Starting a New Art Project-Part 1

Hello everyone! This year I started my GCSE Art course and I've been loving getting creative! So, this week I decided to share with you my experience of starting a brand new art project. I'm one of those people who love nosy-ing at people's GCSE sketchbooks so I hope you're one of those people too! I think I'll do a few posts about my art project so make sure you come back to read the rest! This first post is about my own photos (AKA primary sources).

To start our project we were given a list of topics such as: stretched, personal collection, public transport, details, assembled, architecture and wrap. We could interpret these any way we would like to personalise our project. I knew straight away that I wanted to do 'personal collection' because my room is practically overflowing with stationery I've collected ha-ha! So my sub-theme was stationery and craft supplies. From this point we were given a list of tasks to do and since I only started this 1-2 weeks ago I've only made a start on the first few.

Here's where I get back to where I started...photography! Over the weekend I used my spare time to take photos for my project! I gathered up all of my prettiest stationery and prepared a few backgrounds then just got started!
                                                   

 Left:
I used a Johanna Basford colouring book page as the background for this because I wanted to create a soft look to the photo. Also, I continued this soft look in the editing stage by turning the temperature up to make it look cosy. I also used an effect that darkened the edges and brightened the centre which \I thought added to the cosy feel. By the way, I used PicMonkey to edit all of these photos and just used my smartphone's camera. Also, it took me AGES to link those papercliups together in the shape of 'hello' ha-ha!

Right:
This one fits more into the crafting supplies section of my project because I used sequins. I spelled out 'love' with sticky notes. I liked how this tied in with the upcoming Valentines Day celebrations.

Left: 
I decided to use hessian fabric as my background for this one to create added interest with some texture. It should be interesting to come up with a way to recreate that background in my sketchbook! I used my moleskine dotted notebook and some mini pencils for this because I thought these items were really cute! The purse is there because that's where I store the pencils and I think it will be good to get a break from drawing stationery. By the way this purse is from Japan.

Right:
This one doesn't have such an interesting layout as the others but I wanted to focus on the sequins. I chose to take photos of sequins because I think that it will be interesting to look at the colours on them and then try to recreate them with different mediums.

Left:
This one took me a very long time to arrange ha-ha! I started this early in the morning on Sunday so that it would be done by 12 o'clock when the lighting was just right! For some reason I love incorporating circles into my art projects, they just seem to look neat but not too harsh. Do you understand what I mean? Anyway, I like this layout.#

Right:
Well...this one didn't exactly go to plan. It was meant to look a little bit like the one on the left but less organised. I started by putting the ones that were in the middle (red) at the bottom of a toilet paper tube and then put the next layer above it and so on. Then when all of the buttons were in, I lifted up the tube and let the buttons spread out. As you can see, it's messier than I was hoping for! Anyway, I think that the contrast between the photos will be an interesting part of my project.

Left:
I took this photo in a slightly different way to the previous photos. All the others are flatlays (taken from above) but this one was taken in front of the items against a background. I like that this one has a mixture of plain white paper and hessian as the background because it ahs a nice balance of textures. I chose some really cute pieces of stationery here. In editing, I darkened the edges to bring attention to the items.

Right:
For this photo I chose the wooden table as the background because I wanted something warmer than plain white paper but I wanted to choose something different than hessian.I like that I chose the eiffel tower scissors with the eiffel tower writing paper because they work well together! I love this writing set by the way, it's so gorgeous! It's from Paperchase (but the sharpie, scissors and stamps aren't).

So that's all for this post! I hope that you've been inspired by my photos, I'll be taking a few more for the project but these are the ones that I wanted to share with you! I don't know how often I'll update you on my new art project but it may not be every time I post since sometimes I'll feel like posting something else.

Over to you...
Are you currently doing a GCSE art project or have you done in the past? Let me know in the comments. Also, what do you think about my photos?

Giveaway Time! (CLOSED)

Hello everyone! I hope 2017 is treating you all marvellously! I was originally going to call this post 'New Year's Giveaway' but since it's the 16th of January I wasn't sure if I should still refer to the year as 'new'. Anyway, this is sort of a giveaway to celebrate the new year! It is a free entry into this competition since it's just a bit of fun!

