birthday

So here I am back in Falmouth. Time for a new term, some new work (hopefully a feast for your eyes too!) and my final year of being a student. Hopefully it will be a good one!

Before I left home, it was my friend Amber's 17th birthday, and as a birthday treat I decided that in the tradition of now two years I would make her a birthday cake. This was my first time decorating a cake using rolled icing, so it was an interesting task but I think I pulled it off. It really did taste like a proper child's birthday cake, the exact effect I wanted! I had decided to decorate it with piped decorations and to add a personal touch I made alphabet biscuits spelling out her name and age, a recipe I got from Nigella Lawson's book, How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I finished it off with Dolly Mixtures, Marshmallows and of course Seventeen Candles. Here she is with the candles lit...

And the finished product!

On actual drawing terms, I had an idea today. In our new kitchen in our new house, we have a chalkboard on our door. I have started drawing random things on it, and so I may start a blog of chalkboard drawings. Nothing serious and particularly taxing in terms of drawing excellence, but I thought it might be kind of fun. Watch this space!

words

I have no new pictures again today. Sad times. But I just wanted to post something, so maybe I will find some kind of visual compliment to my post.

I have realised it is time to get serious. I need to sort out my stupid projects and my stupid dissertation and everything else stupid in my life - it's the doing it that will be tricky. But I have at least come to a decision about what to do on my first project, which is lucky cos I need to post it off tomorrow! I also need to find out what my true style is, and try in some way to stick to it, because otherwise my portfolio is going to be a total mess this time next year. That's if I want it. It's gonna be a big year. Back in Falmouth in less than two weeks now, back on the student bandwagon ready for some library and studio fun!

I think I will fish out more of my work from that same project I mentioned in the last post, as I have a small idea brewing it might become a little relevant soon. :)

food

I need to stop my pre-occupation with taking pictures of sweet things I think. At least, I need to for now, because I should be thinking of a project to kick off my final year in Falmouth! I'm thinking I need something short, quick turnover to get me in the drawing mood again. So, I have nothing new to show you for the moment, the main reason being I have been holding my camera instead of a pencil. Another slight issue is that my printer/scanner is in Falmouth too, so even if I drew something I wouldn't be able to show a good copy. For now, here is a little snippet from one of my projects I did in second year, all about... you guessed it, food! It was a few speculative artworks/page layouts for a book that would be a recipe book and a book about the history of baking. This image is from a page about Queen Victoria, and her namesake the Victoria Sponge.

creepy

I love creepy things. Saw this at an amusement arcade in Clevedon, Devon, and had to take a picture.

more

I have changed my mind. I want to be a food photographer. At least I do for now after making these little fellows...

I got the recipe for these from the Hummingbird Bakery book. They were the spiciest gingerbread men I had ever made, but their dark colour made for a brilliant contrast with the bright white icing (which was very hard to pipe, hence their slightly manic expressions). They were a lot of fun to make but even more fun to photograph, so here's a selection of images from the process -

Lots of flour everywhere

gingerbread

I think this poor fellow's expression speaks for itself. My icing is not great, I did hope for some celebrity gingerbread but this pretty much sums up how much harder icing with a piping bag is than it looks.

I need to do some work. Sigh.

shakespeare

Another example of some work I did for uni. These images are intended for two book covers for the plays Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. A different approach for me, I printed colours onto paper and cut them into these scenes. I then lit them and took photographs of them for the final product. I have barely picked up a pencil this summer and really need to get it into my head that I'm going into my final year of uni soon!

quilt

Today, after many days of not doing a lot, I decided to do something a little creative. There was a bag of scrap bits of fabric lurking under my desk, so now they are all happily sewn together in the form a lovely patchwork quilt. :) I have never done this before, and so far I only have the front, but once I have some stuffing and a backpiece it will all be finished in a wonderful feast for the eyes!

I put my hairbrush there in the corner so you can see how big it is, it's about 120cm square (ish!)

After my slightly wonky sewing I think I have a good little quilt. It's a bit skewiff in places but it's going to look fab in my room in Falmouth once it's finished :)

poster

I realised that I talked about a poster I did for uni work in an earlier blog and then never posted the finished product, so here it is. Now that I have finished the year I can share it with you :)