renes room

Nom nom potato wedges!

So, so hungover today, was out last night dressed as a hooters girl which was surprisingly fun. I made 3 pink, netball style skirts for me and my friends which worked surprisingly well give i started off with 3 tubes of fabric! Found these on my camera today whilst being lazy, i have decided i do quite miss paper engineering! Though i know i shouldnt do it in this project because it would basically be an extension of my final project on art foundation (paper engineering of grimms fairy tales). And the whole point of uni is to progress, but it is just so much fun! 

Also reminds me i need to find my scalpel handle, i broke the blade off trying to get the cork out of a bottle of wine in Paris...

happiness and mess

Today i had a little bit of a stress on. Our student rep is having a meeting with our course leader and i was writing down everyones complaints and thoughts on how we are all getting behind on work because of how many different tasks we have at one time! As i was writing all this down i think it all infiltrated my brain and i had a sudden realisation of how many things i havent done for this module and how little time i have to do them in... 

So i came back to the flat and did a few pages in my mess book. The first involved dropping tiny strips of paper onto glue from a height! This worked ok but means i now have paper strips everywhere... The second involved pouring coloured liquid on the page and moving it all different directions, i did this with ink, then watercolour, then more ink, then nail varnish. Nail varnish looks awesome dripped onto paper i have decided, however i couldnt use too much as the only ones i have at uni are nails inc. and no7 and i didnt want to waste their awesomeness! After this i went in for a talk on making mind maps to help with research and remembering information. We got to do a sample mind map on "Happiness". In all seriousness, if you are ever down, do a mind map on happiness and it will genuinely cheer you up. Just thinking up all the awesome and amazing things you like you suddenly realise how many things there are in this world that are good. Mine could have gone on forever but the page was too small so i may have to make another one! 

typography and all that jazz

Been learning to do page layouts in in design and working on them for the past week. I spent many hours thursday and friday getting mine finished so i figured i would put mine up. Had a feedback session today and i still have a few things to change but we have so much other work on i am not sure when i will ever get round to it.. 

About to start making some very hilarious outfits for this wednesday. We have a cheerleading social which is "hooters" themed, basically dressing up like the waitresses from the hooters restaurant chain in very small shorts/skirts and vest tops! Currently trying to work out how to make pink pleated skirts for 3 of us! They are proving hard to make right now as i dont think i have enough fabric... may have to find something to cut up and make inserts so they dont split open at the sides!

Paris sketches

Got back from Paris a week ago but i have been stupidly busy this week with deadlines and a typography project which i finished today! Was an awesome trip with many shared jokes and memories, i really want to go back in the summer as Paris is an amazing city! So many different galleries and places to see. We spent much of our time drawing out, basically drawing people and things we found interesting, this is only a sample of the many fairly stupid and funny drawings. Some of the above were drawn not looking at the page which is why they are quite ridiculous!Going to Newquay this weekend which i am excited about, need a break so hopefully we can chill on the beach for most of sunday after a night out tomorrow!

Falling asleep at the keyboard a little bit... Spent all day on Indesign making book layouts which i will post soon, they are looking pretty good which i am glad about since i am shattered!

dolls

Today is better than yesterday. 

One of my many tasks over the christmas holidays was to find some text about a them and then do some illustrations relating to it. We chose to do dolls. Ages ago, for fun, and because i find them intriguing, i took some macro photographs of dolls i found. They came out looking pretty creepy to be honest, but i think i need to stop worrying about my work looking creepy because when it comes down to it, i always have to make drawings dark in some way. Any work without black doesnt look finished! I think this stems from my obsession with shadows in photography, I am just drawn to darkness, it just makes everything more interesting! 

Anyway today i did a couple of paintings of those photos, i gave up on making them exact, they are more just inspired by the photos i think, not perfect but i think i got the feeling right.

up to my elbows

Hmmm today has been feeling stressful. I spent most of the day attempting to do work and failing miserably.. Wrote about 500 words comparing 2 pictures for my research project and attempted to do a drawing which failed miserably when i spilled water over it and myself! Got 2 more pages done in my mess book today, i needed to do something which didn't require any thought! One page required putting something on your elbows and then leaning on the page! i used paint and ink which was rather messy and i felt like little bit of a child... Also got a phone call from my friend as i was going to wash my elbows, i think he thinks i am crazy now after me telling him i had to ring him back because my elbows were covered in paint... Ah well, here's some pages of mess, and an ink drawing i did to test the paper in my new sketchbook!

mess

Basically i got a book for christmas called "Mess-The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes" This book has a task on each page where you do something to it to make a mess, ripping holes in it, pouring things, standing on it with muddy feet etc. Have started using it the past few days, its odd doing the first couple because its a nice clean book and its hard to not feel like you are ruining it! However the second page i did was dropping a coloured liquid on a page from 5ft, dropping coffee and ink on it means the cover and pages edges are all now brown and it was actually pretty fun and stress relieving feeling like i was allowed to do this! Plus ink mixing with coffee looks awesome! Today i sprayed brown spray paint on a page and stuck salt and tea leaves onto it :) fun times! 

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snow and other things...

Havent been on here in aaages. I planned on posting these photos before christmas and it seems there has been too much business going on... 

These are from just before christmas, my one and only time of enjoying the snow i went out with my dogs and kicked snow up for Toby who likes to jump up and try and eat it, he looks pretty crazy whilst doing it ;) 

Christmas was good, i did well on presents even though they all seem to point to me becoming a housewife! Got some cooking things, a cupcake and muffin recipe book from which i just made banana muffins (amazing). And a sewing machine from my parents to use at uni! Planning on going to the charity shop in Plymouth with a 50p rail and buying stuff to cut up! 

First day of the new year today. Last night was interesting, a typical Nam night out: get averagely drunk at someones house, go to Brunel for cheap cocktails and to get more drunk, try and blag student discount on the way into Karma-which never works even though they advertise it, dance for a bit and then spend the rest of the night wandering around trying to find people/find a toilet that locks with loo roll/waiting at the bar/waiting for your friends to finish pulling their latest guy. Or at least thats how my nights always seem to go! Though i did have a nice phone call in the middle and the music was much more cheesy than chavvy since it was new years! 

Last shift at work today too, which is nice as now i have a week to see people, get some work done and maybe do some relaxing for once as it is the holidays! Though i will miss free burger king and the general banter, oh and actually having money go into my bank... ah well, bring on easter i guess...

PHOTOS :D