So, the last time I did a giveaway, I only opened it to my UK readers. But this year I've decided to open it internationally because I know that a few of my reader are from around the world which is so exciting! Also, another reason that I decided to open the giveaway internationally is because in recent months I have seen an increase in views so I wanted to cater for those views from around the world!

This is just a small giveaway but I wanted to giveaway two items that I thought my creative readers would love! The first item is a pack of 10 plain cards that you can decorate for any occasion! They are 380gsm so are good quality and they are 6" by 6". They come with envelopes too by the way. The next item which is the main one is a colouring book called: 'Colour Yourself Advent Christmas Countdown' and was illustrated by Hearfelt Illustrations (click on this link for her facebook page). I know that Christmas is over but I wanted to give one of these away so that you could look at my colouring of it in my post (click here)  and then give it a go yourslef! In fact, both of these prizes are inspired by my past posts, I wanted to give you this pack of plain cards so that you could be inspired by cardmaking post (click here). I thought by giving you prizes inspired by posts it would mean a little bit more than if I just gave you random items ha-ha! Look at the prizes below...

So what are the rules?

Well,they're pretty simple! Please follow all the rules:

1.) To enter, just comment below telling me why you'd like to win

2.) Ask your parents if you can enter if you're under 18 because if you win you'll need to tell me your address (we can arrange this over e-mail)

3.) Enter by the deadline: 20th February

Extra Info

• There will be one winner who wins both prizes
• I may include a pretty letter with your prizes 

So that's all! Good luck to everyone! I hope you're happy about the giveaway, January can be a dreary month for some so I wanted to brighten it up a bit!

PS: I hope you like the new background, it's a Winter one that I created on PicMonkey

Over to you...
You know what you've got to do now, if you're ready to enter, just leave a comment saying why you want to win!

EDIT:Thanks to everyone who entered or left a comment but now the contest is closed and a winner has been chosen, I've replied to their comment in the comment section so please check your replies! 

2017 Blogging Resolutions

Happy new year! For my first blog post of 2017, I thought I would tell you a few of the changes I hope to make to my blog in this coming year. I'm only making a few small changes, I think you'll still enjoy reading my blog if you've been reading for a while. I'm excited to introduce a few new ideas and see where my blog takes me in this new year! I think that my blog really grew last year as because I tried out a few new topics such as penpalling and colouring that I have become very passionate about recently. I hope that my blog improves even more this year and I continue to try out new ideas.

The first change that I decided to make this year is a change in my schedule. I've decided to aim to post about once every 2 weeks rather than once per week. I've found that I tend to post once every 2 weeks anyway so I thought that I'd announce it as an actual change. It's quite hard for me to fit in blogging with school and I'll be getting more schoolwork in these next two years so I wanted a bit more time to write posts. I don't think you'll notice much of a change anyway since I didn't really stick to the once a week schedule anyway.

I have done one blog collaboration in the past and really enjoyed it so I thought that this year I would take part in a few more collabs. Last year I started to work on a Disney fanart collab with 5starartists.blogspot.co.uk which I'll be able to continue this year now that I have finished the colouring challenge. Also, I hope to start some more blog collabs with my blogging friends that we've been talking about for quite a while. A project that I was working on last year was guest blogging for Cathy Cassidy's blog which I hoep to carry on with this year.

I'm really excited for my next change in this list! In the upcoming months, I'll be introducing some new topics that you've never seen me write about before! For Christmas I asked for a bullet journal and bullet journal so I was given both of these. I've never tried out calligraphy or bullet journalling but I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I want to share my experience with you so you can see what it's like so you might want to take up the hobbies yourself! I think learning new skills is a great new year's resolution so I hope to inspire readers.

I feel that in the previous year I haven't done much fashion designing at all. I feel like this is a big shame since it is something that I'm very passionate about, in fact I have always thought that fashion design is a career that I want to get into in the future. There's still lots for me to learn so that's why I want to get back to this topic on my blog. I think that having a blog motivates me to try creative things so I'm hoping that now I have said that I want to write about fashion design, I actually will DO fashion designing. I created a fashion sketchbook that I want to use.

