This and That ❤

hello dearhearts, I know... once again it's been FOREVER since I last made time to post a blog on here!

I'm all out of excuses. It's been a mixture of laziness, apathy and a general malaise that i've been trying to shift for the past few weeks.

things are looking up though, i'm on my holidays in Ireland at the moment; I caught the ferry to Dublin first thing this morning and after stopping off in Cahir, Co Tipperary South for lunch I finally made it to Cork this afternoon. If you're a long-time follower then you'll know how Ireland always cheers me up, if you don't believe me/remember, just check out the Ireland tag HERE.

this year I'm staying in Cork, Carlow and Dublin so i'm looking forward to visiting some of my favourite places and spaces + discovering a few new ones along the way.

so what on earth HAVE I been up to for the last month?! Well, not much really...

Well I say not much, actually i've been up to quite a bit, but none of it is particularly exciting, hence why I've been such a neglectful blogger (again).

I suppose if I had to narrow it down to some of the things i've been up to, this is what I would pick...

1. Brand New Website

Yes, I have a NEW website. I'd been meaning to get a new site sorted for ages (years in fact), as much as I loved my old site, I wasn't able to alter or edit much of it without the assistance of my trusty web designer. This meant that most of the info listed on the site was no longer accurate, my age was listed as 21 (i'm 24 now) and it said that I was still studying (I graduated in 2013).

 I needed a change so after a lot of consideration and online fiddling I spent some time setting up a new site myself. This time around it's quite a bit less cluttered and more streamlined with clear navigation and nice simple galleries showcasing my artwork, it even has a gallery for my painted work. And of course most importantly, the 'about' page is now 100% up to date.

if you're so inclined, you can check out the new website HERE

2. Brand New Painting

That's right, I finished another brand new painted lady for the ongoing (and neverending) Candy Doll Club project! This time it was a painting of the 'Buzz Buzz' illustration I created in September 2014 (read more about it HERE)

 

I often work sort of higgledy-piggledy when I paint a new picture, meaning that I'm often painting and adding finelined detail at the same time. It's not ideal but it helps me to keep track of the outline + work out what needs fixing/tweaking before it all gets finished. 

As always, the most challenging part of each painting is the hair! I usually end up blending 5 or 6 colours together to create the colourful 'ombre' hair. It takes AGES but it's always worth it in the end when it's all finelined and seamlessly blended.

My favourite part of any painting is adding in the outline. Almost all of my artwork has the same bold black lineart and it's without a doubt the BEST part of a new painting. As far as i'm concerned, putting the linework down makes the painting pop and come to life. 

Without the lineart my paintings would just be jumbled and meaningless, but a steady hand and a mug full of permanent markers turns blended colours and splotchy shapes into a neat, ordered design. Drawing the honeycomb pattern on this piece was time consuming but totally worth it. 

Anyway, she was painted in acrylic, posca and spray paint on a 24x24" wooden board and is all finished now, living on my desk with some of the other paintings I have lying about at the moment.

if you're local (in the Isle of Man) and think you might like to see some of my work in person (or dare I say... buy it!) I currently have four paintings in the Isle Gallery in Tynwald Mills. 

 I had some more numbers to talk about but I think i'll save them for another post! 

Hopefully i'll actually put together another blog while i'm here in Ireland, I usually post about some of the AMAZING shops and villages I get to visit, so fingers crossed this holiday is just as fruitful for my blogging habit, or lack thereof.

anyway i'll shut up now, thanks for stopping by, come and visit again soon!

And if YOU know of any brilliant places in Cork/Carlow/Dublin that I should visit while i'm here, leave a comment below or tell me on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram 

bye for now... 

The Peculiar Princess ★

so i've been a very lazy blogger lately, i'm sorry! it's the usual excuse as well, college work/commissions etc

so it's just a quick post today i'm afraid! 

you see, i have a few new Princess designs to show you all. those of you that follow me via Twitter or Facebook might have glimpsed a WIP screencap i posted one evening, well this has something to do with that...

you see i drew out a design the other day, then i added in some stuff from a previous design... then i faffed around with colours and such, so there are actually 3 versions of this girl at the moment!

ok so she can't make up her mind as to how she should look, but as you'll see, she likes to read!

(All images featured in this post belong to Jade Boylan© do not claim, use, distribute, reproduce or trace ANY of my work without my express written consent. All Rights Reserved.)

right so, there's... a sort of colour blend type one...

a strange, bright, pop-art type one...

and a calmer sort of Rococo type one...

i really can't decide where to place her colour-wise! it's been fun going through colour cycles though, there are about 6 more different variations littering my desktop but these 3 are my faves so far. 

not sure what you\ll all think! which one do YOU like???

