bad news is, my group review starts at 9.30 and I'm up first -__- the Shobo is not amused by this.

In other news we went to see rocky horror last night with captainlora, sunny_bexster and ouroboros13 . And it was ridiculously awesome. We sort of all had last minute outfits for it and agreed that some more serious cosplaying should happen next time...an there will be a next time XD. Which led to us deciding to gather an army of Frank N Furters together with Mike dressed as Rocky (because he's probably the only one with enough balls, pun intended XD, to show up to a theater in little gold pants) and see the Brighton performance.

We were then extremely lame and watched the movie when we got home. Which in retrospect was incredibly sad yet simultaneously awesome.

So it was probably a bad idea to stay up all night and fall asleep at 10am. Although frankly I'm still tired enough to roll over and go back to sleep.

Brighton was a much needed dose of fun. I ended up getting obscenely drunk and full of bad chinese food on saturday with captainlora , citrushime and Charlie. And er yeah we did some things >.> But a gentleman never brags XD

On sunday I did the usual entertain the grandmother thing. We talked shop over the best way to microwave vegetables. You can tell we both cook for one.

Then monday and tuesday was reserved for chilling out with the parental units, which was awesome. Dad's pasta is probably the best in the entire world.

Also my cousin phoned to say that he had most likely failed his oxford entrance exam. And that it wasn't a neurotic "oh I did terribly" then get an amazing mark thing but that he opened the paper and literally had no idea what the answers were. Lets hope he gets into UCL.