The final change is one that is the most difficult to achieve. I will try my best to make at least a little progress on this during 2017 but I can't promise anything. The reason that I am unsure about this goal is because I will be getting more schoolwork in the next two years. This means that I will be more busy. However, I setup a YouTube channel last year that I want to upload more videos on. I don't think that I will use a schedule yet but I do want to be a bit more active. I have filmed a few videos but they're not edited yet and are quite old. so fingers crossed that I will have time for YouTube but I may not.

So those are the five changes that I aim to make in 2017! I hope that you're happy with the changes I want to make, I don't think there are any dramatic changes so you don't have to worry that my blog is going to transform into a completely different creature. I'm sticking with creative topics as I always have done and I'm excited to see the blog evolve to fit my newest hobbies as well as my original ones! Happy new year everyone!

Over to you...
What are your new year's resolutions? I have quite a few that I'll be tracking in my bullet journal. Also, are there any blog posts that you'd like to see in the new year that fit with the creative topics that I already write about/plan to write about? Let me know in the comments.

PS: I'll make a new blog background very soon but you'll have to look at the Christmas one for a little while longer ha-ha!

Why I'm Doing a Month-Long Colouring Challenge

During October I did a month long art challenge called Inktober which really helped me to improve my inking skills so this December I decided to do something similar. I decided to do a month long colouring challenge where I aim to colour in a whole colouring book before Christmas Day. It's proved to be very difficult but I think that I'm really benefiting from the challenge so I thought I'd share the idea with you in this post.
The reason I thought of this idea was because I saw the colouring book called 'Colour Yourself Advent Christmas Countdown' that was drawn by Heartfelt Illustrations (see the Facebook profile on this link). The book inspired me because it seemed that there was a page for every day of the month so I decided to colour one page every day. Unfortunately December is a very busy month so I haven't done one page per day but have tried my best to get close to that target. I used my Prismacolour pencils and gel pens o colour all of the pages and it's been really useful for me. This page was for the 1st of Decemeber and was a snowman. I learnt a lot from this first page because looking back I can see that I went a little overboard on the snowflake details so on future pages I didn't draw anything onto the backgrounds.

 One of the main things that I have improved on during this challenge is blending without blending tools. Normally, I would sue a colourless blender pencil or a blending stump to help me to create a smooth gradient. However, during this challenge I decided not to use any blending tools. This has meant that each page takes about double the time than usual, but now I have really improved my blending skills. I've found lots of ways to blend properly now such as: using a white pencil, using varied pressure on my pencils, building up tone gradually, etc. I struggled on the first few days to go without blending tools but after a while it got easier.

 By the time I coloured page five, I had got very behind on the daily schedule. I had to start catching up with colouring fast. I'm still actually behind by nine pages. I think that doing colouring almost every day has helped me with my working speed. I struggle with time management so I try my best to do organisation and time limits, etc but doing month-long challenges has proved to be the most effective method to help me with time management. I've never produced more art or colouring than during Inktober and the colouring challenge this month,

Another reason that I've done this challenge is not only to improve my colouring, but for fun too. I love Christmas so a Christmas themed colouring book is perfect for me. Colouring in festive art every day is great because it gets me excited for Christmas. There's only 5 days until Christmas now! Can you believe it? Christmas is my favourite time of year so I try my best to make it last. I love chocolate advent calendars but this colouring one is really unique. It's been great counting down the days until Christmas with this because it's something a little different and keeps me busy all the time. I've only shown you photos of some of the pages but half of them have activities on them which inspire me.

 I'm looking forward to next December too because I can display my advent calendar once it's finished. This year I haven't displayed it because I would have had to take it up and down to switch between colouring and displaying it. I think it's great that with this book you can use it as a colouring book and a calendar because I can look back next year and see how my colour application has changed. Maybe I'll even colour another one next year to compare them-who knows? It's nice to look back on old art or colouring or anything because it shows that with practise I can improve my skills and techniques. It keeps me motivated to carry on even if I aren't happy with my current skill. If you're an artist,colourer(I'm not sure what it's called),etc  then I recommend that you look back at old art or colouring to keep you going.