* * *

in other news, i'm still offering 15% off everything in my Etsy shop (in case you didn't know...) 

the discount code FESTIVEFUN can only be used until the 15th of December so if you fancy treating yourself or someone else to a little candy coloured something, try not to leave it too late!

postage dates for the UK are fine but if you live over the other side of the world it might not arrive before Xmas if you order it later than the 6th or 7th of December!

so... you know, just saying :)

and that's it i think, like i said, lazy blogger! although today i did manage to get over half of my Xmas present shopping done in town! so not so lazy in that respect...

i'm going to head off and work on some more commission stuff now! i have CD covers, book covers, flyers, e-cards and postcard designs to work on, busy busy busy!

so until next time, that's all folks... ◕‿◕ ★ xX

Lazy Days ♥

so if the title wasn't enough of a giveaway as to how my day's been... i've had an incredibly lazy day today and it has been SUBLIME!


i've basically spent the entire day sat on the sofa doing absolutely nothing apart from checking my facebook and twitter every so often + chatting to Mike on skype and making some new ad banners for my blog linking my fave shopping links and other various online creative pals.


i've spent this evening watching episodes of Futurama (genius) whilst attempting to make a new blog background. i've made one (as you can see) but i'm not too fond of it to be honest, i'll probably have another go tomorrow or something since i now have a delightful photoshop headache.


in light of this, Mike offered to make one and after about fifteen minutes of photoshopping i was sent this via skype... 

now i genuinely do appreciate Mike's noble efforts to create an original and visually stunning blog background for me, however... i'm not going to use this!

NOT because it states my love of lamps in general (how can you not love a good lamp after all) it's because my blog is a 3 column blog and if i used this you'd never actually be able to see the 'I Love Lamp' bit... which would of course defeat the whole point of it's beautiful magic.

so thank you Mike but... not this time. and as much as i truly do LOVE 'Anchorman' i just can't use this!

but what do you know, ten minutes later he sent me ANOTHER possible blog background and once again, his incredible photoshop skills did not disappoint... 

i think this one might be my favourite of the two mainly because it quotes 'Hot Fuzz' which is of course one of my favourite movies EVER!

but once again this lovely piece of artwork is marred by the fact that it wouldn't really show up on my blog... sorry Mike, thanks for the effort!

and just because he tried his best, here's a shameless plug on his behalf...

follow this link to see Mike's super duper photography blog - Point and Click

* * *

in other news, it's recently come to my attention that this blog has been receiving page views from countries all over the world, i finally checked out my International visitors map and was amazed to see where i was getting hits from! 

the exact list of countries (to date) is as as follows...

(NOTE: the countries are listed in order of page views)

Isle of Man, United Kingdom, United States, Montenegro, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Poland, Argentina, Norway, India, Spain, Indonesia, Greece, Japan, Malaysia, Venezuela, Denmark, Portugal, Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Chile, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Thailand, New Zealand, South Africa, Belgium, Lithuania, Slovenia, Albania, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Philippines, Lebanon, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Estonia, Iceland, Israel, Uruguay, Hong Kong, Latvia, Singapore, Macedonia, Vietnam, Egypt, Croatia, Moldova, Brunei, Ecuador, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czeck Republic, Slovakia and last but not least, Puerto Rico.

it's quite incredible no?!?!

i can't quite believe that people all over the world are stopping by to have a skeet at my blog!!!

so in light of this i have decided to end each future blog post with a thank you + farewell in the native language of one of the countries on the list. 

i intend to do this until every country has been credited with it's own 'goodbye' so this is going to take me quite a while to accomplish...

that's ok, i always love a good challenge!

i'll do the 'goodbyes' following the same order as the list here so todays post will end with a farewell in Manx and the next one in English and so on and so forth...

should be fun ♥

* * *

and that's it for today, short but sweet i guess!

time for some tea now and perhaps a bit more 'Futurama'

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ★ 

'Gura Mie Ayd as Slane Ihiat'

(that's 'thank you and goodbye' in Manx Gaelic on behalf of the Isle of Man)

Week of Blogging - Day 6

aaaggghhh no picture today!

i have had the most pointlessly lazy day ever! i didn't even get up until gone 11am! i would have drawn something tonight (i have about 4 unfinished sketches stuck to my radiator... that's where i keep the drawings i'm working on) but my friend hayley is picking me up at 6 to go car hunting.

i will try my absolute best to get an illustration ready to post tomorrow. i PROMISE

right, arrivederci mia amicas and amicos

xXx

killer zombie heels and krazy keyrings

i've had to stay in aaaaallll day today. but instead of feeling sorry for myself, i have embraced my lazy saturday in and have created a few new pieces of work. firstly there is the drawing of the utterly amazing 'zombie heels' by Iron Fist. 

i see them in town every week and am inexplicably fascinated by these crazy shoes! see the real thing here. next came the cute little keyrings that i have been dying to make all week. i bought the clear empty keyrings on tuesday and have been trying to think of things to put in them. it took me a while to draw the pix sooo small but i managed to finish them in the end. :-D

lots o' love :-D xxx

Lazy Sunday afternoon

had a great Sunday! spent the morning watching the amazing Malaysian Grand Prix (what a brilliant race!) then decided to upload a few pages of my children's picture book to my online portfolio. currently listening to Metro Station and Ladyhawke (just bought both albums) but am feeling a tad hungry, should probably go  and get something to eat! L2a x :-D

here is the fifth page of my book. just as a little taster! :-D