Since it's that time of the semester where finals are just around the corner and everything is chaotic and stressful, to combat the pressure I've decided to go back into one of my old favorite hobbies of art journaling. I was given a Polaroid camera over Christmas but I hadn't used it up until just a couple weeks ago when I bought some film - and since then, I've been non-stop taking pictures of everything!

It's that time of the year: big red 'holiday sales' signs displayed in every shop, Mariah Carey's prevalent "All I want for Christmas" tune on the radio and the annual wallet-purge on Christmas gifts. A tradition of society, this is the month to prepare for the biggest holiday celebrations - however...

...if you're like me (often unprepared, disorganized, a bit lazy and broke) and you have nothing fancy wrapped in Christmassy embellished paper topped with a duo-chrome ribbon then fear not, for I have a solution to this quite common dilemma. This doesn't need the skills of a wrapping god nor the money of a millionaire, so relax and read on.

(Not a real set, it is just an example)

This is pretty much similar to the Christmas post from last year, only it targets those who are artsy fartsy and people who are interested in beauty. Known as the "Goody Gift", it is a set of things from art supplies to beauty products snugged inside a little box or a bag.

For example, the image above displays a set with a glue stick, a bottle of pink glitter (may be used for crafting), an essential oil roll-on remedy, Benefit's POREfessional primer, Windsor & Newton ink in Scarlet and Freedom highlighter.


The next image consists of Pro Markers, Nature Republic Bamboo charcoal mask, a bottle of red glitter, a Windsor & Newton ink bottle in Indian Black and a home-crafted zine.

The great thing about this idea is that it's very customizable - if your friend, for instance, is a fashionista, you can take a shoe box and put in it a mini skirt with fashion glasses and some socks - and the person receiving the gift can get more than one surprise!

Rather than spending a majority of your budget on one expensive thing, you can make it more special by handpicking items based on their interests and passion without going over your shopping threshold. Place them in a bag or a box and finish it off with cute little string. No need to pain yourself with the clumsy wrapping and waste any paper. Easy, cheap, economic and much more meaningful to your friends and families!

Have a great Christmas and let's hope for a better new year!

With summer here, I bet you're probably lying down on your bed with your laptop on your stomach, the edge just touching your chin and you're probably watching Youtube or Netflix as well as reading this ;D

As said in my June Favourite's post, I mentioned my Windsor and Newton Drawing Inks. I love to use them to create hard shadows in my illustrations as well as to fill empty gaps in my drawings with vivid colours of these opaque mediums.

Despite being watery and similar to watercolour, I sometimes still struggle using them because of how pigmented they are. So after experimenting with them for a while and testing a few techniques, I've came up with ways to use these inks much more easier and effective so you can splash your canvases with inks the right way. 😉



Work with it like watercolour paints

I always thought working with inks would be much more different but it is, in fact, very similar to watercolours in terms of fluidity, texture and finish. So work with it like your watercolour painting, using watercolour techniques like wet-to-dry, dry-to-wet or wet-on-wet.



Dilute with water

Because they are so pigmented, a tiny spill of ink will stain your canvas and ruin your artwork and they can also stain the bristles of your brush. To solve this artist burden, all you have to do is dip your brush in water, similar to how you dilute the pigmentation in watercolour. Before spreading it on your paper, ensure you test it on another so it's in the right opaqueness!



Work in small amounts

Sometimes when I work with inks, I find that they are just ever so slightly thicker than watercolour. So to prevent any mistakes, I like to work in small amounts first, starting with drops of inks. Since they are a tiny bit thicker and little more absorbent than watercolours, that makes it a little bit harder to blend. So I suggest to work in small areas and gradually move along your canvas.



Work with light colours first

They are very vivid colours, so it's best if you started with lighter colours first. Working with lighter colours to begin with will reduce the risks of making a mistake. If you prefer to start off with dark colours, then go right ahead but it will be better if you stay safe rather than be sorry.



ALWAYS CLEAN YOUR BRUSHES

Inks. Do. Stain. A lot. So make sure that after every use you clean them properly! I forgot to clean one of mine and when I used it again, it presented hints of the black I used before and when it dried the bristles became stiff.



So these are just a few tips and tricks I learned whilst I played around with these inks! I wouldn't say they're my new favourite mediums because they are not easy to handle and they don't give me the results I want but they are a nice thing to have in your collection of art supplies! I think they are more preferred for typography or calligraphy using fountain pens because of how opaque they are, but I believe you can use them for when you're drawing manga or filling in something with a solid colour.

If you have any other tips on how to use inks, I would love to hear them and learn some more!

This series of photographs is part of the next unit of my photography course, 'environment'. The principal theme behind these images is culture and cultural diversity. To further develop my concept, I've explored the link between beauty and culture by incorporating flowers into my photographs.

The model in the photograph is my Romanian friend, and for the shoot I've asked her to wear (or, in our case, re-create) her country's traditional dress. We were having trouble with spacing, so I didn't really take pictures of the full costume but I took the photographs in slightly high saturation to capture the colours and portray the vividness of her culture.

I hope you like them :) and I'd like to know what you guys think..

Dear me-in-10-years-time-or-so,

I wonder what you're feeling right now reading this. I feel like you're probably cringing at the way your past self has written, like what I've always done in all my past writing. 

How are you doing? I hope you're living in New York staying in a small studio apartment in the East Village or SoHo, or in Paris or Japan where I've always wanted to live in and doing something I love that is creating art and writing. I hope you're still running the zine, Knives & Daisies, and have turned it into a big and international publication! I hope you have nice new friends and keep in touch with old friends, laughing about how weird we were back then at 17 and how much we complained about school and GCSE's and A-Levels and all the teachers that were too pushy or too mean. 

How's your romantic life? Have you found anyone special? For someone like me with a weird and reserved personality and at this awkward age, it's hard to find that one person to truly connect with. If you have found a partner, perhaps married with children, then I hope you're happy with the life that you're sharing with them. If not, then please don't change yourself for the sake of it and stay positive because there will be someone one day. Just keeping moving forward because there are so many goals I'd love to see achieved in the future.

What was it like transitioning into the American life - joining the last year of high school, getting a job there and finding a home? I'd imagine life would be slightly better there than the UK, with so much more opportunities and new people and places to discover and new ways to develop and grow as a person. At the moment, I'm not sure about whether I should go to University so I'd also like to know whether you went and, if you did, what did you study, what was it like, was it difficult, etc. 

Are you still blogging? I hope you are. I'd like this blog to grow as I'm growing and I hope in 10-years-time-or-so this blog will bloom into something successful. Don't ever give up something that you've started, so don't give up blogging, don't give up the zine and please don't give up the dreams that I've dreamt - you are limitless.



To the me-in-10-years-time-or-so, you're likely to be reading this in a cat cafe or a Starbucks sipping a chai latte and eating a salmon sandwich by yourself in a rainy morning half an hour before going to work, but I hope you still have time to take notes or perhaps write a full letter writing back to the past me. Reminding yourself of how much you've grown, are growing and will grow into someone hopefully amazing who's travelled everywhere, met cool people and have somewhat changed the world. 

I also hope you're still grateful, humble and content. 

From 17-year-old Nicole ᵔᴥᵔ