 Overall this challenge has been difficult but worth it. Every time I do a month-long challenge, it's very tiring for me but when reflecting back on it I feel proud of what I've achieved. I know that some people just think colouring is a hobby, but for me colouring helps me to improve colour application for my own art. That's why I feel like doing this challenge is a real achievement because I'll be able to see a difference in my own art next year. Hopefully next time I do a month-long challenge I'll have time to do it every day as planned. Maybe it would be wise not to choose December for my month-long challenge next time! It's a busy time of year so doing this has been a little stressful. I've loved building up the colouring book though and seeing what I can do when I really push myself. I hope that I've inspired you to do a month-long challenge whether you use an official one like Inktober or come up with your own like I have this month!

That's all for this week's post. Sorry that I missed last week but as you can see from this post I've been very busy recently. I've noticed that although I set a schedule of posting every week, I keep missing a post. Therefore, I think that in the new year I might make a few changes to the schedule and my blog so that it's less stressful for me. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing my colouring pages and hearing about this challenge.

Over to you...

Have you ever done a month-long challenge? Tell me about it in the comments. Do you enjoy colouring, any tips? Also, what are you doing for Christmas? I'd love to know.

Christmas Card Craft Idea

Hello everyone! I'm finally back with another post and it's my first Christmas one!I've had lots of revision to do recently so I took a few weeks away from blogging but I missed it so I'm back this week. Today I've got a lovely Christmas card idea for you to craft for your friends and family so get cosy and see how I made a wreath card!

 Firstly I chose a Christmas patterned paper, a plain card, a bow, a doily and a few Christmas washi tapes. You can find all these supplies (or similar ones) at The Works or The Range. These are two of my favourite shops for craft supplies since they sell a wide range of products for good prices. In ended up not using the button you can see in the photo or all of the washi tape but you might decide you want to. As yopuc an see I have quite the collection of Chrsitmas-y washi tapes-I've been collecting lots in the last few months!

 Now that you've got the basic supplies you can now choose all of the embellishments. You'll use these to decorate the wreath so you'll want small, festive embellishments. The ones you can see in the picture are: silver star stickers, enamel dots, crystal stickers, a range of Christmas stickers and Christmas phrase stickers. You probably won't sue them all on one wreath but I just got out plenty of embellishments so I could choose what looked best. I actually went with the crystal stickers, stars and mini candy cane stickers for the wreath. I also used a Christmas phrase sticker elsewhere on the card. I liked how the red crystal stickers looked like berries, the yellow crystal stickers looked like flowers and the green crystal stickers looked like sprigs or leaves. The enamel dots would have given the same effect but I wanted to give a sparkly effect to the card! By the way, some of these products were from a subscription box last month called Birmbles Box.

Here's the final result! started by cutting a strip of patterned paper and glueing it n the left side of the card as an accent. Originally, I was going to make a background with it but I think it would have been too overpowering. I cut the middle of the green doily out so that it looked like a wreath. Once you've glued down the patterned paper and green doily you can personalise it however you want! This is where the embellishments come in! I spread out the crystal stickers, stars and candy canes evenly around the wreath. After decorating the wreath, I created the ribbon. In chose a washi tape and cut a small section of it to go above the wreath, To give the impression of a real wrath, I then put a bow on top of the washi tape. I used double sided sticky tape for this. To finish off, I used washi tape and a phrase stcker in the centre.

There you go, that's how I made the wreath Christmas card and I love how it turned out! It's such a unique card; I thought of it when I was looking at my Christmas craft supplies, I knew I wanted to use a doily but I didn't want to just stick it down so I did this instead! So now you're ready to make your own Christmas cards, let me know if you make any.

PS: I've changed the background for Christmas now. Do you like it? I created it with the PicMonkey overlays, sorry that I didn't draw any of the elements this time round. Hopefully my next background will have some of my drawings.

