Monday 29 November 2010

And so I go to Belgium...

I will be in Belgium and France studing World War 1 poetry and literature, we will be visiting war graves and places where battles took place.

So I will not be around untill Friday lunchtime when I give an accont of what happened what we saw and how much the place inspirted me.

So untill friday...

Sunday 28 November 2010

28th November and more Snow Scapes


As there is really nothing else going on at the moment this is the snow scape of Penrith today

Friday 26 November 2010

26th November and the Sights on My Walk to School



25th November Photoshopped Artist Copy

This is an copy of stain glass window by Nancy who was a famous artist during the time of Art Nouveau, my work was originally done with Sharpie then scanned in to the commuter then using Photoshop I filled in the colour, and that was what I was doing all of yesterday.

A Pacifist's Dream - Poem

It couldn’t happen here
It couldn’t happen now
The past and the present never mixed to one
The war that our ancestors fought
Could never happen now
With the entire world in chaos and the threats would never go

The weapons of war have changed our ways
There could never be a war again
But that is not to be
But that is just a pacifist's dream

Wednesday 24 November 2010

24th November and the Morning Moon and First Snow

The moon in the morning

Today I saw the first fall of snow that wasn't on the hills admittadly only a small amount of snow fell, making everywhere have a frostly glow, but still the first snow fell today.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

23rd November and a Small Flower

This morning's view form my bedroom window
Today like any other English autumn day was cold and wet.

But after nearly freezing outside and going in to the cold art studio and to my work space I found a small flower. And on, nearly, everyone’s desk was a flower of their own.

I thank my friend, who shall remain nameless, for bringing a small part of sunshine and beauty in to an otherwise dreary day.

The flower will now stay in my art space to remember the brightness of spring and flowers.

22nd November and Cake

21st November and Photoshopped Shell


To some Photoshop is a program used daily and something that should be used as a resource to edit photos and make them better in every way, but to others it is a cheat’s way out of not taking good enough photos and would never be used.

Personally I can see both sides and agree with each point of each.

I love using Photoshop and all the different tools and equipment on it, yes I know it can turn a photo that would be awful to a photo that could win prises and that could be classed as a form of cheating but I still love to use it for my art and personal work.

The two shells here it is very obvious to tell what is photoshopped and what isn’t.

Which is better?
Who knows?
Each of the photos has a quality that makes them as good as each.

As the un edited photo has an elegance about it and has a look as if it was done with water colour with it’s faint wash of colour on it.

The other looks as if done in acrylic with out any paint brush and has a more striking effect on it but is equally pleasing as the other.

So both has different qualities that makes them great, so which better?

Well that’s for you to decide but these last two photo’s of Penrith Castle one has been edited and the other hasn’t and in these cases I can’t tell the difference of either of them.



(By the way they have both been cropped, so both have technically been edited.)

Friday 19 November 2010

Wednesday 17 November 2010

17th November and a Plastic Dress

This is a dress I saw today that is made from plastic that I saw in an Art Studio

It's crazy and should not be worn but I love it!

Monday 15 November 2010

15th November and Being Physic

This morning made me think of being physic, as today had a red sunrise.

I personally don’t know why the sky is red on some days in the morning or at night, but all I do know is the old saying;

Red sky at night sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning sailor’s warning.

Sometimes changed depending where you are, sailors may turn to shepherds or some other alternative.

But today had a red sun rise and only now had the weather been bad, bad being light rain that started half an hour ago.

But is right to make a generalisation for your day out of something like that, not a red sky but something signalling a possible terrible day, the thought of knowing it was going to be a bad day.

For starters my day was normal, but yesterday while working, as a waitress, I knew that form the moment I stepped in to work I was going to have difficult customers, and yes my predictions were true every ten minutes a customer complaint not massive problems nor irritating problems but problems none the less.

So I am physic?

Short answer: No

I don’t want to know or try to predict the future I will, or at least try to take everything that life throws at me with grace, or as much grace I can handle.

Sunday 14 November 2010

14th November and Formula One

As some people may know today was the final race in the 2010 racing calendar and today Sebastian Vettel was crowned the 2010 Formula One World Champion the youngest ever champion.

A Scalextric model of a F1 car


I will take this post to go through my love for this sport.

For one it is a sport with very fast, very dangerous racing and to me that is the beast sort, with the cars being the very best of engineering ever.

