Picture Party 001

After a bit of a falling out with taking photos I've finally reached a place where I have 'leftover' photos to share that didn't make their own posts. I'm also enjoying thinking about blogging too after having a similar falling out with that at the end of last year. I never really stopped doing either of them, I just wasn't loving it which isn't the case anymore, yay. So things are looking up all round. Picture party!





I love the market, it's an interesting pop of random independent stuff in the middle of all the high street type shops.  Plus there seems to be a lot of new stalls opening up in there at the moment which is great to see. (Norwich does have a lot of independent shops but they're slightly more edged out while the market is pretty central and opposite things like that white company shop that makes me yawn pretty hard)





Jack Monroe gives me life. It's not even really an exaggeration, I keep thinking about writing an entire blog post about my love for Jack. I think I can genuinely say my life is better thanks to their recipes. Cheap, so tasty, easy to understand. I couldn't really cook before without a recipe to follow but now I can figure out what to replace in something depending on what we have and it'll still taste good, all thanks to Jack's immense helpfulness and various tips. I think we eat better for less money thanks to Jack and I can't recommend their recipes enough. Seriously. The book in the photo is their first, A Girl Called Jack, but their blog has a ton of recipes (also worth checking their instagram for recipes in the captions) and they just got a publisher for their recent kickstarter book (which I backed and can't wait for) so that'll be available to everyone too. What I'm basically saying is bring Jack into your life, do it, do it now. I'm going to stop being creepy now. I love you Jack.

 





A new market favourite, vegetable spring roll is the perfect cold weather, cycling fuel snack. Also, that nail varnish was only £1.99 and has really good coverage. I'm mightily impressed.

Hourly Comic Day 2016

1st february each year is hourly comics day. There aren't any rules to it, just to draw comics every hour. As far as I can see most people do a couple of autobio panels each hour showing their day which is what I went with. I tried as much as possible to work with pen straight away, no pencil roughs, so it was as quick as possible or I wouldn't have got anything else done all day. It's a lot of fun and one of those things that you can use each year to see how much you've improved at various things which is always nice. Excuse the messy scans, I just thought I'd throw them up quick.

One Second Every Day January 2016

I did one of these before and I still love the idea of it without being able to quite explain what it is about it I like (and missed a day this month too, it's a theme). I'm feeling like this is my 365 project for this year at the minute, it'd be really cool to be able to stick them all together into a 365 second long video at the end of the year, minus however many days I miss and isn't it a leap year so 366 minus missed ones...you know what I mean!

Illustration ~ Witchsona 2016

My twitter is full of people joining in with witchsona week so I obviously wanted to have a go too.
Here I am with Bernard my grumpy familiar, magicking up mushroom pizza whenever I want and floating around so I don't have to wear shoes anymore. Living the dream basically.

Shop Update ~ Patches

A patch-ey shop update. I'm going to be doing more new embroidery based bits soon (you might have seen me playing on instagram) but thought I'd start off by re-stocking some patches I'd made before. These are spread over my etsy and folksy shops and I'm happy to make them with custom colours if you'd like something specific.
Hope your week has started well ^_^

Illustration ~ Oh So Hairy

A little painting showing I'm so hairy right now. This is obviously an exaggeration, my hair isn't so thick. (lol)





It is arm length though. It annoys the hell out of me, I literally get tangled up in it. I'm going to cut it all off soon but am also going to bleach it so am waiting till I'm ready to do that before cutting off the dry ends in the hope my hair will be in least breakable condition. I also can't decide how much to take off, my neck lumps forward kinda weird and I don't want to highlight my hunch by framing it with hair. I dunno.

Happy New Year!

So it's halfway through January and here is my first blog post of 2016. Hi there!




The year started with a visit from my parents, a kind of second Christmas/New Year combination and from then I have mostly been tidying, organising, thinking and generally sorting (and currently feeling sorry for myself with a cold). Basically getting totally sorted and on top of where I want to be so I can get right on with the year from a good place because I have lots of plans for it. And I think this weekend (apart from the cold) is the start of that good starting place with all my various notes and mess in much neater piles so I thought I'd come here and have a bit of a ramble about it ^_^




For Christmas I was the luckiest lady in the world because my parents got me a brand new camera. A Canon EOS M3 in fact. I'm in love. It's so much better in dark conditions than any other camera I own, it takes video, the screen pops out at various angles for various clever uses, it's mirrorless which means it's much smaller than my dslr for carrying about and on and on.


It has a fish-eye lens effect option ^_^

Due to my activity so far this year being mostly hermit paperwork and note taking I haven't done anything worthy of the camera so although I have used it every day out of pure love I haven't had a proper chance to play with it anywhere interesting yet. The photos dotted through this post were taken with it though, ain't they pretty.




As well as a new camera I also finally moved from pay as you go to pay monthly and got a new phone (that doesn't have a massive crack in the screen and has emojis on the keyboard!) and I found out we could pay less a month for unlimited downloads on our broadband rather than whatever our limit was before. All of this combined makes me feel all technologically prepared for life and up to date and like I can do anything. Which is a good place to be at the start of the year.



Lilac cat // cream cat // grey cat

I didn't set myself any resolutions this year, just had the usual little thoughts of keep trying hard, be kind, best year yet sort of thing but I have also been thinking a lot about how this year I want to be braver and not hold myself back at all. I question myself so much that I end up not doing things and that is bad. Doing things is always worth it, even if that thing turns out rubbish it can lead somewhere else. Making makes me make more. This will be the year of doing every creative thought possible. I also want to do more things that are creative but nothing to do with work. In honour of this particular non-resolution the other day I had the thought 'day in the life of my face' and then yesterday, at peak grotty cold (always making good choices), I took a photo of my face every hour all day and made a gif. Here is that gif.

I realise it's nothing amazing or even worth sharing, I'm just determined to push myself and I like having everything here for looking back on easily (new resolution - that's the last time I explain/apologise about putting something on my blog). I might actually make more of these through the year, I don't take enough photos of myself, or even look at myself very much so I reckon this can only be a good/interesting thing for me.



















So yeah, ramble over. I hope 2016 is treating you well so far and if you have any favourite podcasts, youtube channels etc that I can use my unlimited downloads on then let me know!