Cherry Blossom

When I was a kid, I would love Spring. Looking out for crocuses and daffodils, walking to the farm with my mam to buy eggs and looking out for cherry blossoms and looking up into the massive beech trees and becoming giddy at the size of them... my mam would call me her cherry blossom... awww.

Oh, how all that has changed. The farm is now a big business 'farm shop' buying in eggs instead of having laying hens, thankfully they got rid of the pigs* years ago but the cherry trees that we used to look at have all been cut down.

Anyway, the point to this post: when I was a kid, I would have given my eye teeth to have hay fever. No, seriously.

If you had hay fever you would be able to get out of P.E. and the dreaded cross-country. As I went to two schools which had rather large grounds, our cross-countries (which we had once a week) were the stuff of nightmares. So why is it as I've got older I now find I suffer when the first blossoms hit the trees? For the past few years it's been hell, excaberated by the fact there's three cherry trees outside my bedroom window and a hawthorn that doesn't seem to realise it's meant to flower in May.

Yesterday was particularly bad. I had to go out to meet my Uncle and everywhere I went, every garden I passed had a flowering cherry in it.

As much as I love looking at the blossom, I really curse the tree pollen. No amount of Max Factor foundation will disguise how pink my nose is at the moment.






* when I was at junior school, if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction we'd have to have an 'inside' break... the smell of the pig swill would be that overpowering, kids would be practically keeling over

W00t!

I recently entered some artwork in a competition run by my uni and Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

It was to have a bookmark made of your art as well as your contact details which would then be included in the 'goody bags' that were handed out to visitors during the opening week of the new Pop art gallery at Wolves.

Twelve bookmarks were to be made and they were chosen from a range of first-year, second-year and third-year students (I believe there were only two first-years work chosen, myself and a fellow student on my course) and this is the piece that was chosen out of a total of six designs that I sent in.

I'm hoping to track my neice down over the weekend so I can get a photo of her holding the bookmark!

Redcap

I wouldn't say I particularly look like a murderous, mischievous spirit although I guess some would beg to differ. A digital 'marker pen' effort with some editing on the shadows.

Hat from H&M ;)

The Owl and the Pussycat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Edward Lear

Random

Just some random stuff (old and new):

New BBK instalment - online now

I'm worryingly still trying the finish The Heart's Fire Burns the Hottest but I only have six more illustrations to complete (that's the final two strips!).

I'm quite pleased with this instalment, as ever, it's been a challenge.

Journal

Here are a few pages out of my Uni sketchbook/journal. It's basically a visual reference, artists that I'm researching for my Contextual Studies module as well as artists and movements that I have an interest in anyway and also bits and pieces of my own work.

It's a reflection on how I collect information and also how I present it (haphazard most of the time!) but I've tried to make it as visually interesting as possible. I splurged out on a set of new Staedtler fineliners and have been going mad on the pages as well as adding in my own caricatures and portraits of artists such as Keith Haring (2nd image down) and also the Aubrey Beardsley pen sketch that I previously blogged.