Over to you...
Have you made this card idea or any other Christmas cards this year? Tell me about it in the comments. Also, do you have any Christmas blog post ideas? I'm looking forward to writing plenty of Christmas posts!

Halloween, Day of the Dead and Bonfire Night in Photos

 Hello everyone! Autumn and Winter are probably my favourite seasons for several reasons, but the main one is probably because of all the fun festivities! In the last few months I've celebrated Halloween, Day of the Dead and Bonfire Night. Every year I celebrate Halloween and Bonfire Night, however I don't normally celebrate Day of the Dead since it's a festival from Mexico that isn't typically celebrated where I live. I love to explore different country's cultures and Day of the Dead is a Mexican tradition that interests me so that's why I took part in it this year. In this week's post, I wanted to share with you a few pictures that I've taken during my celebrations so you get to know how I like to enjoy the Autumn season!

 These first two photos were taken on the run-up to Halloween. Something i love to do in October is to watch Halloween movies. We have a collection of spooky DVDs that I watch every year, they inspired me to draw my Inktober art (that I talked about in this post). In these two pictures you can see 'The Corpse Bride' and 'Little Shop of Horrors'. I reccommend these films along with: 'Beetlejuice', 'Coraline' and 'Ghostbusters'!

 This second photo was taken on the day before Halloween. That day I was busy preparing the living room for the party we were going to have the next day! I bought these paperchains from HobbyCraft which I used sellotape to put together. I think that making your own paperchains is relaxing and adds a homemade charm to your party room! Paper chains are quite common at Christmas but I think they look great at all occasions when they have different patterns on! These have: spiders, skulls, bats and pumpkins on them so they're perfectly spooky! This year we got several new Halloween decorations which was nice to see. Previously we had paper skeletons decorations (which were still great decorations) but now that we have swapped them for a few more decorations, the room looked a little more sophisticated.

 Here's the main Halloween decoration we had. It's a Halloween tree which more and more people have been using for their parties. It's like a Christmas tree but black and covered with Halloween baubles, lights and other decorations. I'm not sure how I feel about this, since I am a lover of Christmas so this feels a little strange. It reminds me of the film 'Nightmare Before Christmas' actually, where Halloween takes over Christmas. But I suppose that's a good thing! We used lots of the new decorations such as the tinsel animals, pumpkin ceramic dish, wicker pumpkin, bat cauldrons and more. You can also see a bit of the paper chains in this photo too! What do you think about Halloween trees? An interesting twist on Halloween or just bizarre? It was certainly a talking point at the Halloween party we had.




Now onto Day of the Dead! this photo is kind of a mixture of \Halloween and Day of the Dead because it has our Halloween pumpkin and crackers but has my Day of the Dead cup in it. This cup was from Aldi in case you want it, I'm not sure if they'll sell it since Halloween and Day of the Dead have been and gone. I have quite a few pretty cups in the cupboard-it's practically overflowing! Plenty of mason jars and even a pineapple cup! As you have probably figured out already from previous post, I am a little obsessed with pineapples! xD

 This next photo is another one from Day of the Dead! This shows what I got up to on November the 1st and 2nd. These are my two Day of the Dead themed colouring books: one by Thaneeya McArdle and the other is a mask colouring book from Aldi. You may have seen some of my colouring from Thaneeya's book before and you'll see more soon. I know it's been a while since the last 'Colouring Quest; post, but that's because I devoted my time in October to doing Halloween posts and Inktober drawings. I didn't celebrate Day of the Dead in the traditional way of creating altars and giving food to the dead but instead I used it as 2 days to get creative with colour.

Last but not least, here's my photo from Bonfire Night. There's only one for this celebration because it's hard to get a good photo when it's as dark as it was. I thoroughly enjoyed Bonfire Night this year: we watched fireworks, ate yummy food  and sat by the fire. In this photo, you can see my toffee apple that I held up in front of the fire. I love this photo because of the contrast of bright, warm colours and pitch black. You can see the toffee coating glistening in the glow of the fire. I also filmed a short video of a firework for my Instagram. All of these photos were from my Instagram but since it's a private page, I thought I would share them with you all in this post. I have loved taking lots of photos recently, they remind me of all the lovely occasions.

