♥ I don't do Housework...

so i know i promised to do a blog post yesterday all about my new painting and all... but i spent yesterday afternoon in town doing a bit of xmas shopping in the freezing conditions and then i went to the cinema, with my friend Charlotte and her husband Rob, to see the new Harry Potter film.

i have one word to say about that movie... AWESOME!!!

anyway, since i failed on the posting times yesterday, i thought i'd tell you all about the little painting today instead!

so...

you may recall, quite a while ago while i was researching old 40's, 50's and 60's American Advertisements at college, i spotted a cute little lady and decided to have a go at drawing her

you can read the original post right here - Acrylics and Apples ♥

but the point is, a few days ago i decided to have a go at using the lovely set of gouache paints my older sister Simone gave me during my trip to Coventry last week

so using the original drawing i did, i worked on a digital version, playing around with colours trying to find a nice mix to paint on the canvas. this is the digital version of what i wanted the painting to look like...

so using the page scan that sort of looks like this (see the above post link for the proper one) 

i drew out a simple fine lined version of it, i enlarged a copy of it up to A3 size and got to work on my little canvas...

here you can see the copy i was working from and yes... my desk does have 3 Daleks on it + a stack of Torchwood and Doctor Who books!

don't act all surprised i DID tell you that i just so happen to be a massive Sci-fi nerd!

you can't really see it in this shot but i'd already sketched out the outline on the canvas so all i had to do was fill it in with my trusty sharpie pen

after that was all finished i started the fun part... blocking in the colours!

the gouache was wonderful to work with, i'm so impatient when it comes to painting so oils drive me mad and most of the time the acrylics i use aren't pigmented enough. i love watercolours but i'm a bit rubbish at using them unfortunately! these worked out great though

i started out with quite a pale blue for the dress, but colour is so much fun so i got a bit carried away with the layers

the sharpie outline was handy as well since i normally ruin most of my attempts at painting by painting over my pencil lines so much i can't tell what's supposed to go where!

next i had to work out some way of painting in the mouth. i didn't want to leave it black since my digital version of this had bright red lips and nails.

i tried painting over the sharpie with red gouache and acrylic but the paints weren't having any of it! 

so i blocked the mouth out entirely in white and grabbed something a little stronger...

believe it or not but that's actually a nail art pen full of bright red nail varnish!

i bought a massive set of those pens at the 'Clothes Show Live' in Birmingham a few years ago and they've never really come in handy until now! her nails and her earring were all coloured using the nail art pens as well. i'm glad i finally found something to use them on!

so that's that! the painting is done now, i added a little message on the piece of paper in her hand as well...

i'm not sure if you can read it or not but it says 'i don't do Housework...'

i know the original version said 'Merry Christmas' but i didn't want my painting to be seasonal

so that's it, painting times... DONE!

NOTE: i am aware that my version of this housewife does look slightly demented... but i think that just ads to her crazily messed up charm! ♥

* * *

in other news, it's still freeeeezing here! snow and ice everywhere!

i took this snap on the day i started the painting, i was sitting at my desk minding my own business when it started snowing and snowing and snowing...

ah that photo kind of sucks i guess, and apologies for all the clutter! 

i had another go, this was the view outside the window

the lovely Winter Wonderland outside my bedroom! love it...

it is sooooo cold though! 

* * *

back to college tomorrow (weather permitting) i'm supposed to have my assessment this week so i am panicking just a little bit (aka A LOT!!!!!) so we'll see how that goes!

i had to go to the airport this morning to have my photo taken with the Little Lego Christmas Tree again so i managed to grab a copy of the paper as well, i'll scan it in tomorrow though since i can't find the scanner cable...

FAIL on my part!

sorry!

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ★ xX

Terima kasih dan sampai jumpa lagi

(that's thank you and goodbye in Indonesian, i haven't been to Indonesia since i was a little girl but big thanks to you all anyway for visiting my blog, lama tidak berjumpa x) 

Giggles and Gravity ♥

So today at college I've spent the day sketching and fixing up my desk. It's looking pretty super now, I've slowly been filling up the board with pin-up pix + the desk is covered in all my other arty farty junk like books, canvases etc etc

i've tried to be good today and not use the internet too much (aka spend too much time online procrastinating) so I turned the 'airport' off on my macbook for a bit. However... I forgot to turn off the 'push notifications' on my iPod touch so every time I got a message on facebook it made a little noise telling me. 

Plan = FAIL!

I posted an envelope full of goodies to my friend mike today since the pin board in his halls room at uni is SOOOOO empty! He probably won't be very grateful though. What a gaylord. 

Ah, speaking of gaylord's... you would NOT believe what I found today whilst flicking through a big book of 40's advertisements (awesome book, I also have the 50's and 60's editions 'All American Ads' so SO good) I turned the page and BAM! This is what I saw...

now if you can't read that properly due to the crappy quality of the picture (I took it on my phone and bluetoothed it to the macbook... aren't I clever) it's an ad for a shaving kit called... GAYLORD!

Ok, I know i'm 19 and supposed to be a grown-up but COME ON! How could I not giggle at that?!

In fact I giggled so much I sent all of my pencil crayons and sketching pencils flying everywhere. Gravity obviously hates me since they all ended up clattering to the floor and the lead is most likely broken to bits now...

stupid gravity!

the ad itself says: 

'For a King on his day! (in reference to father's day)

Give dad GAYLORD for his shaving and after shaving requirements. GAYLORD is the choice of virile, immaculate men for that fit, fresh feeling. A tingling, stimulating tang - a distinctive, masculine fragrance. In dramatic, burgundy-bright horsehead containers.

GAYLORD for good grooming'

that is EXACTLY what it says! i swear...

Anyway, i've had a great day flicking through the add books. You can see the little sketch I did this morning below. It's not great but I tried my best (+ my daft iPod kept distracting me with notifications)

it's from an old Jantzen swimsuits ad. Now i'm not much of a swimmer but my golly gosh... Jantzen just made the most adorable swimwear! It's not even funny how awesome their stuff was! And their ads were even better. These were two of my particular faves from the book. I didn't attempt to photograph them on my phone so these copies are off an awesome website (one I just adore) called Plan 59. 

Plan 59 is a fabulous site chock full of mid-century ads and works like a facebook photo gallery, so you click on the image to see the next one etc. I love it, I spent about half-an-hour flicking through the files this afternoon, so great. They don't make ads like that anymore...

Check out the site here - http://www.plan59.com/main.htm

and naturally all this though of ads got me thinking about the glorious genius that is 'Mad Men'. I shan't ramble on about it too much (today...) but if you watch the show you'll understand why looking at books filled with 40's/50's/60's advertisements would make me think of 'Mad Men'

and look... a token shot of the AWESOME cast for your viewing pleasure!

and that's it i guess. i am ruddy starving since i've barely left my desk all day + still feeling a bit off.

oh oh i almost forgot... i won a bouquet of flowers last night off a show on Manx Radio!!!

i didn't even know my mum had entered me into the draw to win them... until it was announced on the air that i'd won! 

what a super mum i have! ♥

i won them off Ashlea Tracey's Sunday night connections show. check out her super duper facebook page here - Connections with Ashlea Tracey

she said they should arrive my mid-week so i'll definitely be posting a photo of them on here when they do!

better do some work now...

so... that's all folks!

 ★ ◕‿◕ ♥ xX