The cars themselves fascinate me, how every curve, every air vent, every blot is perfectly designed to make the car the best it can be. And a whole army of technicians and highly qualified people just to work on two cars and two drivers.

The drivers themselves being form all around the world, despite a very large chunk all being form Europe mainly Germany, and all brought together over their love of speed and winning.

Each driver has their own personal qualities that I love about them, Lewis, his pure racing talent, Jenson, his technical skills to achieve the very best, Rubens, his passion and his never ending love for the sport, Mark, with his constant determination, Seb, with his young talent making him such a promising driver as he showed today.

I could talk forever about present and past drivers and what makes them special, but what makes the sport so amazing is the way that it can take a sport as simple as driving around a track for two hours and make it in to a world wide loved sport.

From the humidity in Sao Paulo to the night race in Singapore, from disused air runways of Silverstone to the glamorous city of Monaco.

Formula One has embraced the lives of so many people and it will continue to grow as the years go on and it will never die out.

The names of the great men who have become world champion will live on forever and will never fade, names like Prost, Senna, Schumacher, Stewart, Piquet, Mansell, Hill and the new champions of Hamilton, Button and Vettel will live on forever as the worlds greatest drivers.

Saturday 13 November 2010

13th November and Sections of Butterflies






Yet again photos of my art work. Media: Felt tip (no really... felt tip... the thing you palyed with when you were six) and water!

This is the photo of the day, they were all ment to be joined together but that didn't really happen!

So some sections of varoius butterflies for you.

Friday 12 November 2010

12th November and My Weeks Art Work

This is my butterfly felt and embroidery piece. Also this is the reason I didn’t update yesterday as it took me 7 hours to do the butterfly, time including my sewing machine breaking down 7 times and tread getting caught about 19 times.

But in the end it was all worth it, I think!

Still needs more work but for all intent and purpose this is as good as it will ever get!

(Oh and the background is felt!)

11th November and Beauty

Today, or rather yesterday, got me thinking of beauty not so much the beauty of people but the beauty of everywhere we go, see and do.

The idea first came to me as I was getting up in the morning and looked to my bed side table that has an array of things including; a lamp and a clock (obviously), shells form all around the world, a starfish, 3 candles (two lavender and one lily of the valley), pot of fake roses, a coaster, a photo frame with a picture of… can’t remember. And a Tribble (Star Terk, really cute fluffy things that make an even cute purring noise!)

But what I really noticed was the rose in that morning, I bought it for £1.99 form a bargain shop and had it as a substitute for real flowers, like I have in the summer, just to keep flowers and summer all through winter.

The pot of roses had never seamed to me very important or a real feature in my bedroom, well it wouldn’t be a huge feature because the most prominent thing as decoration in my room is a canvas of ballerinas that nearly goes form the top to the bottom of my wall, but I only noticed it’s understated beauty today, yesterday.

How the manufacture made the effort to carefully tint the edges of the roses, they may have not spent so much time and effort on the leaves but nothing’s perfect.

So on that wet and dreary day when my beanie fell off my head twice I had just a bit of beauty in my life!

Wednesday 10 November 2010

10th November and the my Favourite Days

So as the title suggests this part is about my favourite days or more appropriately my favourite type of days.

And this next statement may come as a shock and will contradict what I have said or written in the past but today was one of those days that I just love.

It’s autumn, snow is on the fells, leaves are still falling, everywhere is just a bit more colourful, the suns out, a few clouds yet it is freezing.

And for those who know me, even just a little bit, would know that I would more rather stay inside on a snow day than make a snow man.

The weather was just right, and me being drugged up on cough medicine, I thought today was the most beautiful it had been for weeks, I just wish I had thought to take a picture of the beautiful scene.

But the picture for today is of water droplets frozen on a car that was slowly being heated up by the sun.

I like to think this as the equivalent of flowers opening to the sun in the morning of spring, so water droplets are my equivalent and though will only be around for an hour they still to me are the most important part of a autumn morning.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

9th November and the Sun

So today was the first time I saw the sun in the Lake District since before I could remember, this could be because it has been terrible weather for weeks or I have a very bad memory. Whichever I saw the sun today!

The sun is always one of those dependant things that we sometime take for granted, a bit like water. But when the sun is gone we miss it beyond what we can imagine, though most of us don’t realise we miss it so.

