Nothing much to do

Apologies firstly, this post is pretty nonsensical and ramble-ly, but as the title suggests, I haven't had a very exciting past few days.

I kinda hoped that this post would have my developed photos from Reading but after dropping it off at the chemist they told me I wouldn't get them back for another week which kinda sucks, I do have a couple that my friend took and posted on facebook that were cute so I'll post them. I've been a little bored recently, I must have caught a cold from waiting in the rain to get home from Reading (one and a half in a non stop downpour!) so I've been in bed with a sore throat and a headache since Tuesday and I'm kinda stuck in that post-festival last week of the summer blues.

Me and Millie meeting Mallory Knox

Wristband fun! Our Reading, Over 18's and Disabled
Access bands. I'm the top left hand with my leopard
and galaxy print leggings.

This was just really cute, I think we were going to see Jake Bugg but
we were having fun anyway.

My college course starts on Thursday 4th, weeks before any of my friends start uni,but I'm pretty sure the first week or two will be induction stuff and I won't start actual arting stuff for ages. That's just a theory. A probably very wrong one. So for the past few ill days I've been lazing about, listening to all the bands I saw and some of the bands I discovered while I was there, I'm thinking of doing a little playlist thing if I can think of enough songs. Maybe an end of summer blues thing.

I've also been out back to school shopping, which is always fun, I'm one of those sad people who can be satisfied by new stationary, and sorting out my winter wardrobe. Which is basically just my summer wardrobe with tights and a thicker coat.

Look at the pastels!

I'm hoping to finish my latest sketchbook before school starts and break into the pretty pastel ones, I'm leaving the other smaller lined ones for note making in college. I also bought this cute and kinda hilarious pencil case, my old one had lasted nearly eight years and was beginning to look a little gross. It's fab because it even has a little pencil sharpener at the top in case I need to do some emergency pencil sharpening.

Sorry this has been such a rubbishy post, I have some hopefully more exciting posts lined up, if I can get them done before college starts. 

xxx

Rosie

Rosie goes to Reading

So for the last five days I was having a total blast at Reading festival with my friends and after sleeping for a record ten hours last night (yes its a lot for me), washing away the grime under my nails and brushing out the singular massive deadlock that forms at the back of my hair, that took an hour of hard work and lots of conditioner, I'm now sat in bed with my cat and a sore throat, listening to the bands I saw and trying to avoid catching the post festival blues. 

We bought early bird tickets so we could chill and soak up the atmosphere a little and get good camping spots, because my friend has a long term illness we got to camp in the disabled campsite which was also on the same site as guest camping, which meant we were asked who's band we were with a lot. It was a pretty sweet campsite, it was a lot more chilled and less crowded than the rest of the site and we had proper toilets that were actually clean most of the time and the showers. God, the showers!

The only major problem we encountered was that the tent me and my friend were sharing kinda collapsed on the first night, it was already held up by duct tape and dreams but by the morning one of the poles had snapped completely and we had to do a desperate run to the local shop for a new one. We were saved by a lighting shop (?) who were selling second hand tents for a fiver and it was actually pretty fantastic. I wish I'd taken a picture of the first tent, the bulge at one side was hilarious.

God, the music was fantastic, we saw so many sets and they were all so worth it, I did get photos of most of the sets I saw on the disposable camera I bought but I haven't got them developed yet, as I didnt want to waste my phone's battery I didnt take a huge amount of photos but I had a couple. Some of my favourite sets were Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys (despite the fact that Alex Turner was completely out of it) Imagine Dragon's, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Clean Bandit and Drowners who were completely amazing, I took my friend who had never heard them before and she was in love with them by the time the first song had ended.

The Neighbourhood were so cool, the front man Jesse Rutherford was almost too cool and we were going crazy when they sang Afraid. Of course Sweater Weather was amazing and it was one of those amazing sets that everyone was on the same level vibes wise and just wanted to sing and have fun.

Feeling those Palma Violets Vibes, honestly they were amazing and I wish I could have been closer to the front but it was a pretty packed tent and we had a good view anyway.

And of course, I couldn't help wasting a bit of my battery by taking loads of shots of Drowners. They were just so good! Every song was on point and we were super close to the front, the picture really doesn't show it justice. Seriously I was so close to Matt Hitt's face I thought it was a dream and I know everyone always says this but he seriously looked at me during the set and my heart stopped for a second. I took some much better photos on the disposable camera, or at least I think I did, I wont know until its developed.

I'll hopefully get the pictures developed soon, I really want to have a look at them and put them up online and there are pictures of all of the sets I saw and some shots of us messing about including one of my friend in the tent on the last day when it was pouring down with rain and the tent was leaking.

xxx

Rosie

2nd journal from the left and straight on till morning

So I finished my first journal!

