Adventures in film pt.4 - in my kitchen

     

 

 

I'm a little behind with posting this but here's my last Adventures in film post. From top to bottom… 

Porridge with almond milk, strawberries & blueberries. Black coffee, a favourite daily treat. I like to drink all sorts of herbal tea throughout the day but I like a strong black coffee at my desk in the morning to start the day. I love this mug by Moira Millman that was a gift from a friend a couple years back (you can buy it here.) The magnets on my bread bin are from sticky gram. A spoon rest I painted & glazed last year when my boyfriend and I had moved into our first flat together :( sad that it cracked! I made sweet potato and feta patties. I'm loving patties and fritters lately after being inspired to make the sweetcorn fritters I illustrated for Waitrose Kitchen in last months issue. They're a really nice meal to have with salad or extra veg on a weeknight. Mixed seeds with sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts. Chives…always remind me of my granddad as he had them growing down the end of his garden and when we were little we would walk past and grab a few to eat on the way back to the house. (We probably should have washed them first though!) Tofu steak stir-fry with veggies, soy sauce & Sichuan peppercorns.

…And that it's. It's been lots of fun experimenting with taking more photo's on a daily basis and developing them so I have tangible photo's. I definitely think I've improved (a bit) with my photography and I'm eager to continue learning as I go! I've got the photography bug now and I can't wait to keep developing my skills and trying new things. Thanks for letting me share!

Live Love Draw - new blog!

Hello! I've been busy working away on some new personal projects, one of them being a brand new blog! I'm really excited about a fresh space where I'll be sharing my creative adventures and daily life as an illustrator. I'm going to be sharing my stories and experiences and things I've learnt along the way. It will be a more personal blog with a combination of lifestyle and illustration mixed together. I hope it will be a space of positive creativity. Stay tuned for the launch of the site which will hopefully be the beginning of next month!  

Adventures in film Pt.3 - everyday moments

   

These are my fave pics so far from my film camera experiments. It was fun to capture everyday moments. The weather has been crazy recently, going from bright sunshine to pouring rain...I guests thats april (showers) for you! I've been trying to play around with light as you can see in the first two pictures. The first pic is from our main room that has 3 walls of big windows when the sun shines it's so bright, I love seeing the different forms and shapes the light shafts create. The second pic is the view from my studio, when the sun shines its the best thing.ever. Third pic is a personal project I've been working on in between my current job, a book project (on bread!) I'm having fun with this project and I'm excited about developing it, I have a lot of ideas for it. The fourth and fifth photo is of my lovely dog Elsie (and my wellies.) We walk everyday and I love having her with me during the day. The last pic was a pic of my lunch, I made the crunchy lentil and watercress salad from Clotilde Dusoulier The French market cookbook which I'm obsessed with, highly recommend this book if you're a veggie or you just love veggies in general! 

I have one more film post coming next Fri, see you then.

Adventures in film pt.2 - around my studio space

Here are some photo's from my latest roll of film that I took around my studio space. I currently work from home in a room that was built originally as a hallway/walkway that we renovated to make into a separate room. I live in an unusual setup, a wooden cabin-type building (we like to call it the chalet!) in the bottom of my parents garden behind a fence. I live with my boyfriend and our dog and we are currently saving to buy our first property. So back to the studio… it's a good size space for the work I do as it has a full length desk the width of the room that was originally wood that I added a sheet of white perspex to to create a large white desk. We also painted the room white which I love and there's a lovely big window that allows alot of light in (sometimes too much and I feel like I need to be wearing sunglasses at my desk - note to self must buy blind!) Along the windowsill I have some plants including the succulent above, I'm slowly adding more and more plants to my space and I'm obsessed. My desk houses my iMac, two printers and little piles of sketchbooks and notebooks like the stack in the above shot - I love the abstract book that I found in a charity shop, it has beautiful marbled end pages. The butterfly box holds some transfers, a few instax pics and some stickers. 