 I posted the song by Dido See the Sun before this post and this song is the winter depression eliminator, Dido sings in the song:

And you probably don't want to hear tomorrow's another day
Well I promise you you'll see the sun again
And you're asking me why pain's the only way to happiness
And I promise you you'll see the sun again

When you listen to the story in the song it is true in the chorus she cannot guarantee that, I presume her close friend, will be happy again or they will be able to carry on with out the person that they lost but Dido can promise that they will see the sun again.

I can never guarantee anything for you be it a job, a marriage, a family or a friend but I will promise you will see the sun again be it the real sun and the moment that you look up and soak in the ray make you happy for a nano-second or a metaphorical sun of your own choosing but you will always see the sun again.

Dido - See the Sun with lyrics

Monday 8 November 2010

8th November and the Seasons


Todays main picture:
Autumn Flower.

In life we have different seasons and we are all in a season now, and I don’t mean autumn. But different seasons of your life, we all have them be it a season where we are really sure of ourselves, a season when we doubt, a season full of joy, a season full of sorrow.

For me I am in a season of indecision.

A wise man said that we need to know what season we are in to move forwards and until we understand where we are we can’t move forwards, at all.

He used the example of a Sat Nav (and for those who don’t know how one works) a Sat Nav must know where it is before it can plot a course to its next location. The same can be said for people as we must know where we are before we can move forwards and move on.

The reason why I am writing this is because I may be in a transition period between seasons, indecision has slightly moved on but I don’t know what season is next.

At the moment we have a transition period between yearly seasons, well in my eyes at least, because today on 8th November I saw snow for the first time since winter, and the time in Slovenia in the Julian Alps in July doesn’t count!

The two pictures out of the window of my living room, pause for jealousy because no one has a greater view than me, The one to the right is about a month and a half ago, if my memory serves me correctly, the one to the left was taken this morning and no the picture is not fuzzy or out of focus it was so rainy that was the best picture out of 20, and the whit stuff on the mountians is snow not just cloud.

Just proves the difference of a month and a bit.

So seasons are going trough a transition period and I think I am as well, but my season transition I’m not worried about I’m more worried about if we have snow now what will England be like in a months time?

Sunday 7 November 2010

A Month in Photos

An idea that has just hit me... A month in photos!

Not the type of photos of cheesy gins and high-fives with my best friends but artistic, minimalistic, beautiful and possibly inspiring photos.

This month I will be visiting the battlefields in Belgium and France as well as going to the clothes show live so hopefully I will be able to write things to go with these pictures that are inspirational and will give you a small in site in to my life!

This will span from 8th November to 8th December...

(And also I will take a photo from my sitting room window every Monday and Friday to show the season progress.)

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Hi I am a... Writer



New Zeland Coast near Goat Island
 
During my time at school we, as students, are constantly being asked what we want to be in the future or what job we would want to do or where we would want to live or go to uni. But I am so indecisive I have no idea.

I have never been able to define myself as anyone or to a certain job, once I have my mind set by saying I want to be a painter I automatically start to think that I want to be illustrator for books then I think to write my own books then after a few hours I am left confused about who I would want to be in the future.


Venice - The Rialto Bridge
 
I know I want to travel and see the world. But other than that I am undecided. I don’t know what will happen next week let alone a few years away.

The world travelling will go from Italy and Europe to America to Japan and then to New Zealand. And hopefully by that time and a few crazy jobs later I will find out what I want to do with myself but till then I have to just smile and nod to the teachers who say we have to decide now who we are and who we are going to be.

I have been defined as many things that you would have read about in the Stereotypes post. But the only thing that I want to be defined as is a writer be it a poet, novelist, journalist or any other sort.



My guitar - Loral
 Someone once said to me ‘You are an artist’ but I would never consider myself as that art is a subject that I do not something that I would desperately want to be. Or have a main focus around because nothing brings me more joy than to sit down and write whether it be poetry, stories or just doing this blog.
I am inspiring to be a singer songwriter as well but I think I may have better luck cracking the publishing industry than the record industry. But that leads me on to my whole inspiration issue.


To me at least writing a story about someone else is relatively easy, made up names, characters and places and can be a kind of escapisms for me but having to write a song about my self is the hardest thing I have to write. Won’t stop me trying to write despite the brick wall that keeps getting higher and higher for me to climb over.

But I am a writer that’s who I am today and who I will be tomorrow who I am next week year or decade is unknown for some that may scare them for not knowing the future but for me that thought couldn’t be better.