And immediately went out and bought three new ones to fill, because who wouldn't amirite?

It was pretty exciting to finished my first journal, I was kinda worried that I would loose interest and definitely didnt think it would be finished by summer, so its kinda cool to think I'm almost halfway through my second one.

This journal is a little more scrappy and personal but not in a secret way, I wouldn't actually be annoyed if someone looked through it, in retrospect the first one was a little bit try-hard. I've taken it with me more, just when I'm out and about to fill in with thoughts, or really short stories or drawing practice. I've also been having a bit more fun with it, there are some jokey pages and I really like to go back to old drawings and add colour and other decoration to them for the hell of it.

A letter to July, the month, and a sketch from Rookie

I did the page on the right first and filled in
the blank page with directions I needed to
remember while in London

Colour chart of my new crayons and
musings on London with a sketch of my
hotel window

Titled ~ Things I Saw In Rokit Vintage
That Made Me Want To Have More Money
To Buy Them

Basically drawings of pretty stuff I
wanted to get at Rokit

Fun Rookie stuff

Fashion design and the list of people
I wanted to see at Edinbrugh Fringe

Sassy little V&A page and drawings of
my butt in my new dungarees

A collage that shows my love for the
adorkable Matthew Beard and an ode
to Matthew Hitt.
I love a good Matthew

Stupid little drawings and a page on
glitter and origami foxes

Marker drawing of me and a short story
about someone who doesn't like school but
doesn't know why.

On the right, my feelings on catwalk
shows and a not very good drawing
of me listening to a song by Brothers

I'm really stoked to keep going with my journals, it was super fun to get back into them today, I wanna keep going for a long time, see how many journals I will have finished in a years time, or by the end of art foundation. 

xxx

Rosie

Exam results and the most creative weekend

My last post was kinda thrown together the night before results day and I know its not the best, it was late and I didnt proof read it, so I've come together with a much more interesting post for you. 

Results day was fairly stress inducing, I was so worried I decided to dress in 'earth mother' clothing to feel closer to nature as though it would help my grades. In the end I didnt need the help of mother earth, although if she had a part in it I'm totes grateful, I passed everything, A in drama, B in textiles and fine art and a pass for Welsh Bacc. Technically I got an A for Welsh Bacc as its not graded for our year, so I like to say I got ABBA for my results. 

After picking up my results I went to a friends house and reminisced about school and how glad we were to be leaving, then watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, a fan favourite between us, and ate too much food. We also found a little easter egg in the credits of the film, at the end upbeat fiddle music begins to play and a small animated eastern European man begins to dance at the side of the screen. This is both adorable and caused us to discuss how weird it would be for an animator to spend so long animating the little guy only for it to go in the credits. I was planning to go out to town with the rest of the year, there was a foam party in one of the clubs, but I was way too tired and sort of emotionally drained and my friend had just gotten back from Thailand so we went for a trip to the cinema watched Guardians of the Galaxy, which was awesome and involved us eating 'cheese' cheese nachos.

Since school has 'officially' finished and I never have to go back to the stress of sixth form, I only had the excitement of Reading to look forward to. Or so I thought. 

In fact I spent the last weekend doing a really large amount of arty things, more than I have in ages actually. 

On Friday, the day after results I did some more stenciling, collected all the patches I'd made and added them to my shop. These are slightly less intense than the stencils I posted before as it takes to long to paint them and requires a lot more paint. 

Available here

Available here

Then yesterday I made some more stencils for band patches, with a larger variety of bands in the hopes that someone will buy them. 

Includes HAIM, MGMT, The Strokes, The Neighborhood and a not shown Drowners stencil. 

Darn The Neighborhood for having such a
complicated but aesthetically pleasing logo

After an oddly Amish lunch/dinner in which my family + Grandma helped make the food and a huge amount of apple and something else chutney, I got my second crafting wind and decided to stitch some of the patches to the denim jacket I plan to take to Reading. 

I chose my biggest Marina patch as it jazzes up the back of the jacket a bit, and stitched the Drowners logo onto the pocket flap thing because I'm defiantly going to see their set, I've warned my friends that I will happily drag them to see Drowners as I know they will like them.

The Jacket itself was from Sheinside and is super cool, its really baggy and indie and came with a little sweatshirt vest thing that keeps it warm when the sun goes down. I've decided on packing light, since I brought way too much to Scotland, so other than my rain mac, this is the only jacket I'm taking as its really comfortable and I can wear it throughout the whole week or stuff it in my bag no biggie. 

After the mess I made over the last few days with stenciling, I stopped today and slowly tidied up my room while watching Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, which is drawing me completely into the surreal saturated fantasy land. Because the artist's muse was still beating about in my brain I decided to try my hand at tie-dying, using this tutorial from RookieMag

Mine went a little off as I didnt do the folds regularly enough and it has a weird almost pit stain thing on the shoulder, I may die the sleeves tomorrow, but I still like it. 