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Underneath the desk theres lots of drawers that I keep bits tucked away and try to keep organised. I have five moodboards in my studio each with a different purpose or theme. Above is a section of images from my biggest moodboard (that I made by painting a sheet of MDF.) To be honest I like to have clutter around me not on my desk but on the walls, I love pinning inspirational quotes and images and changing them frequently depending on my mood. Photo 5 is a pic of some images blue-tacked by my desk - a page from last month's Elle, I love the current art-trend inspired fashion. Some printouts from Lisa Congdon's sketchbook that can be seen on her blog and a Picasso inspired shoot from Vogue Australia that I saw on designlovefest blog. In the corner of my desk sits my Project life binder, inspiration scrapbook and a new album I painted and re-covered for a personal memory book I made for a friend's birthday. The last photo is a peek at one of the shelves in my studio where I keep jam jars full of pens, lead and a little stack of mini moleskins.

Adventures in film pt.1

I've been experimenting with taking more photographs at the moment - I got my instax mini in December, which I love for instant snapshots and I recently borrowed my brothers Minolta Dynax 7 film camera to try and learn more about basic photography. As you can see from my above pics I've got a lot to learn but it was fun to have a play around with the camera and capture some everyday moments. At the beginning of this year I started Project Life (you can read more about PL here) and its definitely encouraged me to take more photo's and appreciate the little details of everyday. It's so refreshing to go back to basics and use a manual camera as opposed to a digital one that does everything for you. I even bought a disposable camera after feeling inspired by this post on skunkboy blog and I'm looking forward to finishing it and getting it developed, it's fun rediscovering photo's that you forgot you took. 

Here are a few forgotten pics from last year that my brother took whilst I was working on the egg for The Lindt big Egg Hunt, we found them last month after developing the photo's from my first film camera experiments. Next Friday I'll be sharing some photo's of my studio from my next roll!

Instax snapshots from Paris

Last night we got back from our Paris trip. It was so inspiring and we managed to fit so much in including a lot of walking! The weather was amazing so it was a great opportunity to experience everything on foot. (There was also a high level of pollution so the metro was free for the weekend which was handy for tired feet breaks.) We visited the Pompidou, Notre Dame (my favourite building in Paris,) Arc de Triomphe, Lourve, Jardin de Tuileries, Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Musee d'Art Moderne, Musee de Montmarte, Invalides, saw a show at The Moulin Rouge - which I loved! and took a boat cruise down the river Seine on our last day. The trip was filled with art, culture, macaroons and coffee, it was so good. I'm feeling inspired to purchase a National Art Pass  after the trip to make the most of the museums in London, it offers 50% off many major exhibitions and I think it will be a good incentive to encourage me to go to more exhibitions and shows. I'm going to share another post with my favourite bits from our Paris museum visits, there were lots but here's some snapshots from my instax camera. I love this camera - it was really sunny while we were there so a few of the photo's were a bit too overexposed but I love the little collection of pics that did come out, hope you enjoy.

Paris sketchbook trip

I'm off to Paris later today for a week long sketchbook break. I'm looking forward to lots of drawing, visiting the museums and sights, drinking coffee and eating croissants! Hope you have a good week too and I'll be back to share bits from my trip next week.

Books on my Wishlist

Here's a few of the books on my current wish list... 

Kerry Lemon's 'Fearless Drawing,' 'Illustrated adventures for overcoming artistic adversity.' I follow Kerry's blog and her work is so beautiful. She has a really energetic attitude towards what she does for a living and her enthusiasm is contagious so her book is bound to be equally inspiring. It's a great concept for a book, I can't wait to pick up a copy in June!

This book by art blogger at The Jealous Curator Danielle Krysa, looks like it could be a really good reference and go-to book in times of need! Everyone gets creative block at some point and this book contains tips and advice from 50 artists about how they personally overcome it. The artists give their insights on how to conquer self doubt, stay motivated, and get ideas to flow with each artist offering up a tried and tested exercise to kick start the creative process. 

'A Beautiful Mess, Happy Handmade Home,' by Elsie Larson & Emma Chapman. This is the second book by this creative duo who together run the A Beautiful Mess blog which is packed full of daily inspiration in the form of d.i.y's, recipes, crafts, photography, fashion, decor and lots more! I'm obsessed with their blog and really enjoyed their first book which was a photo idea book. I'm currently saving to buy my first home so I think this book will be really helpful and fun to look through to get ideas.

I love reading the sort of books where you don't have to go through each and every page but can pick up when you want to and use as reference books to inspire and inform when the mood takes you. What's currently on your book wish list? I'd love to hear your recommendations!