I woke up this morning thinking about different ways I can document my walks. I really love looking around me at and seeing the way the pavement changes and the sky is framed by trees. I take photos of worn out buildings, abandoned furniture and other thing that catch my eye. I think walks are contemplative and relaxing, and I just wanted to play around with what you see around you. I had the idea to take photos of the floor and video the sky.
It was my Nan’s birthday on the 18th February and a friend of hers bought her a tin opener, with a note that said ‘Hope you don’t already have one of these.’ We found it quite funny as you would hope that someone would own a tin opener as it isn’t exactly cutting edge technology. My Nan confessed that she actually had three and this new one would mean she was the proud owner of 4 tin openers. We laughed at the thought of using them all at the same time. We decided after some discussion you would need 8 arms and that an octopus would be able operate 4 tin openers. I decided to draw and paint it.
Just found an app on my phone that I didn’t know was lurking about. It’s called Paper Artist and means you can put different effects on your photos. I like the effect on the photo I took of a pigeon sheltering from the wind.
I made a stop frame animation on my lunch break at my desk using my phone. It’s of all of the pens and pencils in my pen box.
I’ve got a new project on the horizon which involves painting. I’m throughly enjoying mixing paints again and there’s something very nostalgic about it. Feeling very excited about art again and want to do more of it starting tonight!
Yesterday was a horrible day for weather! I was sat in the car, waiting for my friend and I decided to do a little video of the rain through the windscreen of the car.
This weekend, me and Al have been working hard to turn our spare room (of doom) into a space that has the ultimate storage. This involved a after work Friday night trip to Ikea to buy shelves (fairly grim prospect but actually lots of fun!) and a lot of throwing away, moving and building on Saturday. It was worth it as there is now a space in my home where I can make mess and be creative, without inflicting it on the rest of the house. Yippeee!
I think in order to get back into making things, a good place to start will be to make my own Christmas presents. Every year I make the decision that this years the year I’m going to hand make all my gifts (and I never do!). This year I have lots of ideas and a few projects I have already tried and tested. I made these for my friends birthday:
For Gem, A phone frame/pin board that can be regularly updated:
For Amy, an ear ring organiser:
I imagine I will still fall into the Christmas present buying trap (I love buying presents!) but not before I have made the majority of them. Me and Al have been enjoying cooking more than usual, so maybe some edible presents will be in there too!
So, I have changed my working hours and I now have Monday’s off! This has been my first one at home and I have thoroughly appreciated having this time. The only slight dampener is I have a rotten cold, but that has not ruined the day. The cats have been supportive too, especially when I was faced with the task of sorting through hundreds of discarded furniture photos.
I am working on a project at the moment where I take templates or existing spreadsheets and I remove all the information. I think spreadsheets can be very attractive, and as someone who works as an analyst as a day job, I use spreadsheets on a day to day basis. I think the colours/lines used are important to the over all meaning of a spreadsheet (and in some cases can be distracting too!). I want to create images that are abstract and no longer provide the viewer with data, but instead only visual information. This is my first one:
Here is a section of it:
Not only am I enjoying the process for the final image created, but I find it extremely therapeutic to take away all of the words, numbers, explanation and simplify it. I think people might imagine what it was previously used for when looking at it and wonder why there are certain colours/lines used.