I also finished making a proper, well fitting flower crown for Reading because hell yeah we're gonna wear them. 

To top all of this arty-ness off I finally got round to filling in my journal but there's a little too many pictures so I'm going to do a separate post at a later date.

xxx

Rosie

Dealing with results day nerves

Tomorrow is the day.

The dreaded day in which my Alevel results arrive and I've been doing everything in my power to ignore the nerves coiling up in my stomach. Since coming back from Scotland I've pushed myself into productive and creative pursuits. Yes the first day back I mostly spent with laptop time until I got a momentary burst of energy and decided I would learn to cook lentil curry, with lots of help from my mum, which ended with me making not only the curry but pilau rice and making spices to replenish our stock.

Yesterday I took a break from cooking and threw myself back into stenciling. 

Not literally.

That table is enough of a mess as it is.

After putting up some new stuff on my shop, such as new band patches and cute little love heart patches I decided I wanted to do something bigger and more time consuming to waste away the hours. 

This was the first big stencil I did, the beautiful Marina Diamandis who will always have a spot in my heart. It wasn't to difficult but I did struggle with the amount of black paint I was using, as you can probably see it thinned out a little. 

Original picture I recreated

These are a small collection of the ones I did today, little minimalist patches of marina and a larger patch of her fantastic eye makeup and her strong eyebrows. I also did a homage to Twin Peaks with a cute little Agent Cooper patch that has gone wandering and I'm in the process of cutting the stencil for a Pulp Fiction patch.

I'll hopefully post those patches later but for now I say good bye as my friend messaged me that Great British Bake Off is starting and the cat is sat on my arm making it difficult to type.

xxx

Rosie

Edinburgh OOTD

So I'm back after a week and a half of holiday in Scotland, feeling truly exhausted and having little to do but worry about the impending doom of results day. I had a great time in scotland, Edinburgh was amazing as usual and I saw loads of comedy shows at the fringe festival while staying with my Grandma who lives in the city. It was fun to have a small family holiday in between the craziness of London and Reading, which I am so super pumped for. Neither me or my older brother are leaving the house, unless someone wins the lottery and decides to give either of us enough money for rent, so its going to be pretty crowded at home for another year, I kinda hope it will go as well as the holiday did. 

This is at my Grandad's house in the room that I stayed in, I love the gloomy colour scheme with my clothes pallet and the contrast of the cheery flowers outside. 

T-shirt - My mums

Trousers - Primark

Socks - H&M

Shoes - Topshop

checks + check carpet + lines from the lighting

These shoes were bought by my mum when we went to Topshop in Edinburgh. They have a really cute clunky heel that is so comfortable it doesn't feel like there's a heel there at all, and while they are genuine jelly shoes they're a bit more plastic-y and wearable, they look like patent shoes so I feel like they're a little more casual.

My Grandad was also clearing out all of his old stuff, or getting us to do it, and he gave me some cool stuff, a Minolta SLR camera as he said he never used it, a book on modern art that is way huge and as a bit of a joke a wool gardeners cap that is too big for me but is fun to wear.

As my Grandpa is a joker he added as he handed them to me 'well that sorts out your Christmas presents for the next few years'. Which considering I've just got a fantastic camera for free its a fair enough deal.

xxx

Rosie

Lonely Art

My tastes in art change a lot over time, I go from liking classic renaissance paintings to only wanting to look and try and understand abstract art. My colour pallet changes and some pieces that I loved a few days ago leave a sour taste in my mouth.

Recently my tastes have changed, a few weeks ago I posted about loud in your face images and aesthetics x and now, after looking through some of the re-blogged art works on my tumblr, I can see whats different. 

I'm into quieter art, it's not so loud or aggressive, it works with subtleties and grace and I feel I'm thinking about the works in a different way. I'm not sure what it is or how to describe it properly but it feels like with the loud aggressive art I'm questioning, asking and thinking outwards towards the world, letting out my frustrations. With this style of art I'm feel as though I'm looking inwards, at myself and at other people, I feel as though I'm trying to answer questions rather than ask them.

Lindsay Bottos ~ The Morning After (2013)

By Cry baby

If I'm being honest, I think everything I've been liking feels fairly lonely. Not exactly sad. Just lonely. And I think looking at art about lonely people or by lonely people makes me feel a little less lonely, because I know there are other people just as lonely and maybe just as sad. 

From Tumblr but I couldn't find a source

By Volkmar Wentzel for 1961 National Geographic

From We Heart It but I genuinely cant find a source

By Tuane Eggers

From Paisly not Plaid

So sorry if this has been a little sadder than normal posts, I'm just feeling a little alone right now.

xxx

Rosie