That's all the photos I have to share with you from the recent festivities, I hope you've enjoyed them! If you want to see some more of my photos then you should read 'My Winter in Photos' from last year by clicking here. I might do another similar post later this year too since I'm always inspired to do photography at special occasions such as Christmas.

PS: Sorry that I have missed two weeks of blogging-I just wanted to take a short break after having such a busy October and early November!

PPS: I've changed my background again to be an Autumn themed one. I used my butterfly drawing and then some PicMonkey overlays to build it up. I tried to make it tile like usual, but it didn't seem to work so I left it large.

Over to you...
Did you celebrate any of these occasions, if so what did you do? Also, are you looking forward to Christmas? I know I am, there'll be a few festive posts in the run-up to December 25th! 

Coraline Costume Design 2016

 Hi everyone! Halloween is just around the corner now, so that's why I've decided to share my costume design for this year! If you don't know what you're going to be for Halloween, this will give you an idea! I love to watch the film 'Coraline' at Halloween so this year I decided to dress up as her. I've got a few pieces that I'm planning on wearing but I wanted to picture how I was going to wear them, that's why I drew out my design!

Here is my costume design for this year! I started by drawing it out in the pencil and then used my stabilo coloured fineliners to go over the liners and colour it in! Normally, I would just use my Prismacolour coloured pencils for something like this but I wanted to use this as my Inktober drawing yesterday so I used fineliners! I know that the anatomy isn't very accurate (especially on the legs) but this was just to give me an idea of what my costume will look like when I wear it! I don't always draw a costume design every year but it's helpful to look back on when you're getting ready so you can check if you've got everything on! For example, I might forget to draw freckles on my cheeks but when I look at this I'll know where I made a mistake! There's some parts of this design that I haven't got yet: the fimo clay rock/sweet and the dragonfly clip are yet to be made. Also, I don't think I'll wear the yellow wellies because a.I don't have any and b. I'm wearing this for an indoor party.

As well as the costume design, I wanted to show you a few elements of my outfit in this post! Here's the handmade Coraline doll that I talked about in a previous post. If you want to know how I made it, go to the post from two weeks ago by clicking here. It was based on the doll in the film that Coraline's neighbour/friend Wybe gave to her. Wybe found the doll in his Grandma's house, she wasn't too happy that he gave it to Coraline (you'll find out why if you watch the film which I highly recommend)! It isn't an exact copy of the doll that is in the film but it has a similar style. The doll is quite an important part of the story so that's why I chose to make this as part of my costume. However, you don't have to make or buy one to make your outfit a good representation of Coraline.

The last thing I wanted to show you in this post is the yellow anorak that I'm wearing on Halloween! I was surprised when my Mum said she had found i in a charity shop for me because I was worried that I wouldn't find one in time for Halloween! If you're looking for a cheap costume then I recommend that you look in charity shops for the items that you need! It wasn't in the first charity shop that was looked in though, apparently it was found in about the 7th one! So don't think it's an easy task to find the perfect costume for a small price! But putting together your outfit is half the fun! It's great to see it come together piece by piece until you've got the whole costume! The good thing about Coraline's outfit is that everything looks ordinary. This means that I can wear things like the raincoat again. By the way, Coraline wears other outfits in the film such as the starry jumper so there are several options!

I hope that this post has inspired you to choose a fun Halloween costume! I'm looking forward to Halloween, I'll make sure I have a picture of me in the costume to share with you! Come back next week to see my last Halloween post which will be about what I did (will do) on Halloween!

PS: My first blogging tips post was published on Cathy Cassidy's blog (Dreamcatcher) a while ago. Click here to see it! I'm working on a second one now as well!

Over to you...
What are your plans for Halloween, are you dressing up and going to a party, staying at home to watch scary movies or something else? Also, what are your Halloween movie recommendations? I'm also looking for new ones! Let me know in the comments!