Bad Faery

Saturday, September 27, 2008

And so it begins

Today is the official start date of my latest Open University course. My third course so far and the first literature module on my degree path.

Above: some of my course materials for Approaching Literature.

Read on..>>

Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Tale of How

I am busy with revision for my forthcoming OU exam hence the lack of posts and visits to other blogs. However I couldn’t resist sharing this beautiful animation which was featured on Vimeo’s homepage today:

The Tale of How from Shy the Sun on Vimeo.

Find out more about The Black Heart Gang here.

Sigh, I love animation. If I could go back 20 years and start over I think I would want to be an animator.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

All the pretty birds

Look who I met! Isn’t he beautiful?

More>>

Monday, September 01, 2008

Pencils at the ready!

“Do not fail to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will do you the world of good.” Cennino Cennini

Or charcoal, or pens, or other drawing implement of your choice! For today is September 1st which means we are only a month away from The Big Draw 2008. If you’re not familiar with the Big Draw you should check out their website. Essentially it’s a month long campaign to get people drawing. It’s UK based which means there are no events locally that I can take part in but I’m not going to let a pesky little detail like that stop me!  Last year, as some of my regular readers will remember, I took part by doing a drawing a day for the month of October and posting the results here on my blog and on my flickr account.

I’m going to attempt to do it again this year - given that I have my U211 exam and my new course starting in early October that might not be the best idea ever but I’m going to give it a go! Like last year I’m going to focus on drawing from life.

Hopefully like last year some of you will join in the drawing fun. Let me know and I’ll start a blog roll of participants. The more the merrier! And I don’t want to hear any of that ‘but I can’t draw’ nonsense! One of the aims of the Big Draw is to show that drawing is a life skill within everyone’s reach. And drawing also teaches you to really see the world. Sit down to draw an ordinary every day object like a flower and you’ll start to see details you’ve never noticed before. So even if what you end up with on paper looks nothing like the object you were trying to draw you will still have gained from the experience. So go on, give it a try! You might just surprise yourself!

Remember! Pencils at the ready for Wednesday 1 October!

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Summer’s last breath

Some flowers to mark the end of summer...

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Because there are no happy endings for werewolves

The Mae Shi “Body 2” by Patrick McHale from the mae shi on Vimeo.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

IMT: Shrink

This week’s Inspire Me Thursday prompt was ‘shrink’ which immediately made me think of Alice and here’s the result:

I was in two minds as to whether to post this or not as I really dislike it. But since I made the decision to embark on this Creative Every Day journey I feel that I should post some of the failures too. My problem stems from the background. On Friday night I spend a couple of hours experimenting with doing some coloured backgrounds that I could use as jumping off points for new pages. The pages I used for this spread ended up with a very pink background and I really should have toned it down before I started on this spread as the whole thing ended up far too sickly pink for my liking. 

Read on..

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Illustration Friday: Canned

So last Friday’s prompt (25 July 08) was the word ‘canned’ and of course I immediately thought narwhals in a can! It’s obvious isn’t it? Well it is if you’re me;)

Yes, these are the strange thoughts that wander through my weird and wacky mind at random intervals.

Read on!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Art of Self-Preservation OU style

Above: The gorgeous Mr Darcy with Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Still counts as studying! Honest!

Well I did something today that I really thought I wouldn’t. I decided to deliberately NOT to do an assignment for my current OU course. It’s all the assessment calculator’s fault (a doodah on my course website which allows me to work out my overall likely grade). Having had a play around with it yesterday I worked out that as long as I get a pass 2 mark in my exam, i.e. 70% or higher I will get a Pass 2 grade for the entire course whereas if my exam grade falls below 70% I’ll end up with a grade 3 mark for the overall course regardless of how well I do in my final two TMAS. 

Read on!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Playing!

It has been another very busy week at work and I have been studying hard for my OU course in the evenings (and over a delicious vanilla latte at lunch today). But this evening I am rebelling, and taking some time out to play! Messing around with torn paper and oil pastels and paint, being silly and inconsequential and ENJOYING it immensely:)

Now I’m off to have a shower, then some more painting and I shall round the evening off with a short story (still dithering between some more Borges or something from The Ladies of Grace Adieu) and then I shall round the evening off with some season 3 Buffy!